Posted on 02/08/2008 3:57:52 AM PST by Man50D
Only months after a new state law effectively banned "mom" and "dad" from California schools, a total of 600,000 students could follow because of what has been described as the "repudiation" of 2,000 years of Christian morality, according to leaders of a new campaign assembling education alternatives.
The campaign is called California Exodus, and is being headed by Ron Gleason, pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Yorba Linda, who said while the country excels in social, economic, scientific and political accomplishments, it "gets low grades on the education of its children."
The issue is the state legislature's adoption of Senate Bill 777, which requires only positive portrayals of homosexual, bisexual, transgender and other alternative lifestyle choices.
"First, the law allowed public schools to voluntarily promote homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality. Then, the law required public schools to accept homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual teachers as role models for impressionable children. Now, the law has been changed to effectively require the positive portrayal of homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality to six million children in California government-controlled schools," said Randy Thomasson, chief of the Campaign for Children and Families and one of those who originally called for an abandonment of public schools.
"To rescue their children, loving parents need to find an alternative to government schools, and every church needs to make it a priority to help parents be in charge of their children's education again," he said.
He has condemned public school districts as "no longer a safe emotional environment for children" under the new law, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that will introduce children as young as kindergarten to the homosexuality and other alternative lifestyle choices.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Our opinions are equally valid. The difference is that I know the truth about my life, and you can only guess.
Yet you fail to see that your interrogations of public school teachers and parents, including those in post 299, are essentially the same.
Matthew 7:1-5 comes to mind.
Indeed. Your school may be the exception to the rule. Clearly your State is not, see the link above. Planned Parenthood is working with the apostate Governor of yours to bring evil to your school, so you need to be alert. Since you take the government money, you end up following the governments rules. The day will likely come when you have to choose.
More yawns.
Your state requires approval for home schooling, but what about a parent or group of parents hiring a certified tutor to teach the kids in your home?
Proverbs 15:12
I know what our current Governor is planning, much better than you do. But Virginia is a funny state - he will not be the Governor much longer. The next one may change things entirely. Maybe not. We shall see.
LOL!
You’ve got to be kidding me?
Yes. You can call uncle anytime you would like.
The kindest thing that can be said about your posts on this subject is that you are poorly informed and confused. Let’s look at one of your statements:
“Figures are funny things - one can do anything with them they want. Do I believe that Dr. Shortt made this claim? Yes. Do I think he massaged the data to have it meet what he believes? Yes. Is he lying? I don’t know. It depends on how massaged the data is and how much he believes he twisted it. Not my call. He can answer for his actions just like I can.”
Your second post fails to acknowledge that the statement above was utterly reckless and completely false. As I pointed out before, Shortt had nothing to do with the official SBC committee that produced the study, so he plainly had nothing to do with “massaging numbers” or “twisting” data. By the way, just to avoid further foolish statements: 1. neither Moore (not a Baptist) nor Pinckney played any role in the study, 2. The Southern Baptist Council on Family Life is a high level entity within the SBC, and 3. the chairman of the Council when it produced the report was Tom Elliff, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Further, all that Shortt, Pinckney, Moore, and others like Roger Moran have done is point out what the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life reported. Since those conclusions have been publicly reported, no one could possibly be “lying” about them unless he deliberately misstated what was reported. If you actually had done some simple research you would have found that Pinckney,Moore, et. al. have accurately stated the Council’s conclusion on this subject.
Having failed to acknowledge the irresponsibility of your first post you then shift your position to one of whether the studies or reports meet your high standards of statistical analysis:
“When anyone makes a claim with such forcefulness and with ardor, it is their responsibility to produce the survey, study, and its methodology to back up the claims. No one from the SBC or Dr. Shortt has produced anything to support any type of figure other than a general ‘this is what we think type of thing.”
With respect to the first statement about “responsibility”, perhaps you ought to take it up with Morris Chapman who is the Executive Director of the SBC and Tom Elliff and the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life. Perhaps they would provide that information to you - or perhaps they have confidentiality obligations. In any event, the leadership of the SBC, which did have access to the internals on the study, thought that it was good enough to report. In any event,
As for your “No one from the SBC or Dr. Shortt has produced anything to support any type of figure other than a general ‘this is what we think type of thing” comment, you are showing that you don’t even read posts clearly, let alone know anything much about this issue or the people whose views you carelessly misrepresent. I pointed out in my last post that LifeWay (an agency of the SBC)recently conducted another study that found 70% were leaving but that, as I pointed out, a substantial number were returning. I also pointed out that the public internals on the LifeWay study make what got reported even worse than it appears. If you want all of the details on the LifeWay study, perhaps you ought to take it up with Thom Rainer, who leads that organization. BTW, before he became head of LifeWay, Rainer was an academic. One of the journal articles he published indicated that perhaps over 50% of church members are unregenerate.
Now, let’s put the shoe on the other foot. What evidence do you have for alleging that the LifeWay study or the Council report were casual “this is what we think kind of things”?
Let’s turn to another one of your casual and irresponsible comments: “In fact, while you ask me if I have any proof to back up my claim, in the very next paragraph you yourself question his statement...”
The “his”, of course, is a reference to Shortt. As was pointed out, none of the studies or statements in the studies were his. He has only pointed out that they were made and that other ministries are reporting similar kinds of problems. None of Shortt, Pinckney, or Moore have ever said that that the SBC or other reports are perfectly accurate. But this is not the main point here. The paragraph that you say questions Shortt’s alleged statement IS EXACTLY what Shortt and others have been saying for several years. Namely, while the exact degree of accuracy of the denominational studies isn’t known (and no one I know of disputes that there is a serious problem in the church regarding the loss of young people), the discussion of how many children leave church is a misplaced concern.
Shortt and others have repeatedly said that the real issue is not whether people are sitting in church on Sunday morning (although that might be a first approximation of the problem), the question is whether they - children in this case - are actually Christian. If you actually knew something about the people you accuse of lying or massaging or twisting data you would have known this.
On this much more important issue, the evidence from Barna Research Group and the National Study of Youth and Religion indicate that the problem is far worse than even the LifeWay study would indicate. Barna has found, for example, that a majority of church going teens think Christ sinned while on earth, fewer than 10% believe that there is any such thing as absolute moral truth, and a number of other things which, if held, would make it impossible to consider someone regenerate. The NSYR is the largest secualr academic study of youth and religion ever conducted. Its purpose was to determine if “religion” has a positive impact on the lives of teens (the researchers found that it did). Nevertheless, in conducting the research the investigators were astonished at the lack of knowledge that teens had of the religion they professed. In fact, the lead investigators concluded that no matter what the teens professed, for the vast majority their actual religion was something the researchers termed “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” They also made it clear that MTD is not Christianity.
You accuse me of being illogical. I would suggest that you cannot understand an argument when you are so poorly informed.
I really don’t know. I don’t have kids, but the continued degradation of the public schools makes it more and more attractive to keep kids out of them.
I’m considering the business opportunities that presents. In particular, I’m considering a service that helps parents form home schooling groups, find teachers/tutors for those subjects where the parents lack expertise and provide curriculum/state paperwork assistance.
I teach at the college level. Last Wednesday afternoon, my college students needed to calculate a 25% increase in sales using Excel. Three students out of 60 were able to write a formula to do that. The other 57 either sat with a stupid look on their faces, added .25 to the starting sales figure, or multiplied by .25, giving a 75% decrease in sales. A couple of students divided by .25, giving a 300% increase in sales.
Every single one of these students had received a C or better in high school algebra 1 and algebra 2.
I can’t imagine any parent wanting to send their kids to such schools. Given that, the home school option is likely to be a growing industry for the foreseeable future.
Several years ago, I had a student who claimed to have (1) made less than 500 on the SAT and (2) been accepted to a college.
I can't imagine a college accepting such a student, but apparently some colleges will do anything for those tuition dollars.
The government schools are, for the most part, failures as schools. They are great at creating the ‘modern’ voter. No need for knowledge when they know how to vote for Nany State.
“I had a student who claimed to have (1) made less than 500 on the SAT and (2) been accepted to a college.”
If the 500 is a total, I’ll have to agree.
Most college students have total math and verbal of 1000-1100. The good ones are over 1200. Since the scores were upped by about 50 points, a 1100 isn’t what it used to be. I can’t recall the last time I got a student with higher than 550 on math.
You might want to check to find out what the requirements really are. I believe that the regulations for the state apply to all the districts in the state. They are not free to choose to tell you something different. School districts like to tell you things that are not required. If they can get away with it, so much the better for them. They’ll make life even more miserable for the next person.
I live in NY, which is supposed to be one of the worst states to homeschool in because of the allegedly *burdensome* requirements. They’re not. What we have to do is submit a list of textbooks used, or a plan of instruction, or some other things. I always just sent them the list of textbooks. They then tell you if they fulfill the requirements, but it’s not approval.
What the schools did try to do is tell you that you had to submit a year’s worth of plan of instruction ahead of time, something regs didn’t dictate. Many superintendents are on a power trip and like to try to tell you to do things they aren’t allowed to do. They’re bound by any regulations just as much as you are. My guess is that you do NOT have to have to get their approval. As far as I know there is no state that requires it.
Do you belong to HSLDA? They could answer that question for you.
I learned all my grammar from Rod & Staff English at the grade school level. It’s the Mennonite publishing house and the curriculum is relatively inexpensive. They do great with the mechanics of the language. I learned more homeschooling my kids than I did in all twelve years of school. I finally got the education I missed the first time around.
You can’t get more to the right that BJU.
Do you pay taxes?
By your reasoning, that would be participating in evil since so much tax money goes to support the ACLU, taxpayer funded abortions, the schools that you so despise, benefits to illegal immigrants.
Yea I know you got your little excuses but it all comes down to you want to be somebody and you ain’t.
Not to mention corrupt, liberal politicians who ceaselessly work to take away more of our freedoms every day.
You can’t cure stupid!
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