Prophecy fulfilled

Public education is crumbling because its mortar is disappearing | Joel Belz

I watched a small bit of prophecy being fulfilled last week—and sadly, it was happening right on schedule.

I had first heard the prediction about 20 years ago. "I know you hear everywhere," said Roy Lowrie, "that the public-school system is about ready to fall apart. Such forecasts are premature. I think that such a collapse is surely coming—but probably not for a decade or two."

Mr. Lowrie was a veteran of the educational scene. He was the founding headmaster of the pace-setting Delaware County Christian School in Philadelphia's west suburbs. He was a national leader of the Christian school movement that burgeoned especially in the 1970s and 1980s. And he was always a man who insisted that such schools be built on positive foundations rather than on the ruins of other systems.