Trends in Christian education have sparked changes that bring Christian education to a better place today than where it used to be.

The current trend on worldview is becoming increasingly more important in Christian schools.

“One of the most important trends that I’ve seen in Christian education,” Amy Love, director of curriculum and instruction at Liberty Christian Academy (LCA) in Lynchburg, Virginia, said. “…is connecting our content for students in real world applications, especially connecting it with worldview.”

According to Love, LCA places an emphasis on very intentional worldview development for its students which Love said is another trend in Christian education. This trend includes making sure students understand what they believe and why they believe it as well as being able to articulate the reasons why they believe it. The worldview LCA uses gives context to all the academic subject areas taught to students at LCA.

“I would say one of the most important trends,” Laura McCollum, one of the upper school principals at Trinity Christian School (TCS) in Fairfax, Virginia, said. “…is the different ways that Christian education is trying to have fidelity to their mission while being in the world but not of the world, particularly related to technology.”

Not only is worldview becoming a more popular trend, but technology can be seen growing in its use in Christian schools.

Technology is something that Christian education is working with that was different in the past, McCollum says. The type of technology, whether hardware or software, and whether schools decide to go to a one-to-one device program with technology for students is something that has changed over the years. These are some of the direct issues within curriculum and instruction, yet Christian education also holds some indirect issues.

“(If) Christian education is intent on developing the whole person, then we can’t disregard that students are being bombarded with technology in the culture,” McCollum said. “And so we can’t really ignore the issues that come about with…social media and some of the negatives of bullying and some of the concerns that people have about internet safety… We care about their, hearts and minds and spirits.”

Love says technology is used a lot at LCA and is a tool just like anything else.

“Its value is really determined and set by how it’s being used by the teacher’s and by the school, and then of course by the students as well,” Love said.

The teachers of LCA are well-equipped with technology and use document cameras in the classrooms, Love said. The school uses Promethean Boards and other interactive white boards as well. Every eighth through 12th grade student has an iPad leased to them for research and studies throughout the entire time the student attends LCA.

“We like technology and certainly feel that it can bring a lot of value to the classroom, especially in Christian education,” Love said. “We have to highlight digital citizenship and making sure our students understand how to use technology appropriately.”

The Common Core State Standards also have become an aspect of education that effects some Christian schools, as well as other different curriculums.

According to Karen Effrem, executive director of the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition and the president of Education Liberty Watch, technology in Christian schools is not very good.

“There’s evidence (of this) for instance on one of big national Common Core tests called PARCC… that if you give the same test to kids on paper then on (a) computer, they will always do better on paper,” Effrem said. “Also there’s evidence that kids don’t retain as much (and) they have attention problems with too much exposure to screen. There’s also medical concerns about brain function…"

LCA uses a common sense media curriculum to help the students understand the impact of social media and how to protect the student’s own digital footprints, Love says. This curriculum also teaches the students how to use technology wisely for research in school.

Love says she has seen an improvement in publishing for curriculum with Christian publishers stepping up with resources.

Many Christian schools have adopted Common Core State Standards (Common Core) into the curriculums used by the schools, according to Love. LCA does not use Common Core because the state of Virginia does not use Common Core. LCA also does not use the state standards for curriculum, such as the public schools who use the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) tests. LCA writes its own standards.

McCollum says even though some private Christian schools have adopted the Common Core, she has not been with any who have implemented these standards into curriculum.

According to McCollum, TCS is struggling in terms of finding Christian curriculum at the Kindergarten through 12th grade level that is equipping Christian minds to be able to go out and understand the half-truths of the world. Even with this being the case, McCollum loves TCS’s capstone program.

“By preparing you (students) through that Apologia and the Vocare (papers that is a part of the capstone program) you are really having to be able to be equip to know what you think but also how to think about things and how to apply scripture to different things you are going to encounter that you may not know right now,” McCollum said.

According to Love, there are some elements of Common Core that include important skills for students. Love cannot think of any educator who would not agree that adding fractions with like denominators in Math or being able to use parts of speech appropriately in English are skills students need. These skills are included under innocuous standards held by the Common Core.

“As far as the English and Math go of the Common Core, the standards themselves are not really the issue,” Love said. “The real issue with Common Core comes into more the role of government in local and state education and state matters.”

A lot of the resources developed for Common Core reflect a humanistic worldview, but these are not the standards themselves, according to Love.

“I think as far as approaching it from a Christian education, we don’t adopt any curriculum wholesale,” Love said. “We evaluate everything that comes through our doors to make sure that it fits with our worldview and also that it’s going to be beneficial for our students in building their content and their skills.”

Another important trend in Christian schools is funding.

“The best way that we (Florida Stop Common Core Coalition) have protected Christian education is by fighting bills and amendments in the Florida legislature that would require private school students, especially voucher students to take the Common Core state tests as part of the accountability of that school choice program,” Effrem said.

According to Effrem, Education Liberty Watch has done the same as the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition in affecting Christian education except it has fought against Title 1 Portability. Title 1 Portability is when poor kids under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, formerly known as the No Child Left Behind Act and currently called the Every Student Succeeds Act, are given federal money under this act to take to a private school in exchange for taking the public school state tests.

Education Liberty Watch has also fought against social emotional learning and data collection and has tried to protect churches with pre-school programs by not having them include all the federal and state standards in the school’s education, Effrem says. These standards hold many controversial items such as gender identity for three year olds.

Different application methods are also very important for the growth of Christian education.

Over the 10 years she has been involved in Christian education she has seen a shift and focus in application according to Love. Students are really being able to use the knowledge learned and develop skills from that, as well as get students to make connections with real world practical application.

“I’ve seen less knowledge for the sake of knowledge and really an emphasis on thinking skills and critical thinking, higher level thinking, which I think is a good shift,” Love said.

Love said she has also seen a movement away from rote memorization methods, which is a reflection of this culture.

“In every job area that we are preparing our students for, it’s less important to memorize all of the information and more important to be able to analyze that information, to process and to separate the good from the bad,” Love said.

Culture is another trend that has affected Christian education for a while.

According to Love, there is a small split in Christian schools about how the schools respond to culture. Some Christian schools have put up stronger walls and taken the perspective that students need to be shielded from the outside world. These schools are not doing as well and some of these schools locally have closed or experienced a significant loss in the numbers of the student body.

On the other hand, some Christian schools have responded to changes in culture by looking for ways that the school can engage culture with a godly worldview, according to Love.

“That’s a little bit more of the perspective we (LCA) take,” Love said. “Proverbs talks about our children being arrows…and so we can kind of view those arrows as arrows to be shot straight into the culture to make an impact.”

The recent legislation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), involving the Kindergarten through 12th grade education, has been favorable to private institutions, particularly private Christian institutions, according to McCollum. In the state of Virginia, the ESSA gives private Christian schools more access to funding with less strings attached.

“It looks to me that it’s going to be much more favorable and it certainly isn’t trying to standardize things like the Common Core was in terms of content,” McCollum said.

According to Love, funding for Christian schools varies from state to state. Christian schools in North Carolina have expanded because the voucher program in this state has grown. Families can now use some state money towards education for their children, making tuition more affordable.

Virginia does not have what North Carolina has, Love says. For the state of Virginia, the documentation, regulations and restrictions for Christian education funding exceed the value of the funding. Thus the opportunities that are given, especially for special education students, are not taken advantage of.

So now what do all these trends in Christian education mean?

A lot of the changing and evolving of trends in Christian education has to do with the balance between excellence and being in the world but not of the world, according to McCollum.

McCollum says she would like to see consortia, such as the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), connect Christian higher education with Christian kindergarten through 12th grade education.

“I hope what’s in store for the future of Christian education is that private Christian schools of various sizes and types and styles will find a way to consolidate, maybe even in regional groups,” McCollum said.

“For us (TCS) (it is) the challenge of being in a college preparatory Christian school were we really want to have an appropriate tension between people being well formed in their Christian formation but also well formed in their thinking,” McCollum said. “We don’t think there’s a separation between faith and reason. We think they grow simultaneously and are strengthened simultaneously.”

According to McCollum there is a type of education called inculcation which is not just teaching kids what to think, but how to think.

“I would say Christian education has changed most importantly in that I think we used to believe that Christian education needed to be indoctrination and just sort of getting kids to memorize things that we believe are the truth so that they can protect their mind and I don’t think that’s the actual right role of their mind,” McCollum said. “C.S. Lewis says the reason God gives us such a sharp mind and the reason why we want to sharper our mind is so it can help preserve and protect our heart.”