Whole Reason

Gateways to Better Education, a "national organization dedicated to helping public schools teach Judeo-Christian history, thought, and values" is sponsoring the National Free to Speak Campaign, which aims to "help schools become safe places for students to express their religious beliefs."

The
U.S. Department of Education issued guidelines on freedom of religious
expression in public schools twice during Clinton administration (1995
and 1998) and once under the Bush administration (2003). This
is a bipartisan issue. The guidelines were sent to every school
district, but they didn�t get to classroom teachers, parents, and
students.

Is this really necessary?  You will think so if you read news articles like Religion and public schools: An important civics lesson this fall, which documents common violation of free speech by (liberal) school teachers and administrators.  

The Alliance Defense Fund has produced a nice Students' Rights Pamphlet (PDF) of the current US laws covering such free speech in schools (reproduced below). 

This IS a bipartisan issue – at least, for people of faith, confidence in free speech, and/or a non-secularist understanding of separation of church and state (separation of powers, but not ideas).  Some related articles:

• The Four Historic Models for Church/State Interaction
• Separation of Church and State, but not God and State
• Uneasy Neighbors – Church and State

Read more…

A new report from the U. S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics shows a dramatic rise in the number of students that are being educated at home. Dr. Albert Mohler provides some details from the report:

Homeschooling
was the choice of families for 2.9 percent of all school-age children
in the United States in 2007, involving 1.5 million students. By
comparison, in 1999 only 850,000 children were homeschooled. By 2003,
that number was up to 1.1 million. This report indicates significant
jumps in homeschooling as compared to other educational options. In
fact, the report reveals that the actual number of American children
whose parents choose homeschooling for at least part of their education
exceeds 3 million. According to the report, 1.5 million children are
exclusively homeschooled while another 1.5 million are homeschooled for
at least part of the school week.

At this point, the picture
grows even more interesting. When parents were asked why they chose to
homeschool their children, 36 percent cited a desire to provide
children specifically religious or moral instruction. After that, 21
percent of parents pointed to concerns about the environment of
schools, 17 percent cited dissatisfaction with educational quality in
the schools, and 14 percent cited "other reasons." Among those "other
reasons" was a concern for more family time together.

Higher
numbers of parents with college educations and greater family incomes
are now homeschooling. This trend points to the fact that homeschooling
is increasingly the option of first choice for many parents. This
pattern is also revealed in increasing numbers of college students,
primarily young women, who indicate that they desire a college
education so that they will be better equipped in years ahead to be
homeschooling parents.

It's no great surprise to me that there has been such a tremendous
rise in the number of families choosing to homeschool. In the nine
years we've been homeschooling we've seen exponential growth among our
homeschool community.

But the most crucial points in Dr. Mohler's essay come at the end of the post:

Homeschooling is now a major force in American education, and
Christian parents have been in the vanguard of this movement.  For many
Christian parents, homeschooling represents the fulfillment of the
biblical mandate for parents to teach their children.  These parents
deserve our respect, our support, our advocacy, and our prayers.  This
movement is a sign of hope on our educational horizon, and a phenomenon
that can no longer be dismissed as a fringe movement.

As president of a seminary and college, I can attest to the fact
that questions about the educational aptitude of homeschooled students
are now settled.  These students can hold their own as compared to
students from all other educational backgrounds.  One other fact speaks
loudly to me concerning their education.  Most of the homeschooled
students I meet at the college and graduate levels indicate an eager
determination to homeschool their own children when that time comes.

Education cannot be reduced to statistics, but the trends revealed
in this new report from the Department of Education deserve close
attention.  In our day, education represents a clash of worldviews. 
Increasingly toxic approaches to education (or what is called
education) drive many schools and many school systems.  In that light,
the fact that so many Christian parents are taking education into their
own hands is a sign of hope.  As this new report makes clear, we should
expect homeschooling to be a growth industry in years ahead.

It's encouraging as a homeschool parent and as a Christian to see a
prominent pastor and seminary president embrace the choice that
thousands of families make. Homeschooling is not easy and families who
make this choice often face derision and ridicule from both friends and
families. Those who make the choice to educate their children at home
(either full-time or part-time) should be applauded and respected for
making this choice. While not everyone will agree that it is the best
choice for their own family it's important that those who don't
homeschool respect those who do and vice versa.

Exodus Mandate is a movement created by Chaplain E. Ray Moore, which calls Christian parents to "rescue Christian children from the godless, pagan public schools and
to place them in K-12 private Christian or home schools."  Here's the first two of a three part interview done by Moltov Mitchell.

Read more…

That rather colorful description comes from Boston University sociologist Peter Berger, who is working to challenge those stereotypes in a new study. At this point in my life, I’m very grateful for his work seeing how I am an evangelical living in "Tobacco Road" who is blogging barefoot at this very moment.

A recent Op-Ed in the Washington Post carries the same idea – the media and academia should pay more serious attention to actual evangelicals and less time to reinforcing their stereotypes of the group. The authors point out the successful and important history of the evangelical movement in America.

Read more…

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Casey Luskin has a nice 13 minute interview with Rebecca W. Keller, founder of Gravitas Publications, which publish a series of science books for homeschoolers called Real Science 4 Kids.  By ‘framework-agnostic’, I mean that she presents science and scientific methods withOUT committing to any specific philosophy-of-science framework like evolution, creationism, or ID.  Or in her words:

I believe that the best science is rigorous and objective about the
facts, but open and tolerant of what those facts may mean both to
science and outside of science. In other words, we should be diligent
to practice science rigorously and carefully utilizing the scientific
method and critical thinking. But we should allow everyone to interpret
those facts through their own lens.

Intelligent design is an interpretative framework for evaluating
scientific data as are evolutionary theory and creationism. Each are
different lenses used to understand and interpret scientific
information.

Read more…

From FreeGonazlez.com:

Now, as a world class scientist, Dr. Gonzalez is facing persecution
from an unexpected source � his employer, Iowa State University. His
academic track record exceeds the tenure requirements of his
department, and he exceeds other tenured ISU astronomers in key
measures of scientific research productivity. Yet professors in
Gonzalez�s department voted to deny him tenure. Email files show that
these professors rejected him because of his philosophical approach to
science, not his academic qualifications.

Translation?  He supports the idea of Intelligent Design, and the administration which supposedly supports academic freedom doesn’t seem to really believe in such.  Gonzalez is also featured in the just released Ben Stein documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Actor Chuck Norris weighs in on last week’s court ruling in California with his own thoughts on homeschooling. An excerpt:

The reason government courts are cracking down on private instruction has more to do with suppressing alternative education than improving educational standards. The rationale is quite simple, though rarely, if ever, stated. If one wants to control the future ebbs and flows of a country, one must have command over future generations. This is done by seizing parental and educational power, legislating preferred educational materials, and limiting private educational options. It is so simple any socialist can understand it. As Josef Stalin once stated: “Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

Read the whole thing.

One of the recent K-LOVE Closer Look podcasts was really informative, discussing the growing resurgence of single-gender education - that is, classes and schools for either all boys or all girls. 

Brain development and psychological development studies show that boys and girls develop in different ways and at different rates, and a lack of awareness of gender differences makes our current "mass-production" public education model inefficient, if not poorly effective. 

However, a spate of schools, including a whole county in Georgia, are moving towards ALL single-gender classes. 

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Homeschoolers in Iowa are one of the reasons Mike Huckabee is doing so well according to a front page story in today’s Washington Post:

ELDORA, Iowa — Julie Roe, an early believer in Mike Huckabee, worked with what she had. With no buttons, no yard signs and no glossy literature from his nearly invisible Iowa campaign, she took a pair of scissors and cut out a photograph of the former Arkansas governor. She pasted it on a piece of paper, scribbled down some of his positions, made copies and launched the Huckabee for President campaign in rural Hardin County. Roe contacted friends in her home-schooling network and bought a newspaper advertisement for $38. She spread the word in the grocery store and the church foyer: "I would tell them about Mike Huckabee and they would say, ‘Who’s Mike Huckleberry?’ I’d say, ‘No, no, no, it’s Huckabee.’ "

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