Category: Government Schools

Dear State Congresspersons,

Having grown up in Michigan, I returned to Michigan in 1995 with my wife and three small children. The DeJonge case had recently been ruled on in Michigan which essentially de-Sovietized education in Michigan making homeschooling an achievable goal for my wife and I. We were relieved when we heard of the DeJonge case decision because we knew that if the decision had not gone the way it had we would have never been able to move back to Michigan – so highly did we prize the ability to have the God given inalienable freedom to home school our children.

Our children are grown now, and there is no longer any danger to them that the State can possibly get inside their heads through the brainwashing program that is euphemistically referred to as ‘government schooling.’ The reason I write you therefore is not for my own children who have grown up to be critical thinkers aware of, among other things, the agenda of government schools to enstupidfy children. I write you in order to urge you to realize the limitations of the State when it comes to controlling how parents shape their children through education and so to urge you to either withdraw or withdraw your support of H.B. 5912. The idea that a State, which does not have enough accountability within its own province of State finances, is somehow going to be responsible to make sure that Michigan parents are accountable to raise their children properly is beyond laughable. The idea that a State, whose Foster Care program was such a model of accountability success in the Ricky Holland case is going to take it upon itself to make sure that biological parents are accountable to the infinite abilities of the State is ridiculous. Michigan government education, like the rest of the states of the union, is so bad that it would be difficult for parents to be more inferior at educating their children even if they had malicious intent. In short, my legislative friends, since homeschoolers don’t need government regulation, as seen by the indisputable overall record of its success, I ask of you to give up on your support of the Teachers Unions and retreat from this ill advised H. B. 5912. Having seen what government accountability looks like, which H. B. 5912 attempts to legislate, I always end up wondering who is holding the government accountable.

May I make so bold to ask that instead of H. B. 5912 one of you introduce legislation that requires Michigan School superintendents, teachers, and perhaps even legislators to register with homeschooling parents so that we homeschooling parents can know Superintendents, teachers and legislators by sight so we can keep our children from their baleful influence. Somebody has to hold you government employees accountable.

No doubt if you have read this far you are muttering to yourself about ‘what a rude letter this is.’ And yet you think it not rude at all to try and impinge upon one of the most basic human freedoms that exist – the freedom of parents to raise their own children apart from the watchful eye of Big Brother. Given the state of American schools and the predatory nature of many of its teachers (I can send a link of all the teachers up on charges for sexual malfeasance if you wish) I find this attempted legislation rude at best and malicious at worst.

If you would like some reading in order to bring you up to speed concerning the quality of American Education and America Schools I would be happy to provide a list of books. I am hopeful your support of H. B. 5912 is a reflection of your ignorance of the State of American Education and not a reflection of hatred for the children.

Sincerely Yours,

Bret L. McAtee
Pastor – Charlotte Christian Reformed Church
Charlotte, Michigan

In lightning pre-dawn strikes SWAT and ATF teams across California swept in on homeschooling families throughout the State. Just arriving reports suggest that causalities have been low with only a very few home school parents being killed although in one particular case it seems that one of the home school cells had been tipped off in advance with the result that a firefight ensued that ended with all 10 members of the revolutionary band being killed. The good news is though that none of the States brave police women or men have been injured in the pre-dawn raids.

The raids have collected a booty of subversive pamphlets, books, and other assorted literature. Already Police have set up tables identifying this subversive literature for the press corps to examine. There have been countless copies of the US Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Magna Carta seized, as well as such little known works as Vindicae Contra Tyrannos, The Kentucky, & Virginia Resolutions, St. George Tucker’s commentaries on the Constitution, Benjamin Morris’s, ‘The Christian Life and Character Of The Civil Institutions Of The United States,’ George Buchanan’s, ‘De Jure Regni Apud Scotos,’ Johannes Althusius ‘Politica Methodice Digesta, Atque Exemplis Sacris et Profanis Illustrata,’ the works of John Knox, Samuel Rutherford, Patrick Henry, and other authors and works that ATF Chief Joseph Steele Bismarck said were, “funny looking and more funny titled, and which when considering their cumulative effect on these strange people are self evidently destroyers of the general will, public harmony and our American way of life.” Later once the full catch is collated Police hope to display other assorted novels, treatises, and political tracts in order to convey to the public the dangers of a wrong kind of reading and education. Chief Bismarck ended our brief interview by saying that “once all the heavy work of tracing the books back to those who criminally sold such books and once the haul is fully cataloged the literature will be burned.”

Those subversives arrested during the morning ‘strike for freedom’ will be fully debriefed by professionals flown in from Langley. Authorities on the site are saying, even if only in whispered tones, that they hope it doesn’t come down to using water boarding techniques to gain information from those who are hurting the children. Officials already have brought in a team of child Psychologists to help with the children who have been traumatized by their home schooling experience. The psychologist professionals are telling this reporter that if the children are young enough and if they can isolate the children in the context of intense counseling and with the aid of psycho-tropic drugs the damage done to these children in most cases is rectifiable.

However the State has decided that once the debriefing sessions are finished, those seized, who will eventually be mainstreamed back into American educational centers, will be required to wear a yellow Cross prominently displayed on their clothing so as to identify them as potential dangers.

It seems that in light of this pre-dawn liberation every segment of society is coming forth to weigh in publicly on this stunning victory for liberty. The spokesman from the ACLU, Marten Boormen has said, “the repression of the civil rights of these children was unconscionable. The ACLU will be filing amicus briefs in favor of the State if any legal action is filed.” Torry Quemada speaking for ‘The Children’s Defense Fund’ said, “Today California revealed that to be ever free a people must be ever vigilant. The California chapter of the CDF, in compassion for its most innocent citizens, supports this necessary work of the State.” Also we have a statements by two Church organizations. First, the Evangelical California Churches stated through their spokesman, Rev. Larry Beria, “today Jesus is smiling in heaven as the State’s children have been set free from those who practice the religion of oppression, hate, and slavery. Our chief prayer is that these people during their restoration will find Jesus.” Westminster West Seminary Spokesman, Rev. Dr. R. Scott Irons said, “The Church cannot speak to this since God’s word doesn’t speak to this though we are encouraged to see Presbyterian Judges like H. Walter Croskey, who signed off on this raid, working in the common realm to implement his vision of the Christian faith.”

There seems to be some debate as to whether or not the trials will be public as some State official are concerned about the possible lynch mobs that such a public trial could create, although officials concede that with the current huge backlog of trials the public energy created by these arrests could be well dissipated by the time these cases are heard.

We’re happy. We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting.”

Lloyd Porter,
Member Board of Directors — California Teachers Association
Reacting to a recent California Appellate Court Decision on Homeschooling

I have public school teacher friends. I don’t want to say anything that would communicate a blanket disrespect for all government school teachers but when I read this kind of thing my blood vessels begin to pop.

“No matter what the setting?”

What a blinking idiot.

So, Mr. Porter, according to his own words, believes, if the setting required a gulag or concentration camp environment for educating children that would be preferable over parents teaching their own children in a safe and happy home as long as the gulag was equipped with ‘credentialed teachers’? Mr. Porter believes that inner city schools with paint falling off the walls and gangs hustling protection money is preferred over a home environment as long as they are stocked with ‘credentialed teachers’?

‘Foolish,’ is to kind of a word for this kind of blinkered thinking.

Forget about thinking that Mr. Porter is concerned about the poor wayward children of California. This is purely about job security. Unions exist in order to protect jobs and any judicial ruling that requires children who are not in Government schools to be forced into government schools is a reason for the Mr. Porters of California to rejoice since it means job protection, more teacher jobs and thus greater union muscle. The Mr. Porters of California don’t give a rat’s hind quarters about the children. All they are concerned about is keeping their government make work jobs.

“I’m kind of hoping some truancy officer shows up on my doorstep.I’m ready. I have damn good arguments.”

Debbie Schwarzer
Homeschooling Mom of Los Altos, Ca.

Debbie I admire your spunk but allow me to suggest that for every good argument you have you purchase two cases of shells for your favorite weapon of choice. If any truancy officer were to show up on my doorstep, with the intent of taking my children away without moral cause, he damn well better show up locked and loaded.

Debbie, you don’t seem to realize that some of these people don’t care about your good arguments. It isn’t about arguments. It is about raw judicial tyranny. It is about who has the money. If court cases were decided on the merit of ‘damn good arguments’ we wouldn’t get as many damn stupid decisions that we get.

Allow me to round off this section with an admission that when we acknowledge and make provision for the God given duty that parents have to educate their children there will be rare instances where parents are irresponsible and neglect their children. The question at this point is though whether we would prefer running the risk of having a few parents be irresponsible with their children’s education or whether we would prefer running the risk of having the state be irresponsible with children’s education. Given the quality of education in America I think the risk of an occasional parent neglecting their children’s education is substantially far less than the risk that obtains in the neglect that goes on every day in America’s educational concentration camps that we euphemistically call ’schools’ in this nation.

I can’t imagine how badly I would be frothing at the mouth if I lived in California right now. The reason that I am frothing at the mouth is that education is religious. If California home schooled children were to be forced into these government schools (an eventuality I don’t really see happening) they would be at the same time being forced to be trained in a pagan religion. Christians are supposed to be raising Christians. When we send our covenant seed to government school, whether we are forced to or whether we do so voluntarily, we are raising them to be non-Christians. This we cannot do, no matter what the consequences. We must obey God rather then men.

Finally we have a quote from the Honorable H. Walter Croskey.

“Parents have a legal duty to see to their children’s schooling under the provisions of these laws.”

“Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply.”

“A primary purpose of the education system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism, and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.”

Justice H. Walter Trotskey
Writing for the majority in the 3-0 ruling

What we see in the last snippet is what this is all about. In addition to the teachers unions wanting job security, the ideological issue that predominates the resistance to home schooling by our elites is the danger that a non-brainwashed remnant poses to the secular humanist control that builds good citizens into little jack booted patriots who are loyal to the state and nation so that our Fascist project that we call ‘public welfare’ doesn’t get overturned or even challenged.

Naturally the question that begs being asked when it comes to training children into good citizenship is the question; ‘By whose standard or by what standard are we going measure what ‘good citizenship’ is.’ I will guarantee you that the standard for epistemologically self conscious Christians who are homeschooling their children as what it means to train children into good citizenship is going to be unrecognizable to H. Walter Trotskey’s standard for what it means to train children into good citizenship.

Finally, I must tell you that I am no more committed to protecting a public welfare that is committed to advancing an explicitly anti-Christ agenda then I would be committed to protecting the public welfare of an Aztec culture where human sacrifice was considered instrumental to their way of life.

Doug Wilson is linking to a report

(http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=67733)

that has Wheaton College inviting Jim Wallis to speak at Wheaton. Now the unique thing about Wallis is that he claims the effort to legitimize homosexual relationships in the law is “a justice issue.” This invitation to Wallis comes on the heels of a previous invitation to and appearance of a pro-buggery ‘Christian’ activist to speak to the student body.

Wilson’s take on this is that it is perfectly legitimate for Christian campuses to extend these kinds of invitations and on one level I understand Wilson’s view. Wilson believes that if Colleges invite these kind of people it should be akin to lions inviting the Christians over to their place for supper. Let the pagans come in and let them try and defend their paganism before a well educated Christian student body.

However there is another angle to this I want to briefly examine. Clearly when these kinds of people are given platforms in our Christian Colleges we are communicating some kind of tacit acceptability. We are admitting that the issue is now worthy of being discussed publicly in the Christian arena thus perhaps communicating a certain legitmacy to the perversion du jour.

Let me give an extreme example that I hope makes my point. What would people think if Wheaton College invited a pederast or pedophile or someone who like to bed farm animals to come and declare that these kind of perversions are ‘justice issues.’ Now I think (definitely not sure) that people would freak out over such an invitation precisely because such perversions are clearly beyond the pale. After all, who is nut case enough to actually want to listen to that kind of disgust? Is an invitation, to come speak at a Christian college, extended to somebody who is pro-buggery, indicative of the fact that among Christians Homosexuality is no longer seen as beyond the pale — every bit as detestable as pederasty, pedophilia, or bestiality?

In a post written on 1/11/08 and titled “Huckabee, the Liberal Statist” I wrote,

Pastor Bret — “Mark, I thought your Dad would have taught you that it is wrong for the Government to create make work jobs. Public teaching is nothing but a government works project. If Governor Huckabee was Christian he would have, at the very least, encouraged parents to pull their children out of government schools instead of helping to perpetuate and bolster them by stealing from some people in order to give money to school teachers who are teaching our children with a anti-Christ theology. Increasing pagan teacher’s salaries is no Biblical reason for picking somebody’s pocket through increased taxation Mark.

Taking exception to my views Tilly Stephenson left a comment,

As a Christian teacher in a public school who tries to be salt and light in a hostile place, I thank you for calling me a “pagan” who teaches an “anti-Christ” message.

I bring direct attention to this Tilly because this is an important issue for Christians to consider.

First, allow me to thank you for trying to be salt and light in a public school.

Second, in being salt and light do you teach your students in class how the Lordship of Christ affects your discipline? After all even something like Mathematics has been shown to be dependent upon a Christian World and life view. Similarly it would be easy to show how a Christian World and life view accounts for Science and how it alone can make sense of any of the humanities. If teaching the humanities (let’s pretend you teach social studies) have you taught your students how a Christian does social studies is 180 degrees different from how a non-Christian does social studies? Have you taught your students from the front of the classroom, as teacher, how it is that it is only the Lordship of Christ as set forth in a Biblical Worldview that can rightly make sense of all reality? Or is it the case that you go about teaching your discipline without saying anything at all about how pursuit of the discipline will glorify God when done in submission to His Word? It seems to me that you can only make a strong case for being salt and light in the government schools if indeed you are publicly pressing for the Crown Rights of King Jesus in your classroom, helping your students to think like Christians.

In a government school, I don’t know how you could explicitly do that and I am not sure how it is possible to implicitly do that. What our Christian children need is not simply more modeling on how to be nice but they must be taught to think as Christians and what it means to have a Christian World and life view and not the World and life view that the Government schools are officially committed to. If you are not teaching them that then you are, at the very least, acting like a pagan, teaching an anti-Christ message.

There is no area of academic study that does not call Christ Lord. Every field of endeavor should be taught with explicitly Christian presuppositions and the students should be exposed to what their discipline looks like if done from a non-Christian worldview. They should be taught to understand the false worldveiws in the discipline you teach and then counter them by being able to point out their contradictions.

Have you taught your children the components of a Worldview? Have you taught your students how all disciplines are dependent upon some kind of Theological presuppositions that drive the worldview and the discipline in question? Have you taught your students to identify those presuppositions when they come across them in the different academic disciplines? Have you taught the students, not what to think but rather how to think?

Look, Tilly, I love that teachers are trying to be salt and light but if they don’t do the kind of things that I have briefly laid out here I don’t know how they can contend they are trying to be salt and light, and if they do do the things I insist is the very essence of being salt and light, I don’t know how they could keep their Government make-work job. If a teacher did even a portion of what I have suggested here the State would descend on that teacher like farm cats on a leaky cow teat.

Further Tilly, we haven’t even talked about the educational training that teachers get and how they end up imbibing a Worldview that is alien to Christianity without even knowing it and who then turn around and feed that Worldview to the students they are teaching.

No, I suspect that the best that government school teachers can do in order to be salt and light in the schools is to be underground saboteurs and subversives within the system, working to give the beast they are working for a bellyache that it can never recover from.

Tilly, it is my conviction, (and legion is the name of those who disagree with me) that the best thing that could happen to this country is for the Government schools to close shop. Anything that Biblical Christians do to support this behemoth only serves to prolong Reformation and awakening.

Thanks for writing and if we can continue this dialouge in such a way that I can better articulate my concerns and so help you understand me please write back.

Further understanding on the truth of my italicized statement above can be found by reading,

The Messianic Character Of American Education
The Cloning Of The American Mind
The Underground History Of American Education
Teaching as a conserving activity
None Dare Call This Education
The Closing of the American Mind
Is Public Education Necessary
Education, Christianity & the State