Posted on 10/20/2006 1:24:53 PM PDT by achilles2000
If you like sexually transmitted diseases, shootings and high teen pregnancy rates, by all means, send your children to public schools. That's the word from a leader in the fast-growing movement within the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention for parents to pull their children from those schools in favor of homeschooling.
Pastor Wiley Drake
The program is called Exit Strategy and Pastor Wiley Drake, whose home state of California has done some things especially offensive to Christians this year, is a leading promoter.
In an interview with WND, he said that those problems and others are prevalent in public schools, and some Christian leaders even have said it could be considered child abuse just to register children in such a facility....
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
"While it seems superficially plausible to say that some government schools are "different", and it is true in some superficial ways (facilities, etc.), the fact is that the system is so centralized and regulated that the schools can't be different in any meaningful sense."
I respectfully disagree. But I think we're ultimately arriving at the same destination, albeit via different routes.
I think that there are government schools that are different. Some are incredibly horrible. Others are quite very good. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that those schools of excellence actually exist. I think we can agree that they're relatively few in number, and that the chances of any specific parent being able to find and then send their child to that great school are fairly remote.
I don't deny that a miniscule number of people win the lottery and retire to an island paradise. But I don't expect to win it myself, and to substitute buying a lottery ticket for retirement planning is sheer lunacy.
If we acknowledge that there are a few government schools that excel, then in some ways this is worse than asserting that all schools are uniformly mediocre. Why? Because it begs the obvious question: if they can do it with a few schools, why aren't all government schools better?
These few trophy schools are just expensive window dressing for a failed system.
Almost impossible to imagine that the public schools began in much the same way.
Big deal, if it is true they spoke, were you there?. Have they caused any shift in doctrine by the SBC? If there is no doctrinal shift then it is not true.
Satan spoke to Jesus but it did not mean Jesus was a devil worshiper.
".....Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler and Rick Scarborough are some of the exceptions".
I went to High School with Paige Patterson. He's a good guy.
In the days of the Founding Fathers the Episcopalians were both Evangelical and Calvinists.
Okay, good points and info all, but I still think that they were not "Calvinist" or "Evangelical" in the sense you were implying. Or at least nothing like the modern meanings of those words.
Washington especially was, if not a Diest like Jefferson, certainly also not an evangilist by any stretch of the imagination.
Were the founders Christian? Absolutely. Was their intention a Judeo-Christian nation? I believe so. Were they fundamentalist evangelicals? No way.
Could you elaborate? Maybe we need to define the words.
So we are just disagreeing over whether there are a few "trophy schols." From a facilities basis, there are surely are. But for academics I'll stand by my comments about benchmarking. Comparisons among US schools yield some variability, we a few schools being much better than others, but based on what I consider the relevant international comparisons, our "trophy schools" look more than a little tarnished. This doesn't even begin to deal with the deformed worldview that is taught in the US - and especially in the "best" school, e.g. those in the IB program for example. I do appreciate your thoughtful comments.
It is almost impossible to believe that public schools started that way because they didn't. They were a project of Unitarians, socialists, and nativists that was primarily directed toward coercively "Protestantizing" Catholic children, which is why the Catholic school system developed here in tandem with the government schools. Thwarted in that endeavor by the development of the Catholic schools, they tried the unsubtle expedient in the early 1920's of outlawing parochial schools altogether. Fortunately, the Supreme Court struck down the first law of that type. The tactics then changed to making attending anything other than government schools as financially difficult as possible using the "separation of church and state" doctrine that was much beloved of the Klan and the socialists. (Did you know that anyone who wanted to join the Klan in the 20th Century had to pledge his allegiance to public schools and the "sacred" doctrine of separation of church and state? Now you do ;-)
Patterson has been a blessing to the SBC.
Here's a clue...there were more theologically conservative than evangelicals today.
Well, it would have helped if I had proofread my post. I meant to say:
So, we are just disagreeing over whether there are a few "trophy schools." From a facilities point of view, there are surely are. In fact, I would say that there are more than a few. But with respect to academics I'll stand by my comments about benchmarking. Academic comparisons among US schools yield some variability, with a few schools being much better than others, but based on what I consider to be the relevant international comparisons, our "trophy schools" look more than a little tarnished. This doesn't even begin to deal with the deformed worldview that is taught in the US - and especially in the "best" schools, e.g. those in the IB program, for example. I do appreciate your thoughtful comments.
Are you trying to 'grow into' your freeper handle?
Thank You!
Guess you ignored the reply.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1723134/posts?page=44#44
"I suspect homeschooled children that do better on tests do so for various reasons. "
Just because you think it's so, that means it must be? Ever heard of research? You should try it sometime. Your thesis that the homeschool children whose parents are only high school graduates lack a quality education is not borne out by the data.
You exhibit a decided lack of ability in the area of critical thinking. Did you go to public school?
There are some great texts on critical thinking available for homeschoolers. I'm sure some of the homeschool parents could send you a link if you like.
Anyone know of a good critical thinking textbook?
Yes, it is frustrating when someone replies that way.
See post 26 There are some links there.
Was the attitude necessary? I asked all my questions in a friendly manner.
When polling nationalpolitical opinion, pollsters typically poll from 300 to 1500 individuals, and that is considered quite valid, so how is the ratio of 26:13000 so out of line? The real question is how well the 26 represent the body of home schoolers.
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