When we prioritize the least successful students over their more well-prepared peers, we invariably lower standards for all students. Educators focus on gaming the system to produce “high” grades and graduation rates and in the process, everyone loses sight of why learning matters in the first place. Schools only work when teachers believe in the value of their lessons and students feel responsible for their own learning. In the absence of those vital components, everyone is less likely to succeed.

A few years ago, the school district where I teach became enamored with a book called The One Thing by real estate mogul Gary Keller. Keller argued that, rather than spreading out effort over many different objectives, the secret to success was to identify and focus on the one thing that mattered most for achieving your goal. Taken with this insight, our superintendent asked every principal in the district to determine the “One Thing” that would be the unifying focus of their campus efforts. When teachers returned from summer break that year, we learned about this new initiative and the specific cause that our principal had selected for us to rally around.
Our high school wasn’t going to focus on helping students develop better problem-solving skills, increasing student engagement, or even on aligning our curriculums more closely to the demands of standardized tests. In fact, we weren’t going to focus on anything that would be relevant to the majority of our students. Our One Thing was to improve the educational outcomes of our “critical students”—the lowest achieving five percent who had not passed standardized tests and were most at risk of not graduating. In a school with over 2,000 students, we were told that improving the scores of our bottom 100 was what mattered most.
While a bit more blunt than is typical, this was only stating a hidden reality of which most educators were already aware. Public education, today, is far more concerned with raising the grades and test scores of its lowest achieving students than with pushing all students towards a higher standard. Of course, schools would love everyone to learn more and they are eager to highlight any academic achievement that they can use to create the illusion of educational excellence. But in a world of finite resources, the priorities are quite clear. Whenever a school has to choose, they will sacrifice the benefit of the many to focus on the least successful few.
Many would argue that this is how it should be—that schools should embrace the Rawlsian ethic and direct the majority of their attention to supporting the least advantaged, whose environments or talents make them less likely to become successful students. Such sentiments are particularly common in education, where I’ve often heard teachers make the case that: Good students don’t really need you. They will do well no matter what. The students who really need you are the ones who don’t care about school. As progressive as this sounds, it speaks to a culture that does not actually believe that the subjects they teach matter.
Considering the needs of each student, why should so much emphasis be placed on teaching algebra to a high school student who still can’t multiply single-digit numbers in his head. By high school, most “critical students” are years behind their peers. They often don’t know the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship, where China is relative to Australia, or that “I” is supposed to be capitalized. Barring an enormous and unlikely investment of energy, they will not enter a field that requires academic competency. This is not to say that motivated students should not have access to remediation. But the vast majority of critical students would benefit far more from getting work experience in a specific trade than from prolonging this painful educational charade. It seems foolish for a teacher to pay less attention to students who are likely to need higher-level academic skills in their future, so that he can pull uninterested students aside to quiz them on the parts of the cell.
By contrast, most other students need to be challenged to go beyond superficial task work. But, the higher-order skills that high schools should be focused on developing require a level of attention, rigor, and skilled feedback that remediation-focused teachers are not able to offer. Consequently, the majority of high school graduates today are not adequately prepared. A 2010 report revealed that of the 23 member universities in the California State University system, all of which demand a college-preparatory curriculum completed with at least a B average, “68 percent of the 50,000 entering freshmen at CSU campuses require remediation in English/language arts, math, or both.” And if these same standards were applied by the California Community Colleges, “their remediation rates would exceed 80 percent.”
The report (which comes from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and the Southern Regional Education Board) goes on to argue that most other states would have similar findings. Indeed, according to former professor and United States Assistant Secretary of Education, Chester E. Finn Jr.:
For years now, the College Board, the American College Testing program, and, more recently, the National Assessment of Educational Progress have supplied data indicating that the percentage of 12th graders (or 12th-grade test-takers) who are truly ready for college coursework is somewhere below 40.
None of this is likely to surprise Americans. According to 2018 Gallup polls, only three percent of Americans thought high school graduates were “very well prepared for college” and only five percent thought they were “very well prepared for work.” Most people sense that our education system is falling short, yet we struggle to identify many of the most obvious causes and their solutions. Most notably, by placing a disproportionate emphasis on the education of less capable students, schools downgrade the education of everyone else. Teachers lower their standards and their role shifts from academic and developmental experts to that of activity-organizers. Mainstream students skate by without ever cultivating a capacity for logical analysis, synthesis, written argument, or any of the competencies that will be most valuable after high school. Even Advanced Placement courses are often forced to lower their standards, as many parents realize that the mainstream track is inadequate and decide to push their kids into classes they aren’t prepared for.
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The sources to which “gay Christians” constantly appeal—secular psychology, sociological data, identity theory, and the personal experiences of people who identify as sexual minorities—are not sufficient to guide us into all truth…If the Bible is God’s holy, inerrant, and clear revelation, then it is the foundation of all that we should believe and do—regardless of anyone’s contrary personal experience.

“God has always saved the church, not by theological pacifists,but by sturdy defenders for the truth.”  J. Gresham Machen
An abundance of books today addresses Christians.  I just finished one—one I’m compelled to recommend every lay church elder be provided and required to read.  Why emphasize “lay” elders?  Throughout Church history, heresies or straying from God’s divine revelation came mainly through clerical leaders—not the laity. In Reformed Faith churches, lay elders may be the bulwark defending the church from vulnerability to straying.  This is not intended to be anti-clerical—simply recognizing a historical reality that is unrelenting yet today.  Sadly, reports coming out of trusted conservative seminaries indicate the threat exists; this article is not about that phenomenon.  Rather it’s about a book promoting biblical analysis and discernment that elders need to be sensitive to and on guard against a present danger.
The book is Dangerous Affirmation: The Threat of “Gay Christianity written by M. D. Perkins. I received it courtesy of David H. Linden to whom the book is dedicated with these words: “. . . who . . . taught me that life is too short and Christ is too precious to remain silent when His church is under attack.”  The author and to whom it’s dedicated are both “sturdy defenders for the truth.”
Anyone reading The Aquila Report and other Christian resources is aware a battle has come to the church via the LGBT activists and agenda.  It’s not only related to sexual morality.  It relates to a misnomer of Christian identity, i.e., “gay Christian” or “same-sex attracted Christian.”  It’s tearing churches and denominations apart.  Many congregations remain ignorant of how serious an issue it is.  Members lack clear instruction via sermons, oral instruction, or published communications.  If lay elders were informed and aware of the seriousness, perhaps congregations would become more instructed and discerning.
Packed with innumerable facts and biblical truths, justice cannot be attained in a simple review; but I’ll attempt to cite certain key points not to be ignored.  First, an important lost principle.  Much emphasis is directed on loving the sinner, making the sinner comfortable, welcoming the sinner in our churches and times of worship that the inordinate heinousness of certain dishonorable, indecent, shameful sexual desires, lusts, passions, and sexual acts are softened or ignored.  It was Jesus’ Father who described all of the above with harsh terms.  God’s love enters as a result of a lost sinner experiencing remorse, shame and sorrow for sin, confession, desiring to repent and cease from sin, and desiring deliverance and redemption.  That’s true for all of us regardless of sinful propensities.  Balancing truth with love and truth in love to all realizing how far from God’s holy character they are and what God hates is primary in receiving Christ’s atonement.  We mustn’t get the cart before the horse.”
Now to some of the author’s revealing facts:

The sources to which “gay Christians” constantly appeal—secular psychology, sociological data, identity theory, and the personal experiences of people who identify as sexual minorities—are not sufficient to guide us into all truth. . . If the Bible is God’s holy, inerrant, and clear revelation, then it is the foundation of all that we should believe and do—regardless of anyone’s contrary personal experience.
. . . the purpose of Christian theology is to know God.
Gay celibate theology wants to essentialize homosexual temptation to the point it is left untouched by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Love and truth are redefined. The majesty of God is minimized and the holiness of God is outright blasphemed.
As Christians, our primary concern should be the character of God—and questioning the integrity of His Word is the first step toward impugning the character of God.
Romans 1 is the central text in understanding the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality. The passage mentions the desire/orientation (“dishonorable passions”) as well as the behavior (“committing shameless acts”) lesbianism (“for their women”) . . . and the connection of sexual lust and rejecting God (“God gave them up”).
This comes as a rebuke to anyone who claims their homosexuality is innate and immutable, which is why even “gay celibate Christians” resist this reading of 1 Corinthians 6:11.
Words matter, and God’s words matter more than any others.
It is not loving to call something good and right that the Bible labels an “abomination,” “dishonorable passion,” or “shameless act”
. . . same -sex attraction . . . it is a phrase that removes the moral framework that Paul embeds in the term dishonorable passions (Romans 1: 26)
Because homosexuality is wicked and defiling, Christians are right to be disgusted at its normalization and celebration (Isaiah 5:20)
If we look carefully, we see that the charge of homophobia is ultimately an attempt to replace the shame of homosexuality with the approval stamp of victimhood.
What if our attempts to adjust the worship of God to make people feel more comfortable at church are an offense to the One who established the church?
What’s most amazing to me about the “born gay” phenomenon is that the scientific evidence for it is thin as a reed, yet it doesn’t matter.
. . . but our temptations should not ultimately define us.
But the peace of Christ is available only to those who are surrendered to Christ by faith (Isaiah 26: 3)
False teachers always appeal to our senses, to our emotions, and to our base instincts. They minimize scripture, reframe it, change the emphasis, and twist it until it is forced to confess a lie.
Can the Christian faith and the LGBT movement really live in harmony? “For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?  Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  (2 Corinthians 6:14)

The aforementioned represents just some of the rich and vast coverage the author gives in order to grapple with the multitude of issues requiring attention for the sake of the church as well as the individual believers.  There’s so much more to inform and instruct.  Lay elders, encourage the godly men and women of the church to be “sturdy defenders for the truth” along with you.
“I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to  the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”  (Jude 1: 3-4)
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.
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Speck v. Missouri Presbytery may not be the last case of its kind that will come through our system. Everyone recognizes that we are facing difficult disagreements on important issues. With this in mind, every presbyter in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) should study the SJC decision and the Dissenting Opinion of the minority as we consider general principles for how we handle similar cases in the future.

In the previous post, TE Zack Groff laid out a plan for understanding the Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) decision on Judicial Case 2020-12 (Speck v. Missouri Presbytery). As part of the post, TE Groff recommended that readers carefully consider the Dissenting Opinion drafted by RE Steve Dowling and signed by seven members of the SJC (including RE Dowling).
In response to TE Groff’s recommendation, at least one fellow TE posed a question (on social media) about why we allow for dissenting opinions, and the purpose they might serve since they do not affect the decision itself.
This is an important question both for the specific case at-hand and for our polity more generally. In this post, I will offer seven reasons why the polity of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) values dissenting opinions. The first four are general in nature, and the next three are in regard to this particular case.

Dissenting opinions from the Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) are important for the same reasons they are important for the United States Supreme Court.

At a very general level, dissenting opinions give the minority an opportunity to express concerns or unanswered questions about the decision of the Court (or Commission) that may help to shape or inform future decisions. Though the SJC decision is final for this case, the Dissenting Opinion of the minority may be pertinent for future cases.

A final decision is not necessarily the same thing as a correct decision.

As the drafters of the Westminster Standards wisely acknowledged, “All synods or councils, since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred” (WCF 31.3). A dissenting opinion gives presbyters an opportunity to point out where the Court (or Commission) may have erred. Taking this principle seriously means that the rest of us should take the time to hear what such dissenting opinions have to say.

Dissenting opinions – like our polity as a whole – balance the opportunity to express disagreement with the careful maintenance of church unity.

One man in my presbytery once rightly observed that our polity balances the ability to express disagreement while still maintaining unity. A dissenting opinion does precisely this by recognizing the finality of a particular decision while also preserving the ability to express a different view. The provision of a formal mechanism for expressing carefully reasoned and respectful (i.e., temperate) disagreement actually promotes unity.

Our polity prioritizes listening to one another.

James admonishes us, “let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (Jas. 1:19). Regardless of whether or not you agree with the SJC decision, carefully listening to both majority and minority opinions is important to our polity.
For further development of this principle of listening to one another, consider what I wrote about the biblical precept and example for listening in the courts of the church in my recent post, The Biblical Foundations of Parliamentary Procedure.
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