VT Christian Homeschooling Mom Taken Away In Shackles!

The Curmudgeon: A Vermont Newsletter | 10/17/02 | Cindy Wade

[justshutupandtakeit]

I am against homeschooling for the nation as a whole because I simply do not believe the vast majority of parents are capable of it. There is no possible way my parents, for example, could have given me the education available through the public schools. My mom was raising 7 sons how could she have taught adv. chemistry or physics or even English? This is not a unique story.

Many teachers come home exhausted every day from teaching. They have given their all to their pupils. How could such efforts be duplicated by those who are working another job, taking care of their households?

If the majority of parents had one stop working an outside job to home school the costs to the nation would be astronomical and cause an economic collapse.

It also appears to me a case of trying to escape from the world and a form of hermitry.

Most of the decline in the mean level of American education over the years is caused by the vast increase in children from single parent minority households. The schools where these children are the majority are a disaster but schools not burdened by such a population handle education quite well. There is a two tier system which must be disaggregated in order to understand what is going on in public education.

As I have asked others- would you want this woman to teach YOUR child?

[Catspaw]

Probably bought Gaston's book. That's helped soooo many people....right into the hoosegow.

Those books should really come with the lyrics to "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" as well as a commemorative tin cup to bang on the jail cell bars.

[AppyPappy]

That's what I thought.

Wait, I have to call Washington and find out where I am going to lunch today.

[AppyPappy]

I am against homeschooling for the nation as a whole because I simply do not believe the vast majority of parents are capable of it.

I think 90% of dual-parent families could probably do it until high-school.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Any "running Joke" about the public schools generally comes from those ideologues who know little about them outside the scandelous stories which make the papers. My boys attended public schools and private both systems gave them every opportunity to get an education. Both are being educated at private colleges.

I have attended public secondary schools and public and private colleges so I know something of both systems. My late wife taught in a public elementary school and worked like a maniac to teach her students. My girl friend is a top notch Math and Statistics teacher in a great public high school. There are no parents not highly educated who could teacher her courses.

My concern about home schooling is discussed in #181. I do not "sing the praises" of public schooling and have many criticisms of their operations. Merely because I have no faith that most parents can properly teach anything of depth or complexity does not mean I "sing the Praises" of P.S.ing.
It is amusing to observe the reactions of the faithful any time their sacred mantras are questioned. It is also amusing to note that most of the ones critical of p.s.ing don't know what the hell they are talking about.

How the woman's misfortunes and refusal to cooperate with local authorities excuses and justifies her actions is beyond me. Nothing I have seen so far convinces me that she is a reasonable or competent person capable of teaching anything more difficult that the ABCs.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Here ready to share your ignorance and deception with us all again? Run out of opportunities to defend Islame and the Murdering Minions of Mad Mo (Piss be upon his Head) and their terrorism?

[justshutupandtakeit]

I excuse no abuses by the State or Local authorities in any matter. That has not happened here.

This miserable woman has been led into great difficulty by listening to someone who believes contempt of court is a "right." She has jeopardized her family and herself by doing so and demonstrated a disastrous lack of judgment. Why?

[justshutupandtakeit]

My name is ironic. If one does not fight back then one should "justshut....."

I want to provoke response and debate.

You have heard of the word "irony?"

[justshutupandtakeit]

Not at all. It did not treat my boys like lab rats. Nor does it to the children of any competent, or concerned parent. So much mythology so little fact.

I will agree that parents must be vigilant.

[justshutupandtakeit]

If martyrdom is defined as " Blind, willful rushing to disaster" then I agree.

[Spiff]

I excuse no abuses by the State or Local authorities in any matter. That has not happened here.

Really!? So, the state forcing a parent to come in for a "hearing" to determine if they are an "adequate" teacher and meet the state's "standards" in order to continue having the privilege of being allowed by the state to homeschool their children is not an abuse by the state?

[Roscoe]

More "Patriots for Profit."

[Wallace T.]

New York did not establish universal male suffrage until 1821, but the property requirements at the time of the ratification of the Constitution permitted a majority of adult white males to vote. That state, as well as the 12 others that joined the initial Union, was overwhelmingly rural. Since most farmers were freeholders (except for tenant farmers under the patroon system), they would have been enfranchised. Urban workingmen were not enfranchised, unless they were self-employed or had a net worth of 50 pounds. Nonetheless, even in New York City, at the time a town of less than 30,000 souls, a substantial portion of the white male populace could vote. The fact that Hamilton and the others authored The Federalist Papers was to appeal to the electorate against the anti-Federalist faction.

Literacy was widespread even before the rise of public schools. Beth Barton Schweiger, a University of Arkansas historian, estimates that in the South during the early 19th Century, over 80% of the white population was literate. While this level was lower than that of New England, it compared favorably with the literacy rates in Western Europe. She further notes that with the nonexistence of public schools and the limited number and cost of private schools, Southerners, even slaves forbidden from knowing how to read, were either self-taught or learned from their parents. In other words, they were home schooled. Diaries and letters reviewed by Schweiger emphasized reading as a means of bettering oneself, revealing a commitment to self-improvement that seemed to permeate the South.

It is likely that the situation in New York was similar, or even better, given the large numbers of New Englanders who had emigrated to the Empire State.

As to the level of literacy in the early 19th Century South, Schweiger has encountered a great deal of religious material -- from books of sermons to ecclesiastic newspapers, religious pamphlets and essays on church doctrine. The Bible itself is not an easy read: The New International Version, currently the most popular translation among conservative Protestants, is written at the 9th grade level of literacy. Most likely, the King James Version was at a similar level for the 18th and early 19th Centuries. Look at works like The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners at the Hand of an Angry God", or Pilgrim's Progress, staples among Christians of the same time frame. Having read those works, I am of the opinion that people who could understand them could master the writings of Hamilton, et. al.

Keep in mind, too, that, while New York was ethnically and religously diverse even in the late 18th Century, there was a common Calvinist theology in three of the four leading denominations in the state (Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist). As stated before, Calvinist theology emphasized the ability of and the necessity for the individual to understand and interpret God's Word. Thus, reading comprehension and ability would have been at least as high, if not higher, than in the South, where religion had a more emotional, revivalistic element.

Obviously, as urbanization and specialization increased, reading took on an increasingly economic and business related role. However, Americans of the country's first 250 years of existence were predominantly literate and had strong reading skills, due in great extent by a desire to know more about the Christian faith and to achieve self-improvement. No society is perfect and antebellum America had its share of faults, multigenerational human slavery being the most glaring. However, too many contemporary Americans fall for the error that the people who lived in our agrarian past were stupid, mimicing Karl Marx's slur about "rural idiocy."

[Spiff]

In re: your constant support of public schools:

Do you believe that public schools are a form of socialism?

If the state confiscated wealth from its citizens to provide food, clothes, or housing for all the children within its boundaries would that not be a form of socialism? Why is it okay for the state to provide socialist education but not okay to provide socialist food, clothes, and housing to the children? Wouldn't a better term for public schools be "welfare schools" since they are meant for those children whose parents can't afford to send them to private schools or can't afford to teach them at home because both parents work?

Are you saying that a little bit of socialism is okay? Where do you draw the line then? How much socialism is too much socialism? What if I don't agree? Will you force me to accept the little bit of socialism you deem acceptable?

[justshutupandtakeit]

If one is not working outside the home perhaps so. But don't forget the democRATS are the majority in the country.

[justshutupandtakeit]

All studies I have seen of literacy rates for the South are much lower than the study you reference. Then there is a question of the definition of literacy used. If the ability to read a few words or write your name is literate then perhaps the Schweiger study is credible but I don't think so. Certainly in the backwoods virtually the entire population was illiterate. There is no question that higher education was ridiculed in the South even among the upper classes. This is one of the reasons that public education developed so slowly there and why an educational deficit existed compared to the rest of the nation.

An interesting side note on New York sufferage. As you mention there was a small property requirement. In the 1790s the Democrat machine, Tammanney Hall and Aaron Burr evaded that requirement by claiming the same piece of property belonged to numerous men to qualify them at the polls. This artificial inflation of eligibility helped him put Jefferson into the presidency and himself into the Vice Presidency. This is part of the long, tried and true adoption of corrupt politics by the RATS.

[ApesForEvolution]

And it only takes one Jack Booted (Moron) Thug that has no regard for procedure, because he is the law, to give all LEOs a black eye.

[ApesForEvolution]

Assume: Ass-U-Me

[justshutupandtakeit]

No. Socialism is the ownership by the proletariat of the means of production. Taxation is not socialism. Public education is not socialism. Mass inoculation against polio is not socialism either. Socialism means something specific- the ownership by the working class of the means of production. No private ownership. Hint: socialism is not just anything you dislike or disapprove of. It is an economic concept.

Education is a social process which serves the society as a whole as well as the state. Only with an educated electorate can a representative republic survive. Thus, there is a great need for education. So far public education has served our nation well. With proper reform it will continue to do so. Public education is one of the hallmarks of a civilized society.

Educating your children even partially at my cost helps ME as well as YOU by producing citizens capable of earning a decent living and understanding the world around them and me. Nothing could be more dangerous than an uneducated populance living in ignorance without the capability to support themselves.

[ApesForEvolution]

Bottom line: if the 'authorities' deem you 'white trash', you have no rights. Welcome to Amerika!