Recently, I have had the blessing (and yes, I call it a blessing) of being a substitute teacher for a public high school in my area. I consider it a blessing because it provided an opportunity for me to reaffirm my belief that I will never (inshaaAllah) send any of my children to public schools. Many people complain about the quality of Islamic schools and, after teaching at one for a year, I was among those people. But after this experience, I complain no more.

The high school I have been working for shall remain anonymous. But believe me, it is representative of the high school in your area. It boasts a wide array of AP Honors and other elective courses, as well as a wide variety of extracurricular activities and a renowned athletic department which is always competitive state-wide and has had many athletes go on to play at the collegiate level and professional level. On paper, the high school shines. It is the type of school that parents (and even kids who don’t go there – among which I was one growing up) trick themselves into thinking is “different” than those “bad” schools you hear about on TV. But behind closed doors, day in and day out, seeing the students makes one realize that it’s just the same. Some of the things I am about to tell you may surprise you (especially if you’ve never been to school in this country), some of it may not. If you don’t want to hear graphic details, I suggest you stop reading now. However, if you’re interested in hearing the hard truth about the place where your child spends (or will spend) a majority of their formative years, I suggest you read on. Because at the end of the day, when you imagine your child among these kids or, authubillah one of them, what I’m about to tell you (or remind you of) should scare you.

Observations from the Inside
Here are some things that I have observed. I’m not saying that my research is conclusive, but I think after my experience of attending public schools my whole life, listening to the stories of those that have attended other public schools, and finally experiencing teaching in both an Islamic school and a public school, I think what I’m about to tell you is representative of public schools in general.

  • The Pledge of Allegiance
    Every morning, the high school kids stand up and put their hands over their hearts and are lead by the loudspeaker in pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. This is neither the time nor the place to get into whether this is even permissible for a Muslim (I believe it’s not allowed) or whether not participating means you’re anti-American (I don’t think that’s what it means), but I know that I would never want myself or my children pledging allegiance to anything except to Allah, His Messenger, and Islam.

  • Inappropriate Music
    It’s bad enough that your child has to face the peer pressure of friends listening to music that is not allowed in Islam. But now, every passing period the administration allows the students to blast music over the loudspeaker so you get to walk down the halls listening to Britney Spears and Beyonce singing about sex. Is that what you want your child learning and listening to at school?

  • Boy-Girl Relations
    Speaking of sex, boy-girl relations are a huge problem. We’re not talking the free-mixing that Muslims always seem to be fighting about, but we’re talking about open displays of affection between boys and girls – touching, groping, and kissing in the hallways and in classrooms. These are the things that kids are doing in front of the teacher’s eyes. It makes one wonder what they’re doing out of the teacher’s eyesight. I guess you get the idea when you see all the pregnant un-wed mothers roaming the halls with the bellies sticking out over their pants.

  • Dress
    Even if a student would try to avoid the boy-girl relations, everywhere they turn there are people dressed completely inappropriately. Sometimes I wonder, ‘Do these kids ever look in the mirror?’ Sure, schools try to impose dress codes about not wearing shorts or skirts too short or clothes too revealing, but kids, especially girls, always find ways around the system.

  • Vulgar language
    Kids have no shame about what comes from there mouth. Openly swearing in the classroom or even swearing at their teacher is no big deal. Sometimes I wonder if the kids are just trying to compete to see who can put the most four-letter words into a sentence. If your child comes home talking like that, don’t wonder for a second where they learned it.

  • Environment of Deception
    Kids learn and are taught how to cheat and get around rules, teacher’s eyes, and even internet blocks. Teachers turn a blind eye to cheating, which encourages students to see how much they can get away with. Some websites are blocked because the content seen is almost as bad as pornography, and I have seen with my own eyes kids getting onto those very blocked sites by finding ‘ways’ to get around the block. And sometimes, teachers participate with the students in visiting these restricted sites. If rules are never really rules, how long do you think the rules of Islam and of your home will remain being implemented?

  • Islamic Ignorance and Intolerance
    As a Muslim woman who wears hijab, I am constantly stared at. Sure, there are white, black, Hispanic, Indian, and Asian kids at the school, but I look “different”. I have had kids yell at me from a bus “MUSLIM!”, have heard kids whisper “Is she a nun or something?’, and have had people ask me, ‘Why do you wear that thing on your head?’ and when I reply, ‘I’m a Muslim’, hear ‘What’s that?’. Do you want your daughter in an environment where she feels uncomfortable wearing hijab? Do you want your kids learning about Islamic history from a teacher who is blatantly prejudiced against Islam?

I am sure that none of us would want our children to be a part of these things which violate and contaminate to the core their Islamic values and identity. So what’s the solution? Sadly, there aren’t easy answers, but there are alternatives.

The first obvious alternative is Islamic school. Islamic schools, with all their faults, at least protect children from the open fahishah that they will be drowning in in the public school system. Even at the more corrupt Islamic schools, the sins are typically not open and there are usually choices of alternative friends who cling to Islamic values. Furthermore, those parents who trick themselves into thinking that “good academics” and “good teachers” at public schools will protect their children and prepare them for their future should remind themselves that the school where the observations were made has great academics (on paper) and students who go to college anywhere from state universities to Northwestern, Washington, and Harvard. Yet even these “smart kids” from the “good families” have been corrupted.

Another alternative is home schooling your kids. There are many benefits to this, first and foremost being the fact that you will be the primary educator and influencer of their environment. However, although home schooling seems ideal, there are many potential negatives. A mother educationg several children at different grade levels can be challenging and stressful at the least and that stress would be multiplied if there are non-school age children in the home to be taken care of. Also, if your child has a naturally outgoing personality, they may beg and plead for the opportunity to go to school where they can make friends and interact with people outside of the home on a daily basis. For the outgoing child, play groups, Sunday school, and socializing on weekends may not be enough to satisfy them. These are the potential challenges this alternative brings.

While the alternatives may be few or difficult, they are an essential. Developing and improving them should be something that Muslims make obligatory upon themselves. If not, our children, the future leaders of this Ummah, will be shaped by the music and the kissing in the halls, the deceitful and cheating behavior, and the pledge of allegiance to anything and everything except to Allah and His Messenger.

May Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala protect us and the future generation of Muslims. Ameen.