The Southern Baptist Academy Blog

Mimi Rothschild

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!

Dr. Shortt has written this fantastic book, The Harsh Truth about Public Schools, well worth a read for anyone considering homeschooling.