Updated 3/08/2011:
Let me start by saying a big "thank you" to the author for writing a book on this topic. I don't think it matters if you are an educator, a lay person, or a clergy member in the Adventist church- we need to hear the opinions of all of the above persons- We all need to discuss this topic- so, thank you.
I became a convert to the Adventist church in my late teenage years & was never raised SDA or had a chance to attend SDA primary school... However, I did attend an SDA university for my freshman year of college(before, for reasons unrelated to the school, I transfered to and graduated from a public university) and was greatly blessed by my short experience there! It was obvious to me, however, that, while the students there were 1,000 times nicer and more religious than public school kids, that their academic level coming into university was not to the standard that I had seen in my public schools.
Therefore, being an "outsider" in that I was not raised SDA and did not attend SDA primary school or academy, I have a slightly different take on why SDA school enrollment is down. If I had to guess the number one reason that enrollment is down in our SDA primary schools & academies, I would definitely guess it is because of poor academics- Please hang with me here- I know that the author does identify this as a possible reason (thank you!) - but I think that this problem is bigger than the author thinks. The study that the author mentions to back-up the academics of SDA schools only compares SDA primary schools & academies with public schools (which are free & have to accept everyone) and not against other private schools- which I'm guessing outperform SDA private schools? From what I can remember, that study, essentially, said that SDA schools might be on par with, or slightly better than, public schools in the area of standardized testing (as, from what I understood, that data had not been 100% confirmed at the time this book was published.) With all due respect to all the wonderful people involved in the Adventist educational system, I just do not think that that data is very impressive.
I know that the author alludes to aiming higher than the public school standard, and I think this is the key to success- we need to aim for the private school academic standard- not the public school one. And I think that as long as we are content to be maybe a little bit better than public schools in standardized testing, then we will continue to "kill adventist education." And, we need to remember that standardized testing doesn't tell the whole story on the quality of academics.
With all that said, I think that SDA primary schools and academies do an AMAZING job at their most important task- teaching our children to love God and love others.
As a parent with a child about to enter school, I can tell you that I am still not sure if I will send my son to SDA primary school or not. Is the quality spiritual education in SDA schools enough to outweigh what I perceive to be lagging academics and then the cost? I don't know...
So how can we fix the academics in our SDA schools? I have a very unique perspective on this also, as my husband is a public school teacher. My husband has his Master's with almost a 4.0 on his grad and undergrad GPA and with all the bells and whistles on his resume that have caused public schools to roll out the red carpet for him, almost literally. However, he tried for 2 years to crossover to the SDA school system, and he rarely even got an e-mail response from the SDA schools. Why is this? One school told him that it was because he just didn't have the experience teaching in SDA schools. Plus, like me, he doesn't have an SDA education, because, like me, he didn't become SDA until later in life. But that doesn't mean that he's not spiritually devoted- in fact, I think that SDA's that are not life-long SDA's have some advantages that life-longs do not... We are very passionate about what we believe because we know what it is like to live without the Sabbath truth...
So, how are our schools ever going to get better if they are mainly inbred? We have a vicious cycle in the adventist school system. The same SDA-trained teachers training new teachers. It will be hard for things to change unless new ideas and new people are allowed in.
I know that there are some exceptions to this- there are some SDA teachers that were not SDA educated, but I am just telling of our experiences. It seems like the hiring process at some of these schools is more about who-knows-who and who-went-to-school-where (in other words, who is "familiar" or "safe"), as opposed to who is really the strongest academic educator.
That is just my perspective. I encourage others to weigh in from the other sides.
