World Magazine’s Joel Belz takes the public school to task in a recent editorial. He is specifically covering a recent PBS special about homeschooling, which in his eyes, was relatively fair and balanced. Giving the last word to Dr. Bruce Shortt, the documentary allowed him to get this insightful thought in.
“Reich’s attack is fundamentally ideological. He is clearly a collectivist who, like his fellow travelers in the universities, is seeking complete cultural hegemony. What he is really objecting to is not the ineffectiveness of homeschooling, but its effectiveness. A homeschooled child is effectively a child outside the grasp of the state and, therefore, outside the grasp of those who control the state’s educational institutions. He fears that these children will have a worldview of which he disapproves and that he finds threatening. That is what drives Reich. His real concern is not ‘ethical autonomy’ or the welfare of children in any conventional sense; it is ideological control. Frankly, his ostensible arguments are so weak that it is difficult to view them as any other than a smokescreen for his ideological and cultural agenda.”
Right on! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The public school is terrified of homeschoolers. They are terrified of their academic excellence, their intellectual maturity, and ultimately, they are terrified of the ideological opposition they represent. Because of this fear, they will do anything they can to make it difficult for homeschoolers to do what they do.
To say that homeschooling keeps children from learning independently is a joke. The public school has been specifically designed to spread a specific worldview among youth. Anyone who thinks outside this box is a threat to the structure.
Citing some of the prime failures of Mississippi schools, and public schools in general, Dr. Shortt compiles a biting critique published in World Net Daily. What seems to burn more is not so much the inadequacy of the public school, but the audacity of its administrators to divert attention to the homeschooling population. What hypocrisy!
Hank Bounds, the man behind all the finger-pointing, had the following to say:
“… [Y]ou must realize we all have this moral and ethical responsibility to deal with those situations where clearly it’s nothing more than a child abuse situation when parents pull their children out of school, say they’re being homeschooled just because parents … don’t want to be involved in the education of their children. …”
What?! What does that even mean? Is he saying that abusive parents homeschool their children because they don’t want to be involved in the education of their children? I guess he’s trying to use the tired argument that some parents (I haven’t done a scientific study, but it has to be a barely noticeable fraction) homeschool their children to hide signs of abuse and neglect. What’s disappointing is that this illogical attack seems to divert attention away from the systematic abuse and neglect that goes on every day in thousands of public schools.
Dr. Shortt goes on to shine light on many of the academic failures of the Mississippi public schools, some of the worst in the country. On quite the roll, he even goes on to address the socialization issue and the incorrect assumption that uneducated parents can’t hope to teach children as effectively as certified teachers. The test scores speak for themselves on this one, with homeschool students outperforming public school students by 15-20% across the board. And to think that the schools spend $7,000 per student!
It appears as though there is more to the aforementioned cheerleading scandal than initially met the eye. The New York Post enters the fray.
The girls in question not only bullied their fellow students, but were able to intimidate school administrators. Apparently one of the student’s mothers was the principle of the school. Mom had no problem with her girls acting this way, and abused her power to award them preferential treatment.
Now, teachers and parents are coming forward to complain that Theret created a climate of fear bolstered by a culture of retaliation, litigation and Texas employment laws that made firings easy.
Ward said some teachers had changed grades for these girls because they feared for their careers.
“The principal made sure that every teacher knew that their job was on the line. I can’t tell you how many times I thought I was going to lose my job,” Ward said. “I was scared to death. It was a nightmare.”
This is the sort of school board politics that goes on in every school. Power plays and blackmail is fine while the welfare of the children goes unnoticed.
I don’t blame the girls. Kids will push as far as their parents will let them. In this case, the incompetence of the parents and teachers is the root of the problem. The public school system only succees to cultivate this kind of social dichotomy.
Fortunately, there is a way out. There’s no bullying in my homeschool.
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