Since the 1970s, evangelical Christians have been moving away from the public school children. The home school movement, which accounts for about 2 million students, is predominantly made up of these people. Forty years ago, church-affiliated schools were mostly Catholic, with some Lutheran and Reformed private schools. At present, the number of students attending private schools with an evangelical affiliation are roughly equal to those in Catholic schools. Prominent evangelical spokesmen like James Dobson who advocated reforming the public schools a decade ago now support shunning them. The fact that a measure encouraging Southern Baptists to seek Christian education made it to the floor of the nation's largest evangelical denomination indicates the progress of the home and private school exodus.
It would appear that conservative evangelicals are trending away from attempting to influence public schools to setting up an alternative educational system.