Baptists to weigh public-school exit plan

From AP, via Yahoo!

By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer
GREENSBORO, N.C

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention refused Wednesday to support a resolution urging the denomination to form a strategy for removing children from public schools in favor of home schooling or education at private schools.

The "exit strategy" proposal, offered by Roger Moran of Troy, Mo., and Texas author Bruce Shortt, came as many Southern Baptists are concerned about how classrooms are handling subjects such as homosexuality and "intelligent design."

*snip*

Moran, who owns a company that makes construction supplies, is a father of nine children, ages 18 months to 18 years. All have been home-schooled or attended Christian schools, he said.

Yahoo article is here

Those people have just about ruined the public schools.

Looks like they're staying.

Fundamentalist Christianity is the greatest danger our nation faces. Make no mistake, the want to take our freedom and our Constitution replace it with their perverted version of Biblical Law .

with you. If they'd shut the fuck up, there would be less sins, less crimes, and less intolerance in the world.

it just fits.

Tells a lot about a person, doesn't it, in this case?

when the kids get exposed to other ideas and different people in public schools.

This bears keeping an eye on because those bastards would get bush to cut their taxes as part of their "exit strategy."

Semper Fi Teammate! You liberty loving fucking liberal you!

gays by taking them from the public schools!
That's sarcasm folks.
Why is it that everything these people are concerned about revolves around sex?

and/or organist I ever met in the SBC - was gay. Closeted or in denial gay, maybe - but gay nonetheless.

...Mr. Moran can do whatever he pleases, as long as he pays his taxes to support the public school system.

Lots of churches have schools. None should ever get government funding for them.

and they'd still be able to serve on school boards. So this wouldn't end their incessant assault on the fruits of the enlightenment.

The Fundamentalists are running for local school boards, local govt seats, etc - and making changes at the community level. That's the real danger.

"We are commanded biblically to train our children in the nurture of the Lord,"

Go right ahead ON Your OWN time and Dime.

Go hide in your holes and try and pretend the rest of the real world does not exist.

If you think about how many of these people are NOT teaching their kids, and whose education will be certainly lacking beyond a 5th grade level, and who will end up as the next generation of fast food restaurant servers, janitors and garbage collectors. (Not to denigrate any of these jobs, but obviously, they're not going to be rocket scientists!)

and it could be a concern, but they do have the right to do this on their own time and dime. But point taken, there is a larger issue of how to build and maintain a just and responsible society.

Although the kids I know who have been homeschooled are pretty decent kids... I really have a problem with Homeschooling.. its a really selfish thing for a parent to think they have all the knowledge to teach their kids for several years...

As a product of a private school (international, not Christian) and an Alumnus of a Christian Liberal Arts College, I really don't see any inherent problems with Christian schools, but I think a church policy is really wrong. I think only families should have a say as to wether their kids go to a private school, based on specific needs... not some edict.

I applaud the Southern Baptist Convention for nto supporting it as a whole, bravo.

Williams was, after all, one of the strongest Colonial proponents of secular public education (that was part of why he got kicked out of Massachussetts). But, like most of Wililams' teaching, this has gotten turned around 180 degrees by the SBC.

And, incidentally, home-schooling bugs the crap out of me. I've known quite a few home-schooled kids (the college I went to happened to be famously tolerant of home-schoolers' "transcripts"), and without exception they have been naive, sheltered, simpering little things incapable of dealing with people who don't share their worldview, be it bible-thumping or granola-eating. And the worst part is, from talking to homeschooling parents, I'm convinced this is exactly what most of them intend. Now, I don't deny a parent's *right* to home school, but I think it's almost always a bad idea.

And, yeah... 9 kids? He should put a muzzle on that thing.

hs'ing parents on DU. Our children - I can assure you - are NOT "naive, sheltered, simpering little things incapable of dealing with people who don't share their worldview, be it bible-thumping or granola-eating."

:rofl:


Edit to add: DU'er AVA is hs'ed, btw.

Kids who are gifted. Kids who are challenged. Most especially - kids who are both. Most PS systems - in these days of "teaching to the test" - are not designed for these children. School is mostly geared towards the non-existent "average" kid. Kids in the middle spectrum usually manage to fair "ok" - but if you are "exceptional" at either end of the spectrum - then the options open to you are severely lessened.

It's NOT selfish - it's quite self-less. I gave up all hope of my career in order to see to it that my son has the education he needs and that our local school system was incapable of providing. (And we live in a "good school district".)

Not all hs'ers are fundies - there are plenty of liberal hs'ers. (FYI - we even have a group on DU.) *We* usually hs for EDUCATIONAL reasons - not religious ones. The schools in our areas - for whatever reason - can't or won't provide the educational resources for our children.

Some children are quirky. Some severely out-of-the-box thinkers. Some have other interest/talents that have to be accommodated. Some kids don't NEED to sit in a classroom and be bored out of their school for 7 hours a day. Some kids CAN'T sit in a classroom for 7 hours a day, period - without driving themselves and everyone around them crazy.

We don't have to "know everything". (What teacher does?) There are plenty of resources available - from prewritten curriculum packages, video lectures, textbooks, on-line classes, and tutors, to extra-curricular programs, and local co-ops.

(FYI - I'm not "anti-school". I have one son in PS and graduated a daughter from PS.)

Never heard of it. I'd be interested to learn about it... I by no means intended to insult anyone, and if I did, I apologize. I guess I am a little ignorant about it. I just see so many examples of parents using HS out of the need to shelter children who would be considered average to PS.

I just think back upon my experience of having so many different teachers, and how all their different teaching styles and curriculi have molded me. Then again, I come from Iowa were the Public Schools are good. I just worry about the HS kids and their lack of access to socialization on vareity of instructors.... But I can see the benefits of a co-op effort.

I'll check out your HS forum to learn more, thank you for responding.

:pals:

in many schools these days leave a lot to be desired, don't you think?

Generally, hs'ers have a broader range of friends than what they can find in a PS. There is less of the boy/girl thing. No "who has the coolest clothes/shoes" thing. No getting picked on or beat up for your lunch money. A wider age group.

I need a calendar to keep up with all we do. It's not like we hide in our house or anything. :) Also, my kids are in "every activity known to man" lol. . . something they couldn't do if they had hours of mindless homework every night. (My PS son is in a Montessori - they don't "do homework" there, either.) Between gymnastics, kungfu, dance, baseball, soccer, swimteam, Chinese language, co-ops, playgroups, etc - my kids are exposed to very diverse segments of society. (Oh yeah, not all of these things all the time for both kids - some are "seasonal".)

No offense taken. Many people automatically think of the rwfundienutjobs when hs'ing is mentioned. I try very hard to educate DU'ers that hs'ing is increasingly popular amongst we liberals. (Especially if they keep screwing up the PS system like they have since bushco came around!)


Edit to add: Check out DU'er AVA........ the one who was in the NY Times today and will be on Scarborough tonight - she homeschools!

so horrible. I'm as liberal as they get. This was 17 years ago, and back then in TN you actually had to sign up with a participating fundie church as your "umbrella" to teach at home. I didn't have to attend the church, but that was the only way you could officially homeschool until homeschooling became much more mainstream. We had a great time that year, staying home, learning to read, etc.

When we moved and he started second grade, to my surprise the teachers said he "couldn't read." :wtf:

Well, it turns out that what they meant was he couldn't take tests about reading. Shit, that's different. And now, with the grandkids getting old enough to go to school, it looks like grandNay will be ponying up private school tuition money, because there is NO WAY these poor babies are going to be subjected to NCLB.

Couldn't home schooling be used as a tool to work WITH the public school system? Instead of having the child homeschooled totally, I can imagine that more liberal parents might look at public school not as something not measuring up to their standards, but keeping the basic lessons of a regular school and supplementing that basic education with other subjects or more intensive studies at home.

Many schools might already have some sort of curriculum where all the major subjects could be taught in the 1st half of the school day, and then the child who is going on to other studies at home could go home at that point. I know I was precocious, and I was bored with a lot of the other things at school, but I remember school being a place where I made many lifelong friendships and learned more from simply listening than if I had been at home. Of course, I went to a special college prep high school (Girls Latin School, in Boston), and we were not integrated with the boys at the time (the year I graduated they went co-ed.). We did, however, have a very strict course of study and I might have been more interested if there was a chance to follow up with courses that I enjoyed.

I know for some families, mine included, a SAHM was a luxury, and my mother worked 80 hours a week, with a graveyard shift and a day shift as well, so staying at home was not an option most of the time.

but many - most - PS schools won't LET you.

What are the "basic lessons of a regular school"? Why should a kid who "gets it" the first time have to sit through 17 repetitions and four hours of homework doing the same repetitious problems over and over again?

"but I remember school being a place where I made many lifelong friendships and learned more from simply listening than if I had been at home."

That's true of many kids. But the *exact* opposite is also true for a lot of children. Especially those who are a bit "different".

A whole depends not only on the school, but on the teacher. A whole depends on what the needs of the child are. In a classroom with 30 kids, it is impossible to differentiate drastically for that "one kid".

1/2 day schools, IMO, are proof that the majority of the school day is pretty much wasted. Unfortunately, most 1/2 day schools are private - and pricey.

As for the "luxury" of being a SAHM - well - no one I personally know is RICH. We've all made sacrifices to do what we believe is in our child(ren)'s best interest. I'm on hs'ing loops with people from all over the world and there are single mom hs'ers and dad hs'ers and working parent hs'ers. Sometimes they have to get very creative - they work from home, do shift work, co-op, hs at night - but they do what they have to do.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

on the federal level and non-baptists at the state and local level dont support it.

good ridden`s you can`t bitch about those evil public schools anymore

a fucking rabbit? Nine kids? He needs to zip it up and leave it alone. Fucking asshole.

I'd hate to see them infect the learning class.