I agree to a point but can we close Pandora’s box? How many women can afford to stay home with their children and homeschool. The 60s, women’s lib, atheistic schools.
All 4 of my grandchildren are going to public school but for 2 of them their mother actually went to school with them. She corrected the teachers, she encouraged prayer, courtesy, she changed the landscape and I’m not joking or exaggerating.
She is now working in the school system, she just won awards for the most outstanding staff member and most outstanding substitute, even though she only subbed when they could not get a substitute. She has made a difference in the lives of teachers and students. I truly believe that God has given her a great gift and she is using it well.
My grandchildren pray at all mealtimes and if you are sitting at their table, they expect you to hold hands with them as they pray. They visibly pray (the sign of the Cross before and after the prayer) before competitions and even tests. They have other children who follow them. Granted, most of them are already from active Christian homes there are some who have convinced their parents to find a faith home.
I teach OCIA, it is for children who have no religious upbringing to speak of, sometimes they are there because their parents are coming back to the faith, but a surprising number of them are there because they choose to be. They are bringing their parents along.
So while I think homeschooling is wonderful, there are exceptions. Sometimes we are called to be in the world but not of the world.
I think that the statistics that you quoted show more that many people who homeschool are also living their faith and not just going to church one hour a week. It takes a lot of work and sacrifice to homeschool.
I have a lot more to say but I have to go to a Rosary service for a friend who died.
Worse, is that those youth and young adults who claim to be Christian hold beliefs that are **not** Christian! It is a sad mixture of feel good Oprah Winnfreyism.
Those are the facts. I hope your family beats the odds. Some kids do.
http://www.exodusmandate.org/art_we_are_loosing_our_children.htm
The research data on the success of the public schools in indoctrinating Christian youth with humanistic or neo-pagan worldviews is overwhelming. The Nehemiah Institute's worldview PEERS test shows that 83-percent of the children from committed Christian families in public schools adopt a secular humanist or Marxist socialist worldview. At the SBC's 2002 annual meeting, the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life reported, among other disturbing things, that 88-percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at age 18. Barna Research reports that only 9-percent of born-again teens believe in moral absolutes, and more than half believe that Jesus sinned while He was on earth. We believe the fact that 80-percent of Christian families send their children to public schools is a prime reason for this lost legacy.
Finally, if Christians were true missionaries they would first do all they could to get their own kids out of government schools. They would then donate money and time ( and volunteer as teachers) so that every child who was too poor, or whose mom had to work, had a Christian education.
Can this be done? YES!
We should abandon the Prussian model school! It is expensive, and homeschoolers have **proven** the effectiveness of teaching children in small groups of mixed ages. Thanks to homeschooling we have excellent curriculum .
Missionary minded Christians should organize mini-schools, micro-schools, one room school houses, homeschool cooperatives, and tutoring. They should do this even if their church is not doing it.
The truth is that there are far too many government employees sitting in our Christian church pews. Sadly, few ministers have the courage to bite the hand that feeds them. If Christian children are going to be rescued it will be by individual Christians taking action. Rescue is not likely to come in the form of Prussian-style Christian schools.
Giving a child a sound Christian education and getting them **out** of the government school is likely the **most** important and effective missionary work they will ever do.
You bet we can!
If John Neumann could start a Catholic school system from nothing, staffed with dedicated volunteers, then there is no reason that Christians can't do the same today! We are cut from the **same** spiritual cloth.
We can do it if we abandon the Prussian model school. By way of mini-schools, dame schools in the home, one room school houses, homeschool cooperatives, tutoring centers and dedicated volunteers **every** could have an affordable ( or free) Christian ( Catholic or Protestant) education.
Christians ( Catholic and Protestant) should see this as the **most** important and effective missionary work they will ever do.