Posted on 08/26/2007 7:53:03 PM PDT by jern
Convinced that God has been erased from public schools, Southern Baptists are now working to open their own schools, where Jesus is writ large and Bible study is part of the daily curriculum.
Church leaders are not calling for a wholesale exodus from public schools, which would be a monumental hit, considering that Southern Baptists make up the nation's largest Protestant denomination with 16 million members.
Rather, they talk about alternatives to public schools capable of educating a new generation ready and willing to advocate for biblical principles rather than popular culture.
"In the public schools, you don't just have neutrality, you have hostility toward organized religion," said Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest. "A lot of parents are fed up."
Southeastern is leading the push, sponsoring a Christian School 101 workshop Monday and Tuesday. The program is designed to train church leaders to open private schools.
At Southeastern and elsewhere, Southern Baptists have become convinced that fighting to change the system is futile. They say public schools have long demonstrated a commitment to teaching evolution over creationism, world faiths over Christianity, sex education over abstinence, moral relativism over Christian claims of truth.
A history of alienation
The denomination's disenchantment with public schools is not new. It dates to the 1920s, when states debated the teaching of creationism vs. evolution. Evolution increasingly won, despite the famous Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, which gave the victory to creationists. The 1962 and 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decisions banning prayer and devotional readings from public schools only increased Southern Baptists' ire.
Since then, alienation with public schools has grown alongside the nation's culture wars, pitting evangelical Christians against secularists.
"Southern Baptists see the new religious establishment in this country as secularism,"
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
“Somehow I think you’re a little extra-cynical. But ok.”
I’ve just been hanging around too many pastors over the last 4 years.
It’s good that she’s learning about Adam and Eve instead of Adam and Steve.
I actually couldn’t care less what the local P.S. is like. I hear they’re pretty good here. Not that many horrible influences out in Iowa. Doesn’t matter. If my kids are as smart as I hope, they’ll be bored in government schools; if they’re dumb, I’m not leaving them to anyone else’s mercies.
I’ve know good Christian kids who went to government schools and came out ok. I think leavign your kid in government schools specifically to witness to others is a horrible idea. Right up there with committing crimes in order to be sent to jail to witness there. I also did not question your faith. I don’t think faith or lack thereof is what makes parents use government schools. I think it’s the ease, convenience, and affordability.
I don’t know what that means...
With enough time and resources, you could duplicate anything the government school provides. If you don’t, it is a matter of ease, convenience, or afforability. None of those are necessarily bad things. A single parent family living on minumum wage will use government schools for basic education because it’s affordable. Parents who work 80 hours a week will use them because it’s convenient. Parents who don’t enjoy being with their kids can use it because it’s easy.
You have to be kidding? You're spouting that NEA nonsense!
You have to pay? I just read an article here yesterday about hundreds of kids crossing the border into Brownsville, Texas daily to attend school. Not only do they not pay anything, local officials say there's nothing they can do about it.
My daughter teaches public high school and there's not a liberal bone in her body. If you have your kids in a public school and you are satisfied with the quality, good for you. There are some decent public schools and teachers, regardless of the stereotypes we hear about.
I and other FR homeschoolers have engaged with gondram, and others like him, on this point many times. The usual response from people holding down this position generally ends up being “Well, I see you’re qualified, but my cousin-in-law Egbert and his wife are morons and they’re homeschooling so most homeschool parents must be like that”.
Personally I think homeschooling is more important, if anything, in high school, because that’s when the peper pressure really kicks in.
In your opinion, what percentage of American adults are qualified to teach algebra, geometry, trig and calc? Feel free to break it down into 4 subsets if you like.
Let me jump right in here. I don't consider myself a dummy but I am not qualified to teach those subjects.
About 100% of those able to A. order Saxon math from a catalog and B. locate a mom in the local homeschool support group willing to help tutor.
My mother didn’t get much past algebra but she got my through pre-calculus before I was finally old enough to attend community college courses. It can be done...
You are also assuming homeschooling happens in a vacuum and there is no such things as co-ops or prepared materials. Your also making the point a properly motivated and disciplined 18 yo cant teach themselves trig?
Calc is not taught in most high schools so lets throw that one out. I know I could teach it to my kids but when I was in HS I know most kids did not take it.
algebra: I would say close to 100% of people who want to and put in the effort can teach a small hand full of kids algebrea to the Senior of HS level.
geometry: 90-100%
trig: 90-100%
Now lets put these homeschooling people in a community, which they usually are in, and extend that network so they either know someone like myself who can teach those subjects on a college level (at least the one hundred level), or someone who knows the subjects well enough to lend a hand and youre damn near 100% for both.
Your turn: What percentage of kids coming out of schools as seniors have a proper and robust enough understanding of these four fields that they are prepared for college? I tutored many who were not..
Jen, it's that affordability thing for my daughter. Single mother, she teaches public high school and works part time, mostly week ends at a video rental store, she spends as much time as she can with her 3 kids but economics dictate that she cannot home school and feed them too.
No child support as her husband died less than a year ago from a heart attack. She gets a small S.S. check for the kids but believe me, it's small.
Graybeard,
When you home school you generally (a) get hooked in with a community of home schoolers and (b) buy course outline materials.
Im not saying homeschooling is for everyone it is a ton of work and takes a particular financial and social environment but few well thinking adults cant learn the subjects well enough to teach them.
Because community colleges, unlike government schools, truly belong to the public. The professors are not “educators”: they are either professors or professionals in their fields (I learned calculus from two engineers, computer science from computer scientists, and chemistry from a chemist). They also permit freedom of association which by definition “public schools” do not. I chose to attend, as did every other student there.
America’s higher education is still the admiration of the world, and even the ugly stepchild of community colleges deserve some credit. I went on to a private four year college and then a state university top 40 in my field graduate program.
The more people who withdraw their children from the government schools, the healthier a society we will be. I long for the day when public schools are stigmatized as "welfare schools." Nevertheless, I don't expect my property taxes to go down as a result...
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