Posted on 07/28/2002 3:29:38 PM PDT by ppaul
My recent RazorMouth article on the Pledge of Allegiance was republished in two other venues, and I received a lot of angry email. One Christian mother from Florida wrote to tell me that, because her sister home-schooled her children, she had prayerfully re-evaluated whether she should do the same. Both she and her husband felt that God was clearly leading them to leave their children in the government schools. In her words:
one of the paragraphs in your article really angered and offended me. You stated, "and those Christian parents who insist on deluding themselves about the wonders of public education will remain where they are." Mr. Babka, if I am being "deluded" about the education of my children, then it is God who is doing the deluding, because it is His voice to which we are listening. She “shuddered to think of what our public school system, and the children in it, would be if ALL Christian parents pulled their children out.” She went on to point out the wonderful impact Christian kids have in government schools. Then she asked me, “How can my children be salt and light if they are doing their studies at the dining room table and not in a classroom full of kids who may have never heard the gospel?”
I understand her point, and appreciate her feeling that God is leading her, but we must remember that other parents likewise feel that God is also leading them to abandon the government schools. I would urge her to more prayer, because there are other issues to consider, and more than one way to provide salt and light to the world.
Young children are impressionable. They lack the experience for discernment. And it's a well-established fact that you only get back what you put in. The state has her children for more waking hours than she does. She can’t control whom they associate with, or what they hear, see, and read. Perhaps, because her children are teenagers, they’re already prepared to prosper in an atmosphere antagonistic to her values. But it seems risky to expect the same from an elementary school child.
More importantly, we must consider what would happen if all Christian parents removed their children from the government schools. I believe the system would fold for lack of business. Would this increase or decrease the salt and light we provide to the world? And what would be the state of our nation’s children?
Education would still continue, but now it would thrive—as it did before public schools were created 120 years ago (when having an 8th grade education meant that someone was ready for college). It would also cost far less and teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, and other social ills would almost certainly plummet. I believe this would add a great deal of salt and light to the world.
We also need to remember that schools teach according to their own institutional interests.
Catholic schools teach that the Pope, bishops, and priests, and their moral teachings, hold the answers, and that a sacramental life is pretty important.
Evangelical Christian schools teach that the Bible holds the answers, and that personal salvation and godly behavior are necessary.
Prep schools teach that the elites of science, business, and government hold the answers, and that hard work and academic success are necessary to join that elite.
So, what should we expect government schools to teach?
My thoughtful correspondent from Florida believes she is able to control what goes on at her local government school, because she is heavily involved in it. But she is just one person, and the stories of school districts thumbing their nose at parents are legion. Just because it's never happened to her doesn't mean it won’t. And given the power of teachers unions, does she believe she could force the school board to change its mind (especially in a major city)?
Now I'm not disputing that her children can be a godly example in their government school, but I do believe that the costs and the benefits don’t add up to a net increase for salt and light in the world. Quite simply, I don’t believe children are qualified to be missionaries, and they are therefore more likely to be corrupted by the godless environment of the government schools than to effectively change that environment.
Missionaries must meet certain qualifications before they're sent into a mission field. Children do not meet those qualifications. I would like my Florida correspondent, and other concerned parents like her, to seriously consider whether their children will be able to detect when they’re being brainwashed by environmentalism, drug-war propaganda, relative value systems, sex-ed, and diversity training.
Government schools naturally teach children to trust government, and learning to trust government means learning to question parental authority, worship Mother Earth, worship the state (hence the Pledge of Allegiance), and accept as normal that Heather Has Two Mommies.
It seems clear to me that home-schooled and Christian-schooled children can provide more salt and light to the world than government-schooled Christian kids for the simple reason that they are being trained all day, every day, to do exactly that.
Finally, we need to recognize that government schools are based on compulsion. They confiscate the wealth of people without children, and even worse, those who have kids but who are not using the system. In other words, Christian parents who feel God is leading them to teach their children elsewhere are forced to pay twice! The compulsion and confiscation of the government schools violates everything we Christians are supposed to believe in.
How can we end this immoral system?
If all Christian parents would remove their children then the system would collapse, and the money confiscated by the government schools would instead flow toward private, and godlier alternatives. This sea-change would be a sign that Christians have truly accepted their calling to be salt and light, and that God has jurisdiction over both the rearing of our children and our pocketbooks.
Link to article HERE.
Oh, yes it is, ppaul. I've tried to maintain a respectful and Christ-like attitude on this thread, and in return I've been called immoral, evil, and comparable to one sending one's Jewish aunt to vacation on the Rhine in 1942.
Some of you folks may call yourselves Christians, but many of you have gotten your own political opinions twisted up in self-righteous judgements of people and things of which you are totally ignorant.
Many of you aren't the kind of people I care to spend time with, and it isn't because I've drawn other conclusions, or disagree with some of your positions. It's because you are so blatantly intolerant of anyone who does not share your narrow worldview, that you are the antithesis of what a true Christian is supposed to be.
My children, my husband and I have been able to share the love of Christ in our school district. We have made a difference in this world because of our choice to stay involved in the public schools, and have not been ashamed of the Gospel. To tell the truth, I have rarely seen the ugliness in the 'world' that I have seen right here on this thread from some of you, and I seriously doubt that anyone lurking would be drawn to Christ by reading what you have written here. I hope you stay away from public schools. They don't need to see such negative examples of what Christianity is all about.
My prayer is that my life will reflect the love of the Lord wherever I am (even in anonymity on a forum such as this), and I thank God that our children, who have been nurtured at home, and strengthened by being in public schools, are not as filled with arrogance and hate as you so-called christians are.
I have pinged some of you who have been civil in this discussion, and I thank you for doing that, but I would caution you to see what kind of company you are keeping here.
You are correct; evil is too harsh a term. There are no doubt many parents who would like other educational options for their children, but are trapped by economics or other circumstances. There are probably others who, like almost everyone several decades ago, went to public school and actually got a decent education, and desperately want to believe that it is still happening with acceptable regularity. It isn't. The test scores prove it, even though the testing standards have been lowered several times to illustrate some artificial successes. Public education passed the point of diminishing returns well over thirty years ago; the more money thrown at the problem, the worse it gets. The only way to improve public education is to remove the compulsory funding, and force them to compete for the parents' education dollars on an even playing field. To advocate one additional cent of funding where this economic truth has been demonstrated to the extent it has with regard to public education, is fiscal insanity.
I didn't crawl out from under a rock, and my "stream of rhetoric" is not from ignorance. I have been acquainted with, and worked with many people in the education field. I have tried to "get involved" on a local level, and found out that the only involvement the public education industry wants is money and votes. I have read research papers and books on the subject for the past thirty years (Thomas Sowell is one excellent source, of many). In most metropolitan locales in the U.S., over half of public educators who have children, send them to private schools during their elementary years. Education majors overall have the lowest SAT scores of any group in acedemia. Etc., etc.
The lists of gloomy education facts go on and on, and public education gets worse and worse. Every twelve years a completely new crop of marks waltz into the system with their most precious trusts, and plunk them down on the NEA alter. The parents are forced, by guilt or direct coercion, to push for ever-increasing taxes to feed this monster. Their children are sent door-to-door selling trinkets and candy for the beast, just like the glassy-eyed Krishnas who once plagued our airports. Our colleges are filled with foreign students because American students are so dumbed-down now, in general, that they can't even qualify to be an Education major. A few more dollars will fix it though.
What a macabre, but unfortunately true, vision.
Most "fundies" come from a truncated world view that equates holiness with all the things you DON'T do. This is in marked contrast to some of the most effective Christians of the last century, like Dorothy Sayers, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, who advocated the "affirmative way." We draw near to God by receiving with thanksgiving, and enjoying before Him, all the wonderful tokens of His love -- marital sex, wine, opportunities for work, the creative endeavors of others.
Folks who appreciate echoes of divine affection in the world around them have a better chance of making a positive impact on that world.
Since I do not want my kids to be "conditioned" to the artificial world of socialist group-think, we home-school them. To allow them to flower in their personal development and relationships, we enjoy good movies with them, a wide variety of fiction, and a diverse array of friends. Since we have done our best to raise them as "inner-directed" people, with an internal gyroscope, they have an automatic head start over the "other-directed" souls around them who view life as a perpetual game of "mother, may I?" (use the bathroom, think, talk, socialize, any normal human interaction).
We have done our best to help each of them grow a solid personal core. We trust them now to make wise choices in their reading, listening, and associations. And we trust God to help them become wise when their choices are otherwise!
Worth repeating! "The time to hesitate is through. No time to wallow in the mire!"
200 years ago, chattel slavery was woven into our social fabric. England abolished the practice with the stroke of a pen, and phased the slaves into liberty over a 20-year period. Today, the majority of black physicians and engineers in America are of West Indian extraction.
Unitarians pushed for an immediate resolution, damn the consequences. 600,000 casualties and 140 years later, we are still living with those consequences.
The Methodists took an intermediate approach. Slave owners and slaves were all welcome to attend. (the balconies in older methodist churches were called "n-word heavens"). However -- slave owners were not permitted to hold office in the church.
This seems like a policy worth emulating today. Public education is deeply entrenched in our social order. We will need these concentration camps for the children of the irresponsible for another generation, perhaps. However -- church leaders should model now what will be the default Christian position then -- parental responsibility for their children's Christian education.
You are obviously an educated man, so I assume you know that most of the credit of working for and achieving an educated public goes to Christians in early America, just as the end of slavery was due to the abolitions, who were also Christians. The two situations are antithetical, not parallel.
An educated public is a necessity in America. Those of you who scorn public education have offered no viable alternative. If Christians abandon public schools, even more of them will become the stereotypical evil places that you imagine them all to be.
When you come up with a workable plan to educate American children who need an education to function in society, other than the public school system, come back and let me know. But shouting from the rooftops that Christians need to pull their kids out, and condemning as evil and immoral those of us whom God has led to stay in the public schools and work to improve them from within the system, is in the end harmful.
You may feel important by posting platitudes and accusing good people of throwing their children to the wolves, but you are doing nothing to solve the problem of a decaying public school system. We are.
Exactly. In both contexts, the issue is coercion. Public schools are not funded by voluntary contributions. Students are not there because they want to be, but because the law compells them to be. (If public education is so wonderful, why must folks be be forced to partake?)
An educated public is a necessity in America. Those of you who scorn public education have offered no viable alternative. ... When you come up with a workable plan to educate American children who need an education to function in society, other than the public school system, come back and let me know.
Before 1840, 99.9% of the American public was literate (not counting slaves or Indians). You can teach a child to read in about 30 hours. A Biblically faithful pulpit will ignite people with a passion for wisdom, so that they will thereupon seek out the information they need. You'd be amazed at what you can teach yourself, when properly motivated.
In-house tutors are good. Neighborhood schools, with teachers hired directly by the parents, can do well. (forget that tool of social engineering, the school bus!) Informal daycare centers are everywhere demand exists. Schools serving 3-block neighborhoods could be created by the same mechanism -- the personal actions of responsbile parents who wish to provide for their children.
We are operating from different paradigms. The Biblical view places the responsibility on the family to educate the children, and on mature people to educate themselves. Education is a responsibility, not a commodity. It is rooted in personal character, not in government largess.
You may feel important by posting platitudes and accusing good people of throwing their children to the wolves, but you are doing nothing to solve the problem of a decaying public school system. We are.
Did you ever hear the expression "Judas goat?" You are playing your role in keeping the machine in operation. God has better ideas than socialism when it comes to child rearing.
I simply have a difficult time with blanket statements you so often see in these threads. There are at least as many good public school systems as "bad" ones.
Also, IMO, my biggest hesitation about public schools isn't because of what's being taught in the classrooms, but rather the "socialization" that goes on particularly in Junior High and beyond. A good portion of kids are growing up these days with permissive parents, and they get involved in too many destructive behaviors that have become the "norm". It is difficult for a child to cope with the peer pressure to drink, take drugs, have sex, etc. Kids from Christian families who go to public high schools need particular attention paid to these pressures from the parents.
Then I hope you don't drive on public roads, have your home serviced by a sewer or public water system, or use public transportation.
All of these are "funded by involuntary contributions."
BTW, the problem I think you have is that YOU don't wish to volunteer. However, most good citizens don't have a problem with taxation. It's gone on for a good long time now.
I am perplexed by the radical shift in "conservative" thinking that now holds that ALL government is bad at ALL levels. Our predecessors would have thought that quite bizarre.
You presume to know what GOD wants for every person. You presume that you know how God wants US to raise our children, and that presumption is more the result of a political ideology than Biblical knowledge or any degree of spiritual understanding.
You may have noticed (though I doubt it), that those of us who send our kids to public schools do not presume to know what God is telling others to do. I do not believe for one minute that God has not directed homeschool mama, mamaduck or MotherBear to homeschool their kids, and yet you are sure that God has not directed us in how we have raised our children. The word that continues to come to mind to describe you and some of your friends here, is arrogant.
Let me leave this discussion with a verse for you, that you don't seem to be familiar with.
James 3: 13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.
May God grant you all both wisdom to distinguish the truth from your presumptions, and the humility you lack.
But are you not forgetting another aspect. About 20% of our students drop out of school. Another 20% graduate without being able to read their diploma. And math, we are almost last in testing among nations. This forty percent will be the next generation of failures. They have never learned to logically evaluate choices. They will be the ones having yet another generation of children without a family, they will be our addicts, they will fill our prisons. They will be the ones led by the demagogue. They will be the ones who cannot, "critically think". Your term. They seldom vote,thank goodness, but when they do it is for those polititians that are in the process of destroying our freedoms.
For the past 6 years I have been tutoring the floatsome and jetsome that have been ejected or taken from our public schools. I always give them an Iowa Test series at their very start. The average of these kids is a pathetic 12 percentile. Their math average is less then 10 percentile.
I am very much involved in the world of the professional educator. I have spent many thousands of dollars taking those courses required for certification dictated by educational professionals here in Ohio. Every course is one of psychobabble. I have a degree in math and a graduate degree. Yet I am not qualified to teach math, (Incidentally, the average Iowa test score of my students in math is 59 percentile after only one year of instructions.
How can these students succeed in life? How can they make wise choices if they are not educated? This is a much more all pervasive fact than condoms on bananas. It also is probably far more destructive.
Godspeed, The Dilg
Kids from Christian families who go to Christian schools need particular attentionpaid to these pressures from the parents. There is very little difference there, which is why, as you have previously stated so well, the importance is in what children are taught at home to equip them to deal with social pressures everywhere (even in their church youth groups.)
Godspeed, The Dilg
No argument there. I volunteered in our elementary schools, but since I have a teaching certificate, I subsitute taught in our kids' Jr. High and High Schools, so saw what was going on from the inside out. (It was not a 'cesspool' nor was it 'evil.' It was a positive learning environment with teachers who cared about them.)
I have no argument with those parents who sense God's leading to take their kids out of public schools. My problem is with those who level all kinds of accusations against those of us who have been called by GOD to stay in public schools, or even with those who say we just got lucky, and that our kids are rare exceptions. It's just not true, and as a Christian, I think truth is important. Obviously, some others on this thread don't care what the truth is. I've confused them with the facts, and their minds are already made up.
Interestingly enough, you can make the Biblical case that road building is a legitimate function of civil government. And that septic tanks are better than sewage treatment plants. Polio epidemics apparently clustered around sewage-contaminated waterways.
BTW, the problem I think you have is that YOU don't wish to volunteer.
Actually, I spent 10 good years as a volunteer fireman ;-)
However, most good citizens don't have a problem with taxation. It's gone on for a good long time now.
When the state starts claiming more than God does (10% of income), it's gotten too big for its britches.
To support a viable civil society, you need a "division of labor" between family, church, and civil government. The "seperation of family and state" is at least as important as the "seperation of church and state."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.