With this kind of involvement, kids tend to do well regardless of the school environment, and if the environment is truly damaging physically, intellectually, emotionally or spiritually, the parents will feel more empowered to do something about it.

Starting out with “Homeschool or your children will rot in hell,” really only shuts people out and makes us all look like a bunch of unsocialized nuts.

I am certainly glad you had good experiences; mine were for the most part also. However, it doens’t mean that these things did not occur even within the very same schools to other children and adults. Someone got bullied on the playground, and someone got bullied in the teacher’s lounge also.

I agree that Drake’s statement was ludicrous. I hear the opposite views often enough; that homeschoolers are abusing their children and so forth. It is all nonsense. However, the real difference between the two opposing sides is that one of them is funded by taxpayer dollars and has the full backing of the law, social services, and public opinion (although I like to think that public opinion has changed in the last twenty years or so).

I think ideas such as “regaining covenantal visions” are geared to evangelical Christians who are currently homeschooling for reasons such as academic achievement, which isn’t really a Biblical ideal as I understand it (and I can be wrong here of course). It also means that without a broader “vision”, homeschooling falls apart when times become tough.

I don’t believe homeschoolers of any kind ought to feel “excluded”. Homeschooling is not a club with a one-size-fits-all approach (unlike, dare I say, public education) that a parent has to sign up for under certain rules or points of view. A parent is 99.99999% of the time the best teacher for his or her child, period. However, if you’re a Christian, homeschooling is just part of the family system (as it were) that helps to encourage faith and give children live and walking models on a daily basis of what it means to be followers of Christ. Renewal/revival begins at home, and that just isn’t likely to happen when the vast majority of Christian parents expect other teachers/pastors/counselors and whomever else to disciple their children.

“Hostility” isn’t always met with swords. Sometimes it is just with the persistant (and arrogant?) insistance that a secular, consumer and employee driven, tolerant, and liberal worldview is the only proper response to the nation’s problems. The idea of “sin” is rather quaint, and isn’t allowed in any public school that I know of, anywhere.

It is true some words are hurtful. Most are probably birthed in frustration and all need to be tempered with grace. My hope is that parents of all walks will begin to homeschool their children, AND that they would all know the joy of following God through Jesus Christ in doing so.

Good discussion, great job.

I am not an apologist for the public school system, but when homeschool advocates are making statements like Drake’s that those who send their children to public school should be sent to jail, there is a serious disconnect. You talk about the NEA’s stance opposing homeschooling, but how different is the tone and character of statements made by Drake and the Exodus Mandate, really? Homeschoolers can talk about parents of children in the public schools with the same kind of arrogant attitude which often can look like these particular advocates have no more respect for the ability of parents to make educational decisions for their own children than the NEA.

These kinds of statements are not going to make parents with children in the public school system reconsider that decision. It only pushes people into their respective camps and makes homeschoolers look like we are bit nutty.

Of course homeschooling is a wonderful way to disciple your own children. After all, that is a large part of why I homeschool. But I really don’t think that the harsher tone some of these groups are striking benefits anyone.

I never said that these different groups shouldn’t exist…private organizations have the right to include or exclude whomever they choose for whatever reason. But how many different “flavors” are there really? Eventually, the market will expand to include those who currently feel excluded, because homeschooling seems to be growing at leaps and bounds…a “problem” some seem to be meeting with attempts to “regain the covenantal vision” of homeschooling as someone wrote to Doug Phillips.

I’ve personally attended nine different (and yet the same) ones growing up. Isn’t every public school affiliated with the NEA? Don’t they think that parents are stupid?
http://www.nea.org/espcolumns/dv040220.html Aren’t they the ones that pass a resolution every year to combat homeschooling?

This sounds a bit much like “to each his own”, which, of course, may be what was intended. Homeschooling in itself is not the answer to sin and its ilks, but it sure is powerful stuff to disciple your own children on a daily basis (Christian or not). Personally, I’m fine with all of the different conferences and flavors in magazines and don’t think it’s that big a deal. You know, “to each his own”

I was also a former public school teacher (and NEA member and representative). “Tolerating” all religions meant “accepting” them all…which meant distain for Christianity…which, of course, comes swinging with there-is-only-one-way-to-God. Furthermore, there is (or was, when I was teaching) a great pressing need to teach about all cultures except ours (excepting where ours involved angry white European men killing off innocent natives and taking over land….or more recently, killing off all the rain forests…). Evolution was never allowed to be questioned or debated, because, duh, it’s true and all. And of course, the school nurse was entrusted to pass along information and support for birth control and abortion services information without thought to the student’s family’s values regardless of their religion.

So, again…..are there really schools in America that are different? Just wondering.

I only become frustrated when I see how many parents so easily abdicate their authority to others who they think “understand children better”. If a parent is making an imformed decision regarding their child’s education, then great. Most parents I come in contact with, view public school as the default button. They are not making an informed decision. As a matter of fact they don’t even know what their child is being taught. They’ve never seen a textbook (district doesn’t allow them to go home), never been to an assembly, never even been in the classroom. That is only reason I even mentioned what was in some of my husband’s textbooks. So many parents do not know.

I just want those parents to understand that they have options. That they really should stop to think about what their child is being taught and what their child is not be taught in their current educational environment. I’ve seen public school, private school, and homeschooling students spiritually strong and spiritually weak. I believe in a Soverign God who is so much bigger than an educational choice. I’m a strong advocate for parents taking the authority and responsibility for their child’s education, whatever form that takes.

I think in the end, all parents are best served when presented with real options and support for what they are trying to do. It is difficult to prove statistically what happens to a child’s faith in public school and why it is happening. Children take cues from their parents about what is important and I do believe that committed parents can do a lot to help their children navigate the struggles kids face in schools.

I also believe that committed parents will take appropriate measures when there is a problem. The overly strident comments are really only useful to those who already agree, and they frequently lack the tone that I read of in scripture about being gentle, humble, full of self-control, and at peace with all men so long as it rests with us.

But when we ask why it is that more Christians don’t see the problems in schools, we need to be realistic about the fact that not every school in America is like the ones you have experience with, and not every Christian parent sees these issues the same way. And many who do who do not opt for another educational option believe that their testimony is strong enough to help their children through it.

I think we need to trust parents to make the best decisions for their own children, and give them the support they need to succeed in that choice. We don’t need to condemn them and act like they aren’t “real” Christians or are too caught up in their own lives to realize the danger their children are in. That only drives people away…and the Bible says we are to live at peace with all men so long as it is within our power to do so.