[DungeonMaster]

Scary!....Yet, education seems far down on the list of priorities for conservatives and Christians.

Nearly 2 million kids are homeschooled in this country. When I was a kid there was no such thing. Then there are private and Christian schools with who knows how many kids in them. That leaves the public schools without involved parents. I know that really frustrated Christian teachers 20 years ago.

[Wallace T.]

There are about 2 million homneschooled kids, about 2.3 million in Catholic schools, and about 1.3 million in evangelical Protestant private schools (the last two numbers are from the Council for American Private Schools for 2010-11). That totals 5.6 million. Another 1.5 million attend nonsectarian, liberal Protestant, and Jewish schools. Fall 2015 statistics reflect 50.1 million in public school (source: National Center for Education Statistics). Although the numbers are not consistent, my best guess would be that only 12-14% of American children are educated outside of the public system. It is possible that the numbers may be closer to 14% because the private school numbers show the effects of the 2007-11 recession, when private school enrollment declined in all categories: Catholic, evangelical Protestant, liberal Protestant, and nonsectarian. The economic recovery, weak though it is, may have motivated increased private school enrollment.

What happens after the private school students leave the classroom? They generally go to state universities or liberal dominated private universities. Then there is the generally toxic mainstream culture. The casualty rate is high, judging by church membership statistics, even recent ones from evangelicals. Unfortunately, both the major Christian groups with conservative inclinations are either compromised with liberalism, specifically the Catholic Church under the current Pope, or are focused on the Rapture as the only way out of the long term decline, as is the case with many Baptists, most independent Bible churches, and many charismatics.

Nothing is hopeless, but it will take a major tectonic shift in the economy or a sudden, precipitous loss of international power with Russia and China supplanting this country as the world's dominant powers, to loosen the death grip the political and cultural Left hold.