What influence do Christian day schools have on the values and worldview of Christian school students?

The last several decades have seen a dramatic growth in Christian schools across America. Research continues to show that, on the whole, faith-based schools achieve significantly higher academic results on annual testing than their public school counterparts. While this information definitely influences families who experience disenchantment with public schools, it does not resolve the core of the problem facing America today. Almost every indicator of cultural issues recognizes significant moral and spiritual decline facing the United States of America and Western culture in general.
The hearts and minds of young people are the prize, because they are the future. Many have said that the schools of today consist of the governments of tomorrow. While the cultural war continues, all schools train tomorrow’s leaders. Secular schools, public and even some private “religious” schools use a platform that propagates a secular ideology and denigrates Christianity. Throughout the last decades, these schools have made the transition from being one of the chief mechanisms for promoting Christian values and principles, to the current status of propagating anti-Christian values and principles. The majority of the public understands that all schools teach reading and writing yet, slowly more have come to understand that restructuring American values and worldview has now become a priority in many of our schools.
As public schools and some private schools have become openly antagonistic towards Christianity, more Christian schools have resulted. More Christian parents, who themselves grew up in public schools, are choosing to send their children to Christian schools in the hopes the schools will affirm the values and worldview that Christians support.
So what effect do Christian schools have on the students who attend them? Are Christian schools significantly different than secular schools in their philosophies, and in the results they induce, or do they produce the same results? This study attempts to help discover the differences in faith-based schools in terms of values they induce and to identify the distinctive characteristics of a Christian school, characteristics that separate such schools from other private and public schools.
An analysis of the biblical worldviews of students based on their self-described personal beliefs and their home environments gives insights into several revealing trends. These trends also help us to understand the effectiveness of Christian education, parental responsibilities, and perhaps the direction of church youth programs for the future.
The study concludes that Christian education, education that is truly Christian, has a distinct purpose and mission. Christian schools play an important role in the development of many young people. This role is enhanced greatly when working in conjunction with consistent parental values and regular church participation. In many ways, Christian schools resemble a three-legged stool that needs each leg in order to remain stable. When one leg breaks, it compromises the stability of the stool.
The question is not whether Christian schools have the capacity and potential to integrate Biblical knowledge and wisdom into the life of children, the more difficult question is whether they will capitalize on the opportunity or simply following the techniques, standards, and philosophies of the bigger, more prestigious secular schools.