It is widely accepted that the education system isn’t doing such a great job in Louisiana, but some of the recent news stories about it are truly alarming.

From KNOE:

On Friday, September 29, a third-grade teacher at Columbia Elementary School in Caldwell Parish was arrested and charged with negligent injury after throwing a chair at a 9-year-old student. According to the arrest warrant, Lexes Boyde was teaching her third-grade class when one student asked to go to the office. Boyde said she thought the student was trying to get out of doing their work, and claims that she “lost it”. Boyde told deputies on scene that she slammed her hand down on the table that she and the child were sitting at. The arrest warrant states that Boyde threw a chair that hit a 9-year-old in the head causing them to get 8 staples.

From Louisiana Radio Network:

33-year-old Morgan Freche, a former Tangipahoa Parish teacher, faces third-degree rape charges in connection with an alleged sexual relationship with a now 17-year-old student. A police report alleges the student fathered Freche’s child.  Legal analyst Franz Borghardt said even if the sexual relationship was consensual, it’s still considered rape.

What is the answer of the officials in charge of these schools to moral failures of this magnitude?  How do they intend to put right what has gone so badly wrong?

The Caldwell Parish School District responded with this:

We are aware of the arrest of one of our teachers in connection with an injury sustained by a student at Columbia Elementary School. Although personnel and student matters are confidential and the specifics of such matters may not be discussed, student safety and the proper conduct of school district employees are a priority. The children attending Caldwell Parish Schools are instructed by professionals, and allegations of this nature are disheartening. We are reviewing the matter internally in order that it may be properly addressed and are cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation of this matter at this time.

Tangipahoa School Superintendent Melissa Stilley responded with this:

We have just learned of the arrest of former Tangipahoa Parish teacher, Morgan Freche. Although personnel and student matters are confidential and the specifics of such matters may not be discussed, student safety and the proper conduct of school district employees are a priority. Neither the Board nor this office will tolerate employee behavior which crosses the line in areas such as the proper professional relationships between educators and their students. We are fortunate that the children of Tangipahoa Parish are instructed by professionals, and allegations of this nature are unfortunate. We are cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation of this matter at this time.

The upshot of both is that instilling ‘professionalism’ in teachers will make everything dandy in their schools.

It will not.

There is something that will drive away these evils, but these school officials, and most other government officials in Louisiana from school boards to the Governor’s Mansion, seem afraid to name it:  Christianity.

If there is faithfulness and love towards God, if there is constant remembrance of God, lawlessness in adults and children is much less likely to arise.  A holy man we have mentioned before, St. Dimitri of Rostov, a native of the Ukraine, explains it this way:

In Paradise, to do and to keep was the first commandment given Adam, that is, to do with the mind² in order to comprehend well, and to keep the commandment so as not to break it. But since he did not do with mindfulness, he did not keep the commandments, and because he did not practice mental action above all else, unbelief arose in Adam – disbelief in God, Who spoke and commanded; then from unbelief were born disobedience and transgression; from the transgression came the falling away from the Lord’s grace and estrangement from His Divine love.

If Adam had comprehend the Benefactor and reflected upon the commandment, and if he had believed, he would not have disobeyed the commandment; nor would he have eaten of the forbidden tree and been cast out of Paradise, and fallen into death and corruption . . . .

Unbelief is born from imprudence, and disobedience is born from unbelief, and every sin and transgression are born from disobedience. If someone comprehends nothing, how can he believe? How can a person devoid of faith, and thus he understands nothing, keep the commandments of the Lord? Further, how can he who does not keep the commandments of the Lord have trusting hope in God and love for Him? It is not at all possible.

Without constant reminders of God and his commandments, St. Dimitri is saying, all kinds of sins will be committed.  We now have the fulfillment of that statement of his in our own schools.

A robust program of Christianization must be added back to Louisiana’s schools if there is to be any of hope of success, moral or academic, for the students who enter them.  The days of displaying shallow slogans (In God We Trust) and reciting socialist Francis Bellamy’s pledge of allegiance to the god-government in DC – oops! pledge to the US flag, and expecting that to produce a good environment in our schools have to come to an end.  In their place there must be actual study of the Holy Bible, not simply as sublime literature (though it certainly is that in many places) but as presenting the truth about God, man, and the cosmos in which he lives; prayers recited orally; crosses and images of the Lord Jesus and His saints and angels displayed; and so forth.

Lundy, Landry, Wilson, and nearly every candidate for office in Louisiana say they have a plan to improve education in our State.  But without the proper foundation, there will be no lasting improvement.  And that foundation is the Holy Trinity:  ‘Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain (Psalm 127:1)’.

Do we really believe that, or is our Christianity just an empty pose?  If we do believe it, we will act accordingly.

If we do not, we will likewise act according to those un-Christian beliefs, but the outcome will be full of grief and misery.  For without the remembrance of God, we will only see the horrifying stories about Louisiana’s schools multiply:  teachers lashing out at little children in anger; teachers seducing students; teachers and students cheating on standardized tests.  If we are fortunate, though, the worst might simply be young students showing off their dance moves in the middle of the classroom instead of engaging in some other more serious act of criminality.

Coda:  For more illustrations of the numerous pitfalls that come about from relying on the bureaucratic professionalism mentioned earlier to improve the public school system, we recommend Perrin Lovett’s short James Bond-esque novel The Substitute, available from Shotwell Publishing.