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| California is on the right. |
California:
I had the pleasure of knowing one of the pioneers of homeschooling if not THE pioneer. She paved the way for many when home schools were not legal in many states, homeschooled her four children while residing in several different states, and was instrumental in writing legislation to make homeschooling legal in some of them. She wrote about home schooling and other education issues through the years, and was recognized for her efforts on a Video for TV in Texas some years ago. Pioneers such as Virginia (Ginny) Baker should be thanked for their efforts and example.
[Reference to Ginny Baker here.]
One of the things Ginny and serious education watchers consistently warned homeschoolers was the importance of their accepting not one penny of government money even indirectly, no co operative arrangements with the local public schools or charter school arrangements, or use of any cyber curricula which is underwritten by government grants to the supplier. What government funds, even indirectly, government controls, and eventually home schooling will be forced to comply with government curricula standards if government funding is in the picture.
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GJ - California is always educating me about these topics. I remember my mother, a public school teacher, warning people about the federal government "helping" with money. She said, "They say no strings, but there are always strings."
Now people simply accept the federal government dictating everything to us and running roughshod over the states.
An Evangelical looked at us like we were Mr. and Mrs. Moses for homeschooling 30 years ago. We saw nothing but benefits from homeschooling and got nothing but hostility about it.
When I met one "conservative" LCMS DP and mentioned homeschooling, he said, "We just got rid of one of them." Sure enough, one LCMS pastor was kicked out for homeschooling, even though he promised to enroll his child in LCMS parochial school.
The same DP said our son was the only person he knew who could recite the Master Mason's oath by heart. (That was one of his projects, to study the Masonic Lodge.)
The parochial school (now baby-sitting) business is going to oppose anything robbing them of cash. Money pays for teachers, principals, consultants, pastor-faculty, teachers' colleges, and more. Even better, a parochial system keeps people out, serving as a guild.
Charter schools are just another form of the federal government controlled school system. And how well is that working?
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rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Good Insights about Homeschooling":
Pastor Jackson, your mother was certainly correct about funding from the federal government. When your mother was a public school teacher, they were almost always under local control from the school board. My grandfather served on the school board in 1930's. He certainly was not an educational professional. He did not even have the benefit of a high school education. Here is what Wikipedia says about the Federal DOE:
"Upgrading Education to cabinet level status in 1979 was opposed by many in the Republican Party, who saw the department as unconstitutional, arguing that the Constitution doesn't mention education, and deemed it an unnecessary and illegal federal bureaucratic intrusion into local affairs. However many liberals and Democrats see the department as constitutional under the Commerce Clause, and that the funding role of the Department is constitutional under the Taxing and Spending Clause. The National Education Association supported the bill, while the American Federation of Teachers opposed it."
It certainly did not stop with the local public schools. When Lutheran schools accept the filthy lucre under "school choice" and charter schools are sold as "free market", the funding source and the control is the same.
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GJ - Historic St. John Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, under SP John Brenner, would not take a dime in government money. The end began when parochial schools decided they needed tax money. With that they got government meddling in everything. And the "poor" school becomes every more dependent on the tax-money-donor, who giveth and taketh away. The school that lives from the tax collector will also die from the tax collector, when budgets shift.
However, many churchmen enjoy having their trotters in the government trough, because they get their share and more - so they think. Their god is the belly, and they are very pious in that way.
