public schools

While a parent ultimately makes the decision, I think Christians should seriously consider removing their children from public schools. Education is not secular, it is a distinctly Christian act rooted in God.

 

Well I don’t know where you have been SolaSaint, but we have our own forum here on the board dedicated to homeschooling.

Ruiz is right, each parent needs to make this decision for themselves and there is no right answer. It depends on a lot of things. It depends on the school system, the teachers, the children, the availability of Christian School alternatives, and the ability of the parents.

In our case, depending on where we were living our children attended Christian School, were homeschooled, and now all are attending public schools (1 in college now). I believe that the early years are the most important and when no Christian School was available we homeschooled. But as our children grew we “mainstreamed” them into the local public school system.

We are blessed with a great school system here. Prayer at all events, the chorus is doing their Christmas concert at our church tomorrow night. No problem with religious music or any other Christian reference. We had a slip sent home today from one of the schools announcing that they were having a convocation service Wednesday. There will be a biblical devotion and no T shirts will be allowed. Their school issued polo shirts are the uniform of the day.

I know everyone does not have that kind of public school system available.

 

Home-schooled children wander from the faith, also. So do private-schooled children.

 

That is true, but that is not the reason to discount homeschooling. The reason to homeschool is rooted in your theology of education. Can a person have a proper education without the foundation being based upon God? There is no true education that can occur apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the foundation. Yes, people can learn, but they cannot be truly educated.

While there are some homeschoolers who turn secular and some in the public schools who remain faithful, I believe that faithfulness to a Christian Education is better with a foundation on the Gospel than a secular education with a foundation upon secularism.

 

I don't think there can be a better post than this :thumbs:

 

Excellent Post!!!!

 

I am a big home school fan, however I do not think that many parents are capable of doing home schooling with both parents working as is the case. It is my opinion that if a child leaves the faith simply because they go to public school then they never had the faith to begin with and if they did not have it to begin with I do not think home schooling would make a difference. It would be interesting to see the stats on how many who have been home schooled and went to college and claimed to have lost their faith. My guess is it is no different then those who were not home schooled. I really think that our homes need to return to the biblical standards if we want our children to continue in the faith and be a model to the world, home schooled or not.

 

I would add to the Homeschoolers. As a college instructor, I see many students who come from a homeschool experience. They are often wonderful students, however, I do often see a weakness in mathematics and the hard sciences. This is not to say all come "under prepared" in math, but a noticeable proportion do. I might also add that I see the same from the Public School students.

I know there are many good options in mathematics curriculum, one I like for the homeschoolers is Saxon math, but there is often no good substitute for a great and inspiring teacher in the more challenging academics.

 

As a professor, I have not had the opportunity to teach many homeschoolers but my wife is a tutor for homeschoolers. I agree with you.

My grammar on this list is sometimes horrendous, but when writing formally it is much better. I have noticed that homeschoolers are usually better writers than their public school counterparts. In my daughters' class (10 and 8 years old), they produce better essays than most of my college students.

 

We have homeschooled from the beginning. I don't see how anyone that is a Christian could put their kids in a public school environment where God or the Bible can't even be talked about let alone taught about. Where homosexuality is not only embraced but encouraged and taught as an alternative lifestyle.

As for children going to public school so they can be a witness, I don't recall anywhere in the bible where God used children to be a witness.

 

Again, You Have Hit-it-out-of-the-park, Rick!

Since I live in California, the land of "fruits, nuts and flakes" I would have to say that if I had children, they would not be going through the public school system on the west coast.

As you (may, or may not) know, the state just passed a law that makes teaching children the history of gay leaders/inventors and their contributions to society. On top of this, several years back, they decided to intervene and teach their class (when same-sex-families presents itself) to accept this sin as something that is natural and acceptable in our society.

While I have no problem with parents teaching their children to accept such things as social norms, I object to teaching ALL children, especially those from Chrisitan homes, this type of liberal trash! My children would be told that the law allows this, but the Bible doesn't, not an across the board "tolerant, nod!" :tear:

This alone is enough to make me choose to home school, or send my children to private schools, and that includes university-level education. Private Christian universities will do just fine!

I think our kids need to be aware of what is going on in the world around them. I just want them to have a Christian/Biblical perspective of the world they live.

There is no way I'd stand for the California school system teaching my children their liberal agenda. :type:

 

Wow, this is a pretty offensive statement to many, many committed Christians who choose to keep their kids in public school. It's an issue of conscience.

 

Of course not. You're right. But it's asinine to make the claim that your children are more likely to depart from the faith as public school students. As one who was homeschooled and had a lot of friends from all school backgrounds, there is no such correlation.

In fact, a lot of the parents I saw homeschooling were objectively bad parents who were controlling or abusive or paranoid, while there were many faithful, level-headed parents who sent their children to public school.

There simply is no such correlation.

 

I didn't say they were as likely. Rather, I said that children in both venues depart from the faith. I do believe an education with a presupposition on the Christian Gospel is the only true way of education.

However, I also believe that these decisions should be up to a parent. Yet, I could not justify sending my kids to a public school.