Southern Baptists consider mandate against public school

[Ave Maria]

Education is just job training?

No, it's not just job training. It's also to make sure that we have an educated society as opposed to an ignorant one.

 

[Sycophant]

Every Christian child taken our of public school is one less Christian witness in that school. How does that fit with our commission?

I'd have to say that generally kids aren't the most effective witnesses of Christianity anyway. One of my Christian friends just used to constantly tell me I would burn in hell because I wasn't Christian (we were about 8 at the time).

Mind you there are still people who take the same approach with sharing Christ's love, so I guess I might be jumping to conclusions on that one.

 

[Doctrine1st]

I think it's time for Southern Baptists to build some schools. Between now and the time the sleeping giant Christian community wakes up, there is little else that can be done. It's a sad situation. I am a SB minister and personally I would rather work with the local schools, but those doors are closed. I recently saw a memo cautioning teachers not to use the word Christmas, but instead to use the words that are on the calendar; winter break! Yep, it's time to go.

Hmm....my sister is a teacher, and I volunteer all the time in her classes. Work with them in what regards?

As far as winter break, the nerve of them, to take a long standing tradition and calling it something else.

 

[MediocrityInAction]

The Rev. Dr. Jim West, pastor of First Baptist Church of Petros in Morgan County, said he will offer a motion at the state convention urging parents to keep their children in public schools.

"I firmly believe Christians should be engaged in the world," West said.

At least there seems to be one voice of reason. Disengagement from the public school system, or any kind of isolationism is not healthy or beneficial. Through disengagement from society as a whole, the only thing achieved is alienation and factionalism, which in turn leads to confrontation and strife.

 

[feral]

The solution to failing public schools, in any sense of the word, is not to abandon them and flee but to work towards improvement. If you do not like the way your child's public school is being run, then you need to make a serious effort towards changing it. Write weekly letters to the school board and to the government of your state and township, demanding change. Organise fellow parents into marches, pickets, protests and activism. Have your church do a weekly prayer circle for the school. Contact your local newspaper and tell them what you're activism is all about. Attend every single PTA meeting and join whatever parent groups you can. Offer to chaperone field trips, participate as an aid, or ask to be an observer in the classroom. Then you know what is really going on, and you'll have the connections to make a change. I am not against private schools at all, I think they are fine, but I also think it's incredibly irresponsible to jump ship rather then to improve what for many kids is the only option.

 

[BeamMeUpScotty]

If SBs or anyone else wants to take their kids out of school and either start a new school or homeschool them, more power to them. Vouchers, however, are wrong. The cost of the private schools must be carried by those in the school via tuition, support of the community which started the school, or, more likely, a combination of the two. I see no reason why my tax dollars should go to enable anyone to attend a non-public school because the public schools need that money to fix the myriad of problems they are already facing.

Now can you explain your objections to Christians, who don't see faith as a one day a week issue, having a chance to live that faith in a public institution, built by a church going nation founded on a covenant, that gives rights to people based on being "created"?

Now this is not true. Please give some sources. What "covenant" are you talking about? Please note the 11th article of the 1797 Treaty with Tripoli that was passed unanimously by the senate and signed into law by President Adams:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen..."

Many, if not most, of the founding fathers were not Christians, but diests. They did believe in a "creator", but most did dismiss the Christian religion, esp. Jefferson.

 

[sinner/SAVED]

One of my Christian friends just used to constantly tell me I would burn in hell because I wasn't Christian (we were about 8 at the time).

Fear and damnation is a pretty poor method of spreading Good News IMO.

 

[MoodyBlue]

Actually, we have never tossed out anything. You need to look at what has been tossed, and who tossed it. You assume it's fundamentalists in a negative sense, Southern Baptists would not see it that way. Conservatives are very positive people, many of them have zero problem with the inclusion of evolution as part of a complete education. You will find Souther Baptists that can read, write and do many of the things you secularists do, we have no fear of education. Now can you explain your objections to Christians, who don't see faith as a one day a week issue, having a chance to live that faith in a public institution, built by a church going nation founded on a covenant, that gives rights to people based on being "created"? This issue will not fit in a small box, now will it?

If you don't fear education, why pull them out of public schools? And I have no problem with folks living their faith, I just don't want that faith taught in public schools. If we allow that, can we tell your neighborhood muslims or hindus that their version should also be taught? Where would you draw the line?

 

[BlessedMan]

The solution to failing public schools, in any sense of the word, is not to abandon them and flee but to work towards improvement. If you do not like the way your child's public school is being run, then you need to make a serious effort towards changing it. Write weekly letters to the school board and to the government of your state and township, demanding change. Organise fellow parents into marches, pickets, protests and activism. Have your church do a weekly prayer circle for the school. Contact your local newspaper and tell them what you're activism is all about. Attend every single PTA meeting and join whatever parent groups you can. Offer to chaperone field trips, participate as an aid, or ask to be an observer in the classroom. Then you know what is really going on, and you'll have the connections to make a change. I am not against private schools at all, I think they are fine, but I also think it's incredibly irresponsible to jump ship rather then to improve what for many kids is the only option.

I totally agree with you...to a point. Every effort should be made to revive our public school system by us supporting it 100%...however, I'm only willing to do that if it is not detrimental to my boys. If my boys are in an awful situation, I'm not going to start writing letters to my schoolboard hoping that in 2 or 3 years it will get better. My boys are not going to be public school guinea pigs plain and simple. I will not "wait" for things to get better and I wouldn't expect anyone else to either.

Regarding someone else's comment regarding not believing in school vouchers. I wouldn't be for them either if our public schools weren't a mess, but people are desperate and like it was said...what are poorer people to do? Be the sacrificial lambs at the altar of public education? You're worried about your tax dollars going to these schools while the public schools need the money...if half the students leave the public schools than why do they need the same amount of money? Close the old schools...sell the properties...support your good schools...get rid of the bad teachers...keep the great ones...rebuild your system from the ground up and then attract students back! We're awful in Math and Science (per another thread)! We need desperate measures! Southern Baptists are maybe realizing this before the rest of us do...cut them some slack.

 

[sinner/SAVED]

If everyone got vouchers and sent their kids to the private schools, then all the private schools would have just as many underachieving students and unsupportive parents as the public schools.

 

[BlessedMan]

If everyone got vouchers and sent their kids to the private schools, then all the private schools would have just as many underachieving students and unsupportive parents as the public schools.

You're making that sound like that's the only thing wrong with public schools. How about the NEA running the public schools into the ground?

Also you're assuming that the lazy unsupportive parents would take time to find a private school and send their kid there...that would take too much effort for some parents.

 

[JVD]

Actually the solution to poor public schools IS to abandon them. The school system is totalled. It is not possible to FIX it. It must be restarted from scratch.

The public school system is a government sponsored monopoly. It has grown and metastisized until it is now almost all encompasing. In many, (most?), districts you can now have children go to school early, get a free breakfast, waste 3 hours in classes where the teacher spends more time in class management than in teaching, get a free lunch, waste a couple more hours, and then go into an after school program until the parents are home from work.

It won't be long until there will be an option to spend the night at school and just come home on the weekends.

Public school should be a place where children are taught the basics of education. Everything else should drop off.

It is still possible for a child to get a decent education at a public school. But the child needs to be motivated enough to get that education in spite of the surroundings.

In our district in the last 2 years there have been only 4 National Merit Scholars (these are students who score near the top on the PSAT tests usually taken during their junior year). Appoximately 98% of the local juniors attend public schools. Two of those 4 NM scholars had never been in public or private school their whole life. They were homeschooled and learned most of their advanced math and science on their own.

That tells you that if most of the better students just stayed home and studied on their own they would have gotten a better education.

I say, the best thing to do is to abandon the public schools as soon as possible by the most people possible. It needs to be brought to it's knees in order to be re-built correctly.

 

[eldermike]

Actually the solution to poor public schools IS to abandon them. The school system is totalled. It is not possible to FIX it. It must be restarted from scratch.

Yes, this is my opinion also. The system exists for the protection of the system, it's a government axiom. All government systems begin with good intentions and evolve into self protecting societies that produce measurements that are easily achieved, but not relative to the original mission. Schools exist today to exist, school higher ups meet to protect their existence, measurements are designed to show progress for the sake of existence. There is no fix for this.

On the other hand; parents are ok with this, for the most part.

The only solution for caring parents is to leave the system

 

[Tenacious-D]

And you think Southern Baptists would do a better job? We already have a thread on here lamenting US Math and Science education and the Southern Baptists are not exactly recognised as a Math and Science educated group. In fact just the opposite with their 'science is atheistic' position.

 

[eldermike]

And you think Southern Baptists would do a better job? We already have a thread on here lamenting US Math and Science education and the Southern Baptists are not exactly recognised as a Math and Science educated group. In fact just the opposite with their 'science is atheistic' position.

Do you have some data supporting this claim? I know many SB engineers. I also have friends that are PhD chemists and others that work in the drug industry. In my region we have most of the drug companies from other parts of the world. Without US markets they can't do research, so they are here. So, I can tell you that your statement is false by simple observation.

 

[Tenacious-D]

Do you have some data supporting this claim? I know many SB engineers. I also have friends that are PhD chemists and others that work in the drug industry. In my region we have most of the drug companies from other parts of the world. Without US markets they can't do research, so they are here. So, I can tell you that your statement is false by simple observation.

And I can tell you having worked in the US University system for 25 years (in the sciences) that the fundamental churches like the Southern Baptists are almost totally absent from the hard sciences and to may of them an anathema. They link science directly with secularism and atheism. Just peruse the dozens of threads on this website and you see this.

By the way, engineers are not scientists.

 

[eldermike]

And I can tell you having worked in the US University system for 25 years (in the sciences) that the fundamental churches like the Southern Baptists are almost totally absent from the hard sciences and to may of them an anathema. They link science directly with secularism and atheism. Just peruse the dozens of threads on this website and you see this.

By the way, engineers are not scientists.

You must have SB confused with some other group.
And, many engineers work in R&D in the theoretical realm. I agree with you if you are speaking of those engineers that work only in the practical realm, but it's just not always so. You seem to draw boxes easily, out in the world these boxes do not exist.

 

[Tenacious-D]

Just personal observation (and conversations with others in the educational field.)

The number of times I see Baptist posters on here whine about science being worldy and promoting some hidden atheistic agenda. Heck, just wander over to the Creation/Evolution forum - that is basically 50% of the posts over there.

Are you familiar with the curricula at Baptist colleges. Again, science is given little emphasis and certain areas of science are either neglected or outright attacked because it goes against a literal Biblical interpretation.

 

[Bushido216]

You will find Souther [sic] Baptists that can read, write and do many of the things you secularists do, we have no fear of education.

Reading and writing... that's a laudable accomplishment.

 

[ForeRunner]

Actually the solution to poor public schools IS to abandon them. The school system is totalled. It is not possible to FIX it. It must be restarted from scratch.

Love that can-do attitude

In many, (most?), districts you can now have children go to school early, get a free breakfast,

Feeding poor children... oh the horror! Not to mention that this comes form mountains of research that show hungry chidren do not learn well.

waste 3 hours in classes where the teacher spends more time in class management than in teaching,

I don't know what school you wnet to but ths was hardly my experience.

get a free lunch,

You have to qualify to have a free lunch. School systems MAKE money at lunchtime where I am from (a la carte, fast food resturaunts).

You seem to have a strange aversion to feeding poor children.

waste a couple more hours,

In most plces, we use this time to learn.

and then go into an after school program until the parents are home from work.

Oh yes, those EVIL after school programs. I was involved in Football, Band, Drama Club, Chess Team, etc and look how badly I turned out!

We especially don't need athletics, what with all those underweight starving kids and all.

Public school should be a place where children are taught the basics of education. Everything else should drop off.

Are you suggesting that things like physical health, artistic skills, social interaction are not important to the development of children? You have a lot to learn about education.

It is still possible for a child to get a decent education at a public school. But the child needs to be motivated enough to get that education in spite of the surroundings.

In our district in the last 2 years there have been only 4 National Merit Scholars

Not something I would brag about. We always had quite a few (I was one) from my public school.

Appoximately 98% of the local juniors attend public schools. Two of those 4 NM scholars had never been in public or private school their whole life. They were homeschooled and learned most of their advanced math and science on their own.

That tells you that if most of the better students just stayed home and studied on their own they would have gotten a better education.

Sounds like YOUR school has some serious problems. I never experienced any of the problem you talk about.

I say, the best thing to do is to abandon the public schools as soon as possible by the most people possible. It needs to be brought to it's knees in order to be re-built correctly.

I say you go ahead and do that and we'll see where our communities end up in a few years. We'll keep ours, they work quite well for us. Sure there are problems, but problems exist to be solved