Unfair competition

To the editor:
Dear folks. Imagine that our local soccer and basketball teams were both scheduled for away games against their arch-rival on the afternoon and evening of the same day (forget seasons, and just humor me on this). Then picture the early evening, after the soccer match is completed, and those soccer athletes sitting in the stands just prior to the scheduled start of the basketball contest.
A cell phone rings and the report is relayed that our basketball team is stranded, miles away, in a disabled bus. Suppose someone suggests the wild notion that the soccer team should stand in for the delayed hoopsters. As unlikely as it might sound, someone in authority might even act on that whim, and draft the soccer squad to breach the gap.  Regardless of how noble the team’s efforts might be, the front page of the local news the next day would surely announce that the soccer team had earned an “F” in basketball playing.
Some may have already guessed that this tale is an attempt to address an apples-to-oranges false comparison between the “performance” of the Jay County Christian Academy as compared with public school students.  The clear but not-precisely stated central goal of public schools today is to rank highly on standardized tests.
Virtually every teacher objective and student task there is directly or indirectly aimed at that singular goal. By contrast, the Jay County Christian Academy, throughout its many years of service to the community has maintained a strikingly different, clearly expressed goal: To Shape “Disciples for Jesus Christ.” To this end, JCCA students have always pursued academic studies that address State and National educational objectives, but which utilize Christian textbooks from Christian publishers.
Thus, Christian education at its best equips students with mental maturity and academic skills that are comparable to those of public school students, but it does this not by teaching standard secular content, but by applying Biblical standards to real-life situations.
Indiana’s ISTEP annual performance tests and those of other States are created by the very companies that publish public school textbooks.  Therefore, it is not by coincidence but by careful design that the questions on the tests perfectly reflect the content of those books. 
In response to a State Academic Standard that says U.S. History students should know the constitutional process of lawmaking in the United States, a Christian textbook might help students understand that the Christian convictions of the Founding Fathers, and even the teachings of the Bible itself, largely shaped the checks and balances in the three branches of government, and the genius of the compromise that divided the Congress into the Senate and House of Representatives. 
The Christian school students, while they might thus be superbly helped toward becoming model citizens as adults, might — not surprisingly — be unable to answer the question that could be carefully taught in secular textbooks and directly mirrored on a standardized test, “Which article of the U.S. Constitution institutes the bicameral legislature?”
An excellent soccer player could perhaps transform into an NBA superstar, but the radical change would require a massive reversal of priorities, techniques, and strategies.  The reason the Jay County Christian Academy’s “failing performance” has become front page news is that recent political and educational developments have put it in a no-win situation.  Participation in the new state voucher system, which makes private education accessible to less wealthy families, requires that a participating school become accredited.  Accreditation demands that the students participate in the standardized state testing program.  To compete on the standardized tests, the students would have to be learning from the secular textbooks that literally “teach-to-the-test.” 
To abandon Christian curriculum and to substitute secular textbooks would totally remove the Christian core values from the heart of Christian education. 
Nothing short of that unthinkable step will ever equip JCCA students to perform on an equal playing field with public school students on standardized tests.
The Jay County Christian Academy is exactly like a soccer team that is forced to play basketball, and then is labeled a failure for reasons that are beyond its control.
Sincerely,
Roger Domingo
Portland

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