My Opus…. Part 1….

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands;
they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury;
they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor;
they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads;
in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress….
Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.

Wow.    I don’t know about you, but the above quote by James Madison, when brought to my attention by Accept The Challenge (who if you aren’t reading, YOU SHOULD), took my breath away.   It was a realization that those that formed this Country – that wrote our Constitution, could foresee the distortion of that Constitution for personal own gain.

This post is going to be several parts.   How could it not be?    The statement above in light of where our Country currently sits, could demand nothing less.   Lets start with the Public School System – mostly because its in every one’s face due to the DISGUSTING antics of Public School teachers in Wisconsin.

Public school was never intended.    It is unconstitutional if you take a founders words….   Why?     I believe that its because education is a privilege and not a right.   WHAT???    You mean a precious little child doesn’t have a right to learn how to read?     Spare me the dramatics    But, NO… A precious child doesn’t have a RIGHT to learn how to read.    Education should be a family’s choice.   It should be parents’ job – responsibility – to educate their children or provide for that said education.     And should a parent be worthless and a child grows not knowing how to read, then it turns to the child as an adult to learn how to read.     It stinks, yes, but how many of us adults have things we have to overcome as adults that were done to us as children.    Honestly, a child raised in a loving home that doesn’t learn how to read is far better than a child who learned how to read while being abused by a parent.

How do we pay for our schools?   Property taxes.     You may pay for your house, but you rent your land from the Government for the rest of your lives.    You never really own your home because the Government can take it for nonpayment of taxes.     We are serfs, beholding to the Landholder, the Government.    Its disgusting.

How would you educate your child if it was up to you?    Have you always secretly wished you could homeschool but cant because you must work?    Would it be easier for a parent to stay home with the children if property taxes were a thing of the past?     Do you eye that expensive private school down the street?     What about a situation where you teach your child your favorite subjects and hire a tutor for other subjects?    Do you cringe when you hear what your child has learned in public school that has nothing to do with education?

We have believed the lie that our children’s education is the responsibility of the Government – that they can do the best for them….   That is a joke.    Its also a lie that the more money spent for a child, the better the education.   If that were true, public school kids would win the Spelling Bee every year.    Schools in the Washington DC area would be at the top of the curve…   Homeschool kids would be at the bottom.    But that is not the reality.

Teachers – public and private – will tell you that one of the single factors that determines a student’s success is PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT.    A parent who knows what is going on will have a student that succeeds – or at least has the best shot.   How much more successful would children be if their ENTIRE education – from who teaches and what they learn – was up to the parents?

So, how come we keep throwing more and more money at a problem that consistently gets worse?    I contend its because its easier.    I absolve myself of responsibility if a kid cant read by throwing money at the problem.    That is what it boils down to, doesn’t it?

What if the money stopped flowing?    What if school districts had to cut bare bones to what was important because the Government wasn’t going to send them any more money?    What if these same school districts had to make the tough decisions – the parents of these kids had to make the hard decisions?   What if these parents had to actually decide what is learned, what is spent, who is employed?    What if parents spent out of their pockets what schools could spend?  What if all schools had to COMPETE for parents to send their child to their school?    Would they choose Sex Ed over English?   What about “multi-culturalism” over Math?

Things would change.    I can GUARANTEE that my local rural school district wouldn’t have sex education any more.    There WOULD be manners, character and corporal punishment.

What if 5 or 6 families could get together and hire a teacher to teach their children for LESS than what their yearly property taxes would be?

OH THE HORROR…..     The wails of “how will the State know if the children are up to par?”      I can hear them – and I would be lying if I said that it doesn’t make me clutch myself in thinking about poor children and their plight.      What if there is a generation of idiots?

But the truth is, there will be idiots.   But the current system hasn’t spared us from their intolerable stupidity either, has it?    My guess is that just the opposite would happen.    There will be a generation where math scores skyrocket after a hard adjustment.    Where children read MORE and watch TV less.   Where they know how to research and write a heck of a paper.    Where the response to “How are you” is “I am well” and not “I am good.”   Where families are more closely tied than they are today….

One of the reasons for public schools was to keep lower income kids off the streets – to have a place for the little beggar children to go….   The initial public school was to create a populace that was easy to control and would make good workers.    It was designed to teach a child NOT to think – NOT to question – to go along….    They have done an excellent job.

I, for one, want a child to think.   I want my child to ask “why” and not to just take my word for it, but learn it for themselves….    To reason and wrestle with hard answers.

This isn’t an argument FOR homeschooling or for pulling your kid out of public school for private.   If you LOVE your private school.   Excellent.   If you LOVE your public school.   Great.    But know where you send your children to every day and know the “machine” behind it.    I want to make you think about a system that was designed NOT to help your child, but to lull them into being subservient and compliant to an authoritarian Government.     An UNCONSTITUTIONAL public school system.

How does it change?    It may not change until this Government goes bankrupt and it is no longer able to send the checks to local school districts that have become like Educational Crack.    I am also not saying that it would be an easy transition – it would be painful and it could hurt children – children whose only meals for a day may come school.

But I also believe parents who desperately love their children will find a way to educate them.    That parents who desperately love their children, love others’ children as well and I for one, could never go about my business blind to the plight of a child that was hungry.    Churches and those individuals who are mindful of these things would rise to the occasion.    If not educated, these children would be fed.    Of this I have no doubt.

I would be dishonest if I didn’t convey my utter joy at the total destruction and unequivocal desolation of the NEA – the Teacher’s Union – The Department of Education.    These institutions who have used children to seize power and our money.   Who use the tactics currently seen in Wisconsin.    Who wrap themselves in the banner of “Helping children” but have done nothing but undermine and cripple those very children.    Now – please hear me – I do not believe that individual teachers are out to get your children.   Some may bey, but absolutely not this group as a whole.   But they are part of a machine that is out to do exactly this….    Department of Education – the NEA – the Teacher’s Unions see power, money, election before they ever see your child….   And until teachers AND parents cry “enough” and demand a systematic change, your money and your child’s potential will be wasted.

There are as many ways to educate a child as there are children.   If you have 2 kids – are they the same?    Absolutely not.    Then why would one way to educate them be rational?   Its not.

In Oklahoma, homeschooling is written into our State’s constitution.   It is the only state to have such.     It means it gives us the freedom to have our children learn as best as THEY can – not someone who doesn’t know them should decide.    There are families who have hired a teacher to oversee what they do….   There are families who go together and both moms do the job….     There are families who hire tutors for one subject or two….   There are coops, groups, facilities, classes in as many ways as there are families.     And all these children are better for it.    Families are closer.   Families vacation when THEY want to, not when a school tells them its ok for them to leave.    Families set their own schedule, their own time, their own priorities.

How would you like to OWN your own family again?    Its priceless.    And this control, the money thrown at education, the riots in Wisconsin,  is at the core of the struggle of NEA to maintain power over your children….  And ultimately you.

Pray – Praise – Prepare

Pearls