As a retired public school teacher I am convinced that our only hope is to rescue our children from the public (government) schools and raise a godly generation. Please see “Call to Dunkirk” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRGZLSVph3A. Public schools cannot be redeemed. Saying we should not abandon them is like saying the passengers of the Titanic should have stayed aboard because the band was playing good music and the captain was a good man.

I live in West Virginia, please also see http://insectman.us/exodus-mandate-wv/index.htm.

Why do you insist on defending a system that fails in almost every area? Homeschoolers beat public schoolers at their own game. Statistics show that they outscore public school students by a significant margin. And I would almost guarantee that we do it in much less time per day and at much lower expense. School is not the “real world.” It’s about as artificial and unreal an environment as possible. Homeschoolers live and learn in the real world. Your GIGO analogy fits perfectly for public schools where students’ heads are filled with garbage rather than Christian principles and why are we surprised when we get garbage out.

Try reading something from the 1600’s to early 1800’s before public schooling began. The average high school graduate today could not read and understand that material. People were much better educated then than they are now, using many of the same techniques the homeschooling community utilizes. Read anything by John Taylor Gatto – The Underground History of American Education, Dumbing Us Down. Maybe those books will open your eyes.

I am not trying to base my arguments on programmer logic or social-scientific points of view, but from a desire to please God and be obedient to Him. I suggest that you stop insulting me and start your own website, maybe publicschoolsareagreatoptionforchristiankids.com where you will be free to promote whatever agenda you care to.

Your arguments make perfect sense from a computer-programmer-point-of-view: input your data, input your rules for deriving conclusions from data, and then out pops the answer. But as you well know, GIGO. What you get out of a program depends on what you put into it.

Your arguments make no sense from a social-scientific-point-of-view. Social scientists do not compare rival social structures by selecting and emphasizing the worst data from one and the best data from the other. You can “prove” any conclusion you want that way. Suppose we select the very best that public education has to offer, and the compare that with the very worst that home-schooling has to offer. You don’t have to look very far at all to find some real horror stories of home-schooling.

Can home-schooling be done well? Yes, absolutely, and it often is. Can public schooling be done well? Yes, absolutely, and it often is. Should a particular family go for home-schooling or public schooling? It depends on a number of factors, and the answer will be different for different families because of their different situations.

“He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.” Matthew12:30

Settle down. I’ve read through a lot of what is on your website, and I applaud you for being so thorough, but the fact of the matter is that you are absolutely being far too general. I’m not saying that you are being too vague, I am saying that you are broad brushing ALL public schools and your accusations are absolutely false in thousands and thousands of different school districts. You are also showing your ignorance towards the United States Constitution and how it applies to public schooling. In fact, the education secretary under Clinton issued an official government position on the expression of faith in public schools: Teachers CAN (and do, I know of many who do) have a bible on their desk, students CAN (and do) pray in school (as well as run Christian clubs with teachers as administrators … completely and totally legal), publically-funded schools are to take a NEUTRAL position regarding religious faith (if they DON’T, then it’s not the government’s fault, it is the fault of parents who don’t STAND UP) … and school shootings? Don’t even get me started. Do you even remember the home schooled kid (Matthew Murray) who shot up the offices of some Christian organizations in Colorado? Now, if you are going to say, “Well, that was an aberration,” then why wouldn’t Columbine and others be aberrations?

And by the way … just because someone does NOT include God in their curriculum does NOT mean that they are automatically set AGAINST God. Where does your logic come from?

Dave