Homeschool News & Views

from Homeschool Helpers

Feb. 2, 2007

Greetings. This is Dan White with Homeschool News & Views, Issue number 8.

World Magazine, in the January 27 issue, had an editorial about homeschooling by Joel Belz, the founder of the magazine. World Magazine is a Christian news magazine, such as Time or Newsweek, except from a Christian perspective instead of an anti-Christian perspective. It is not a preaching or evangelistic magazine, just a Christian news magazine.

I think it is the best news magazine. Of course, they had to go through a lot of tough times getting this periodical going. The established news magazines, Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report and the like had shifted farther left, so Belz and others saw the need for a news magazine based on the premise that God exists and that Christ is Saviour. However, they had a great battle on their hands, going against the established institutions in the media, and going against the customary apathy among those who call themselves Christian. They did fight through the opposition and apathy, though, and I believe they now have several hundred thousand subscribers, and are an important newsmagazine.

There is a lesson in that. There exists in the US today a number of Christian resources, such as World Magazine, Christian radio, Christian music of all different types, Christian TV and satellite services, and now Christian movies. These exist only because someone stood up and marched against the crowd.

Don Wildmon began the American Family Association several decades ago. He got so fed up with what was happening in America that he gave up the security of his church pastorate and started an organization to try to save the family in America. That was a generation ago, and Wildmon was certainly right when he saw the direction the country was heading. Today AFA has a network of hundreds of Christian radio stations. AFA has been very active in opposing the take over of the anti-Christian left in America. A recent example was when Wal-Mart began to openly support gay marriage organizations. AFA called for a protest and a two day shopping boycott of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart was immediately inundated with hundreds of thousands of emails – that’s right, actually hundreds of thousands of emails -- and they could see the handwriting on the checkout scanner. Wal-Mart immediately reversed their position on supporting gay marriage organizations, even if their heart remains the same.

My point is that America owes a lot to Don Wildmon. This paunchy, bald man with a soft voice, a mild manner and a Mississippi drawl that is as long as the word Mississippi has affected the whole nation of the United States for the better.

Like Don Wildmon, I am paunchy and I am bald, but unfortunately the similarities between us end there, I’m afraid.

All of these Christian resources that we have today such as home school materials, American Family Association, World Magazine, Christian radio, Christian music, Christian TV and now Christian movies are blessings to us only because someone had the courage and faith to stand up when most everyone else was sitting down.

That’s what the whole homeschooling movement is about. In homeschooling, there are more curriculum providers than a person could reasonably evaluate, I think. It’s just astounding to see all the material that’s available. Originally there was almost none. Somebody had to step forward and march through the opposition and the apathy to create those curricula.

Because a few people are bold enough to blaze a trail, many others can then follow. Apathy is a Christian’s Achilles heel, to throw in a pagan metaphor. When someone tries to make a bold Christian effort, surely the biggest obstacle is not the opposition of the liberals, but the apathy of the Christians.

In the World Magazine column, Belz commented on a recent Public Broadcasting System segment on homeschooling. This segment can be viewed on the internet under the Religion and Ethics link at pbs.org. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1020/cover.html

Quoting from Belz’ column:

“The interviewer brings on Professor Robert Reich from Stanford University, who from his lofty academic perch worries that the state might find itself shortchanged in its “interest in knowing children are growing up to become well rounded public citizens.””

The professor indicates that government schools turn children into what they call well rounded public citizens, while Christian homeschools do not, according to him.

What, then, is the one biggest difference between homeschool graduates and public school graduates? What is the one thing, more than anything else, which is different in the two groups?

The homeschool graduates are overwhelmingly Christian. The public school graduates overwhelmingly are not.

Therefore, we will conclude that Bible believing Christians are not well rounded citizens, while Bible rejecting humanists are -- according to the left. Well rounded means diversity, which means to accept all life views as being good, which means that homosexuality is also good – according to the liberals.

German courts, in ruling against homeschooling, have argued that homeschooling causes parallel societies.

In other words, they fear there would be Christians, who believe that Christ is the only way to life, and there would be humanists, who believe there is no one way to life. Parallel societies.

What does that say about government education?

Think about that. When the German courts forbid parents to homeschool because it causes parallel societies, what does that show about the government school systems?

It shows that government education intends to control the moral view of their students. They intend to mold them so they won’t grow up in a parallel society, which means they try to program them so they won’t grow up to be Christian. They deliberately turn the kids from Christian families into non-Christians.

And then they are considered well rounded.

Belz continues about the PBS segment:

“If parents can control every aspect of a kid’s education,” the professor frets, “shield them from exposure to the things that the parent deems sinful or objectionable, screen in only the things which accord to their convictions – and not allow them exposure to the world of a democracy – will the children grow up then basically in the image of their parents, servile to their own parents’ beliefs?”

On the other hand, let’s reverse that. If the government can control every aspect of a kid’s education;

shield them from exposure to the things that the government deems objectionable, such as Christ;

screen in only the things which the government wants taught, such as pro-homosexual pluralism;

and not allow them exposure to the world where Christian beliefs are allowed – will the children grow up then basically in the image of that socialist government, servile to that government’s beliefs?

Absolutely.

And that is what has been happening in the US. The oldest generation of Americans is 2/3 evangelical Christian. The youngest generation of 1/7 Christian. The Godless socialist school system is doing what we just described. The children are growing up in the image of a Godless government, servile to the government’s Godless beliefs. And the most important core of that belief is to get rid of the idea that there is just one way to life – to get rid of Christ.

Let’s look at what the expert professor said again.

“If parents can control every aspect of a kid’s education, shield them from exposure to the things that the parent deems sinful or objectionable, screen in only the things which accord to their convictions – and not allow them exposure to the world of a democracy – will the children grow up then basically in the image of their parents, servile to their own parents’ beliefs?”

And let’s reverse that again.

If government can control every aspect of a kid’s education;

expose them to the things that the parent deems sinful or objectionable;

screen in only the things which accords to the government’s convictions;

– will the children then grow up contrary to the image of their parents, hostile to their own parents’ beliefs?

Absolutely.

The government schools will mold most of the minds of the Christian youth to be hostile to their Christian parents’ beliefs.

We come, then, to the natural question.

Which is better –

that parents control their child’s education,

or that the government controls the parents’ child’s education?

This is a similar question to taxation.

The conservative view is that a citizen’s wealth is his own, and he then gives government a little to run basic services.

The socialist’s view is that the government owns all resources, and it then grants its citizens some resources to live on.

It is ironic that liberals often don’t even want to have kids of their own, yet they want to control your kids.

Further, the liberal professor Reich indicates that he fears that these young homeschooled children will grow up in the image of their parents.

So – is that bad?

Exactly what is it about these Christian homeschool parents that makes him not want their children growing up in the image of their parents? What is it that these Christian homeschool parents are doing? Are they involved in subversion, as Muslims are around the world? No, not at all. These Christians are involved in conversion, not subversion. These Christian homeschool parents do their jobs, pay their taxes, obey the laws, and are exemplary citizens.

So what is so terrible about these people that the liberals don’t want the kids growing up in the image of their parents?

Only that they try to follow Christ.

The Bible says that Yahweh God made man in His own image. Paul said to let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus, the Messiah Yahshua. That is what the left objects to.

The World Magazine column goes on, discussing the PBS segment on homeschooling:

“then the professor shows how generous and liberal minded he is, by adding that “ I’m not anti-homeschooling in the sense that I want to see homeschooling banned. I just want good regulations to apply to those parents who choose to homeschool.”

“Reich says that without some kind of regulation, the states won’t have any way of knowing who is being homeschooled, how well they are doing, and who is not being schooled at all.”

Joel Belz continues, “The idea, to be sure, is to have those regulations drawn up by those people who are already setting such a high standard for education for the nation at large – the state departments of education, the federal government, and the National Education Association.”

That’s satire. You probably picked that up.

What type of regulations do the educational bureaucrats like?

The Home School Legal Defense Association recently sent out an email alert for Missouri, concerning what a Republican member of the legislature said on a radio interview.

“According to our member, Representative Kingery stated that he was in the process of writing or "thinking about writing" a bill that would "Increase accountability, require monthly reports, require teacher certification, [and] have all curriculum approved by the school board" for homeschoolers in Missouri.  

Representative Kingery participated in the same program today” (Jan. 5) “and had this to say: “Homeschooling kids are our kids too, and we want to make sure they are getting the best education possible.””

For the government school bureaucracy to control curriculum is to kick Christ out of the curriculum. If you control the curriculum then you control the teaching. That’s all.

Moreover Kingery said that he was going to require that homeschool teachers be certified teachers. Now we recall that Horace Mann, in setting up government controlled education in America, insisted on teacher certification by the government more than any other point. His group said that if they taught the teachers what to teach, they would teach what they were taught.

Teacher certification is bureaucratic control. That is one of the greatest weaknesses of the public school system. The most successful people in the country cannot teach their subject in the public schools, because they are not certified. The only ones who can teach certain subjects are those who are certified but have never actually successfully done what they are teaching.

Look at this –

What would it mean if Kingery is successful in requiring that Missouri homeschool parents be certified teachers?

That would mean the end of homeschooling in Missouri.

What homeschool parent has the time to go to college or to go back to college to become a certified teacher? If they did that, how would they have time to teach their kids? Further, after enduring years of left wing indoctrination in college training, then they wouldn’t want to homeschool their kids. They would be certified educational bureaucrats.

Kingery himself was a public school employee, an educational bureaucrat, for over thirty years, part of that time as a truant officer. He still thinks his job is to get all the kids into the public schools.

The regulations that educational bureaucrats like Kingery and Reich want to put on homeschoolers are not for the benefit of homeschoolers but for the benefit of the educational bureaucrats.

Bruce Shortt is a Baptist homeschooler who has introduced resolutions at Baptist conventions calling on all Baptists to get their children out of the public schools. These resolutions have all failed. Shortt commented in an interview at the end of the PBS segment, “education seems to be one of those areas in which the failures astonishingly insist on trying to regulate the successful.”

Shortt later told World Magazine: Reich “fears that these children will have a world view of which he disapproves and which he finds threatening….His real concern is not ‘ethical autonomy’ or the welfare of children in any conventional sense; it is idealogical control.”

Sure, it is. But the left doesn’t really say that. They say something like homeschooled kids are socially deprived, or that they care about homeschooled kids, too. What they desire is idealogical control. That ultimately means they want to eliminate the teaching that Christ is the only way to life from all schools in America, homeschools and church schools, and ultimately from all homes in America. But they will not say that until after it has happened.

Some Christian homeschool families worry that the government will make homeschooling illegal. The real threat is that the liberals will make being a Christian illegal. We talked about some of the folks who have made a stand against this spiritual attack against America. You need to make a stand, too. Stand up and speak out – with your family, your friends, your congregation, your community, your newspaper, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

This is Dan White with Homeschool Helpers. God bless the Christian homeschoolers.