Voucher systems that equip some students to go to private schools when their public school is failing to meet key education parameters have documented impressive results in Washington D.C., Louisiana and elsewhere. In other areas, Charter schools have been created as a function of school districts thinking outside the box to create a more dynamic learning environment. While impressive initiatives, these are still just fixes. The solution rests elsewhere.
Last fall the Chicago schools had to stay open even though the teachers had gone on strike. Why? To feed the students breakfast and lunch! The abdication of responsibility by Mom and Dad for the basic needs of their children has seriously inhibited the education system.

The solution is on the home front - Dad and Mom must accept responsibility for the education of their kids. Be sure to teach the three R’s in your home:

Relationship – When Dad and Mom exemplify healthy relationship day in and day out by loving each other in marriage, kids learn how to relate well with others;
Rules – Establishing a clear set of boundaries that teach discipline to obey and introduce the reality of consequences, prepares students to be good citizens;
Religion – When a family enjoys Church together as well as studying and discussing the word of God during the week, kids gain a grounding in absolute truth and a maturing faith.

Taking care of the three R’s at home will allow our schools to do what they do best, educate with focus on the other three R’s – Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic.

The Word on EDUCATION is: These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. – Deuteronomy 6:6-9

• Responsibility for education is not to be handed off to schools or to the government. We, the parents employ the schools to supplement the education of our children in specific areas of need. Dad and Mom are the primary educators in their children’s lives.

In his article, “The 9/91 Factor”, George Will documents that children spend 9% of the time from birth to age 18 in school and 91% elsewhere. While schools and teachers are not perfect, the primary issue around the education of the next generation is that “elsewhere” for too many kids no longer includes a father and mother under the same roof involved in the education of their children. His message for the ages is that we cannot fix education without first fixing families.

Prayer guide: Lord, l confess I have abdicated the responsibility for the education of my children. Forgive me. Strengthen my ability to exemplify healthy relationship daily for my children; to establish clear rules for our home and follow through with consequences for braking those rules; and to stay under the Your Word in order to lead spiritually by example. By Your grace and for Your glory, I will become the man, husband and father You expect me to be.  Amen.

A faithful father is engaged in raising a godly generation.