Christian school

North America

In the United States, public schools generally don't teach religion, though they must let students study it as an extracurricular activity if they wish. About one out of every twelve children—over four million students—attends a religious school, and the vast majority of those are Christian. These schools vary widely in their educational and religious approaches, reflecting the country's many Christian denominations. The Catholic Church runs the largest Christian school network, with 6,841 elementary and secondary schools serving roughly 2.2 million students as of 2011, mostly managed by local dioceses and parishes.

The Southern Baptist Convention has its own group of affiliated schools, organized under the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, the main conservative Lutheran body, operates the biggest Protestant school system in the U.S., with 1,127 early childhood centers and preschools, 778 elementary schools, and 87 high schools as of 2018, educating over 200,000 students with 21,000 teachers; it also runs schools in Hong Kong and mainland China.

The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod had 403 early childhood centers, 313 elementary schools, and 25 high schools in 2018. The Episcopal Church runs about 1,200 schools, including around 50 high schools, which educate about 2% of all private school students (115,000 total). Episcopal schools tend to be more independent than Catholic ones, and many of their high schools charge over $15,000 a year in tuition—well above the average for non-sectarian private schools, and more than double the roughly $6,000 average for Roman Catholic high schools.

Europe

In the United Kingdom, schools tied to a church are commonly called faith schools. By 2012, faith schools made up 33.75% of all maintained schools and 23.13% of all academies in England, totaling 6,830 institutions. The Church of England has a long history of running schools across England. Under the Education Act 1944, these Church of England schools were partly brought into the state system, with the church keeping some influence in exchange for helping with funding and staffing.

They must accept students of any religion, but if there are more applicants than places, they can—and often do—prioritize children from their own faith. As of February 2017, England had 3,731 state schools and 906 academies that are church schools. About a quarter of all primary schools in England are Church of England schools, and 15 million living people attended one. Because church-run schools are widespread and religious activity is allowed in state schools, private Christian schools are uncommon in the UK, though they do exist.

One example is Liverpool Christian Fellowship School, which made national news in 2001 for leading a campaign—backed by forty other schools—to keep the right to use caning and other corporal punishments after they were banned in 1999. Other such schools include Kingsfold Christian School in Lancashire, Carmel Christian School in Bristol, Grangewood Independent School in London, Mannafields Christian School in Edinburgh, Emmanuel Christian School in Leicester, Derby & Walsall, and The River School in Worcester.

In the Netherlands, the debate over whether public schools should be Christian—and to what extent—ran from 1806 to 1917. The issue peaked in the late 1800s, dominating politics alongside voting rights and the district system. The Pacification of 1917 settled it by giving equal funding to both confessional (religious) and public schools. Religious schools are treated as a distinct type of education, run by their own boards separate from mainstream schools.

Oceania

Parochial schools were established in Australia by both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches during the 19th century, and many of these schools with long traditions continue to form the bulk of the private or independent school sector. The modern Protestant Christian school movement in Australia began through the efforts of Dutch migrants who had enjoyed Christian schools in their home country; most belonged to the Christian Reformed Churches of Australia or the Free Reformed Churches of Australia.

During the 1950s, these migrants founded associations of parents who wanted to start Christian schools, and the first schools opened without government assistance in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Free Reformed Church started the John Calvin School at Armadale, Western Australia, opening on 2 December 1957 with 70 students, followed by schools in Albany, Western Australia (1962) and Launceston, Tasmania (1965). The Reformed Churches of Australia opened their first school at Kingston, Tasmania in 1962; their schools were affiliated with a national body that later became Christian Parent Controlled Schools Ltd. and in 2008 was renamed Christian Education National.

Free Reformed schools enrolled only students from that denomination, while Reformed Church-initiated schools were operated by associations of parents from various Protestant churches who wanted schools integrating Christian faith into the whole curriculum, and these schools were operated by parent bodies apart from church supervision.

Asia

Christian schools in Israel are considered among the country's top educational institutions. Although they make up just 4% of the Arab school system, roughly 34% of Arab university students and about 87% of Israeli Arabs working in high tech received their education at these schools. Many Druze and Muslim families choose Christian schools for their children because of the schools' strong academic performance. The tradition of Christian education in the region dates back to the 1500s, when influential Druze feudal families welcomed both Protestant and Catholic missionaries—including Franciscans, Jesuits, Carmelites, and Lazarites—who helped spread literacy and schooling.

Under the rule of Fakhr al-Din II, printing presses arrived, and Jesuit priests along with Catholic monks and nuns were encouraged to open schools across Mount Lebanon. In 1791, Pope Pius VI wrote to Bashir Jumblatt to thank him for permitting Maronites to build additional churches in the Chouf area. During the 1800s and 1900s, Protestant missionaries set up schools and churches in Druze regions, leading some Druze to convert to Protestantism. By 1870, many Christian schools had opened in Lebanon, becoming key centers of the Nahda, or cultural renaissance, which spurred the creation of schools, universities, theaters, and printing presses.

The rest of the 19th century was relatively stable, as Druze and Maronite communities concentrated on economic and cultural growth, resulting in the founding of the American University of Beirut and Saint Joseph University.