重返（非公开）校园时光

欢迎收听《转折点》，这是一档通过永恒真理的视角观察日新月异文化的每日节目。我是科尔森中心的约翰·斯通斯特里特。新学年已经开始，但引发头条新闻的却是许多学生选择不去的地方。延续近年来形成的趋势，更多家庭正在退出公共教育体系，转而选择私立学校和家庭教育等替代方案。多数新闻报道将这种人口外流归因于低出生率、新冠疫情的持续影响、资金问题以及家庭迁离城市等因素。

Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet. A new school year is underway, but what's making headlines is where a number of students are not going. Extending what has become a multi year trend now, more families are opting out of public education, choosing instead alternatives like private schools and homeschooling. Most news coverage attributes this exodus to things like low birth rates, lingering effects of the COVID pandemic, funding issues, and families leaving cities.

然而，《纽约时报》播客《每日》近期的一期节目提供了更清晰的解读。教育记者达娜·戈尔茨坦指出，家长对子女教育的思考方式发生了显著变化。父母不再只是将孩子送往所属邮编区的指定公立学校，而是选择能更好满足孩子个性化需求、确保积极学习成长环境的教育形式。为此，他们转向私立宗教学校、家庭学校和疫情期间兴起的微型学校（一种新型单间教室教学模式）。如今随着18个州推进择校政策，更多家长得以考虑其他选择。

However, a recent episode of the New York Times podcast, The Daily, offered a more clarifying take. According to education reporter Dana Goldstein, there's been a notable change in how parents think about educating their children. Rather than just sending their kids to the assigned public school in their zip code, parents are choosing options that better meet the individual needs of their children and ensure a positive culture for learning and growth. And to find such settings, they're turning to private and religious schools, home schools, and micro schools, a new kind of one room school that's been popping up ever since the pandemic. And now, since 18 states have advanced school choice policies, more parents are able to consider other options.

戈尔茨坦这样评价脱离政府教育体系的转变：'如果你将教育视为父母赋权与父母权利的问题，你会喜欢当前教育券和私立学校选择权扩张的时机。'但值得指出的是，这与美国公共教育的一些根本创立原则存在深刻矛盾。她接着说，公共教育的理念是让不同背景的孩子共同培养公民生活所需的技能与价值观。虽然这个观点正确，但她忽略了关键一点：家长们已无法忍受被排除在教育过程之外，仿佛他们的孩子属于国家而非父母。

Now Goldstein sized up the shift away from government education this way. Quote, if you see education as an issue of parental empowerment and parental rights, you're going to love the moment we're in with the expansion of vouchers and private school choice. However, it's worth pointing out that this is in deep contradiction to some of the fundamental founding principles of public education in The United States. The idea of public education, she went on to say, is to bring children together from across demographic differences to forge common skills and values for civic life. And of course she's right in that, but what she fails to mention is that parents have just had enough of being removed from the process and treated as if their children somehow belonged to the state, not them.

简而言之，公立教育体系已不再承认父母在孩子生活与教育中的根本作用。许多情况下，家长被视为整个教育过程的敌人。但养育和教育子女首先是父母的责任，学校本应与家长协同合作而非对立对抗。换言之，公立学校的公民使命应当是支持家长完成其家庭使命。

Simply put, public schooling no longer recognizes the fundamental role that parents have in their children's lives and in their education. In many cases, parents are treated as enemies of the whole process. But parents have the primary responsibility to raise and educate their children. And schools should be working in harmony with them, not against them. In other words, the civic mission of public schools should be to support parents in their family mission.

理论上这不应存在冲突，但现实却非如此。就在《每日》播客播出当周，因跨性别政策激怒家长多年的劳登县学区再次登上新闻。该学区继续公然违反禁止跨性别学生使用异性卫生间或参加异性体育运动的《教育法第九修正案》。而在科罗拉多州，一名高中教师被曝光多年来诱导学生，使其相信自己同性恋身份并鼓动其与父母脱离关系。杰斐逊县学区不仅掩盖此事，甚至在学生搬去与教师同住后仍持续包庇。

And there should not be a conflict here, but there is. The very same week this episode of The Daily Podcast aired, the Loudoun County School District, which has frustrated parents for years with its transgender policies, made the news yet again. The district continues to blatantly disregard Title IX, which bars transgender students from using the bathroom or competing in school sports opposite their sex. And in Colorado, a high school teacher was discovered to have groomed a student for years, convincing her that she was gay and to emancipate from her parents. The Jefferson County School District not only covered this up, it continued to do so even after the student moved in with the teacher.

这些仅是近年来众多新闻事件中的两例。难怪家长们另寻出路。正如戈尔茨坦在播客中正确指出的，对替代教育的需求跨越人口结构和政治立场。事实证明，教育选择权与她报告中提到的'跨越差异达成共识'的理想并不矛盾，反而是实现这一目标同时尊重家长权益的有效途径。

And those are just two of the many, many news stories from the last few years. No wonder parents are looking elsewhere. And as Goldstein rightly noted in the podcast, the demand for alternatives is diverse, crossing both demographic and political lines. As it turns out, education choice is not at odds with the ideal of reaching across differences as her report suggested. It's actually a way to accomplish that goal while valuing the parents.

需要说明的是，私立学校同样可能侵犯家长权利与责任。实际上，许多基督教学校标榜与家长合作，却从未真正践行。这意味着他们接受家长的学费、捐款和志愿服务时间，却将家长完全排除在决策过程之外，甚至对负面反馈实施惩罚。基督徒此刻拥有黄金机遇来挑战国家主导的教育现状，推进以家长为主导的教育愿景。令人鼓舞的是，越来越多家长正认同这一愿景，全新的家长选择教育格局已然形成。

Now for the record, private schools can also interfere with parental rights and responsibilities. In fact, many Christian schools hide behind marketing language about partnering with parents, but never really do so. In practice, this means accepting their tuition dollars, their donations, their volunteer hours, but keeping them completely out of the process or even punishing them whenever they provide negative feedback. Christians have a golden opportunity here to push back on the state run status quo system and to advance a parent directed vision for education. It's encouraging that so many more parents are catching this vision, and that there's a whole new landscape of parental choice options that have emerged.

与此同时，我们必须在一个真实而健全的教育愿景中建立这些替代方案，这包括父母重要而不可或缺的角色。如果实施得当，各种形式的基督教教育将在文化复兴中发挥独特而关键的作用。现有及新建的学校可以满足本国更多学生的教育需求，同时协助父母完成他们的使命。这需要具有远见的教育领导力，来建立优先考虑圣经忠诚、卓越品质以及服务父母和社区之心的基督教教育替代方案。我们正处于本国教育的十字路口，基督徒可以帮助打破国家对教育的垄断。

At the same time, we have to establish these alternatives in a true and sound vision of what education truly is, and that includes the significant and essential role of parents. If it's done well, Christian education in various forms will play a distinct and vital role in cultural renewal. Existing and new schools can meet the educational needs of many more students in this country, while also coming alongside parents in their mission. This will require visionary educational leadership to build Christian alternatives that prioritize biblical faithfulness, excellence, and a heart of service to parents and communities. We are at an educational crossroads in this country, and Christians can help loosen the stranglehold of the state over education.

更理想的是，如果我们怀着爱心服务邻舍，提供让父母能引导子女成长道路的选择，我们就能提供更优的解决方案。这里是科尔森中心的约翰·斯通·斯特里特为您带来的《突破点》。如果您是《突破点》的听众，请在您下载播客的平台为我们留下评价。欲获取更多资源以在这个文化时刻活出基督徒的样式，请访问breakpoint.org。什么使基督教教育成为基督教教育？

Even better, we can offer something better if we love and serve our neighbors with options that allow parents to direct their children's steps. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org. What makes a Christian education Christian?

基督教教育不仅仅是多了些规则、礼拜堂和圣经经文的教育，它是基督教世界观的形成过程。如果您是教育工作者，您必须意识到您教导的每个学生都在被各种来自周边文化的思想和力量所塑造。如果您能自信地用基督教世界观来引导他们应对这些力量和思想呢？科尔森教育者计划正是为此而生。我们提供免费的在线课程《世界观形成101》。

Well, a Christian education is not just education with more rules and chapel and bible verses, it is Christian worldview formation. If you're an educator, you have to know that every student that you teach is being shaped by all kinds of ideas, all kinds of forces that come out of the culture around them. What if you could confidently shape them with a Christian worldview to navigate these forces, these ideas? The Colson Educators Program is about just that. There's a free course, Worldview Formation 101, available online.

这是一门自定进度的课程，将帮助您理解基督教教育的终极目标——世界观的形成，开发融入基督教世界观的课程，并在学校营造一种让学生信仰得以成长和激活的文化。立即登录colsoneducators.org报名参加世界观形成课程。网址是colsoneducators.org。

It's a self paced course that will equip you to understand the ultimate goal of Christian education, worldview formation, developing lessons that incorporate the Christian worldview, and creating a culture at the school where our students' faith can grow and be activated. Sign up for the worldview formation course today at colsoneducators.org. That's colsoneducators.org.