How Parents Can Get School Choice Right

“What are you doing for school?”

Because my wife and I parent a couple of preschoolers, this question worms its way into conversations again and again. To be fair, sometimes we’re the ones asking. School choice feels like a magic trick gone awry—someone was supposed to show you your card—this perfect choice—but the deck flew all over the table and no one knows where yours went. To make matters worse, there’s a sense of impending doom. It feels like the options are getting worse while the decision gets weightier. Young parents struggle to shake the FOMO. What’s everyone else doing? What if there’s a better option? What if I mess up my kid for life? What if their school cancels out all my hard work as a parent?

Parents, remember one simple, unchanging answer: the most important educational choice for your child never was a choice to begin with—it’s you.

The Jam Dilemma

One reason school choice feels so complex is because there are so many options. When I was growing up in the 90s, there were three school choices: public, private, and DIY homeschool. I experienced all three at various points. Today, we’ve got a full-blown Baskin-Robbins. There’s classical Christian, private Christian, public school, Montessori, STEM-focused, arts-focused, trade school, homeschool, homeschool co-op, online hybrid buffet, charters, solars, and magnets. Ok, solars was made up, but admit it—you were ready to look that one up.

It sounds empowering, but it’s paralysis by analysis. With so many options, it’s harder for parents to feel good about any choice.

In 2000, psychologists Sheen Ayengar and Mark Lepper conducted an experiment with jam. Shoppers at a food market encountered a table displaying six varieties of jam. The next day, shoppers were met with twenty-four varieties. The twenty-four-variety table gave out more samples, but visitors were one tenth as likely to actually purchase any jam. The moral is that more options leads to less confidence, and therefore less satisfaction in your choice.

Schools’ Tall Task

Another reason educational choice feels so significant is because people today expect schools to act as society’s superheroes. My wife and I both got degrees in education. She taught elementary school for eight years until Covid. Over the last five years we’ve watched the scene change. Teacher expectations have mounted while support has crumbled. For generations, perhaps centuries, teachers possessed a touch of mythos. The heroic but underpaid public servant, the backbone of society, the unsung hero, alongside firemen and police. That’s not the case anymore.

Teachers receive more demands and less respect. This evolution was inevitable. In a secular world, we simply ask way too much of schools. As the influence of family and church has waned in our society, both Christians and non-Christians increasingly look to schools to do more than what they were designed to accomplish. A third grade teacher is responsible for teaching not only reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic (and how to take a state test), but for manners and morals, socializing, self-control, responsibility, and what it means to be a man or a woman.

It’s not that these topics aren’t fair game in schools. Good schools have always embraced character formation as part of their mission. The difference today is we expect schools to do the whole job, as if everyone else—parents, church, and neighborhood communities—have been knocked out of the game. When Johnny graduates high school anxious and unequipped, we point the finger at schools. That’s like losing a battle, then blaming the sole survivor who comes limping back to base.

Particularly Intense for Believers

Because of Christians’ increasing cultural marginalization, we feel the school choice tug-of-war more acutely. Beyond considering academics, extracurriculars, and the price tag, we’re supposed to plot out the values and doctrines of each curriculum. Sprinkle in a heavy dash of our innate pride and self-righteousness, and you’ve got a seething powder keg every time you touch the topic of schools. In some contexts, school choice has become a referendum on parents’ faith and character.

Too many people want to sweep in with easy answers and magic bullets. A wise observer should discern that our choices about school (to the degree that there is a choice) involve trade-offs. When making our choice as parents, we have to take into account our own skills, abilities, interest, and time. We have to account for the options available in our town or neighborhood. You have to account for your individual child’s academic and social needs. And then, when you’ve done all that accounting, you often need to do it again in a year or two, when it’s all changed.

We cannot allow dogmatism to get a foothold on the issue of school choice. It smacks of pride and self-righteousness in a place where the Bible has provided guidelines, not formulas. There is, however, a high call in the Bible for wisdom and parental ownership. The array of options can be mesmerizing, and parents can forget they’ve already been doing the educational heavy-lifting from the womb.

By God’s Grace, Your Kids Have You

As parents, we instinctively feel a moral obligation to get education right for our kids. But what’s easy to forget is that the majority of that responsibility to teach our children will be done outside of formal schooling. Think about your own formation. You learned the most important things about life without realizing you were learning—it’s what we call socialization. As a child, you watched your parents. You watched siblings, friends, and other models. You observed facial expressions, reactions, tones, mannerisms, habits, and ways of processing the world. You then adopted them or reacted against them, usually without making a conscious decision.

This is God’s design. Jesus reflected his Father, and we are to do the same (John 8:38). As man is made in God’s image, children are born in the image and likeness of their parents (Genesis 5:1–3). So God charges parents to be their children’s primary instructors.

“These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7).

Those verses cover the whole day. Parents don’t get a break. We don’t get to punt on this. That’s daunting, but it should also be liberating. Even as peers, coaches, and other models enter your child’s sphere of influence, you need to bear in mind that educational formation is a marathon, not a sprint, and you have a headstart of many miles in this race.

Imperfect You is the Magic Bullet

If we want to set up our children for success, the best way isn’t by getting a second job so we can afford a prestigious private school. Nor is it by moving across the country to join the right schooling community. Those can be perfectly fine decisions, but they miss the heart of the Bible’s teaching concerning parents as educators. The best way parents can school their children is by growing closer in our walk with the Lord. You cannot overestimate the enduring influence of a parent’s teaching by lifestyle (Proverbs 22:6).

When looking for your first school or thinking about your next step, evaluate what level of support you can give, then pick a school environment that addresses your weaknesses and builds on your strengths. Would your kids benefit from training in the arts? In stronger academics? Training in a biblical worldview? Or in well-rounded socializing? Answering these questions doesn’t always bring immediate clarity, but they can be used to cultivate dialogue at home or with school administrators.

When your kids are starting a new school, parents should be aware of what their kids are learning, and as much as possible, be involved with their schooling. Parents need to understand that schools are meant to serve them. Schools act as your contractors, employees, and at best, partners and allies. But schools can never replace you. Parents who cherish this truth make the best school choices, no matter how that plays out. As you walk humbly with God, fumbling and repenting, you can trust God to take care of your kids even when you don’t make the perfect choice. The Bible offers no guarantees, but if parents fear the Lord, love their children, and take up the mantle of being the chief educator, they will have nothing to regret.