Adopt-A-School

This blog post proposes a city-wide experiment.

What would happen if...

• The 7,100 churches in New York City prayed every week for the city's 1,200 public schools?
  
• Volunteers from those churches served the schools as hall monitors, classroom assistants, tutors, event organizers, PTA delegates, or coaches?
  
• Students from those churches were empowered to be salt and light on the campuses?
  
• God-fearing staff members from those churches, whether teachers, aids, principals, or agency administrators, recognized their profession as a calling?

Dare we expect that test scores might improve and the $12 billion currently spent on the school system be managed better?

The idea is doable. There are 7,100 evangelical, charismatic, and Pentecostal churches in the five boroughs. In contrast, New York's 1.1 million public school students are disbursed across 1,200 public schools. That’s nearly a 7:1 ratio of churches to schools. Including the 1,000 private and/or parochial schools, there are still more than three churches for every school.

The challenge to discovering whether the experiment works is to monitor and coordinate it effectively. Any thoughts how?

Related:

• "An Intergenerational Stirring: Why Christian Churches Should Adopt Public Schools"
• Fund for Public Schools (for businesses interested in supporting individual schools)
• Campus Alliance's EverySchool.com campaign