The Grade - B + ( 89%) This is a book I highly recommend for Christian families navigating through public school. Again I got this book from the library but I would buy this book.
The Good: I think this is a must have resource for every Christian family who lovingly chooses public school. I say lovingly because I think public school can be a loving and proper choice. Just like home school and private school. So long as parents are purposeful, and their home is a faith-filled loving Christian home.
The book stresses how important it is to be an involved parent. Properly noting that it's the parents who make all the difference in their child's education. That parents need to take ownership in large part for their kids education. The author offers great tips to help your student develop a great student teacher relationship and for parents to build a great working relationship with their teachers. Great tips are provided for the oversight of your children's education and how to take proper action when their is a problem. I genuinely love the encouragement for Christian parents and how they should relate with school officials.......expressing how much more your concerns are heard when you are actually serving your teachers and kids school. Because you aren't just viewed as a annoying complainer every time there is an issue. The book offers great tips on just about everything....how a parent can be better involved with their kids school, study tips, organizational tips, supplemental educational experiences, how to enrich their public school experience and the like. Not to mention tips for helping the learning style of your kid.
In regards to faith there are two great chapters devoted to helping your kid have strong faith, and that it does start with the home. That is where discipleship takes place. There is another great chapter on praying for your kid. There are also great examples of parents who are raising Godly kids by implementing Godly practices at home. Stories of how God has worked through/for kids at public school.
The in between: It offers some great resources in several Appendix pages in the back. Resources from implementing character education, working with school officials, religious rights of students, supplemental reading at age appropriate levels, video and audio resources, further reading on public school and parents etc. The problem is some of these thing may be outdated or non existent today so you'll have to research a bit.
The bad: While it does address the high school and middle school years and offers some great tips it's fairly silent on the issue of peer pressure. Which is a huge huge issue at those ages. I work at a middle school I see that on a regular basis. In general I think the book is properly geared towards elementary years and setting them off to a great start. However I would've like that topic to be addressed.
The book was written in 1994 and updated in 1999 so it's a bit outdated in regards to modern times. However it's not to far out of the loop in regards tips and strategies. I
would've loved a more in depth look on issues of faith, not that it didn't do a good job, just wanted more detail from the author rather than what felt like summary in some areas.
The Impact: In a sea of books that discourage the choice of public school, its nice to see a Christian author equip and empower parents for this choice. It would definitely be used as a resource should public school be our final choice.
* the next two books I'll be reviewing on this issue are..... "Going Public" By Kelli and David Pritchard and " Two Trees of Knowledge" by Dianne Dekker.
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