Posted on 03/14/2005 2:54:06 AM PST by JohnHuang2
On the 'sin' of sending kids to public school Author shares harsh campus realities, urges parents to pull children Posted: February 7, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
The man who helped push the issue of public education onto the national agenda of the Southern Baptist Convention has written a new book that blows the lid off government schools, showing parents the kind of worldview and values their children are influenced by 180 days a year.
Bruce Shortt, author of "The Harsh Truth About Public Schools," presents myriad reasons why government institutions are failing America's children and thumbing their noses at parents with a religious worldview.
As WorldNetDaily reported, last year Shortt helped spearhead an unsuccessful effort to have the Southern Baptist Convention pass a resolution urging its members to remove their children from public school.
In "The Harsh Truth About Public Schools," Shortt, writing from a biblical perspective, presents rigorous research about the agenda and effect of government schooling on the nation's young people.
Shortt especially wants to educate Christian parents, millions of whom send their kids off to public school every day.
"Contrary to what many Christians have been led to believe, there is no such thing as a 'neutral' education," Shortt writes. "All education is religious and conveys a worldview, and there is no more important decision that we make as parents than how we educate our children."
Continues Shortt: "Unfortunately, Christian parents allow an aggressively anti-Christian institution to form the minds of their children, and the fruit of that choice is bitter. The overwhelming majority of children from evangelical families leave the church within two years after they graduate from high school; only 9 percent of evangelical teens believe that there is any such thing as absolute moral truth; and, our children are being forcibly indoctrinated to believe that homosexual behavior is acceptable."
While Shortt wants Christian parents who use the government schools to read the book, he also encourages homeschooling parents to read it.
"Homeschool parents must have this book to minister to their Christian friends and neighbors, pastors and skeptical relatives. Our government-school habit is sowing the wind, and unless Christians turn from this gross sin we will reap a whirlwind that is unimaginable," Shortt says.
In the book, Shortt documents the pitfalls of public schools, saying the anti-Christian thrust of the governmental school system produces inevitable results: "moral relativism (no fixed standards), academic dumbing down, far-left programs, near absence of discipline and the persistent but pitiable rationalizations offered by government education professionals."
Shortt also urges pastors to read the book so they might "understand why the church can no longer abdicate its historic role in the education of our children."
Says Short: "'The Harsh Truth About Public Schools' makes it clear why no Christian child should be left behind in government schools. Our Christian children are perishing because parents and pastors lack knowledge. The information in this book exposes the 'salt and light' and the 'our schools are different' rationalizations for educating Christian children in pagan schools for the contemptible falsehoods they are.
"Any parent or pastor who genuinely desires to be faithful in the education of Christian children needs to find out what the public schools are actually doing, rather than relying on what they are saying they are doing or on memories of the public schools as they may have existed 10, 20 or 30 years ago."
Shortt makes his argument by citing a school district in Texas.
"There is no public school district in the country that has more Christians in the community or in the schools than that of Plano, Texas," he said. "In fact, the largest and most powerful church in the state of Texas, Prestonwood Baptist, is located in Plano. Yet, it took a court order to force the Plano schools to allow Christian school children to privately give classmates Christmas gifts that had a Christian message. Moreover, the school district had even prohibited schoolchildren from bringing red and green napkins to the school 'holiday' parties for fear the colors might remind someone of Christmas.
"The truth is that the public school policy and curriculum decisions that matter to Christians are not made locally. They are largely dictated by federal and state court decisions, federal and state legislation and regulations, and the teachers' union and other professional associations connected with the public schools."
But what about reforming the public schools? Isn't that a solution?
Responds Shortt: "Public schools cannot be reformed to provide a Christian education, and the evidence is overwhelming that even conventional secular reforms to reinstate traditional academic and moral standards will continue to fail. But even if you think that we should nevertheless try to reinstate traditional academic and moral standards in the schools, taking your children out is the most effective thing you can do to help the children whose parents have left them behind in the public schools. Only the threat of a collapse of the entire public school system offers even the remotest prospect of positive change. Traditional reform efforts are a waste of time.
"Even if you believe that there is nothing wrong with institutionalizing Christian children in public schools, you need to read this book because you may be wrong. Remember, you only get one chance to educate your children. There are no do-overs."
"I never said that you personally was a child abuser..."
Obviously abused as a child......
Luke 10:25-28On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
Matthew 18:6
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
1) the people i know who went to catholic school were beaten by nuns. on the other hand, they were better educated, academically, maybe not socially.
2) there are very good, historically proven reason for the SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.
3) does anyone have any constructive ideas instead of name-calling and saying what's wrong with everything?
.......i am curious, if you could have it YOUR way, what would that be?
because i don't think that we all agree. in a public forum , like schools, we must compromise and find a common ground.
some things, like religion, are personal choices. probably the biggest differences i can think of are evolution vs. creationism and forms of sex eduacation and health. i can understand the dilema if your religion teaches something and your school teaches something else, what else do you think the "liberal" education system is teaching your children that you don't agree with?
Matthew 10:28Education that purports to prepare children for life, yet neglects the very purpose of life (knowing, loving and serving God) and jeopardizes a child's salvation, is far worse than any kind of physical abuse.Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
"1) the people i know who went to catholic school were beaten by nuns."
Spare the rod and spoil the child is not just the province of Nuns. "Beaten"? Perhaps a bit of hyperbole?
Show me where public schools are compromising vis-a-vis issues that never used to get them so worked up....like Christmas (AKA "Winter Holiday")
Who are you to judge how my child is being educated? You know nothing of me, my family, my child or her education, or our religious beliefs........as I do not wear them on my sleeve nor force them upon others.
Christmas and Easter are celebrated in the public school my daughter attends.....not Winter or Spring Holiday.
Rare to be sure. Wait till someone gets "offended".
I realize it is rare...........but I'm not so sure anyone is going to be getting offended anytime soon.
Interesting. What school district is this? These brave souls neeed to be commended!
Accomack County, VA.
We can settle this out of court.....you get two years postgrad study with Sister Mary Elephant.
Must be nice. Congrats. Wish they were like that here in Florida still.
I haven't been near a public school in Florida since the mid 1970s, so I have no idea about them.
As my husband said to a friend a week or so ago - to get the level of academic, disciplinary, and even moral standards we have found in this school system in Delaware we would have had to move to an area we could not afford to live, I would have to go back to work full time and one of us would have to work a 2nd job in order to afford the cost of a private education. It's one of the main reasons we now live in Virginia.
My comments regard schooling without God, which includes government schools and some nongovernment schools.
Christians protest every other book used (let's tie everyone up with the evolution-creation debate), blacks think Tom Sawyer is racist, atheists demand Bibles be removed. If the public schools were to address moral/ethics issues some would be suing and outraged because that's a parents job. yadda yadda yaddaI think it's true that there's practically nothing that everyone agrees about. So ask yourself, why is school actually there? Universal, compulsory state-run schooling, I mean. Did somebody get everybody to agree to it? A nationwide agreement on something, for perhaps the only time in American history? Or does school just present itself that way, so that people will cheerlead for it?
"I think it's true that there's practically nothing that everyone agrees about."
That's why we as a Republic have elections and elect people who agree with us and expect to make changes where we don't agree with the existing status.
"compulsory state-run schooling." You can't send your kid to a private school or homeschool?
Well, you can scratch the "government" school my child goes to off your list of schooling without God.
Reminds me of the dude at the show.
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