If you haven’t already read Disagreeing with Love, please read that first.
Homeschooling is not the norm. It is not the easy educational choice. So why have we made the decision to go against the grain and homeschool our children?
I’ve been pondering how to blog about our reasons for homeschooling and I think the best way is to do it over a period of time. Our reasons are many and diverse and have grown and matured over time. So I will attempt to explain where we are in a series of posts, rather than trying to cram too much information into one.
In this post I will focus on why government education (public school) has never been an option for us.
Our family’s goal is to base all of our decisions and opinions on God’s word. We are not always consistent and are thankful that God still loves us and is able to use us for His glory. We realize that we don’t know everything and are not always right. We are learning and growing constantly. My purpose here is to try to convey what we believe and a little about why we believe it.
Some basic presuppositions for this discussion:
- God’s Word, both the Old and New Testaments, is our ultimate standard by which we should live. Human logic and practicality do not trump God’s Word, ever.
- Real knowledge apart from God’s Word does not exist. (Proverbs 1:7, 2:5-6, Col. 2:3, Psalm 111:10, Psalm 53:1)
- According to God’s Word we should be law keepers in as much as the law does not required us to break God’s law. (Romans 13:1-7)
- Christians should train their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Eph. 6:4)
- God has given parents the responsibility to educate their own children. (Deut. 6:4-9)
- Education is not neutral. (Luke 11:23)
Here are some reasons that our family has chosen not to send our children to the government schools:
The government school system violates the eighth commandment.
The current system is based on legalized theft. The federal government takes money from our family and yours and uses it for the education of others. The government does not earn that money, does not ask us to donate it voluntarily and, as I will explain in my next point, is using it to fund and regulate an area over which it has no lawful authority.
The government is forcing groups of people to financially support things to which they are morally and/or religiously opposed. Roman Catholics must pay for prescription birth control to be passed out to 11 year old girls, Christians are forced to fund programs that teach children about homo s*xuality and offer encouragement and support in that lifestyle choice, and Buddhists pay for required Islamic studies.
Federal involvement in education is unlawful.
The federal involvement in the government school system is contrary to our laws. The Constitution was written to limit the power of the government. Our founding fathers knew that the natural tendency would be for the government to try to grab more and more power and so, in an attempt to preserve our system of checks and balances, the Constitution delineates which powers are given to the federal government and then to make things clear the tenth amendment says:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Read the Constitution. Our federal government was not given authority over education, therefore according to the tenth amendment that power is reserved for the States or the people.
The government schools are systemically godless.
Several Supreme court decisions and continued federal involvement and regulation in the government schools have led to a system where God, the Bible and Christianity are marginalized at best and viewed with disdain and contempt at worst. In our government schools teachers are forbidden by law to pray (Engel v. Vitale) or read the Bible (Abington School District v. Schemmp) in class. They may not directly teach the students about how God’s word applies to every facet of education. (Read this story for one example of how teachers can get into trouble for telling students about God’s truth and love.)
Since our primary goal is that our children would love the Lord their God with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their might and that they would examine every fact and situation in light of God’s Word, it does not make sense for us to choose to have them educated, for 30 hours each week, in an institution that seeks, by law, to exclude God and His word.
As an aside, I do not think that Christians should fight for “Christian government schools”. This goes back to the theft and law issues. Put yourself in the place of an atheist or Buddhist, or Muslim. Their money is taken to support the government schools. Why should they have to pay to educate our children about Christianity. The problem is systemic.
God gave the responsibility for training children to the parents, not the government. If parents would take the responsibility to educate their children, even though it is difficult, we would not have these problems.
You can read about the beginning of our homeschool journey (way back when I was homeschooled) in my Before the Beginning post. You may also be interested in Why We Homeschool Part 2: Family Goals.
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HI! I have been so busy lately that I am only just now reading your blog (for the last few days)! Wow! I can hardly wait until tonight to take it all in. You have posted some really interesting and insightful topics. I look forward to reading all of your recent posts!
Thanks!
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Interesting post! I, too, have written a post awhile back about why we homeschool our children, but it is for very different reasons.
If the public school system is inherently wrong, than I am wondering what you would suggest for the families that cannot teach their children at home. There are many single moms who must work outside the home to provide for their families; and many of these mothers did not choose to raise their children on their own. (Some are widowed. Some have been abandoned.)
I am so thankful that I do have the opportunity to teach my children at home, as I have for the past 18 years. However, I just cannot come up with an answer for what some families are to do if the public school system were to be abandoned (as some people would adamantly suggest).
I look forward to the discussion from this post. I would love to hear others’ thoughts.
mama of 13
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Kimberly Reply:
May 13th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Laurel,
First let me say that this post doesn’t really describe why we homeschool. (That is still coming.) It is merely expressing why we never considered government education.
Second I do not want to get sidetracked with difficult situations, either government education is unbiblical or it is not. Difficult situations or us not understanding how everything will work out, do not change God’s law or His requirements for His people.
Those things said, I think the single mom dilemma is has several fairly simple solutions.
Biblically the extended family is the first source for help in times of need. The family can supply either help with the actual education of the children or perhaps financial help for a private school. We know some grandparents who are educating their grandchildren while their daughter works to pay the bills.
If the family is unable or unwilling, the church should be the next line of defense and Biblically the church has a special responsibility to the widows and orphans. I know that if our family were in this situation our home church would do everything possible to help keep our children out of the government schools.
Another option is for single moms to homeschool their own children. I am amazed and blessed to know several single moms who have made this decision. It takes amazing dedication, but they have been successful.
Another option is public schools (not government schools). This is the type of system in place in early America. Private citizens got together voluntarily, hired a teacher, acquired, built or borrowed a building (sometimes using space in private homes) and provided an education for their own children.
I also know that many Christian schools provide scholarships for families in need. When I was a girl we knew a single mom of four daughters. The local Christian school educated all of her girls from kindergarten to high school in exchange for her cleaning the facilities after her regular job. She took her children with her and cleaned a couple hours each evening while they studied or played.
The amazing thing is that God always provides and He is not limited by what we can see or understand. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, He will provide for the education of His children.
Thanks so much for your comment, Laurel!
Blessings,
Kimberly
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Wow! I’m dumbfounded. Of course I knew NONE of this and can’t wait to share with my husband (he was homeschooled, along with his siblings). The reason his mom decided to homeschool them was way back when his oldest sibling (his sister) was in preschool.
Instead of calling her dad “Daddy” she called him “Poppy”. The school called her mother to tell her, “Your child is not allowed to call your husband that.” When my MIL tried arguing with them the teacher said, “You are not in charge of your child, we are!”
Yup, my MIL pulled her daughter out of there so fast and started homeschooling. In fact, she homeschools my 3-year-old one day a week. I, on the other hand, have had a hard time doing it. She’s still young yet but I just hate arts-n-crafts. I feel out of my element doing this!
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I am slowly catching up your blog, Kimberly! I am very behind from having viciously ill children. This post made me smile as I agree wholeheartedly. Very well written.
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AMEN. I do not know why more people do not open their eyes and see this. They are teaching our children(not yours and mine obviously, I just mean the children of the nation as a whole) that we came from an ameoba, that became a frog, and then a monkey, and somehow later a man. (refering exageratingly to the evolution theory) What is more baffling is that they actually believe it! It is quite astonishing what they (the government) can actually get people to believe. (the following link clears that one up.) http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/descent.html How on earth PS (public school)parents can actually believe it is “good for their kids” to go to ps is beyond me. I sit dumbfounded when I try to imagine their thought process. Homeschooling is truely the only thing that DOES make sence. Bible says “Raise up YOUR child in the way he should go.” doesn’t say… let the government raise your child the way they see fit. Truely even I get lost in scripture now and again, but he is pretty clear when it speaks of raising and teaching your kids. I think all children should be homeschooled. No exceptions. It is the parents responcibility to raise and train their children with their own belief structures. I agree… it is not fair to the different religions to try to group teach their kids, when the religions and beliefs are contradictory one to another. (Like you where saying about the public school setting.) Having different beliefs does not make one or the other right or wrong, but what it DOES do, when you try to teach them all at the same time, in weird chopped up pieces, is make for a whole bunch of really confused, misled, and misguided children. That I do believe is one of the big reasons our nation as a whole is falling apart. The kids do not have any firm and solid foundation in which to get their spiritual footing. They do not know WHAT to believe. People ask me how I can possibly homeschool my kids. My question to them is… how can you possibly send your kids away for 8+ hours a day, and let some stranger you do not even know, fill their heads with things you do not want their heads filled with? How can you willingly subject your kids to that? Take back control of your kids, people. Be the loving, attentive, caring, and teaching parents that God called you to be, when he blessed you with that child. Sorry.. kinda went on a tangent… bottom line… I agree with EVERYTHING Kimberly said whole heartedly!! Very well written gurl! People pay attention to what this woman has to say. God has blessed her with so much knowlage and understanding. She is truely a blessing to us all!
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Kimberly, great response to the single mother issue. I was a divorced, single mother of 2 for 2 years. Putting my kids in school (or daycare) was never an option for me. I found work that fit with my goals for my children. I cleaned the church, did part-time medical transcription, and eventually opened my own retail shop. I lived in my parent’s home, and they were glad to have me. No, it was never easy, but doing what is right rarely is. I felt without a doubt that going through a divorce was one of the hardest things my daughters would ever deal with (at least in childhood) and that changing their home life for my convenience or their “education” would compound the problem. It helped them and me to have the stability of a mostly “normal” life as we dealt with this strange new world of singleness. God always makes a way.
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Raising Olives Reply:
June 26th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Thanks for sharing with us Nicki. God is very good.
Blessings,
Kimberly
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Thanks for this. I came across it at just the right time. I started school in a small public school back when the teachers prayed with us and read Bible stories to us; we then switched to a Christian school when I was in the second grade, and after that school closed it doors a few years later I finished as a homeschool student. My son has never been in a “public” school; we are blessed to be able to have him in a small Christian school where there are no strangers teaching him things I don’t know about. This school is affiliated with a church of the same denomination as our family, so their their doctrinal teaching agrees with ours.
I don’t want to judge those who send their children to “public” schools; I just couldn’t reconcile a God-less education for my child with my beliefs.
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Raising Olives Reply:
August 29th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Wendy,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
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Our government was given authority over education by we-the-people, who voted for it and elected respresentatives (way back when) who supported it. When we gave it power to fund and regulate education it became lawful. Mistakes might have been made by the people, but it is an error to speak of government weilding power that we gave it as being unlawful.
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Kimberly @ Raising Olives Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Your statement makes it obvious that you are confused about the form of government here in the Unites States of America. Your comment makes the assumption that we are a democracy (a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system) The key being “supreme power is vested in the people”. If we were a democracy, then your statement “it is an error to speak of government wielding power that we gave it as being unlawful” would be true and I would have no argument against federal involvement in the government school system apart from God’s Word.
However, the U.S.A. is not a democracy, it is a Constitutional Republic (a government where the head of state and other officials are elected as representatives of the people , and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits government’s power over citizens). The key here is “must govern according to existing constitutional law”. This is why our president takes this oath of office,
and members of Congress take this oath,
If the Constitution forbids the federal government power over education, “we the people” can not simply vote for it and or elect representatives who support it and it suddenly become lawful. Our nation is governed by law and “we the people” are not above that law.
It is not the purpose or intent of this blog to educate people in our form of government or to explain the Constitution. I quote the relevant part of the Constitution in my post above and I encourage you to read the rest of the Constitution (it is quite short) to see what lawful power the federal government is given by the Constitution and what power is forbidden.
If you are interested in further discussion about the lawful role of the federal government, especially relating to education, I suggest you check out Spunky Homeschool. Spunky is a talented researcher and has posted extensively about education and government. I appreciate that she goes to original sources and talks to many of the politicians involved. I also know that Nicki at 400 Things enjoys political discussions.
Thanks again for your interest in this topic.
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