Christian Exodus From Public Schools?

A homeschooling friend of mine sent me this article via email today…. ‘Public Education Against America’. I thought I would re-publish a few pieces of it herein and give you a few of my own highlights…

Editor’s note: Dr. Bruce Shortt, along with fellow Baptist Roger Moran, has proposed a resolution for the Southern Baptist Convention that would urge churches in the denomination to develop an “exit strategy” for removing their children from public school.

By Bruce Shortt© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Marlin Maddoux virtually pioneered Christian talk radio, founded the USA Radio Network, cultivated a new generation of highly gifted radio personalities such as Kerby Anderson and Penna Dexter, wrote several books, and provided a strong radio voice for the Christian worldview for over 30 years. Most of us would say that that is quite a legacy.

Yet, even at the end of his life when he was in poor health, Marlin’s energy and commitment to Christianity wouldn’t allow him to slacken his efforts on behalf of the Kingdom. The result is the final piece of the Marlin Maddoux legacy: “Public Education Against America: The Hidden Agenda,” the culmination of his research and many interviews regarding public schools.

For those of us who tuned into Marlin’s “Point of View,” we always knew we would gain some insight into how to think and act biblically. Beginning in the 1990’s, “Point of View” started focusing more on education. In fact, Marlin was not only an early champion of Christian schooling and homeschooling, but became, true to form, a keen observer of the metastasizing pathologies of our government school system.

“Public Education Against America” is, in part, a fascinating account of how Marlin’s work as a radio-show host and interviewer led him to see behind the respectable facade of the “public” school system and recognize the public schools for what they have become – a cauldron of toxic pathologies inimical to the welfare of our children, our families, our churches and our culture. It is also, in part, his account of why the public-school disaster is not an accident. Most important, however, is Marlin’s conclusion that we, as Christians, must not educate our children in today’s public schools.

The article was simply too long to copy the entire thing and post here, but I highly suggest you go and read it for yourself (click the link above) if you are interested. I was part of a Sunday School class one day not long ago where the parents were lamenting about what to do because of their failing schools and talking about having to re-train their children because of the morals they were learning. Many parents have chosen private schools mainly because of the morality issues they are seeing arise from their local public schools and not just academic reasons. I wondered why they went around in circles about this when they all had the option to EXIT the public schools all-together. I think sometimes we just can not see the forest for the trees. Kent Hovind, Founder of CSE Ministries, really made me think when he says on his Creation/Evolution Seminars, (and I paraphrase here) “It is the wrong question to ask whether we should teach Creation and Evolution together in Public Schools. The right question is – SHOULD WE HAVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS?”

This next section really hit home for me, seeing as how my children are both in elementary grades. I am not surprised about the information on public school accreditation. The private school I worked for used public school textbooks in the name of accreditation. When I asked them what was being taught regarding evolution or creation, they told me it was up to the individual teachers as to how the subject matter in the books were taught. This answer was just not good enough for me. Neither were the books they were using (Kent Hovind’s Creation Seminar #4 covers “Lies in the Textbooks“, and if you can’t afford to buy the tapes, you can click this link and view parts of it!). Read below to continue on with Bruce Shortt’s ‘Public Education Against America’ to see how Cultural Marxism has become the theme of even America’s K-12 schools (although many unsuspecting teachers don’t know they are adhering to this mantra):

Manipulating the values and beliefs of our children

Given the assumption that there are no transcendent moral values, the government schools now teach children that what matters is “valuing diversity,” “respecting differences,” being tolerant and open, and avoiding being “judgmental.” Moreover, if there is no moral truth, only personal values and preferences, then all that can really be done is reach a consensus. The consensus that is promoted, however, is one that uses the cultural Marxist presuppositions of race, class and gender victimization as a foundation for driving children to the conclusion that the highest values are diversity, multiculturalism and tolerance, as interpreted by the politically correct crowd.

“Public Education Against America” also points out that if children are to be led to a predetermined consensus, it helps to have detailed information about the children’s values and beliefs. And, indeed, the government education establishment wants to know more about the children institutionalized in public schools. One particularly egregious example Marlin recounts involved the Pennsylvania Educational Quality Assessment. Of the 370 questions, 60 had to do with math and reading. The remaining 310 questions “… measured attitudes, values, beliefs, opinions and home-life of the children.” Worse, the administrative version of the test had numerical codes next to the questions that were keyed to various “remediating curricula.” In other words, once the EQA identified “undesirable attitudes,” the test instrument would point the “educators” toward a curricula that would change the child’s beliefs.

As a general proposition, local teachers and administrators have no idea that they and their curricula are promoting cultural Marxism. Moreover, they would undoubtedly deny that they are doing any such thing if questioned about it. Nonetheless, they have been taught these ideas while getting their education degrees, during their in-service training, and by their unions. The moral and cultural relativism that is imbedded in all of the claptrap about “respecting differences,” diversity, and so on is simply what seems obviously right and decent to the typical public-school employee.

On the other hand, those who teach in schools of education, elements of the union leadership, and others typically have a quite explicit understanding of what they are doing. Indeed, we have now reached the point at which schools of education function in part as political re-education camps. For example, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, which is a national accrediting organization for schools of education, requires adherence to such politically correct shibboleths as “multiculturalism” and “diversity” in hiring and curriculum as a condition of accreditation. Think of NCATE as the enforcer of the ideology embraced by the educator elites.

At its 2001 Las Vegas convention, NCATE’s agenda moved farther into the open. During a presentation just prior to the opening of the convention, NCATE’s senior vice president, Donna Gollnick, told an audience of 1,000 education professionals from around the country that “diversity” is the most important standard by which NCATE will evaluate those who train teachers – not effectiveness in training teachers to teach phonics, math, or grammar, but “diversity.”

If you ask me why homeschooling is taking off like wild-fire in this country and around the globe, I would have to say that God is behind it. He is preparing a remnant of those who do NOT accept societies’ values and are willing to stand in the gap. I will gladly sacrifice the “American Dream” of keeping up with the rich folk next door to prevent my children from walking in darkness. May God lead America (and the rest of the world) to wake up and SEE the darkness… and may He enable us to choose to walk in the light!

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