The effects of the economy

It's a difficult time for parochial schools all over the country these days as famlies have less and less discretionary income for education. But a lax economy affects public school districts as well as tax revenue decreases. I was speculating with another teacher the other day as to what will be the biggest change to occur first in education due to lack of resources.

An article out of California suggests that class sizes will get bigger.

I also suspect that "specialists" will be phased out as well and teachers will be asked more and more to have the ability to teach a class with students that have a wide array of abilities. We'll see if that turns out to be true.

Kung Fu Lunacy

And now class, as a reward for your hard work and good behavior you get to:

Watch a rated R movie!!

Check out this story - lunacy at its finest.

No Bible verse banners at the football games . . .

Interesting story out of Georgia - read it here.

Makes me wonder why we don't have more Bible verse banners at our sporting events (just because we can).

Meeping

I wonder if they added it to their parent/student handbook . . . read here.

Scooping Fox News

OK - so I didn't actually do any actual investigative work . . . BUT, as you watch the TV coverage of the current national Safe and Drug Free Schools czar, Kevin Jennings, and his connections with homosexual and pedophilia activism, keep in mind that I blogged about him back in June. Scroll down to find that previous post (June 7).

Yikes.

Cancelling high school sports

Interesting array of articles lately in the news about high schools that are cancelling high school sports due to lack of funding and a down economy. Hard to know if a significant trend is developing, but Sports Illustrated saw it coming last year and thought enough about it to write an article.

If a true trend develops, I wonder if it could mean a movement toward private/parochial schools. We'll see.

Irony!?!

Did anyone else catch how Obama finished his address to the students of America today?

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

He mentioned God in school! Odds are that if he was a valedictorian at one of nation's public high schools, some principal would have made him take that out of his speech.

Beautiful irony.

Textbooks

Fox News has been on the "biased textbooks" trail lately - something that is hard to find definitive examples of but is generally believed by educators to be true.

I think some level of "bias" in textbooks should be expected: if the author of a textbook approaches the subject from a Christian worldview, I would expect that its tone and outlook to be different that a textbook written by avowed atheistic college professors. Duh. I've never found it to be a huge deal. It's far more important that a Christian teacher can spot anti-Christian bias and point it out to the students.

With that being said, some of the examples put forth in the following article are shocking - Jesus as a Palestinian is pretty bad. The promotion of Islam is true for most of the World History textbooks that I have seen.

Check out the clip of this special that ran a few days ago on Fox News:

Changing student grades

I have often wondered about an interesting dichotomy that exists in public education:

If student failures = "bad publicity" = less money to the school district, then what incentive exists for raising standards if more kids fail? Why not just artificially inflate student grades and claim academic excellence?

It seems that is becoming an issue in Chicago - check out this shocking article!

Here's an interesting bit from the article:

"It's in the culture of the schools,'' wrote one experienced high school teacher who raised numerous grades under pressure -- and said at least one was changed without his approval. "You can't completely be honest in grading students, otherwise the failure rate would be off the chart.''

WOW!

What about charter schools? - part II

Great article today in WorldMag.com about the fall of the urban Christian schools and its relationship with vouchers and charter schools. Here's my favorite paragraph from the article:

Bob Rogalski, a marketer for Christian schools with the Christian School Development Center, divides Christian school supporters into two groups that sometimes clash. The first—the "Stalwarts"—passionately believe in a Christian education that strengthens morals and theology. They run the church that runs the school and write prompt donation checks to support it. The "Seekers" are the Gen-X parents—spiritual but not religious, looking not for doctrine but accreditation, not for theology but textbooks, an education that will prepare their kids more for the job market than the afterlife. If they're out of money they'll go to a charter school instead, and the "Baptist" in the name just won't impress them.

Sounds like he read my previous post.

What about the charter schools?

I get asked on occasion this question: Has the rise of charter schools hurt enrollment at Christian schools?

For those families who are seeking a Christian education, charter schools usually aren't an option because they are still under control of a school district and inherently secular. But for families who are seeking a "non-public-school option," charter schools are appealing for two huge reasons:

1. They are run much like private and Christian schools with all the perks that that brings.
2. They are free.

So, I answer the question with . . . .yes.

Relating to #1 above - check out what is happening in Los Angeles HERE. The public school district is converting 250 schools to charter schools so they can be saved and managed better. I can't even think of good analogy to describe how shocking that is . . . .maybe I'll add one later.

More wackiness from California!

I'm back - pardon the summer layoff from blogging - school news is slow in the summer.

A woman who four and a half years ago was fired for playing a song in a public school that had the word "Christ"in it had her day in court today -I'll update the results soon. Here's the link to the story.

Safe and drug-free schools

Although I am ever-so-careful to only criticize the institution of public education and not the people who work in it, I am often asked "can you not just talk about the value of Christian education without putting down public schools?"

In a word? No.

Christian parents don't need Christian schools to bring their children up in the Lord. Yet, I think two things:

1. Christian schools complement nicely the worldview being taught in the home of solid Christian parents.

2. Most Christian parents don't have the first idea the worldview that is being imposed on their children in the public schools.

It isn't about criticizing the institution of public education - it's about trying to educate parents as to what is really going on. It's not wrong for Christian parents to place their kids in public schools. But you had better bring your parenting A-game to counteract what they are going to be learning.

For example, this week President Obama appointed Kevin Jennings as head of the national Safe and drug-free schools organization.

I cannot link to anything with Mr. Jennings for fear of what you may have to read. I'll let you do it: just google "kevin jennings" with "obama" or with "GLSEN." Sorry.

The Reformed approach

Members of the Southern Baptist Convention have for years been trying to pass a resolution advocating its members to exit the public schools. Albert Moehler, president of the SBC Seminary has led the charge in articles like this one.

While "exiting the public schools" has not been warmly received by the majority of Baptists, it has spurred discussion and debate and recently led to a recent article, written by Morris Chapman, that frames the issue in a more positive light (perhaps more "Lutheran" if you will). Read it here.

He advocates the Southeran Baptist community raising up more schools: In recent days, two questions have weighed heavily on my soul. If Southern Baptists don't do it, who will? If we don't do it now, do we risk forever losing the opportunity to build schools for God's glory and the future of our children, grandchildren and the land we love?


For whatever it's worth, I do believe that Christian education will only be truly be valued by Christians when the church makes a strong call for its members to partner with its schools in the spiritual development of children. It seems the Baptists are headed towards that call - when will other denominations follow?

An open-minded prom . . .

Non-stop entertainment coming from California - Read this.

Disturbing line of the article: "It just goes to show how open-minded our class is," Lo said.

Ah, yes, the public school pursuit of open-mindedness.

Those crazy Gideons!

Interesting article about distributing Bibles in a public school! How did they get away with that? Read it here!

Regardless of whether that's appropriate or not, here is my favorite part of the article:

Michael Baier, who has a son at Frisco's Lakeland High School, said that religious groups should not be allowed to offer their teachings on campus.

"If they're God-fearing Christians ... they should be giving those items wherever they worship. School is a place to learn, not a place to worship," Baier told FOXNews.com.

He has obviously never been in a Lutheran high school.

A win for praying middle schoolers!

The Alliance Defense Fund rides to the rescue of Christian middle school students in California - click here for the full article.

"Great Expectations"

Here is a link to a great article centered around a Christian school written by Carol DeMar (author of It takes a backbone to raise terrific kids!)

A couple of excerpts:

Parents Must Begin to Parent - Low expectations prevail even in the Christian community. There are exceptions, but too often Christians can be observed parenting badly. No longer are children responsible for their actions—their bad behavior is always someone else’s fault—teachers or other children. Children are pulling the strings, dictating what they want from Mom and Dad who “dance” on cue.

Preparing your children to fulfill their role as Christians in the world should be your goal. Fathers and mothers working together teaching and training their children to pursue excellence is commanded by our Lord. Do not be content to teach your children to accept second-rate status. We do them a tremendous disservice and dishonor the God we serve. May great expectations flourish once again among Christians throughout the land!

Who needs an internet filter?

For those of you with a more conservative slant - here's an interesting story coming out of Michigan . . .

Where the money should have been going . . .

For those of you that approach life with a more conservative bent, here is an interesting article that questions the amount of money that has been poured into the religious right political movement. The author of the article advocates that the money should have been poured into . . . .CHRISTIAN EDUCATION!

Click here to read it!

Here's an excerpt:

How would it be, for instance, if all the money raised for all the national ministries and pro-family groups since the 1970s—millions and millions of dollars, if not billions—and all the incalculable man-hours of work, had been devoted to the establishment of a comprehensive system of Christian education, coast to coast? How would it be if, instead of pouring all that money and labor into the bottomless pit of politics as usual, we'd used it to set up Christian schools and Christian colleges, Christian scholarships, Christian tutoring and homeschooling programs—and taken tens of millions of Christian children out of anti-Christian public schools?

Those millions of Christian-educated children would be grown up by now. They'd be voting, they'd be holding public office. Think they might've elected different leaders instead of the gang of thieves, liars, tax-cheats, tinhorn socialist big shots, and snake-oil salesmen who afflict us now?

The "self-esteem" disaster . . .

These type of articles are popping up everywhere - click here to read a good one.

It began as the byproduct of the 1980s self-esteem movement, in which parents and teachers were told to reward and stroke kids pretty much constantly, supposedly to make them confident.
Dr. Ernie Swihart, an author and behavioral pediatrician at South Lake Pediatrics in Minnetonka, decried the self-esteem movement from its inception. Then, as now, he believed kids should be taught to be inwardly focused, self-sufficient creatures able to shift their own gears.

Real self-esteem -- for all of us -- comes from overcoming an obstacle-laden challenge, he believes, with hard work. Lavishing praise, he contends, is counterproductive and, if anything, makes kids needy and voracious for that other self-esteem-movement buzzword: validation.

Amen.

Elizabeth Taylor !?!?!

Interesting choice of charities for Ms. Taylor - too bad she doesn't know about DLHS - read this!

In other news, I will be donating $10 to a local theatre school next month.

Wow - I wonder what the parents think . . .

Check out the lengths that a Christian school is going to to stop cheating . . . click here.

Needing more "focus and socialization"

A judge in North Carolina decides orders a homeschooled family into the public schools. I would bet that the case gets overturned, but we'll see . . . click here to read the story.

We've had that rule for years!

Who knew that DLHS could have been featured in the news? We've had that rule for years! Click here to find out what I'm talking about.

Anything to win . . .

For entertainment purposes . . . here's a crazy article about a high school basketball coach pulling out all the stops to get wins.

Click here to read the article.

My favorite line in the article: The Kansas State High School Activities Association has no rules regarding hypnosis. Hillarious.

Blogging about the administrators . . .

Read a fascinating article about a case in Connecticut where a high school student is suing to have the right to blog disparaging comments about her school administrators without repercussion from the school - click here.

Regardless of the eventual outcome, it does bear asking: what is the mom thinking?

Lauren Doninger said she wished her daughter "had used more sophisticated language," but said it was up to her, not the school board, to mete out the punishment. "It's for me to discipline her at home, not for the school."

The mom's goal is for her daughter to use more sophisticated language as she publically criticized her administrators. Good parenting there.

"No Name Calling Week"

In case you missed it, last week was "No Name Calling Week" for 5th thru 8th graders in public schools all over the country. Sounds good until you realize the agenda behind the program. If you go to the webpage of teacher materials (CLICK HERE) you'll notice the GLSEN in the upper right hand corner. If you read the materials, you'll see what they really are: tools for indoctrinating middle school students to accept homosexual lifestyles.

I'd call the creators of the curriculum, "sneaky," but I'd hate to violate the spirit of "No Name Calling Week."