Homeschoolers consistently outscore government school students in every academic area. It's no wonder that the public school establishment hates and fears homeschooling.
The clearest evidence yet came in The Washington Post on June 1.
"THE REVOLT OF CHRISTIAN HOME-SCHOOLERS" (all caps in original) is a voluminous, front-page article almost entirely about one Loudoun County homeschooling couple who opted to put their children in public schools.
If you recall, Loudoun is Ground Zero in the national parents' revolt against "woke" schools that indoctrinate children. Somebody at the Post had to act, so reporter Peter Jamison went to work.
We won't do the couple a disservice by mentioning their names, but they were perfectly cast in the Post's anti-Christian, anti-homeschooling screed. They're probably very nice people, especially since they were raised in Christian homes. But somewhere, the husband lost his faith.
The Post has a knack for finding convenient dissenters. When writing about a Christian college, they focus on the campus heretic. In a conservative political district, they showcase the rare Republican who sounds more like Bernie Sanders than Ronald Reagan.
The mom and dad in this article were themselves homeschooled. Both said they came to realize how awful and tyrannical it was. Not one good thing apparently came from their upbringing.
As children, they were kept abysmally ignorant of important facts. The only example cited is the existence of Punxsutawney Phil, the prognosticating Pennsylvania groundhog. According to the Post, when informed by his second-grade daughter, the dad exclaimed, "Phil? Am I out of the loop?"
For the record, I know a lot of homeschooling families, none of whom have been clueless about this weather-predicting rodent and whose grown-up children are acing their chosen fields. As for Phil, watching him on TV during Groundhog Day can be a teachable moment about discerning between fantasy and reality. You can use the Washington Post in similar fashion.
The most cited example of oppression is spanking, a discipline method strongly recommended in the Bible and used by parents (including mine) for thousands of years. Scriptures warn that if we spare the rod, we spoil the child. Tragically, a tiny minority of homeschooling parents, as with any population segment, overdo it to the point of being abusive. We are given the impression that the couple's parents may have been in that category.
The couple's children are now in public school and reportedly thriving. Good for them, seriously. There are some wonderful teachers and administrators in public schools. However, let's see what the parents do when confronted with woke sex education, pronoun policies and a racialist curriculum that accuses them of being white supremacists.
Delighted to welcome the couple to functionally atheist education, Mr. Jamison sprinkled his article with gems like this: "Among conservative Christians, homeschooling became a tool for binding children to fundamentalist beliefs they felt were threatened by exposure to other points of view."
The loaded term "binding" evokes coercion. "Fundamentalist" is a legitimate term often used to mischaracterize anyone with a biblical worldview.
Mr. Jamison also absurdly accuses homeschooling Christians of having "inflamed the nation's culture wars, fueling attacks on public school lessons about race and gender with the politically potent language of 'parental rights.'"
He is blaming the mugging victim for fighting back.
It wasn't Christian parents who started the culture war. We're not the ones who ply children with anti-American history lessons, Critical Race Theory or drag queen story hours. We didn't turn June, long known for marriages and Father's Day, into "LGBTQ Pride Month."
When the COVID pandemic forced schools to present their lessons online in full view of horrified parents, it triggered a sharp increase in homeschooling, and not just among Christians. Homeschooling doubled during the pandemic and is up overall at least 30% since 2019, accounting for nearly four million students. Christian schools also have experienced a pandemic-fueled "boom," the New York Times reported.
As with most culture war issues, the Left's "concern" over homeschooling is a thinly veiled attack on faith, especially Christianity.
The dad in the article had attended a Maryland church where "the minister exerted a powerful influence over his congregation and students, teaching that children live in divinely ordained subjection to the rule of their parents," the Post grimly explained as if this was an outpost of the Taliban.
Yes, the pastor probably cited the Ten Commandments, one of which says, "Honor your father and mother." He may also have cited the New Testament verse that says: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 'Honor your father and mother,' which is the first commandment with promise: 'that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.'
"And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:1-4).
This is scary stuff for secularists who advocate children constructing their own beliefs and value systems – with "guidance" from woke educators.
The Post did reach out to both sets of parents and the siblings of the featured couple. But they all "either declined to comment or could not be reached."
Yep. When the mugger is at the door, you don't open it.
This article appeared originally here.
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