Solutions

Is There a Solution?

Get the government out!  Okay, we’re realists.  That’s not going to happen tomorrow.

So the best solution is for families to get their children out NOW – and for others to help them.

Is That Possible?

Millions of families have already done it.  Eight million children are educated without government assistance or interference.  Imagine another eight million joining their ranks and then another!

It’s already happening.  The ranks of independent educators – private and home schools – are growing daily.  And you can help.  You don’t need to change the world – only your little corner of it.  You can start with your own children or grandchildren.  You can help free children within your congregation or community.  Or you can support those who work directly in independent education.

It’s a serious commitment and responsibility, but it’s highly doable.

Isn’t There Some Other Solution?

It’s always nice to think that there’s some answer that will demand less of us, but in this case, there is simply no other option.  If you still feel unconvinced, we ask you to please read through our website and weigh the evidence.  A good place to start is with The Case for Separation.

The Good News is . . .

The trail has already been blazed.  And it’s getting wider and clearer every day.

Whether you want to take back your own children’s education or help others in some small or big way, there is a world of support out there.

Take a look at our Solutions.  You’ll find options for private schooling, homeschooling, ways to finance your children’s education, and many creative ways to help others step into freedom.

This is a truly exciting time for independent education!  Opportunities abound and we still retain enough freedom to take full advantage of them.

The future is full of hope.  Please join us – and millions of others – on an exciting journey toward educational freedom.


A Special Word…

A Special Word to Public School Teachers

We realize that a call to the end of state involvement in education may feel like a threat to the many dedicated teachers who work within the system. We want to clarify that we do not feel teachers are to blame for the problems of government-run schooling. To the contrary, many of these hard-working educators are the only thing that stands between students and the overwhelming bureaucracy that threatens their chances for a real education.

What we want to see is thousands of teachers freed of the burdens that now make their jobs so difficult and prevent them from fulfilling their dream to teach.

Teachers Will Play a Leading Role

The change from state-run schooling to free-market schooling will be a gradual one, and teachers will play a huge role. Instead of leaving the field of education to take more promising, fulfilling, and less stressful jobs, more teachers will follow in the footsteps of the few who are now setting up shop on their own:

  • The group of teachers in the Chattanooga area who run a full-service tutoring operation for home schoolers;
  • The many teachers who run what amounts to small one-room schools, where several families pool their resources to hire a teacher who ends up with the ideal class — a small group of students motivated to learn and supported by their parents.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential for teachers to transition to the private sector. Some teachers now enjoy the variety of teaching at two or three different private schools, or mixing classroom teaching with private tutoring. As teachers take the lead in offering alternatives, grateful parents will follow. The potential for small, community schools dotting the American landscape is tremendous.

This type of schooling lends itself to parental help by way of volunteering. The opportunities for field trips and outside enrichment are far more practical than in a big-school setting. The cultural exchange opportunities are also far greater. Likewise, the opportunity for bringing in special guest teachers, craftsman from the community, and the list could go on and on.

In the free market, teaching has the potential to be an exciting and fulfilling lifestyle instead of just a job. It depends only on present day Americans calling on the pioneer spirit of the millions of incredibly brave souls who left behind all that was familiar and embarked on leaky ships for a new world. We’re looking for a new round of pioneers. A few intrepid souls have taken the first step, cleared some brush from the trail; they stand in the new world, waiting for others to follow.

A Special Word to Parents

Many parents long to take back responsibility for their children. They know that they, and not a bureaucratic system, are in the best position to determine what is right for their children. They feel trapped and badgered by a governmental system that insists that the opposite is true and often goes on to hurt their children.

Many parents don’t realize that more often than not, it is already in their power to take their children back, and many more are outright afraid to do so. This fear says more about government schools than anything else.

These schools that claim so much good will and so much expertise routinely use fear tactics to keep students in and to keep parents out. New rules are added each year to scare students into regular attendance and to scare parents into forcing it, even when their children have made it clear that school is a place of misery for them.

Other students, of course, adjust to school and even enjoy certain aspects of it, but their parents can see the many subtle ways they are being hurt or deprived of knowledge important to their moral, spiritual or economic well-being, as well as knowledge important to their future as free individuals.

Taking the step from dependence on government schools to total personal responsibility can be frightening. But the fright doesn’t last long and the exhilarating sense of freedom and self-respect after the initial scare is well worth it. As parents and students take back control of their lives and future, as they empower themselves, they act in the independent tradition of the people who built this country. Above all, they put the government back in its proper place of servant, not master.

Remember, if you start turning your money over to your servant and asking him to make your decisions for you and take care of you, he is soon your master.

A Special Word to Parents of Faith

“The end result of all education is a worldview…. That worldview is either man-centered or God-centered.”  – Glen Shultz [The Harsh Truth About Public Schools, p. 10]

Parents of faith have concerns beyond liberty, safety and academic standards when it comes to the schools their children attend. Important as these things are, most people who hold to serious religious principles long to see their children embrace those principles as the foundation of their lives.

Rev. Max Victor Belz, PCA pastor, founder of Cono Christian School, and father of eight children, said, “I don’t want my children fed or clothed by the state, but if I had to choose, I would prefer that to their being educated by the state.”

Rev. Belz was one of many men of faith who recognized the damaging effects of state schooling on children. Consider these thoughts from others. You’ll see that this is not a new concern. People have long recognized that government-controlled education erodes faith. While these quotes are from Christians, the concern is the same for all parents committed unequivocally to raising faithful children.

“I am as sure as I am of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.” – A. A. Hodge, 19th century Princeton theologian

“When the Pharisee admitted the coin was made in the image of Caesar, Jesus told him to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s. I ask my fellow Christians, ‘Are your children made in the image of Caesar? If not, why do you render these innocents to Caesar for six hours per day, 180 days per year, for 13 years?” – Marshall Fritz (Plano Star Courier, February 21, 1999) 

“The formation of a child into a responsible adult is a full time activity.” – Marshall Fritz

“I would say to you, dear friends, it may require some sacrifice, but I urge you to send your children to godly schools… to Christian schools that they might receive a godly Christian education. If you send them off to some public school, keep in mind that you are shooting dice with your children’s eternal souls. It is a gamble that no Christian should be willing to make. Don’t send an eight-year-old out to take on a forty-year-old humanist. … I have never seen any more unhappy people than fathers or mothers who have come to me and said, “Where did we go wrong? We gave him everything, and now he’s turned his back completely on everything we believe.” Yes, you gave him everything but a Christian education.” – Dr. D. James KennedyTraining Your Children

“God does not give Christian parents the right to a free education for their children. Instead, he gives them the solemn responsibility to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, to keep before them his commandments day and night, to saturate them in his word and way that they may be holy even as he is holy.” – Anonymous

Still, many may feel the case is overstated, that these men are over-reacting. Consider the other side of the coin. These are statements from public school leaders and advocates–a very small sampling of many similar statements.

“Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property. He must be taught to amass wealth, but it must be only to increase his power of contributing to the wants and demands of the state. [This education] can be done effectually only by the interference and aid of the Legislature.” – Benjamin Rush, Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic (1700s) [Separating School & State, p. 37.]

“[T]he child should be taught to consider his instructor… superior to the parent in point of authority The vulgar impression that parents have a legal right to dictate to teachers is entirely erroneous… Parents have no remedy as against the teacher.” – John Swett, Superintendent of California Public School System (1860s)

“Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they’re not tempted to think about any other role.” – William T. Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889

“We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.” – Horace Mann, first secretary of education in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, “Father” of public schooling [Separating School & State, p. 48]

“The children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone would be interdependent.” – John Dewey, educator and philosopher

“Only a system of state-controlled schools can be free to teach whatever the welfare of the State may demand.” – Ellwood P. Cubberley, former Dean of the Stanford University School of Education

“In our dreams…people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from their minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk.” –  John D. Rockefeller, General Education board (1906) [The Underground History of American Education, p. 45]

“We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science… The task we set before ourselves is very simple…we will organize children…and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way…” – John D. Rockefeller, General Education board (1906) [The Underground History of American Education, p. 45]

“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith… The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new — the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of ‘love thy neighbor’ will finally be achieved.” – John J. Dunphy [The Humanist magazine, Jan/Feb 1983]

If you still have doubts about the intent of those who control public schoolingconsider this November 2, 2005 statement by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Ninth Circuit case was specifically addressing interviews conducted with children in a California school in which students in first, third, and fifth grades were asked explicit sexual questions as well as other disturbing and intrusive questions. The parents who sued lost their case.

Excerpt: “[O]nce parents make the choice as to which school their children will attend, …their fundamental right to control the education of their children is, at the least, substantially diminished. The constitution does not vest parents with the authority to interfere with a public school’s decision as to how it will provide information to its students or what information it will provide, in its classrooms or otherwise. See Yoder, 406 U.S. at 205. Perhaps the Sixth Circuit said it best when it explained,

‘While parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child. Whether it is the school curriculum, the hours of the school day, school discipline, the timing and content of examinations, the individuals hired to teach at the school, the extracurricular activities offered at the school or, as here, a dress code, these issues of public education are generally committed to the control of state and local authorities.’

Fields v. Palmdale School District PSD, United States Court of Appeals,Ninth Circuit. November 2, 2005

How Does Your Child’s School Measure Up?
A Survey for Parents of Faith

Rate your child’s school on a Scale of 1-10:

1 = Does not do this at all  –to– 
10 = Does an excellent job of it


My Child’s School…

___ Fosters respect for parents and family relationships

___ Fosters respect for personal beliefs and practices

___ Has made our family closer

___ Has strengthened my child’s spiritual commitment

___ Has strengthened my child’s sense of compassion for others

___ Has strengthened my child’s ability to stand up for what is right

___ Has helped my child become a more responsible individual

___ Has encouraged my child to think deeply

___ Has encouraged my child to respect God’s law over man’s law

___ Has respected my child’s privacy and dignity

___ Has treated my child with respect and fairness

___ Has taught my child to love learning and truth

___ Has encouraged personal and intellectual honesty

___ Has fostered strong self-esteem/emotional well-being in my child

___ Has fostered moral strength in my child

___ Has encouraged selflessness and a giving spirit in my child


How did your child’s school measure up?


Call to Dunkirk
Ministry Issues Call to Exit Public Schooling
by Rev. Chuck Huckaby, Associate Editor
The Christian Observer
Posted December 29, 2008

Excerpt: “The Call is to take whatever steps are necessary to deliver our children from the public school system as quickly as possible and make sure they are receiving a Christian education instead of the continual humanist indoctrination that has passed for education for over a generation.”

Includes “The Call to Dunkirk,” YouTube video with Rev. E. Ray Moore, Bruce Shortt, and Rev. Voddie Baucham.



Is it a sin to send our kids to public school?
by David d’Escoto
WorldNetDaily
Posted June 27, 2009

Excerpt:  “A slew of research shows that America is losing the conservative Christian youth in massive droves. These studies show a generation being increasingly won over to a socialistic/secular-humanistic worldview in spite of the American church increasing their apologetic courses, children’s programs, youth rallies and books and sermon series on child training. What is happening? . . . “


Christian Ministries Weak on K-12 Christian Education in Exodus Mandate Report Card
Christian NewsWire
Posted February 11, 2009

Excerpt: “Chaplain E. Ray Moore issued a Report Card at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in Nashville, Tennessee, on Feb 10, 2009, at a news conference, on how effectively major Christian ministries and organizations support K-12 Christian education or home schooling. . .”


Further Reading:

On Being Salt and Light
by FREDERICK C. FOOTE
Excerpt:  “Our understanding of the Bible on this point suggests that quite the opposite conclusion may be true. If we really want our children to be salt and light in this world, the public school classroom may be the last place they should be.”

We Are Losing Our Children
by T. C. PINCKNEY

Remarks to the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee by T. C. Pinckney, Nashville, TN, September 18, 2001.

Dear Sisters: Give to Caesar What is Caesar’s

A plea from BONNIE J. HORN

Excerpt: “…greed took hold in my heart. I had discovered that “Caesar” (the state government) would fund our home school efforts via an independent study charter school. We were promised funding… as long as… We could teach doctrine “on your own time”… I was choosing to pull out of the private sector and place over our schooling efforts an authority that required me to separate God within our home. I would have been teaching our children a double standard: God is O.K. for home but not for our school.”

Can Darkness Teach Light?

by JAMES BOYESpdf file – Get Adobe Reader

Excerpt:  “There is not one subject area left untouched by the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything is seen through His mind and Spirit — from the Biblical worldview, if you will.”

Why Muslims Need Separation of School & State
by IMAD-AD-DEAN AHMAD, Ph.D.
Excerpt: “Knowledge cannot be acquired from any single source but must come from a combination of three sources: reason, experience, and transmission from reliable sources.”


Catholics and School Liberation

The principles implied in the shibboleth, “Free Education for all,” which have been gaining ground in modern times, under the influence of Liberalism and Socialism, are full of danger to the interests of family life, especially where the free education is to be given at the public expense in State schools. The danger becomes greater when the State or the municipal authority supplies books, stationery, and medical attendance, and sometimes even free meals, to the children.

This system, suggesting as it does that the children belong to the State rather than to the parents, tends to withdraw both teachers and children from the parents’ control. Besides, parents do not, under a system of the kind, take the same interest in the child’s education as they do when they themselves defray at least some portion of the expenses. Hence it seems most desirable, in the best interests of both child and parent, that the latter should in all cases pay directly [italics in original] at least a small portion, and, where possible, even a considerable portion of the educational expenses.

E. Cahill, S.J.
Parents and Children–Education | “Free Education for All”
Chapter XX in The Framework of a Christian State
Republished by Roman Catholic Books, Fort Collins, CO
Originally published in 1932

Articles

Cyberschools – the rest of the story
by Robin Bernhoft, MD

Education and charity begin at home
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Griffin Internet Syndicate

Satan has no brakes
by Marshall Fritz and E. Ray Moore, Jr.


A special endorsement

As C. S. Lewis remarked, the modern world keeps trying to make religion a purely private matter while constantly reducing the areas of privacy that are left to us. If we treasure our liberty, we must keep the minds of our children free of the power of the state.

Nobody is fighting for this cause more thoughtfully or vigorously than the Alliance for the Separation of School & State, whose goal is to make education completely and inviolably private.

Its founder and leader is Marshall Fritz, one of the most amazing men you’ll ever meet â€” a huge man who combines the mind of a philosopher, the humor of a comedian, the piety of a monk, and the energy of my grandchildren. I don’t mean to heap hyperbolic praise on Marshall; the most important thing about him is that he simply understands what the battle is all about. It’s not just about imparting computer skills and raising test scores; it’s finally about making sure that children learn about Christ. That’s exactly what public education is now designed to prevent.

Joseph Sobran in “Washington Watch,”
The Wanderer,
 February 13, 1997