Category: Government Schools

Dr. Mohler’s Thoughts:

The controversy over President Barack Obama’s speech to America’s school children scheduled for Tuesday morning continues to incite controversy. On the surface, this seems incredible. Why would a speech calling for students to remain in school and set personal goals for themselves incite any controversy at all? Is this just another eruption of the Culture War?

At first glance, that seems to be exactly what this fracas is all about. Much of the controversy is reckless, baseless, and plainly irrational. Some have called the speech an effort to recruit America’s children into socialism. Others have argued that any presidential speech piped into classrooms is illegitimate. But a presidential speech to students is hardly unprecedented. This speech by this president has led to an unprecedented uproar.

At this level, the controversy is a national embarrassment. Conservatives must avoid jumping on every conspiracy theory and labeling every action by the Obama administration as sinister or socialist. Our civic culture is debased when opposing parties and political alignments read every proposal by the other side as suspect on its face.

Instead of gushing over Obama’s words why can’t Mohler say something like,

The problem with Obama’s speech to America’s school students is not so much in the content as in the presuppositions behind the speech. There was a time when Parents understood it was their responsibility to raise, educate and motivate their children. Now, not only have we turned to the state to educate and raise our children, but we find it perfectly acceptable for the President to play the role of “Parent in Chief.”

The great Dr. J. Gresham Machen understood this. Machen, speaking of education could say,

“The most important Christian Education institution is not the pulpit or the school, important as those institutions are; but it is the Christian family. And that institution has to a very large extent ceased to do its work.

~ J. Gresham Machen, in Education, Christianity, and the State.

But instead of taking the opportunity to once again emphasize to his natural constituency the necessity to get their children out of government schools, Mohler takes the opportunity to lament over cultural war resistance to a man who desires to implement his Marxist ideology on America.

Certainly Obama’s speech is not the most sinister thing he has yet done but Obama, unlike many Christian spokesmen, doesn’t compartmentalize his belief system. All that Obama does, including speaking to America’s children is done with a view towards the cultural Marxist end he desires to achieve. As such, any resistance to Obama in anything that he does is a necessary resistance.

The fact that Mohler can warn people against finding something sinister or socialist in every deed Obama is a warning that reveals a great amount of naivete.

John Piper’s take:

This is the speech I expected the President to give to our children—excellent.

Given that he is not directing them to Christ, which would be the best counsel, his advice is a wonderful gift of common grace from God to the students of our land.

If you settle for the news headlines that say the president tells the kids to wash their hands and take care of the environment, you will miss the wisdom and courage in this speech. Within its spiritual limitations it is simply amazing.”

Like Mohler, Piper doesn’t seem to realize what is going on in government schools. Why would Piper refer to this as common grace? Given the worldview that America’s children are learning in government schools, the encouragement to children to do well in government schools would seem more like the doctrine of common damnation.

Would Piper have spoken this way if Joe Stalin had given the speech? Would Piper have gushed about Stalin’s speech being simply amazing? No, Piper wouldn’t say that because he would realize how hypocritical it would be for the Murderer of millions to be blathering on about the necessity to do well in school. Yet Piper speaks in glowing terms about a man who has voted repeatedly to deny babies born from botched abortions medical care. Piper speaks in glowing terms about a man who shares the same exact ideology and faith system as Joe Stalin.

If one realizes the stakes there is nothing irrational about opposing Obama at every turn. I don’t want America’s children admiring Obama any more than I wanted them admiring Bush or any number of other leftist politicians.

Recently one of the State Elementary Schools in Charlotte Mi. (Weymouth Elementary) was recently retired from housing Elementary school students and will now be used to run a Government school daycare center. Families who have young children where both parents work will drop their children off for the day while the parents go off to work.

Recently I was driving by Weymouth and I noticed that they put themselves up a brand new sign. And it is the sign that finds me writing a blog post.

The sign read,

“Weymouth Child Development Center”

My first instinct was to think, “Wow, I’m amazed that they are being so honest about it.”

Here we have a setting where parents will drop their children off for the day and while they are at work they can have the satisfaction of knowing that a bunch of strangers are developing their children for them. How will their children be developed? The parents won’t know. What will they teach the little children? The parents don’t know. But what they do know is that their children are being developed and they know that they get to pay those people good money for the privilege of having those strangers develop their children for them.

As I thought about it I thought the new sign said it all. All schools, whether schools that happen in the home, or private schools or state schools should be thought of as “child development centers.” Children, who are not yet shaped in their thinking, enter into these locales and are shaped and massaged in their thinking and character in a particular direction.

“Students, teachers and local pastors are protesting over a court case involving a northern Florida school principal and an athletic director who are facing criminal charges and up to six months in jail over their offer of a mealtime prayer.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/14/criminal-prayer-case-stirs-protests/?feat=home_headlines

The whole article is quite a window into the view of the state on Christianity.

A few observations,

1.) This article is an argument for getting your children out of pagan schools. When you send your children to government schools the government employees hold the position of “in loco parentis.” This means that the State, when your children are at government schools, are considered the parents of the children and have the rights of parents. In this case the government employees are not acting consistently with what the government parent (the State) desires and so are being prosecuted with the possible consequence of 6 months jail time for saying a prayer.

2.) We must continually keep before us that the opposition to the Christian religion being expressed in the School does not mean that the school is being operated apart from religion. By putatively seeking to sanitize the public square of religion the ACLU is only removing the opposition religions that compete with the religion favored by the ACLU. The religion favored by the ACLU is religious humanism complete with the religious premises of materialism, atheism and relativism. The ACLU is the most successful religious organization operating in America.

3.) We should not want Christian prayer in government schools, if only because the price of such prayer being present in the government schools will be allowing overtly pagan prayers in government schools. (I say overtly because I am fairly confident that “Christian” prayers in government schools would be covertly pagan prayers.) There is little difference between a school system that communicates that all religions are publicly endorsed and the school system that communicates that no religions are publicly endorsed. The end result that is communicated with both approaches is the idea that the State is the god over all gods.

4.) Christians, really must come to understand that the State is viciously opposed to their convictions. Now, some will respond to this by saying, “Well, we have to understand that in order for a school to operate it’s only ‘fair’ that either all the religions get to have expression or none of the religions get to have influence.” We have shown repeatedly that it is impossible to have a school setting where no religion is having any influence, and we have shown repeatedly when all religions have a influence in such a way that some entity is establishing just how much of an influence those religions can have, then the entity establishing just how much of an influence those religions can have is the entity that provides the God and the religion of the school. Remember Rome, where all the gods were allowed as long as all the adherents saw the State as God of the gods.

5.) All religions are totalistic, including the secular humanism of the ACLU. American schools are charged with taking the Christian Steve, the Muslim Muhammed, the Hindu Kartik, and the Jew Levi and turning them into the Secular Humanist Pan. One would think that common ground could be found among the variant religions if only in the idea that each is opposed to having their children wrenched from the god of their fathers in order to serve the god that is the American State.

6.) “He who takes the King’s coin is the King’s man.” Those who will be on trial have taken the King’s coin (their salary working for government schools) and having taken the King’s coin they should not be surprised when the King throws them into jail for not doing the King’s bidding.

7.) The schools have their own religion. That religion is decidedly not Christian. If you send your children to these religious schools you must not be surprised if they end up abandoning the Christian faith to become practitioners of the religion taught by those schools.

“Faith in the wonder working powers of education has proved to be one of the most durable components of liberal ideology … Yet the democratization of education has accomplished little to justify this faith. It has neither improved popular understanding of modern society, raised the quality of popular culture, nor reduced the gap between wealth and poverty, which remains as wide as ever. On the other hand, it has contributed to the decline of critical thought and the erosion of intellectual standards, forcing us to consider the possibility that mass education, as conservatives have argued all along, is intrinsically incompatible with the maintenance of educational quality….

Universal public education, instead of creating a community of self-governing citizens has contributed to the spread of intellectual torpor and political passivity.”

Christopher Lasch
The Culture Of Narcissism — pg. 125, 130

Mass education has accomplished

1.) The easy spread of noxious childhood diseases.

2.) The creation of a whole new artificial sub-culture commonly referred to as “adolescents.”

3.) The pernicious effect of working in children the desire to be like their peers.

4.) Planned conformity to cultural abnormalities inculcated in school children.

5.) An addiction in our children to the drug of pseudo self esteem.

6.) Providing a place for dime store psychologists to practice their nouveau psychological theories.

7.) A cultural separation between parents and children.

8.) Giving a sense of status to people who have perpetuated what Lasch describes.

9.) A good living for the NEA

10.) A thorough despising for those who actually are educated.

Today a internet friend of mine (Dr. R. C. Sproul Jr.) is debating Dr. Robert Reich in London on the issue of homeschooling, which Dr. Reich insists is “dangerous.” Now, it just so happens that the good Dr. Robert Reich and I crossed swords in Feb. of 2007. So, in honor of the Sproul vs. Reich London Debate I am going into the Iron / Acid archives and re-posting my exchange with the same Dr. Reich.”

February 2007 Article

Recently, I posted a quote from Dr. Robert Reich and analyzed it in my commentary. It seems that Dr. Reich is an Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ethics in Society, and, by courtesy, Education, at Stanford University. Somehow Dr. Reich read my piece critiquing his quote and was apparently a bit miffed. First, I had accidentally identified him as the former Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration. I hope Dr. Reich can forgive me for attributing his quote to a man with whom he shares a name. Second, in his e-mail to me Dr. Reich implied that I had failed to do the intellectually honest thing by not actually learning what his arguments are, and he complained directly that I had extrapolated what he considered ‘an entire worldview’ from a two- or three-sentence quote. Dr. Reich then generously sent me two short articles he wrote where he elaborated on his convictions of the ‘Civil Perils of Homeschooling’ and on ‘Why Homeschooling Should Be Regulated.’ After reading them, I am compelled to confess that I owe people an apology and that I was indeed intellectually dishonest.

So, in dust and ashes I do repent. I apologize that I misrepresented Dr. Reich. I am sorry that I under-emphasized the danger of this man’s thinking. With tears and sorrow I confess that I was intellectually dishonest by not being rigorous enough in my first analysis and for being far too generous about what Dr. Reich advocates. I trust people will be able to forgive me for not sounding clearly enough the warning against the extremes of his position. So, in order to set the record straight, allow me to try to atone for my error by examining more fulsomely some of the general Weltanschauung errors in Dr. Reich’s thinking, as well as some of his particular errors in respect to homeschooling.

This will be the first of a two-part response to Dr. Reich’s writings. In the opening salvo I will be exposing the inadequacy of Dr. Reich’s reasoning in response to his complaints concerning the over-customization of the education process, his concerns about the potential creation of civic troglodytes that the unregulated homeschooling process might produce, his protestations that the homeschooling process potentially deprives children of freedom, and his observation concerning the possible dangers that parent-controlled education creates. In part two, I will be giving you the analysis of Dr. Reich’s article by four homeschooling students with whom I have the privilege of interacting. I have asked them to use their own critical thinking skills in dissecting Dr. Reich’s approach.

First, Dr. Reich is concerned that homeschooling is an over-customization of the education process. Reich writes,

“Customization threatens to insulate students from exposure to diverse ideas and people and thereby to shield them from the vibrancy of pluralistic democracy.”

As I read this comment I can’t help but observe that our pluralistic democracy did fine for decades without the common school movement that the Unitarians eventually spawned in this nation as they foisted the Prussian school model on America’s children. Second, I also must conclude that the problem here for Dr. Reich isn’t customization but rather customization that isn’t the customization that Dr. Reich desires. Dr. Reich desires to customize education for ALL children in a particular way. We would observe that just because 20 million children receive the same customized education, that doesn’t make it any less customized. The problem for Dr. Reich is not that education is being customized but rather that it is not being mass customized. Third, the very reason that many parents teach their own children at home is so their children will be insulated from exposure to secular humanist ideas and people, and to shield them from the degeneracy of multiculturalism. Dr. Reich doesn’t seem to understand that education is a singularly religious exercise, and that Christians who are epistemologically self-conscious don’t want to turn their children over to people who are intent, whether consciously or not, on catechizing their children into a false religion. Fourth, Dr. Reich seems to understand that modern schools have been one of the institutions that have served as the great leveler for a nation’s citizenry. That is to say, somewhere on the edges of Reich’s consciousness there is an understanding floating around that education’s intent is not primarily to educate but to make good citizens. Reich comments on this,

Dr. Reich continues,

“…the point I am trying to make here is merely that the state has a legitimate interest in trying to convey some basic ideas about citizenship through schoolhouses.”

When this thought is stripped of its high-sounding sentiment, what is left is that Reich believes the state through the schoolhouse is responsible for bending our children in the direction that the state desires them to be bent. Surely we can see that our enemy, the state, in the name of ‘basic ideas about citizenship,’ can do all kinds of mischief and damage to our children.

Now, the problem the Christian has with this sui generis purpose of education is that the time has long passed since the Christian faith had any input on what constitutes a ‘good citizen.’ In short, epistemologically self-conscious Christians know that the standard that is being used to create a ‘good citizen’ in America’s schools is not one with which they want anything to do. Indeed, I would say we are not far from the time when a ‘good citizen’ translates into being a bad Christian.

Fifth, I can only guess at what Dr. Reich means by ‘vibrant pluralistic democracy.’ It would be easy enough to find in that phrase a euphemism for ‘multiculturalism,’ but let’s give the good Doctor the benefit of the doubt and contend that what he is getting at is a type of culture and society that existed in colonial America in 1789 where this was a nation with various stripes of Christians who were able to co-exist with one another. If that is what Dr. Reich means by ‘vibrant pluralistic democracy’ then I can only offer my opinion as someone close to the homeschool movement, as well as a Pastor who sees a good number of homeschool families, that Dr. Reich should not worry. Most of our homeschool meetings reflect the vibrant pluralistic democracy about which he is concerned.

If, on the other hand, Dr. Reich is defining ‘vibrant pluralistic democracy’ to mean multiculturalism, and if he is contending that we need to steep our children in that monoculture mindset that teaches that all faiths and cultures are worthy of equal esteem and respect, then we can only remain politely defiant to his solicitations. We freely admit that we are teaching our children the traditions of our Christian Fathers that is styled ‘Christianity.’ This faith that we teach, our Fathers received from the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and in teaching this faith we teach that this one true faith creates a culture that is to be preferred and pursued, by way of persuasion, over all other cultures, including – especially – the monoculture of multiculturalism.

At this point it is clearly seen that one of Dr. Reich’s main concerns is the civic peril he envisions when parents are in total control of their children’s education; but in the end, what this concern boils down to is that Dr. Reich is concerned (threatened?) by the change in society and culture that homeschooling might bring. Certainly, Christian children taught by epistemologically self-conscious Christian parents will likely lead to a re-definition of what ‘vibrant pluralistic democracy’ means, but then that is a conversation for the public square that is long past due. It is my opinion that Dr. Reich is trying to tilt that conversation in his direction by suggesting that home schools should be regulated. Whether that is his intent or not, it certainly will be the effect if his advice is heeded.

In rounding this section off, I need to add that most homeschooled children I know would run rings around their government schooled counterparts when it comes to competency in what used to be called ‘Civics,’ and ‘Citizenship.’ Would to God that government schooled children had a proper foundation in Constitutionalism, for if they did, the conversation for the public square that I mentioned in the previous paragraph would suddenly be tilted in my direction.

Now we turn to Dr. Reich’s next concern, which is that a totalized homeschool environment that is controlled by parents impinges upon the freedom of their children. The good Doctor says,

“Simply put, protecting the freedom of individuals is the main engine of diversity – diversity of religious belief, diversity of belief in general…. The liberal democratic state therefore ought to protect the interest of children in being free, or as I have put it elsewhere, in becoming autonomous adults.”

Beyond the implication that homeschooling adults don’t want to see their children become autonomous adults, there is plenty wrong with this tripe. First, the diversity that Reich makes mention of is a crock. American culture is every bit as homogenous as Japanese culture. If this culture was truly as diverse as Reich makes it out to be, it couldn’t function. If diversity were really what Reich is after then he would vociferously protect unregulated homeschooling since homeschooling creates the kind of diversity that doesn’t conform to our uniform culture of psuedo-diversity. Second, individuals never exist abstracted from some cultural or societal web. There is no such thing as individuals who are socially un-situated or culturally un-contexted. All individuals are colored, shaped, and influenced by some situated community. Hence, we must say that both the kind of non-communitized individualism and the kind of non-socially bonded freedom that Reich intimates is nonsense. So then the question comes down to what community is the best community for a child to thrive? Reich contends that the best community is the state, while the Christian, following God’s Word, contends that the best primary community for a child to thrive in is the family. Now Dr. Reich may take great umbrage at this characterization, but what else are we to conclude? His concern is that a child’s individuality and freedom will be taken from him in a totalized homeschooling situation as is understood when he says,

“Unregulated homeschooling opens up the possibility that children will never learn about or be exposed to competing or alternative ways of life…Parents can limit opportunities for social interaction, control the curriculum, and create a learning environment in which the values of the parents are replicated and reinforced in every possible way.”

Dr. Reich’s suggestion to rescue our poor children from this abuse is by bringing in the state to regulate the parents’ teaching. Read again what we previously quoted from Dr. Reich,

“The liberal Democratic state therefore ought to protect the interest of children in being free, or as I have put it elsewhere, in becoming autonomous adults.”

Now in fairness, Dr. Reich says that he wants to ‘prevent both governmental and parental despotism over children,’ but his observations and his solution presupposes that parents are more inclined to despotism over their seed then government would be over our children. Anybody who is familiar at all with either loving parents or government schools surely must realize what a leaky assumption that is.

Pursuing this ‘freedom argument’ Dr. Reich writes,

“…one of the most effective and least intrusive ways the state has of discharging the obligation to protect and promote prospective freedom of children – a freedom that they will exercise fully as adults – is to ensure that children receive an education that develops them into free or autonomous individuals, that is to say, persons who can decide for themselves how they wish to lead their lives and what sort of values they wish to endorse. Such an education, I believe, requires exposure to and engagement with value pluralism, the very social diversity that is produced in a liberal democratic state which protects individual freedom.”

Again, with this quote Dr. Reich lets his presuppositional slip show. Reich seems to be convinced that the result of parents homeschooling their children will be adults who will not be free or autonomous individuals. I can’t speak for the whole homeschooling community but I find this both condescending and personally insulting. Second, I must admit that I want my children to grow up to embrace my values. I would even go further by saying that it is my job as a parent to make sure they grow up embracing my values. This is a charge that God’s Word puts on me as a parent (Deuteronomy 6:4-7), and only a man influenced by a culture that thinks it can re-imagine itself with every generation, pursuing that agenda by cutting itself off from both its forebears and its progeny, would contend that there is something wrong with children who grow up to freely embrace their parents’ values because they were taught to do just that. Third, it is evident that for Reich the standard by which all things must be measured is ‘value pluralism.’ Beyond the disputation that such a notion is possible, this is a standard to which no biblical Christian can subscribe. Christians do not value ‘value pluralism.’ Finally, for the biblical Christian the whole notion of freedom is circumscribed by biblical categories. For the biblical Christian man can never be free in any sense unless he is the bondservant of Jesus Christ. Consequently, the freedom that Dr. Reich is calling for is just bondage by another name. I am fairly certain that Dr. Reich isn’t going to agree with that premise, and so it is clear the Grand Canyon separates our understandings.

And that brings us to the worldview issues that I promised to deal with at the beginning of this paper. Superficially and quickly speaking, worldviews are composed of the approach to six different issues: Theology, Ontology, Anthropology, Epistemology, Axiology, and Teleology. Now that I have read Dr. Reich’s fuller works, I would say that for all practical purposes, his theology is a kind of Statist approach. I say this because God’s Word has clearly given the responsibility of education to parents. Parents may decide to delegate this responsibility, but it remains their responsibility. Dr. Reich, contending with God, wants the State to be involved in education, yet not only does the Scripture not teach that the State’s sphere of sovereignty extends to the education of children, our Constitution likewise clearly prohibits the federal state from being involved in this area by saying that ‘the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.’ Dr. Reich would be hard pressed to show where, either in the Scriptures or in the Constitution, provision is made for the state to usurp to itself the sovereignty that belongs to the spheres of the family and the church. Because Dr. Reich is teaching contrary to God’s Word in this area, I must conclude that the god in his worldview is not the God of the Bible. As it concerns anthropology, I would say that Dr. Reich’s worldview teaches that man’s nature is malleable and that education is the tool by which man can progress to full self-realization. Why else would he be so convinced of the need to get the state’s hands on our children? This would be contrary to the Christian worldview that teaches that man’s nature is fixed and sinful and that it can only be changed by a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and redemption. Children therefore must be taught to look for all the treasures of wisdom in Christ Jesus. As it concerns axiology, I would offer that Dr. Reich’s worldview is that the ultimate value is ‘value diversity,’ ‘liberal Democratic States’ with their rich diversity, and individual freedom and autonomy. This of course contrasts with the Christian worldview which teaches that the Christian’s ultimate value is God’s glory, and therefore every Christian, whether child or adult, should be taught to do all they do to the end of seeing God glorified. One implication of this is that in their education, children must be taught to see how the various disciplines only make sense and only reach their apex in wisdom when they seek to glorify our Creator and Redeemer. I will leave the other three worldview issues alone as Dr. Reich’s writing don’t give me solid ground to speak to his position, though given the evidence regarding the first three issues, his worldview is not compatible with a Christian’s understanding.