In a recent attempt to find fault somewhere besides the failing public schools, MSNBC’s opinion columnist Anthea Butler warned about homeschooling being a "project" of evangelicals’ "war against public schools," one that also has "insidious" racist roots. This is a perfect example of trying to make something evil out of something that is entirely good. The political left wants America to think, that parents committed to home education, called homeschooling, are a part of a larger plot to overthrow public schools, referencing Kirk Cameron’s “Homeschool Awakening” documentary.
Private home education, has it’s recent roots ( the1960’s) in Rousas Rushdoony, whose work starting with the establishment of Christian day schools grew into what most understand to be the modern homeschooling movement. However, parents / family’s have been homeschooling since the beginning of time. According to the Center For Education Policy, A Graduate School of George Washington University, Schools were created to “prepare people for democratic citizenship” . They further added-
“Character and virtue were also considered essential to good citizenship, and education was seen as a means to provide moral instruction and build character. While voters were limited to white males, many leaders of the early nation also supported educating girls on the grounds that mothers were responsible for educating their own children, were partners on family farms, and set a tone for the virtues of the nation”.
- Center For Education Policy, George Washington University
When public schools first can into being, in the 1830’s America was strongly steeped in Judeo Christian values. In the 50’s and 60’s, America began to slide into the abyss of amoralism and today’s public schools have come out of the pit focused on progressively liberal anti-Christian values. When this became clear, to parents desiring to preserve their belief systems for their own offspring, the modern homeschooling movement was born.
Parents, not the state, are responsible ultimately for their children’s values as they relate to their religious beliefs and how they are manifested in the way they are educated. If the public schools offer collective indoctrination in values opposed to their parents, I submit public education has left conservative Christian parents no moral choice but to accept the hands-on education of their offspring to preserve their values system.
Home education is a huge endeavor which requires enormous commitment and fortitude. It is not based on having more knowledge than the subject studied, but a willingness to be the oldest student in the homeschool class. Some parents, having been through public schools, have noted that they received themselves a far better education setting through the courses taught and the actual hands on learning – without the hindrances of all the modern cultural ant-Christian rhetoric.
While some may call it an assault on public education, it is more an act of sincere devotion to the offspring they have been blessed with. The promulgation of progressive and anti-Christian values has already done much damage in our schools of higher education. It is a main reason the progressive liberal left has such a strong foothold in America’s culture today and why America has an entire generation who now believe that they can dictate whatever they “feel” they should. In today’s culture there is no right and wrong, wiping out morality, standards or values as unimportant. Like Ms. Butler, they see any attempt at standing in opposition to them as racist and wrong.
According to MSNBC’s opinion columnist Anthea Butler-
"Public education has become public enemy No. 1”, adding "as (actor Kirk) Cameron’s quote indicates, this latest project of conservative evangelical education is another salvo in the ongoing evangelical war against public schools."
She continued-
"It should come as no surprise that evangelicals, fundamentalists and other religious conservatives have fought against public education since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education,"
-MSNBC’s opinion columnist Anthea Butler
Ms. Butler prefers to frame homeschooling as a Christian "war" against public schools in a racial light, further asserting, that-
"The prospect of integrated schools led to the creation of many ‘segregation academies,’ private schools designed to keep African American children and undesirable immigrant groups away from white children. But there was another, more insidious way to circumvent integration: homeschooling."
-MSNBC’s opinion columnist Anthea Butler
The fact is there is a war for the moral minds of the children, whose parents want to preserve their innocence, regarding the evils they see upon society, desiring to avoid the indoctrination of the minds of their children. They want their children to know who they are, before the world assaults them morally for what they believe.
It is more a battle for their minds to preserve learning for learnings sake, aside from a changing culture which gets more perverse by the moment. It is not a racially charged way to circumvent integration of children, but rather a way to circumvent the integration of values parents disagree with, at the hands of persons (teachers) who have no vested interest in their offspring, and in some cases are teaching them value systems they disagree with. One example of ant-Christian rhetoric is Critical Race Theory.
Also, a result of the pandemic, even non-Christian parents received a first-hand taste of what their children were learning and from a strictly educational point of view began their own journey in homeschooling to sidestep the huge inadequacies they found present in public education. As one homeschooler tweeted in response to Ms. Butlers article-
"And it's not just white families who are moving to homeschooling: 9.7% of white families with kids have pulled out of traditional education, as have 12.1% of Hispanic families, 8.8% of Asian families and 16.1% of Black families."
-NYC Angry Mom, Twitter Feed
American families are under attack by the public education process which is in a battle for the minds of its most impressionable citizens. Care needs to be taken by parents to preserve the values that America was founded upon – not wavering in the midst of name-calling, harassment or outright attack by members of the progressive left. America’s future depends on preserving the minds of our youth.
“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
- Deuteronomy 6:7