A Growing Body of Evidence about the Importance of Christian Schooling
I have yet to see any sort of study results that present a negative picture of Christian school education.
Three well-grounded independent resources make a very strong case for us. In 2011 The Cardus
Educational survey compared adult graduates from 5 types of North American schools: Public, Catholic,
Secular Private, Protestant Christian and Home Schools.
Here are a few quotations from that report:
“One of the most significant findings in this study is the long term commitment of Protestant
Christian school graduates to stay within the Protestant faith. Attending a Protestant Christian
school seems to impact graduates’ choice to stay into adulthood within the Christian faith.”
What a contrast to the increasing rate of departure of other young people from the church!”
“It is clear that graduates of protestant Christian schools are ideal church members in many
ways. From church attendance to congregational volunteering, the Protestant Christian school is
having an impact on how its graduates participate in church life…….While we understand the
church’s need to support public schools, as well as the argument to place children in these
schools as “salt and light” we wonder if the church would be wise to better support Christian
schools for the betterment of their families, children, and…. their communities as a whole.”
It also found that in comparison to all the other groups Christian school graduates:
 Spend more time incorporating their faith into their family lives ( praying, discussing God and
reading scripture together)
 Attend church more regularly
 Give almost 5 times more money to their church than any other group
 Give 7 times more money to other religious causes
 Give significantly more time volunteering in their churches and an equal amount of time
volunteering for other community causes
 Have lower household income than the other groups but express greater gratitude for what
they have
 Use scripture to guide them in their moral decisions and believe that moral standards are
absolute
 Strongly believe that religion should be included in public discourse on the pressing issues of our
time
 Do more community good, evangelism, mission trips
 Do better at personal/social relationships
The Cardus report didn’t give a great deal of focus upon 2 essential areas of education however. It
didn’t explore academic achievement or comparative student moral values in any depth. Fortunately
Emerging Millennials by Saskatchewan based sociologist Reg Bibbey did.
The next time someone tries to tell you that the values of Christian school students are the same as
those of non Christian school students quote Canadian sociologist Reg Bibby’s recent book, The
Emerging Millennials.
Bibby reports on a plethora of 2008 surveys about what Canadian teens think and believe and in a few
of those surveys he canvasses “private Christian school students”. Here is part of what he found.
Approve of premarital sex if love in involved
Approve of homosexual relations
Approve of same sex marriage
Have personally been involved sexually
Feel safe at school
Use drugs including marijuana
Have been in trouble with police
Spend more than 2 hrs. daily watching TV
Spend more than 2 hrs. daily on computer
Have a high level of confidence in their school
Have confidence in the police
Have concern for need of people in other countries
Concerned about world poverty
Parents married to each other
Want to establish a home like the one they had
Support abortion on demand for any reason
Approve of unmarried people having children
Believe there is a God
Are committed atheists
Pray weekly or more often
Attend religious services at least monthly
Christian School
Students
29%
12%
13%
27%
91%
19%
14%
66%
54%
75%
81%
79%
44%
82%
76%
9%
16%
91%
5%
65%
84%
Public School
Students
72%
46%
48%
53%
83%
31%
18%
75%
69%
63%
63%
66%
39%
69%
69%
42%
47%
66%
16%
27%
32%