Are you going to place your child(ren) on a special-/religion based school or a public school?

I am not a Christian, and all of my children have gone to public schools. Here in Hawaii, there are Christian and Buddhist schools, but we didn’t choose to use those for the same reasons you mentioned.

I took a different approach based on each of my children. Public schools have excellent programs (in the US) if your child is falling behind. The religious schools in the area had excellent programs for children who were advanced for their age.

My children who were advanced I placed in religious schools to start, then transitioned to public schools. My children who needed extra help went directly to public schools.

I have many friends who attended religious schools throughout their childhood, and they as a population seem to be no more or less religious than the general population.

If I had kids, I would not send them to a religious school. There are religious people in my family who just sent their kids to public schools.

I always planned for any child of mine to go to a private non-religious school.

Depending on where I am at the time would determine private or public. Public would be choice unless for some I lived in an area with a very poor public school system. It would however neveeeeeer be a religious school.

My children go to public schools and as far as I’m concerned they always will. I have lots of reasons for this, the reason you state being among them.

At the time my fiancée and I have children, if we decide to send them to a God-less school, it will be because the classes or areas of study was to my liking. That would be the same as if we sent him/her to a religious based school. I am confident there will be no erosion of our values because we will be in contact in a closer and intimate way than the school does.

We will be homeschooling anyhow, that way we can take what is needed and piggyback it on the child’s interest, and hopefully they will see learning as more fun then drudgery.

I went to a private nominally religious school. My kids were either home schooled, or went to a private Christian school. We’re really happy about that, thank you, and if you were to ask them, they’d say the same..

My kids go to a public school, but even as an atheist I would consider sending my children to a parochial school if I thought there was a chance they would receive a better education than the local public schools were able to offer.

I’m about as atheist as they come, and personally if/when I have kids, they will be going to a public shitty school. Once they are about 8 years old I’d like to throw in maybe a year of home school, before sending them off to some kind of private school or decent public school.

My reasoning for this is to give the kid a good dose of reality, before finishing him off with a good rounded education. I don’t want the little chap to have no guts or street smarts.

As for religion in their education, I think they should be given some religion education. Tell them what its all about, so long as it stays factual. You may think that would leave the door open for indoctrination, and creationism, and all that other stuff, but really I’m not that bothered by it.

When I was at school, they blatantly tried to indoctrinate me to the catholic church at the age of about 5. While we was still drawing pictures, talking about toys, and playing with paint, they pulled out the Jesus on us. It imediately sounded suspect to me, and later on, they started to teach us about dinosaurs and evolution and biology. What I’m getting at, is if worse comes to worse and they have to go to a school that teaches both sides of “the argument” or a school that only teaches religion, there is a very low chance they will turn out religious. I don’t think kids turn out religious without a religious influence at home, some no doubt do, but I bet they are few. No 8 year old is going to want to go to church on a sunday if the kids parents dont make the child go.

What is realistically the worst that can happen? the kid turns out to be some moderate theist or perhaps deist or something, maybe an agnostic. If they are happy and healthy what does it matter.

I got you out of my balls and in to the vagina, I gave you food and I made sure you did not die, now it’s time to start making your own mind up kid.

EDIT: Don’t look to me for answers, it’s my first time here too.

My daughter goes to a secular private school. But she does go to Hebrew and Jewish religious school as well two days a week.

I most likely would put my children in public school. I prefer my children go to a secular school. However, if I were still living where I live now, I would probably pull them out of public school by middle school. Possibly put them in the Catholic school, which is one of the private schools closest to me that has received national recognition. But, honestly I would want to move by the time my kids were reaching their teens.

I’m an athiest and Jewish.

Oh, I forgot to mention, like @JLeslie I’m an atheist Jew.

@Rarebear Oh, ok. When someone says they send their kids to a Hebrew and Jewish religious school, I just assume they’re East Indian. :P

As a non-religious person, I would definitely send any children I might have to a state school. I have no desire to have my children brainwashed by a bunch of religious teachers with an agenda. I went to multiple religious schools as a child, and as soon as I became an atheist the teachers and students became abusive. So many religious people just can’t leave well enough alone, and I would never leave a child alone with people like that.

That said, public schools here are complicated too. The government funds religious chaplains for public schools, and they actively try to convert the children, which I think is disgusting and technically illegal. I’d have to be very careful selecting a public school.

I’m not a religious person, so I would put my hypothetical child in a public school.

Even if I were religious though, I don’t know if I would put my kids into a school of specifically catering to one religion. Mighty expensive, those private schools, and if they already attend church (assuming that they are religious kids), I don’t see the need to pay to have them take their maths and English in a school that happens to share the kid’s religion.

I’d want my kid to choose their own beliefs anyway. As for other private schools (like art schools, etc), I don’t know. Assuming I were suddenly wealthy enough to be able to afford it without worrying about college tuition in the future, if they really expressed an interest in a private school that specializes in one of their interests, I’d think about it.

@Blackberry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_India

@Rarebear Well, that was certainly an epic fail on my part…...

I would prefer to send my children to a non religious school as I am an atheist. But we live un a small village where the only state school is a church school. I send them there for social reasons – to make friends locally. As well, it is a good school. I am keeping an eye on them and telling them that some people believe in god but that it just doesnt seem that likely to be true to me. The four year old is at a susceptible age but the ten year old is not believing it

How is one Jewish and Atheist. It seems to me the two are mutually exclusive. Am I missing something here?

@uberbatman I was assuming they mean the race/culture aspect of it?

@uberbatman A large percentage of Jews are athiests, or secular, about 40%. Most of us say we are ethnically or culturally Jewish. You might like this article.

@JLeslie Interesting. I was totally clueless about that. Thanks for the informative article.

I am homeschooling my son.
I am an atheist.

Public school, especially in this state, is unsuitable in my opinion. The vast majority of private schools are unsuitable and/or unaffordable and/or religious.

I want my son to have a stimulating, complete education free from the cynicism public school seems to inflict upon kids who enter with an intact love of learning.

Thank you all for your answers!