Education Is Never Neutral
Why Formation Matters for Salt Lake Families
By Dr. Toby A. Travis, Head of School
Intermountain Christian School
There is no such thing as a neutral education.
That statement may initially sound provocative, particularly in a community as religiously and culturally diverse as the Salt Lake Valley. But it is not intended as criticism of public schools, charter schools, private schools, homeschool families, or the thousands of dedicated educators throughout Utah who care deeply about children.
It is simply a recognition of something fundamental about education:
Every educational environment is forming students toward some understanding of what is true, what is good, what matters, and what it means to live a meaningful life.
Every curriculum communicates priorities.
Every classroom rests upon assumptions.
Every reading list, science lesson, athletic program, discipline practice, assembly, arts production, hallway conversation, and teacher-student relationship contributes to a child's understanding of the world.
That is worldview.
And worldview is never neutral.
More Than Information
At Intermountain Christian School, we believe education is about much more than transferring information from teachers to students.
Our mission is to be a Christ-centered learning community that equips and inspires students to thrive in God's world.
Notice those words carefully.
Not escape from God's world.
Not hide from God's world.
Thrive in God's world.
We want students prepared to engage thoughtfully and confidently with the world God has made. We want them to ask difficult questions, think critically, solve problems creatively, communicate clearly, appreciate beauty, understand history, explore science, serve others, and pursue excellence.
But we also want them to understand why those things matter.
That is why biblical integration at ICS is not limited to Bible class or chapel. We want students to understand that the Christian faith speaks to the whole of life.
Math belongs to God.
Science belongs to God.
History belongs to God.
Language belongs to God.
Athletics belong to God.
Art and music belong to God.
Relationships belong to God.
Our work belongs to God.
Our gifts belong to God.
Our future belongs to God.
Christian education, properly understood, is therefore not simply education with prayer added to it. It is an approach to learning that begins with a fundamentally Christian understanding of reality.
Every School Forms
Christians often use the word discipleship to describe what happens in Christian education. That is appropriate.
We hope to disciple students toward wisdom, faithfulness, courage, humility, service, excellence, and obedience to Jesus Christ.
But Christian schools are not the only places where formation occurs.
Every educational environment forms.
Peer groups form.
Athletics form.
Entertainment forms.
Social media forms.
Teachers and coaches form.
The question facing parents is therefore not:
“Will my child be formed?”
The answer is already yes.
The more important questions are:
How will my child be formed?
By whom?
Toward what understanding of truth, identity, purpose, and human flourishing?
Those are among the most important questions Christian parents can ask.
A Particularly Important Question in Salt Lake
Here in the Salt Lake Valley, these questions carry a distinctive significance.
Our community is wonderfully diverse. Families arrive here from around the country and around the world. Our neighbors represent different religious traditions, cultures, political perspectives, and philosophies of life.
That diversity gives our children tremendous opportunities to learn how to listen well, treat others with dignity, build authentic friendships, and live faithfully alongside people who do not necessarily share their beliefs.
But it also means Christian parents cannot assume that the surrounding culture will naturally reinforce the convictions being taught at home and church.
That is one reason ICS exists.
Since 1982, Christian families in this valley have invested in a school where home, church, and school can work in partnership. Today our ICS community includes families connected with more than 40 churches throughout the region.
We are not all from the same denomination.
We do not agree about every secondary theological question.
But we are united around the biblical gospel and the lordship of Jesus Christ.
That partnership matters because children benefit from coherence.
When students hear biblical truth at home, encounter it within their church community, and see that same truth authentically integrated into their daily educational experience, faith becomes more than something reserved for Sunday morning.
It becomes a way of seeing all of life.
Thousands of Formative Hours
Consider how much time children spend in school.
A typical student attends school approximately 180 days each year for six or seven hours a day. Over thirteen years of K–12 education, that represents well over 15,000 hours in formal educational environments, and that does not include athletics, clubs, rehearsals, homework, travel, social activities, or digital interaction with peers.
Those are extraordinarily formative hours.
Parents remain the primary spiritual influence in their children's lives. Scripture clearly places upon parents the responsibility to teach their children diligently and intentionally.
Churches also have an indispensable role.
But neither parents nor churches should underestimate the formative power of thousands of hours spent within a school culture.
That is why educational choice deserves more than a comparison of test scores, tuition, extracurricular activities, facilities, or college acceptance rates.
Those things matter.
Academic excellence matters.
Athletics matter.
Fine arts matter.
Friendships matter.
College preparation matters.
Opportunity matters.
But for Christian parents, they are not the only things that matter.
A deeper question is:
Who is my child becoming as they receive an education?
The Research Deserves Our Attention
Recent national research reinforces the importance of taking these formative years seriously.
Pew Research Center has found that religious switching frequently occurs relatively early in life. In its most recent research, 35% of American adults reported that they no longer identify with the religion they were raised in. Among those who have switched religious identity, 85% reported doing so by age 30. Among people who were raised in a religion but are now religiously unaffiliated, more than half reported leaving their childhood religion before age 18.
Those findings should not cause Christian parents to panic.
Faith cannot be manufactured by enrolling a child in a Christian school.
ICS cannot guarantee that a graduate will follow Jesus.
Neither can parents.
Only God changes hearts.
But parents can intentionally cultivate environments in which children encounter faithful Christian adults, meaningful biblical teaching, thoughtful answers to difficult questions, healthy Christian community, and a consistent understanding of truth.
Research from the Cardus Education Survey provides additional perspective. Its 2026 report, Enduring Faith, examined nearly a decade of data on adults who graduated from different school sectors.
The researchers found that Protestant Christian school graduates consistently reported comparatively high levels of prayer, Bible reading, and participation in religious services. Particularly significant was the relationship between strong religious formation within a school and patterns of faith later in life.
The point is not that Christian schooling automatically produces Christian adults.
It does not.
The point is that formation environments matter.
What Are We Really Choosing?
Years ago, while leading another Christian school, I met with a family whose son was completing middle school. They explained that they would not be enrolling him in our high school.
Several reasons stood out, but one stood out most.
Our school did not offer football.
As they explained it, “High school just isn't high school without Friday night football.”
I understood what they meant.
For many families, Friday night football represents tradition, community, excitement, friendships, and a particular picture of the American high school experience. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things.
But our conversation raised a larger question:
What are we really choosing when we choose a school?
We are never simply choosing football.
Or AP courses.
Or a music program.
Or a campus.
Or a social experience.
We are choosing a community of adults and peers who will spend thousands of hours influencing our children during extraordinarily formative years.
Years later, after that student had gone on to college, I heard from his parents. Their son had walked away from his Christian faith. They were heartbroken and wondered whether they should have made a different decision during his high school years.
I have never forgotten that conversation.
Nor would I claim that choosing a Christian high school would necessarily have produced a different outcome. Spiritual formation is far more complex than that.
But their experience reminds me of a sobering truth about parenting:
We get only one opportunity to steward each season of our children's lives.
There is no replay of sixth grade.
No replay of freshman year.
No replay of adolescence.
Those years pass remarkably quickly.
Christian Education Is Not an Escape
Sometimes Christian education is caricatured as an attempt to shelter children from the “real world.”
That should never describe ICS.
Our goal is exactly the opposite.
We are preparing students for the world.
We want graduates who can enter universities, workplaces, neighborhoods, churches, professions, and communities where many people will think differently from them.
We want them able to listen without fear.
Disagree without hostility.
Think without simply repeating slogans.
Ask good questions.
Recognize truth.
Extend grace.
Defend their convictions with humility.
Serve people who are different from them.
And love their neighbors as Christ commanded.
A Christian education should not produce students who are frightened by ideas. It should produce students equipped to examine ideas.
It should not teach them simply what to think.
It should teach them how to think Christianly.
That distinction is important.
Our Teaching for Transformation framework reinforces this approach by helping students understand that they are participants in God's story and that their learning equips them to restore, create, serve, discover, discern, and contribute to the flourishing of God's world.
That is what we mean when we say we want students to thrive in God's world.
Excellence and Faithfulness Belong Together
Choosing Christian education should never mean choosing academic mediocrity.
Christian schools should pursue excellence precisely because our work belongs to God.
Our students should be challenged.
Their teachers should employ excellent instructional practices.
They should learn to read deeply, write clearly, reason mathematically, investigate scientifically, appreciate great art, understand history, communicate effectively, and use technology wisely.
They should have opportunities to lead, compete, perform, create, explore, and serve.
But all of those opportunities exist within a larger purpose.
The purpose of education is not merely to create an impressive résumé.
It is to cultivate wisdom and prepare a young person for a life of meaningful, faithful service before God.
College admission is important.
Career preparation is important.
Achievement is important.
But none of them is large enough to become the ultimate definition of a successful life.
Jesus asked a far more consequential question:
“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
—Mark 8:36
That is a question worth remembering when determining our educational priorities.
Partnership, Not Outsourcing
Christian parents should not enroll children at ICS and assume, “The school will take care of their spiritual development.”
That would misunderstand our role.
Parents are their children's primary disciplers.
ICS exists to partner with them.
The healthiest model of Christian education occurs when home, church, and school reinforce one another—when parents know what is being taught, teachers understand the families they serve, churches remain central to spiritual community, and students experience adults working together around a shared vision of truth and flourishing.
That partnership is one of the great strengths of Christian education.
It gives children coherence.
It says:
What we believe on Sunday matters on Monday.
What Scripture teaches affects how we study biology.
How we compete on the basketball court.
How we treat someone who is struggling.
How we respond when we fail.
How we use our talents.
How we choose a career.
How we define success.
How we love our neighbors.
Faith becomes not one compartment of life, but the foundation through which life is understood.
Not Every Family Has the Same Options
One additional word is important.
Not every Christian family has access to Christian education.
Financial limitations are real. Geography matters. Some children have specialized academic, behavioral, developmental, or medical needs that a particular Christian school may not be equipped to serve. Other circumstances may make another educational setting the wisest choice for a particular child.
This article is not intended to place guilt upon those families.
Rather, its central principle applies regardless of where children attend school:
Be intentional about formation.
Know what your children are learning.
Know their teachers.
Know their friends.
Talk about ideas around the dinner table.
Ask what assumptions lie behind the messages they encounter.
Help them distinguish between what Scripture teaches and what the surrounding culture teaches.
Give them relationships with mature Christian adults.
Stay deeply connected to a faithful local church.
And create a home where questions are welcomed rather than feared.
Because education is never neutral.
Why ICS Exists
For those families who desire a Christian educational partner, this is why Intermountain Christian School exists in the Salt Lake Valley.
We are not simply a private alternative to another educational system.
We are a Christ-centered learning community.
We exist to equip and inspire students to thrive in God's world.
We seek to pursue academic excellence.
We seek to cultivate joyful curiosity.
We seek to develop biblical faithfulness.
We want students to know that truth matters, that they are created in the image of God, that Jesus Christ is Lord, that their gifts have purpose, and that their lives can serve others and advance God's Kingdom.
Ultimately, parents are not simply choosing where their children will receive information.
They are choosing a formative community.
So perhaps the most important question when evaluating any school is not simply:
“What will my child learn here?”
Ask also:
“Who is my child likely to become here?”
Because every school forms.
Every culture disciples.
Every educational environment points toward some vision of the good life.
Education is never neutral.
And the formative years entrusted to us are far too important to treat as though it were.
Research Notes
Pew Research Center. Why Do Some Americans Leave Their Religion While Others Stay? 2025. Findings from the U.S. Religious Landscape Study and a 2025 follow-up survey indicate that 35% of U.S. adults have moved away from their childhood religion and that religious switching most commonly occurs during childhood and young adulthood.
Swaner, Lynn E.; Jonathan Eckert; and Albert Cheng. Enduring Faith: Patterns of Religious Practice and Values Among Religious School Graduates. Cardus, 2026. Drawing upon Cardus Education Survey data from 2014 and 2023, the study reports persistent differences in religious practices among graduates from various educational sectors and finds Protestant-school graduates reporting particularly strong patterns of prayer, Bible reading, and religious service attendance.
