Why Choose A Christian School like BCA?

1. Christian Schools Teach God’s Word — The place to start is at the beginning, with the first nation, the first educational system. When deciding how to manage your children’s education, it only makes sense to ask the One who invented education. (Deuteronomy 11:18-19). What we have here is a clear biblical mandate to saturate our children’s mind with the Word of God. It’s a difficult task under any circumstances, but virtually impossible in a public school setting. Once inside those doors, children spend 30 to 40 hours a week being told that God, if He exists at all, is no longer relevant. No matter how spiritually grounded your child may be, the repetition of such destructive ideas can’t help but have an adverse affect.

The harsh reality is that our Supreme Court kicked God out of the public school system more than 40 years ago. A generation later, scientific naturalism and a host of other anti-God values are not only being taught in American classrooms, they’re being championed. Christian schools like BCA offer a refreshing, biblical alternative. Not only is the Bible taught for what it is but forms the foundation of all other texts.

2. God Commands Us to Teach Kids Through the Word — It’s a sad but true irony: public schools have chosen to ignore the God who created the human mind. To their chagrin, they have robbed themselves of their most valuable “textbook”, and the only available source of absolute truth. As students pursue the knowledge of math, biology and music in a Christian setting, they’re chasing after the knowledge of God. And the by-products of such an endeavor -— wisdom and understanding — are the God-given rewards for which every student strives.

God expects you, as a Christian parents, to plant and nurture His Word in the hearts and minds of your children. This is best accomplished in settings where home, church and school all send the same message, teaching God’s truth with clarity, conviction and consistency. And while the benefits of such a commitment are often realized much later, here’s one you’ll notice in relatively short order. An education that uses God’s Word as its foundational text does more than produce spiritually-mature Christians. It makes them wiser and more knowledgeable. It forces them to be better thinkers. And isn’t that the goal of education in the first place?

3. Christian Schools Share Your Values — If you’re like most Christian parents, you’ve taught your children about God since the day they were born. You’ve taken them to church, read them Bible stories, sung “Jesus Loves Me.” Imagine their shock and dismay when they’re thrust into an environment in which God is hated and ignored. Even the best public schools are prohibited by law from reinforcing the values you teach at home. They either compete against them or disregard them altogether. And because you care about the mental and spiritual development of your children, you may spend countless hours trying to bridge the philosophical gap between Christianity and humanism. By entrusting your children to educators who share your values, you’ll have more time for ball games and bike ridge and meaningful conversations. Instead of debriefing your children, you’ll be getting to know them.

“The school system that ignores God teaches its pupils to ignore God; and this is not neutrality. It is the worst form of antagonism, for it judges God to be unimportant and irrelevant in human affairs. This is atheism.” — Gordon H. Clark

“To commit our children to the care of irreligious persons is to commit lambs to the superintendency of wolves.” — Timothy Dwight

4. Safety — With thousands of students roaming their halls and taxpayer dollars funding their bankrolls, public schools can only go so far in the area of discipline. The result? More frequent occurrences of theft and physical violence, not to mention course profanity and open rebellion in the classroom. Simply put, Christian schools are a safer place for your children to receive an education. While not devoid of problems they are far less likely to occur, and far more likely to be met with firm disciplinary action. In additional to physical well-being, Christian schools offer a much safer emotional and spiritual environment. Verbal insults and hazing, things that go largely overlooked in a public school setting, are less likely to be tolerated. And the politically correct, socially-tolerant attitudes that pervade secular classrooms never see the light of day at distinctly Christian institutions.

5. Academic Achievement — Contrary to popular opinion, students at Christian schools consistently outperform their public school counterparts. Their standardized test scores are way above the curve, and they’re better prepared for college upon graduation. Even the areas of match and reading, subjects that are “less spiritual” in content, students at Christian schools have proven their superiority.

This year, over 50% of our students met requirement for honor and high honor roll for four consecutive quarters.

6. Teachers Love and Fear the Lord — Part of the reason why Christian students perform so well in the classroom is that they have a higher percentage of teachers who genuinely care about them. Most of these dedicated men and women sacrifice greater monetary rewards to serve where they can do the most intrinsic good. In addition to the passion they feel for their students, the vast majority of Christian educators love God with equal intensity. And unlike some of their well-meaning public school colleagues, they are not prohibited by the United State government from making overt claims to that effect. Teachers are a school’s heartbeat. Its pulse. They are also among the most influential role models in students’ lives. And while you can certainly find Christian educators at a public school, the best of all academic worlds exists when everyone - the school board, the principal, the teachers and the parents - are operating under the same educational paradigm.

7. Individual Attention — In addition to having a higher percentage of caring teachers, Christian schools can almost always offer more individual attention than public schools, many of which are overcrowded and hopelessly understaffed. Even in cases where the ratio is virtually identical, class size is not. Christian school classes have fewer students. They’re smaller, more intimate gatherings that encourage students to be participants rather than spectators. Students learn how to think quickly, and gain valuable experience sharing their thoughts and opinions in a public forum.

8. Success after Graduation — Because Christian school students perform at a high lever in the classroom than their public school counterparts, it only makes sense that their options upon graduation are more abundant. Therefore, they are more likely to be better prepared to handle the rigors of higher education. In addition to these practical advantages, there is at least one intangible benefit. Students who have been grounded in the truth of God’s Word day after day during their formative years - both at school and at home - are better equipped to handle discrepant ideas upon graduation. Whether in a secular university or in the work place, young adults with a solid biblical foundation are far less likely to fall victim to the subtle lies of our post-modern culture. Our graduates have gone on to attend prestigious colleges and universities across the nation.

9. Peer Pressure — If only the Bible had told us that good company improves bad morals, many of us would have a welcome reprieve. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Bad company corrupts good morals (1 Corinthians 15:33), the Apostle Paul tells us, and we can assume he was writing to a predominantly adult audience. You can imagine what he might say to a group of impressionable children and young teens. Make no mistake: your kids will be exposed to bad company no matter where they go to school. Sometimes they may even be the bad company. But in a Christian environment, they’ll be much less likely to find themselves surrounded by destructive influences, and far more likely to find positive ones.

10. The State of Public Education — One final reason to consider Christian schools can be found by taking an even closer look at the alternative. If you study the origin and history of modern government-sponsored education, you’ll find some alarming facts. Its founders were atheists whose hatred of Christianity is a matter of public record. Its current agenda — the propagation of humanistic ideals that render God irrelevant or non-existent — can be easily spotted in its curriculum.

For those of us who attended public schools some years ago, it is often difficult to believe the shocking tales we hear about the decadence, drugs, inferior teaching, etc., that seem to reign there now. When I was going to school, the wrong influences were certainly present, but they weren’t that bad.

The situation in public schools is now much different. The mood now in many schools is aggressively anti-Christian, although there are still many fine and dedicated public school teachers and administrators. We especially thank God for Christian teachers who consider their jobs a mission field and a Christian calling. But our Judeo-Christian morality and ethics are often but a faded memory, and attempts to retain them are frequently met with opposition and intimidation.

I am most familiar with the situation in California, of course, and perhaps here it is the worst. Open drug sales and use, ethnic gang wars, and student/teacher violence are easily recognized problems, but how about the more subtle attempts at “values clarification,” or the encouragement of experimentation in “sex education” classes, or the inclusion of homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, or easy access to abortions through school clinics.

In Los Angeles, a recent State-encouraged pilot program actually described the step-by-step process by which students could contact their “spirit guides.” Literature courses are now less dominated by humanistic classics (offensive as even they are), but, instead, by occult and demonic readings, including ritualistic murder. A first grader and her classmates were recently taken from the school grounds and driven to an ancient Indian site of worship, where certain initiation rites, incantations, and individual prophecies were given.