On the 'sin' of sending kids to public school

Compulsory, government schooling is inherently wrong. Education is the responsibility of the parent, not the government.

Any individual school MAY be fine, but the system itself is ripe for corruption and for uses OTHER than educating children. That is why many thinking people reject the concept of it.

It's not "for the sake of it" that most people "bash" it.

Couldn't agree more.....although I would add the word critically "thinking people reject........"

FWIW-

I have never disputed that. Or even implied that I do.

I didn't mean to imply you did........if I came across that way, please accept my apology.

BTW, the correct description is government school. Any school which is open to the general public is a public school.

I'll go along with your terminology of government school. But we get into a problem with other definitions of "public." There are many "private" schools that will accept anyone from the general public, providing they are willing to pay the tuition for attendance. (You know where I'm coming from with that, I'm sure)

I'm not, and have never been a huge proponent of "government" schools, I am fortunate in having been able to find a system with which I am happy. Finding it was not an easy task, but one I felt to be necessary.

I spent 12 years in Catholic schools and we did not spend 6 hours a day God-focused, nor did we pray constantly.

And? What do you conclude from this?

This is one reason why we are homeschooling and not sending our children to parochial schools. The curriculum that we use is suffused with Catholic doctrine. We don't teach our children to compartamentalize religious life by relegating God to "religion class."

Why do you choose to ignore the fact that God is mentioned in my child's school?

Because I figured you wouldn't "get" my answer. You sound like a Catholic who's comfortable with the compartamentalization of religion. In other words, your schooling "worked."

Your argument is a very weak argument. Some prayer is better than no prayer, but an opening prayer to God doesn't compare to a curriculum that is suffused with Catholic doctrine. All subjects are ordered to God as their final end.

It also seems to me that you know little about the origins of public schooling in the United States, which was explicitly anti-Catholic.

Why do you suppose we have a parochial school system in America? This image may provide a clue.

The school system that Horace Mann brought to America was inspired by the totalitarian Prussian system (where we get "kindergarten"). Horace Mann was a Unitarian and a utopian, who sought to wrest control of education from parents. His plan for compulsory schooling was picked up on by American Protestants, who saw in it a way to force the children of the new Irish Catholic immigrants into non-denominational Protestant schools.

The American bishops reacted by creating their own system of schools (sadly patterned after Mann's Prussian schools) in order to thwart this attack on Catholic families.

In reaction, many states passed laws (Blaine Amendments) forbidding aid to "private" (i.e., Catholic) schools, thus making it more difficult for poor Catholic immigrants to provide a Catholic education for their children.

The American Nativist movement and its hostility to Catholic immigrants at this time can't be overstated. It continued into the '20s, which saw the landmark case of Pierce vs. Society of Sisters.

The fundamental case came in the 1920s, Pierce vs. the Society of Sisters. An initiative backed by the Ku Klux Klan and approved by Oregon voters on November 7, 1922 would have required all schoolchildren in that state to attend public schools beginning in 1926. The issue was promptly taken to court by the Society of Sisters and the Hill Military Academy. In 1925, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law.
“The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only,” ruled the Court. “The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
The Court thus made it clear the government has no right to compel children to attend a public school as long as they are otherwise being educated, whether in a religious or secular nonpublic school, by tutors, through home schooling, or by some other means. For those who are concerned about schools being started by witches or fanatics, the Court also said the government had the right to reasonably regulate nonpublic schools and limit anything inimical to the public interest.

Of course, anti-Catholicism persists to this day. And Mann's system has worked probably beyond his own wild imaginings. Few people can imagine a different system.

As a Catholic homeschooling parent, I can tell you that the difference is enormous. My children tell me stories from their First Eucharist classes that are pretty sad.

I don't doubt it, but I think that those parents are simply abdicating their own responsibility to teach their children their faith at all. I just don't believe you have to homeschool to teach your children your faith. As you point out, homeschooling certainly creates different opportunities to teach faith, but I can't accept that non-homeschooling parents can't effectively teach their faith, and it seems that we agree on that point.

Children are missing out on a God-focused education for 6 hours per day, 30 hours per week.

I guess in my mind, teaching a child history or geography or calculus isn't part of a God-focused education. I see a distinction between the academic and spiritual aspects, and I see it as my role as parent (homeschooling or not) to teach my child how to fuse those two and include God in his life every day. I see the role of the school as educating my child in the academic sense (with my assistance, of course), not raising him.

How can parents form children when they have little control over their education?

I don't believe sending my children to a public school (or private school, or Catholic school, or any school) means I have "little control over their education."

Thirdly, because God is never mentioned in school, children learn either that: 1) questions regarding God are not worth studying 2) we don't study God because we can't know anything about God with any certainty 3) God is not related to important things like academics and career prep 4) people are hopelessly at odds regarding God so it's best that we don't even try to talk about Him 5) God doesn't exist 6) important stuff happens at school/ practice your personal religious preferences at home 7) important stuff happens at school/ home is just a place to hang your hat 8) society has determined that God is not worth discussing at school/ keep your personal religious preferences at home.

I think this is the real heart of our disagreement. Even if my children attend public school, my husband and I will be working to ensure that they do not learn any such ideas. I don't want them learning them from public school (or anywhere else... it is not as though public school is the only influence on a child). To the extent that school instills or even suggests them, they will be countermanded at home, and I intend for my husband and I to remain the pre-eminent influence in our children's lives. And I have a lot more than six hours per day with my children to exercise that influence. My goal is to build a strong faith in my children so that they can meet the challenges to it that they will face in the outside world, including the sort of attitudes you describe. I just don't see children absorbing the ideas you describe from attending public school, however.

Parents have the natural, God-given duty to instruct their children, not teachers.

I could not agree more. I just don't agree that sending your children to public school is an abdication of that duty on the part of the parent.

As usual, I'm getting to this thread too late but just wanted to respond to your post.

We're going to have to agree to disagree, but I want to respond to this point:

I guess in my mind, teaching a child history or geography or calculus isn't part of a God-focused education.

It certainly can be and should be. Just about every page in my children's science books begin with, "see how God made this..." Similarly with geography. This is less so with elementary mathematics, but in later years children should see the connection between eternal ideas (i.e., mathematics) and their eternal existence in the divine Mind. History, at the most abstract level, is the playing out of ideas in time. History demonstrates the consequences of bad philosophy. For younger children (and also for older children), history should include exemplary stories of heroic virtue.

I see a distinction between the academic and spiritual aspects,

This is a false distinction, and a very serious mistake. All academic studies point ultimately to God.

All academic studies point ultimately to God.

I think this can be taught by parents even if children attend public schools. I still believe that it is possible for children to learn what I would term "academic" subjects in public school, with their parents providing the spiritual context in which the child lives his or her life and applies their academic learning.

Thanks for the ping. Interesting thread.

Not everyone can afford to homeschool their kids. As a further alternative, we have been discussing inexpensive ways to fast track kids through high school to avoid the liberal agenda and other idiocies:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315730/posts?page=84#84

Unfortunately my thread title was not well thought out, because some parents might instinctively skip over it due to attached stigma, whether real or imagined.