Triad Christian Schools Accepting Government Vouchers

The News and Record had a story a couple of weeks ago highlighting the private schools that are accepting the Opportunity Scholarship vouchers from the state of North Carolina. These include the following Christian schools in Guilford County:

1. Wesleyan Christian Academy
2. High Point Christian Academy
3. Caldwell Academy
4. Vandalia Christian School
5. The Covenant School
6. Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic School
7. Shining Light Academy
8. Our Lady of Grace Catholic School

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list. It merely represents the recipients of the most voucher dollars in the county among Christian schools in Guilford County. Other private schools accepted voucher dollars also.

For those that operate Christian schools, accepting these vouchers might seem like a good idea. It might seem expedient and the “right thing to do”. It certainly gives many parents and students an “escape valve” from the public schools. That was precisely the intent of offering these vouchers.

We have warned, however, that accepting government money is treacherous. Once the socialists regain power in the state of North Carolina, they will take away this money or more likely attach onerous conditions to accepting it.

One can imagine the things socialists would love to force Christian schools to do. In fact, we are seeing these kinds of things play out in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Having become dependent on the government money, it will be difficult at that point for these schools to refuse it. We have seen this happen in farming and in the health care industry, for instance.

One parenthetic note: It was amusing years ago to see public education interests in the state of North Carolina push for more federal money, and then to protest when they learned George W. Bush was attaching strings to that money. Some of them howled in protest.

In fact, J. Gresham Machen– a noted Christian educator and theologian– nearly a century ago wrote a series of essays warning about this very topic of Christian schools opening the door to state regulation. Yet here we are.