EXODUS MANDATE-WV
2007 Articles, Letters and Op-Eds Urging Folks to Rescue Their Children (Plus some miscellaneous articles of interest to truth and enlightenment seekers.)
Notes:
1. Typos are fixed when found.
2. Some hyper-links were added on this page after article were published.
3. Be sure to see the reports of West Virginia public school test performance look for "Report of West Virginia public school test performance" on individual WV News pages (not all pages have the data).
March 13, 2007 Gazette (Charleston)
Public education: Schools have failed; try something new
As a recovering former teacher union member, I have mixed emotions regarding the teacher Wednesday walkout. I personally know teachers who deserve to have their salaries doubled. On the other hand, there are a few that, to be kind, do not deserve any pay raise at all. I will let the politicians and unions battle over teacher salaries. My objective is to engage parents with a call to walk out with your children and stay out. Parents should begin a mass exodus from the public schools. They should not begin the exit with money on their minds, but rather with their precious children in mind.
Two veteran teachers, Jon Wiles and John Lundt, have already called for the abandonment of public schools in their book, Leaving School: Finding Education. Before them John Taylor Gatto, a former New York State Teacher of the Year, wrote a book declaring that public schools are Dumbing Us Down. After 34 years in education (four as a principal) and dealing with students from kindergarten through ninth grade, I have firsthand knowledge that what Gatto wrote is true for West Virginia. Parents need to heed the call of Wiles and Lundt and leave the public schools in order to find true education.
Someone said that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over even though it does not work. By that definition public school decision makers are plumb crazy. During my career, I saw expensive educational fads come and go every three or four years without any important changes (unless negative counts). My colleagues and I used to joke about this. If we had not laughed, we would have cried, but the institutional incompetence of the public schools is no laughing matter. Public schools are beginning to pull other societal institutions down. There is reason to believe that public schools are a major impeding force in our nation.
The concept of public schooling was built upon a foundation that was doomed for failure from the beginning. The natural course for public schools was to arrive where they are today, controlled by the American Civil Liberties Union and teacher unions. Because of the foundation and destination the public schools are doomed to failure. Every parent should seek a better education for their children, but Christian parents should lead the exodus for an additional, arguably more important, reason. Public schools are responsible for increasing amounts of cultural decay and social dysfunction in our society. The powers that control public schools are more interested in leftist agendas than they are in academics. For example, our nation is floundering in science education yet time is wasted on indoctrinating students with evolutionism.
West Virginia now spends over $8,000 per child per year. That amounts to over $200,000 per 25-student classroom. More money is not the answer. Any attempt to improve the public schools is a waste of time and effort. Public schools have failed and parents should seek alternatives quickly. Christian schools are a great option, but we currently have the technology to provide an outstanding education to students in the safety of their own homes.
I urge parents to start at exodusmandate-wv.org and take the first step to walking out into the fresh air of educational freedom.
Priest, of Cross Lanes, is state coordinator of Exodus Mandate-West Virginia, a group that promotes Christian education and home schooling.
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Opinion/Op-Ed+Commentaries/2007031210
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April 23, 2007 Daily Mail (Charleston)
The public school system is broken
Home-schooling and church schools produce better results
WEST Virginians recently learned that the 2007 Regional Spelling Bee was won by a Christian school student and the state Geography Bee was won by a home-schooled student.
Christian school students perform higher than public school students on standardized achievement tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The NAEP is known as the "Nation's Report Card," and has been given to representative samples of students for decades. The 2006 Nation's Report Card revealed some embarrassing statistics comparing Christian schools and public schools.
Some public school supporters have tried to tweak the results so public schools do not look so bad. That is what is likely to be seen in media reports.
What the testing actually showed was that students in Christian schools had (I quote) "a higher average score than their counterparts in public schools."
Also, home-schooled children easily top public school students in terms of achievement. Homes-schooled students score almost 10 percent higher than the average public high school student on the ACT.
Patrick Henry College, near the District of Columbia, has about 85 percent home-schooled students. It has twice defeated Oxford University in debating. Over 700 colleges and universities admit home-schooled students.
Previously, big wins in national academic competitions spurred some people to complain that children educated in home schools and Christian schools have an "unfair advantage."
They do have an advantage: They do not go to public schools.
West Virginia spends over $8,000 per student per year. That comes to over $200,000 for a class of 25 students.
Nationally over $10,000 is spent per student, and school spending has tripled over the last 30 years.
It costs a lot less to educate a student for a year in a home school or even a Christian school, and those schools are not dependent on tax-funded resources.
Free economics are always more efficient and unleash the God-given, creative potential of individuals. The more the government controls any enterprise, the less effective it becomes.
Private education can be accomplished with existing resources and save the taxpayer money.
It's time for a paradigm shift from our dependence on public schools. We cannot tinker with the system and make it work.
Public schools are in serious trouble. The system is broken at the foundations, and it is futile to try to reform it.
Winning a local skirmish takes considerable sacrifice of time and effort, and then the small policy change cannot be monitored unless a parent makes a living policing public schools.
The problem is not with a particular version of state-sponsored education, but with the very idea of it.
State education has been a major instrument in the hands of secular humanists in de-Christianizing American society. Parents should give up the delusion of public school reform and put their energies into creating more opportunities for giving children an education away from public schools.
The reasons for abandoning public schools were apparent by the mid-1990's. What we lacked was an organized movement to carry it out.
The Exodus Mandate plan (www.exodusmandate-wv.org/) is the only one with a chance of sustainable success. It will result in a resurgence of values that will dramatically benefit our culture. Graduates of non-public education could reverse this nation's moral decline.
Our goal is the development of a new system of education that is open to the public, but not controlled by unions or politicians. We want to raise respectable and contributing members of society who uphold the basic freedoms and moral standards upon which America was established.
Priest is state coordinator of Exodus Mandate-West Virginia, which promotes Christian education and home schooling.
http://www.dailymail.com/story/Opinion/Commentary/200704234/Karl-Priest-The-public-school-system-is-broken/
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May 7, 2007 Herald-Dispatch ( Huntington) (Note: This one is not on line and I am unsure if it was edited.)
(I Forgot to Put a Heading)
In the 1960’s Progressive Education became popular in the Public Schools much to the academic detriment of the students. During the same period, the doctrine of “no absolute truth” became popular which led to the Values Clarification Public School programs of the 70’s. The result was epidemic cheating. In the 1990’s the new education buzzword was Character Education . All Character Education did was perpetuate the religion of Humanism throughout the Public Schools.
Goals 2000 was signed by President Clinton in 1994. It seemed innocent enough—one goal was for the schools to be drug and violence free. From 1995 to 1999 there were 12 school massacres perpetuated by students who murdered 42 students and teachers and wounded dozens of others. Today, drug use is a serious problem among Public School students and faculty.
Now, Outcome Based Education, a close cousin to Goals 2000, is a campaign to involve the Government in nursery to nursing home education.
Every president, since Carter, had a grand scheme that was supposed to “fix” the Public Schools. President Bush instituted No Child Left Behind . In a 2007 speech to business leaders, U. S. Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, said, “Everybody here knows that before this act ( NCLB ) became law, kids often moved from grade to grade and nobody knew whether or not they had learned to read, write, add, or subtract. We invested billions of dollars and basically---hoped---for---the---best.” Standards are lowered to mask the failure of Public Schools. Public Schools are plagued with grade inflation, and manipulated standardized test results . U. S. News and World Report published an investigative article about widespread cheating in administration of standardized tests. Students are graduating from Public Schools in record numbers without having acquired basic reading, writing, and math skills and with a woeful lack of knowledge of history and geography. Universities have had to expand remedial programs that did not exist fifty years ago.
The continuing crisis in Public Schools fuels incredible funding amounts for problems which never get solved. Now, Senator Ted Kennedy wants to greatly increase Federal funding. The billions of dollars designated for NCLB means the program should be called “No Cents Left Behind”.
The hand writing is on the wall and only someone who is willfully blind cannot see it. It is time for thinking parents to remove their children from the Public Schools.
Karl Priest is a retired teacher who now is the state coordinator of Exodus Mandate-West Virginia, which promotes Christian education and home schooling. Exodus Mandate-WV, P. O. Box 7212, Cross Lanes, WV 25356. http://exodusmandate-wv.org
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May 13, 2007 Times-West Virginia (Fairmont) (Note: This one is not on line and I am unsure if it was edited.)
Old Fashioned Education
The founders of America had high levels of literacy even though, by today’s standards, their living conditions would have been considered absolutely impoverished. One third of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution only a few months of formal schooling. And their formal schooling was heavily ingrained with Biblical precepts. Just take a look at early America’s textbook—the New England Primer . Some of our country’s most influential citizens were educated at home. They include presidents, inventors, scientists, writers, artists, ministers, and businessmen.
Noah Websters’s 1828 definition of education was (in part) “To give children a good education in manners, art, and science is important; to give religious education is indispensable: and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties.” Webster also said, “The Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which children, under a free government, ought to be instructed. No truth is more evident to my mind than the Christian religion must be the basis of any government to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”
In the 1830’s the McGuffey Readers were widely used to educate children. William McGuffey’s passions were educating young minds and preaching the Gospel. His original school books helped frame the country’s morals and tastes and shaped America’s character. The books emphasized an independent spirit, encouraged allegiance to country, and an understanding of the importance of Christian values.
The reasons for abandoning public schools are given in detail at http://exodusmandate-wv.org/. Also, that website provides links to sources that will answer questions for concerned parents and rebut criticisms from public school supporters. It is time for Americans, especially West Virginians whose motto is “Mountaineers Are Always Free”, to return to the old fashioned methods of education that made our country great.
Karl Priest is a retired teacher who now is the state coordinator of Exodus Mandate-West Virginia, which promotes Christian education and home schooling. Exodus Mandate-WV, P. O. Box 7212, Cross Lanes, WV 25356. http://exodusmandate-wv.org/
(No citation available)
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May 27, 2007 Daily Times (Weirton)
Guest Column
In 1940 teachers reported their major problems were talking, gum chewing, noise, running in halls, and cutting in line. In 1990 the problems were assault, robbery, drug abuse, and pregnancy.
Forty-three percent of teachers now say they spend more time trying to keep order than teaching.
A United States Department of Education 2006 report disclosed that the average is 45 crimes per 1000 students in public schools — and only 28 violent crimes per 1000 students.
School shootings are extreme cases of a grimmer fact — public schools have grown increasingly dangerous.
In Governor Manchin’s 2007 State of the State address he expressed his concern about school security in West Virginia schools.
A 2005 Associated Press report revealed that during the period of 2000-2004 West Virginia dismissed 41 teachers for sexual misconduct.
A Hofstra University professor believes that educator sexual misconduct is “woefully understudied”.
The Sexuality Information and Education Council (SIECUS for short) produces lessons for “sex ed” classes known as “Programs That Work.” arents probably do not know that SIECUS criticizes “abstinence-only-until-marriage” curricula as “based on religious beliefs (that) rely on fear and shame.”
SIECUS also complains that these abstinence (i.e. Christian values) programs do not view homosexuality as normal. SIECUS promotes policies, like what we have in West Virginia, where the school can provide birth control without consulting parents.
Trying to reform public schools is like putting a finger in a bucket of water. After the finger is removed the water returns to where it was originally.
In the meantime, our children remain in danger zones.
Loving parents would not allow their children to walk through a mine field just because they see some children making it through without getting maimed. Once the mine explodes it is too late.
It is time for thinking parents to remove their children from the public schools and either home school them or place them in private schools.
Let’s rescue our children.
(Karl Priest is a retired teacher who now is the state coordinator of Exodus Mandate-West Virginia, which promotes Christian education and home schooling. Exodus Mandate-WV, P. O. Box 7212, Cross Lanes, WV 25356. http://exodusmandate-wv.org/ ).
http://weirtondailytimes.com/include/articles.asp?articleID=5805
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July 31, 2007 Gazette (Charleston)
Change in schools puts kids at risk
Editor:
The School Building Authority recently released a school safety report. The focus was on keeping our children safe from outside danger. That is a necessary concern, but violence such as school shootings are extreme cases. There is a grimmer phenomenon: The main danger to our children lies within public schools.
During the period of 2000-2004, West Virginia dismissed 41 teachers for sexual misconduct. Experts believe that educator sexual misconduct is woefully understudied.
Schools of education are churning out teachers infested with secular humanist and New Age worldviews and textbook publishers accommodate the education establishment. The curriculum is infested with lies of humanism, evolutionism and twisted ideas of marriage and the family. In Kanawha County, Eastern religion is blatantly promoted.
Teacher unions, working in concert with homosexual activists, abortion groups, left-wing feminists and environmental radicals, have greatly expanded their influence upon public schools.
Public school children are already under attack explicitly and sometimes very subtly, and it may not be obvious to parents, which makes their children more venerable.
It is time for thinking people to exit the public schools and seek the safety of home and private education.
Karl Priest
Poca
http://www.wvgazette.com/section//200707307
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August 13, 2007 Daily Mail (Charleston)
Sex abuse condemns the public schools
Sadly, but not surprisingly, another West Virginia teacher has been arrested for sexually assaulting a student -- this time in the supposedly rural and safe haven of Elkins.
According to the Associated Press, the No. 1 one reason state teachers lose their license is sexual abuse of students.
In one five-year period, nearly $7 million of claims were paid because of state teacher misconduct with students.
News sources say that, nationally, sex abuse by teachers far exceeds anything done in the Catholic Church.
The National School Boards Association reports that over 4.5 million students have been victimized.
School officials can get good publicity by promoting what they do to protect students from the unlikely dangers from without, but they cannot seem to protect students from the very real dangers from within.
Yes, most teachers are not going to have sexual contact with students, but a recent national study (requested by Congress) conducted by a university professor revealed that about 10 percent of elementary and secondary students experience sexual misconduct from school employees.
No reasonable person would buy a pizza if one out of 10 had lethal poison. So why are reasonable parents exposing their children to the poison potential of the public schools?
I strongly encourage parents to seek the safety of home schools or private schools.
Karl C. Priest
Poca
http://www.dailymail.com/story/Opinion/Letters%20to%20the%20Editor/2007081331/
Your+views%3A+Monday+Aug.+13%2C+2007/
It is easy to follow common threads of sex (including teachers with students and promotion of sexual perversion) throughout the WV News pages.
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September 2, 2007 Gazette (Charleston)
Next school fad is a real danger
Editor:
West Virginia public school students score well below the national average on the ACT college entrance test. In math, state students tied with Louisiana and nudged out Washington, D.C., and Mississippi for dead last.
As a retired teacher, I can guarantee the public that the school system will want more money to solve the problem. With that money school authorities will purchase slick-sounding boondoggles like Kanawha County’s International Baccalaureate Curriculum.
The IB is the latest in a string of gimmicks that rip off taxpayers and hamstring teachers. That in itself is bad enough, except the IB has a hidden agenda of indoctrination for One World Government.
The IB promotes values not shared by most West Virginians including acceptance of the United Nations as the ultimate authority to decide what individual rights we have. The IB also promotes New Age religion.
Additionally, as a protesting parent in Virginia said, “[The IB] promotes socialism, disarmament, radical environmentalism and moral relativism.”
Parents cannot keep this stuff out of the public schools, so they should take their children out of the public schools.
Karl Priest
Poca
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Opinion/Letters/2007090117?pt=18
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September 19, 2007 Daily Mail (Charleston)
‘Teach first' is just another fad
During more than 30 years as an educator, I saw dozens of highfalutin' "final solutions" to the problems in the public schools.
Most of them cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. None of them worked, but they all had fancy words like "collaboration," "frameworks" and "research-based."
The public was pacified and the central office had something to do.
Now, another "final solution" is upon us. Kanawha County has spent nearly a million dollars to force teachers in 57 schools to participate in another fad pushed by education bureaucrats from their ivory towers.
This time it's called "Teach First," and the superintendent says it is an "attempt to move the district where it needs to be" and "we can't afford to spend 10, 15, 20 years getting there."
He admits Kanawha County is sub-par.
It's just another con game to separate taxpayers from their money.
If the good teachers ever start schools of their own, the public schools would go out of business and taxes would go down.
Unfortunately, caring parents cannot wait on that, but they have a great alternative.
I strongly encourage parents to remove their children from the influence of the public school swindles.
Karl Priest
Poca
http://www.dailymail.com/story/Opinion/Letters%20to%20the%20Editor/2007091916/
Letters%3A+Wednesday%2C+Sept.+19%2C+2007/
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October 19, 2007 Gazette (Charleston)
Schools committee won’t be objective
Editor:
Yogi Berra would understand the latest textbook controversy — it’s deja vu again! A board administrator will appoint a committee to examine the latest objectionable books. If anyone thinks the committee will be an objective representation of the citizens of the Nitro High School attendance area, they are good subjects for the latest Internet scam.
The last time a Kanawha County Schools committee was appointed, they were to examine a book that was so obscene that a parent was blocked from reading excerpts aloud at a Board of Education meeting. I never heard of any objections from the committee.
Speaking of sports, the school officials keep tossing me softballs with comments like: “The books reflect a world that high school students live in,” and “the most graphic material is not usually what students focus on in class.”
The latter comment is laughable and I am speaking as a former teacher with over 30 years’ experience. The former comment exposes the philosophy that nothing is too obscene to be included in Kanawha County schools.
I admire the courageous ladies who brought this to our attention, but the public schools are irredeemable, and caring parents should immediately seek the safety of home schools or Christian schools.
Karl Priest
Poca
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Top+Stories/2007101812?pt=10
See more about public school books.
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October 30, 2007 Daily Mail (Charleston)
Public schools make case for private schools
Fool public school parents once, shame on you; fool them twice, shame on public school parents. What if they get fooled over and over again?
A liberal Kanawha County school board member is upset that female students are showing thong underwear and revealing their cleavage. The Kanawha County school superintendent announces that visitors will have to "buzz in" to enter the schools, where they will be under video surveillance.
A lawsuit is pending in Kanawha County due to teacher sexual misconduct.
Violence and weapons have plagued a Mason County middle school. Students set fires in a Marion County high school.
Troopers arrest a Greenbrier East High School student for planning a school shooting.
It is difficult for me to keep up with the frightening reality of West Virginia public schools.
But there is more ominous news. Some West Virginia teachers are teaching out of their fields of certification and the imminent retirement of thousands of teachers is causing school officials serious concern about maintaining qualified staff.
Unless they like being fooled, parents need to seek the safety of home schools or Christian schools.
Karl C. Priest
Poca
http://www.dailymail.com/story/Opinion/2007103030/Letters-Tuesday-Oct-30-2007/
West Virginia parents were warned!
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November 27, 2007 Gazette (Charleston)
Public school systems are neglecting black students
While black citizens are understandably angry about what happened to the young woman in Logan County, they should be even more upset about what is happening to their children nationwide. Every school day black students are being neglected (or worse) by the public school system. The reality of this shameful situation should warrant a march out of the public schools by black Americans.
Black professor Walter Williams looked at the research statistics and concluded that “black education is a disgrace.” Dr. Williams believes that, rather than an apology for slavery, the government should apologize for “fraudulent education” and the devastating impact the public schools have had upon black students.
Harvard’s Civil Rights Project has reported findings that government intervention in the public schools has not reduced racial achievements gaps. The director of the Civil Rights Project has called the report “depressing.” The situation is even worse than depressing.
The superintendent of Pittsburgh City schools, Mark Roosevelt, calls the gap between black and white students the “civil rights issue of our time.” He calls the situation “bleak, terrifying, embarrassing, humiliating” and states that America is threatened because of it. Roosevelt admits that the longer children stay in the public schools the worse off they become.
In 2002 the national NAACP office declared, “The facts are clear: the persistent failure of schools to provide equality of opportunity for all students is having a devastating impact on communities of color and the future of our nation.” Unfortunately, the NAACP wants to try to fix the failing public schools. Their honorable goals will be to no avail.
The Nation’s Report Card, which is provided by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), has revealed that “the Black-White achievement gap between socioeconomically similar children is null at kindergarten entry but sizable by third grade.” In plain English, the data show that the schools play a major part of the problem in causing the achievement gap.
For West Virginia, the Nation’s Report Card discloses that, in 2007, 54 percent of black fourth graders and 48 percent of black eighth graders scored below basic in reading. In mathematics, the 2007 below-basic percentages for black children were 36 percent and 69 percent respectively. Those figures are shocking and sad.
In 2004 America observed the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Blacks cannot wait another 50 years for the public schools to do what those courageous blacks of 1954 had hoped for. In a terrible twist of fate, the public schools first barred black children and now the public schools have bogged down black children. The public schools have been called the “Great Equalizer,” but who wants to be equal with failure?
The public schools have been a major battleground for the civil rights movement and black Americans should be applauded for what they have accomplished in this regard. Unfortunately, they were swimming in the sea of racism and climbed aboard the public school Titanic, which was already sinking. Now, black Americans need to realize the gaping hole in the public schools cannot be plugged and they must rescue their children and board the lifeboats of alternative education.
Most black parents are like all loving parents. They do not want their children socialized with drug- and alcohol-using classmates. Likewise black parents are concerned about school violence and sexual predators. Black parents demand rigorous academics and high morals. Also, many blacks maintain that the public schools only provide superficial black history while providing low expectations and both overt and subtle racism.
There is a wonderful option for thinking black parents to achieve true educational freedom without the daily lessons of servitude and conformity provided by the public schools. Homeschooling is growing by leaps and bounds and it is difficult to keep up with the data, but in 2003 black children made up about 5 percent of homeschooled students. The rate of black homeschoolers is increasing faster than homeschoolers in general. Reports from media sources such as NPR, Newsday, CNN, BET, Reuters, FOX, the Chicago Tribune and others reveal that black families are choosing homeschooling by the thousands.
Referring to public schools, Gilbert Wilkerson (founder of the Network of Black Homeschoolers) proclaims, “We can do better. We have the courage, the strength, the spirituality, the economics —everything we need within the Black community.” He also says that blacks do not have to settle for government education programs: “Why are we waiting around for somebody else ... to give us a hand for something we can do ourselves? I know we can do better.”
There is real diversity of reasons why blacks choose to homeschool. The black adults who homeschool are a mixture of single and dual parents, as well as grandparents. Also, the philosophies and learning strategies of black homeschoolers are as unique as the individual families.
The founders of the National Black Home Educators Association remind us that homeschooling is not a new idea. It was commonly done by everyone’s ancestors. For blacks, after slavery, many black mothers did a wonderful job homeschooling their children.
A Google search for “black homeschool” will bring up an amazing number of resources for black parents who want to find a way to give their children the education they deserve. Also, Exodus Mandate-West Virginia will provide assistance upon request.
Priest, of Poca, is a retired teacher and state coordinator of Exodus Mandate-West Virginia, a group that promotes Christian education and home schooling.
http://www.wvgazette.com/section//2007112610
What I sent :
Recent news has featured a march by members of the black community to protest the gross mistreatment of one of their own. While black citizens are understandably angry about what happened to the young woman in Logan County they should be even more upset about what is happening to their children nationwide. Every school day black students are being neglected (or worse) by the public school system. The reality of this shameful situation should warrant a march out of the public schools by Black Americans.
Black professor Walter Williams looked at the research statistics and concluded that "black education is a disgrace". Dr. Williams believes that, rather than an apology for slavery, the government should apologize for "fraudulent education" and the devastating impact the public schools have had upon black students.
Harvard's Civil Rights Project has reported findings that government intervention in the public schools has not reduced racial achievements gaps. The director of the Civil Rights Project has called the report "depressing". The situation is even worse than depressing.
The superintendent of Pittsburgh City schools, Mark Roosevelt, calls the gap between black and white students the "civil rights issue of our time". He calls the situation "bleak, terrifying, embarrassing, humiliating" and states that America is threatened because of it. Roosevelt admits that the longer that children stay in the public schools the worse off they become.
In 2002 the national NAACP office declared that "The facts are clear: the persistent failure of schools to provide equality of opportunity for all students is having a devastating impact on communities of color and the future of our nation." Unfortunately, the NAACP wants to try to fix the failing public schools. Their honorable goals will be to no avail.
The Nation’s Report Card, which is provided by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), has revealed that “the Black-White achievement gap between socioeconomically similar children is null (amounting to nothing) at kindergarten entry but sizable by third grade”. In plain English, the data shows that the schools play a major part of the problem in causing the achievement gap.
For West Virginia, the Nation’s Report Card discloses that, in 2007, 54% of black 4 th graders and 48% of black 8 th graders scored below Basic in reading. In mathematics the 2007 below Basic percentages for black children were 36% and 69% respectively. Those figures are shocking and sad.
In 2004 America observed the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Blacks cannot wait another 50 years for the public schools to do what those courageous blacks of 1954 had hoped for. In a terrible twist of fate the public schools first barred out black children and now the public schools have bogged down black children. The public schools have been called the "Great Equalizer", but who wants to be equal with failure?
The public schools have been a major battle ground for the Civil Rights movement and Black Americans should be applauded for what they have accomplished in this regard. Unfortunately, they were swimming in the sea of racism and climbed aboard the public school Titanic which was already sinking. Now, Black Americans need to realize the gaping hole in the public schools cannot be plugged and they must rescue their children and board the lifeboats of alternative education.
Most black parents are like all loving parents. They do not want their children socialized with drug and alcohol using classmates. Likewise black parents are concerned about school violence and sexual predators. Black parents demand rigorous academics and high morals. Also, many blacks maintain that the public schools only provide superficial Black History while providing low expectations and both overt and subtle racism.
There is a wonderful option for thinking black parents to achieve true educational freedom without the daily lessons of servitude and conformity provided by the public schools.
Homeschooling is growing by leaps and bounds and it is difficult to keep up with the data, but in 2003 black children made up about 5 percent of homeschooled students. The rate of black homeschoolers is increasing faster than homeschoolers in general. Reports from media sources such as NPR, Newsday, CNN, BET, Reuters, FOX, the Chicago Tribune and others reveal that black families are choosing homeschooling by the thousands.
Referring to public schools, Gilbert Wilkerson (founder of the Network of Black Homeschoolers) proclaims, "We can do better. We have the courage, the strength, the spirituality, the economics--everything we need within the Black community." He also says that blacks do not have to settle for government education programs. "Why are we waiting around for somebody else...to give us a hand for something we can do ourselves? I know we can do better."
There is real diversity of reasons why blacks choose to homeschool. The black adults who homeschool are a mixture of single and dual parents, as well as grandparents. Also, the philosophies and learning strategies of black homeschoolers are as unique as the individual families.
The founders of the National Black Home Educators Association remind us that homeschooling is not a new idea. It was commonly done by everyone’s ancestors. For blacks, after slavery, many black mothers did a wonderful job homeschooling their children.
A Google search for "black homeschool" will bring up an amazing number of resources for black parents who want to find a way to give their children the education they deserve. Also, Exodus Mandate-West Virginia will provide assistance upon request.
Granted, many blacks have great reservations about abandoning the public schools. Many black homeschooling pioneers have carefully thought through those and other issues. Joyce Jenkins (director of the National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance) says that blacks "no longer want their children used as guinea pigs in educational experiments to see if their test scores will rise a percentage point or two."
The bottom line is that it is about parents protecting and doing what is best for their children. For the sake of their children, blacks marched up the public school steps. Now, the evidence is overwhelming that black children are at risk. Thankfully, blacks have the right to march back down the public school steps to education freedom.
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Please see "What about Black Folks".
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Submitted (not published) Letters and Op-Eds Urging Folks to Rescue Their Children
The following “articles” were submitted to various papers in West Virginia. I have no indication that they were published. These, and some of the above, were excerpts from my speech “We Must Get Our children Out”. Each email began with a “Dear (editor’s real name—to personalize the email): The following is submitted exclusively to the (name of newspaper). Please run it as a guest Op-Ed. Thank you." Then I provided my name, address, and telephone number. That was followed by the proposed Op-Ed. Each Op-Ed concluded with the usual brief bio: "Karl Priest is a retired teacher who now is the state coordinator of Exodus Mandate-West Virginia, which promotes Christian education and home schooling."
(See "Traveling to Truth Transformation" for an article about censorship.)
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May 9, 2007 Dominion Post (Morgantown) NOTE: Not likely published.
Stupid in West Virginia
John Stossel (of television’s “20-20”) recently ran a “Stupid in America” series which reported that a South Carolina governor would not send his own children to public schools because---it would “sacrifice their education”. The governor wanted to allow the free market to deliver an alternative to public schools. Teacher unions and politicians (who are controlled by teacher unions) complained. They asked, “How can we spend state money on something that hasn’t been proven?” In other words, it’s better to spend state money on something that is proven NOT to work.
Stossel described how the national School Board’s Association (NSBA) claimed, “ America’s Public Schools out perform Private Schools when variables are controlled.” Actually, the Private School students scored higher on the tests, but there were adjustments for race, ethnicity, income, and parent’s education backgrounds. That may be a valid statistical tool, but it’s prone to bias and leads to statistical hocus-pocus.
Many public school teachers are nice people trying to make a living, but the number of good teachers and administrators, whether Christian or not, has been decreasing from retirement. The good teachers that remain are entangled victims of the agenda that controls what they can do. Textbook publishers are puppets of the education establishment thereby making it nearly impossible for well-meaning teachers to avoid participating in the indoctrination.
The curriculum has been injected with lies of humanism and evolutionism. New teachers are likely to have been trained to believe that their main function is to reconstruct values and beliefs. Public schools indoctrinate generations to believe in evolutionism, relativism, feminism, socialism, mindless tolerance, sexual promiscuity, phony self-esteem, homosexuality as normal, and God as irrelevant. All of that with lower academic standards. Graduates of public schools will eventually carry their humanist orientation into politics. Humanism will saturate their work and their personal lives.
I personally have proven that it is a waste of time to try to reform public schools. It is time for thinking parents to remove their children from the public schools and either home school them or place them in private schools. If we lose our children, we will lose America.
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May 9, 2007 Register-Herald (Beckley) NOTE: Not likely published.
Public Schools Are Dangerous
In 1940 teachers reported their major problems were talking, gum chewing, noise, running in halls, and cutting in line. In 1990 the problems were assault, robbery, drug abuse, and pregnancy. Forty-three percent of teachers now say they spend more time trying to keep order than teaching. A United States Department of Education 2006 report disclosed that the average is 45 crimes per 1000 students in public schools---and ONLY 28 violent crimes per 1000 students. School shootings are extreme cases of a grimmer fact---public schools have grown increasingly dangerous. In Governor Manchin’s 2007 State of the State address he expressed his concern about school security in West Virginia schools.
A 2005 Associated Press report revealed that during the period of 2000-2004 West Virginia dismissed 41 teachers for sexual misconduct. A Hofstra University professor believes that educator sexual misconduct is “woefully understudied”. The Sexuality Information and Education Council (SIECUS for short) produces lessons for “sex ed” classes known as “Programs That Work”. Parents probably do not know that SIECUS criticizes “ abstinence-only-until-marriage” curricula as “based on religious beliefs (that) rely on fear and shame”. SIECUS also complains that these abstinence (i.e. Christian values) programs do not view homosexuality as normal. SIECUS promotes policies, like what we have in West Virginia , where the school can provide birth control without consulting parents.
Trying to reform public schools is like putting a finger in a bucket of water. After the finger is removed the water returns to where it was originally. In the meantime our children remain in danger zones. Loving parents would not allow their children to walk through a mine field just because they see some children making it through without getting maimed. Once the mine explodes it is too late. It is time for thinking parents to remove their children from the public schools and either home school them or place them in private schools.
Let's rescue our children.
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May 9, 2007 News and Sentinel (Parkersburg) NOTE: Not likely published
Public Schools Pull Down Society
The Apple Computer CEO, a Democrat, lambasted teacher unions in February 2007. He believes that no amount of technology in classrooms will improve public schools until teacher unions lose their power. The CEO of technology giant, Intel , has repeatedly warned the country that the poor academic quality of public schools, especially in math and science, threatens our economic future. The National Committee on Excellence in Education issued a 1983 report that concluded---our entire way of life is endangered by a “rising tide of mediocrity”.
Public schools have been a major instrument in the hands of humanists (i. e. atheists) in shaping America. Issues such as abortion are only symptoms of a major problem caused by raising generation after generation in public schools. The religious faith of citizens determines a nation’s moral character, not what is written in the nation’s documents. For example, our Constitution is now used to promote rights that are opposed to what the nation's founders believed. If a country accepts things like abortion---then those abominations will find legal protection.
Well protected by teacher unions and a huge bureaucracy there are no incentives for public schools to ensure a quality education. It is useless to try to reform public schools. Winning a local battle requires a big sacrifice of time and effort, and then the minute change cannot be monitored unless a parent makes a living policing public schools. Let’s give up the delusion of changing public schools and put our energy into providing more opportunities for giving children an education controlled by the family.
It is time for parents to get their children to the safety of a home or private school. The education we choose will inevitably shape our children and ultimately shape our world. Families are succumbing to education smoke inhalation. It is time to yell, "FIRE"! Why fiddle with the school board when our children's future is burning? We must salvage our children and families from the ashes of the public schools.
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May 9, 2007 Intelligencer (Wheeling) NOTE: Not likely published
The "Little Red Schoolhouse" Is Gone
The “Little Red Schoolhouse” is not what it used to be. In a 2007 speech to business leaders, U. S. Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, said, “Everybody here knows that before this act ( NCLB ) became law, kids often moved from grade to grade and nobody knew whether or not they had learned to read, write, add, or subtract. We invested billions of dollars and basically---hoped---for---the---best.”
Standards are lowered to mask the failure of public schools. Public schools are plagued with grade inflation, and manipulated standardized test results . U. S. News and World Report published an investigative article about widespread cheating in administration of standardized tests. Students are graduating from public schools in record numbers without having acquired basic reading, writing, and math skills and with a woeful lack of knowledge of history and geography. Universities have had to expand remedial programs that did not exist fifty years ago. Look at the product being pumped out of public schools and wonder how much potential is being lost.
Public schools have plenty of money and they waste a lot of it. In West Virginia we spend over $8,000 per student per year—that comes to over $200,000 for a class of 25 students. Nationally, we spend over $10,000 per student, and school spending has tripled over the last 30 years. It costs a whole lot less to educate a student for a year in a homeschool or even a private school and those schools are not dependent on tax-funded resources. Free enterprise is always more efficient and unleashes the God-given, creative ability of individuals. Private education can be accomplished with existing resources and saves the taxpayer money.
Public schools are stumbling blocks, not building blocks. One foreigner said, “I wouldn’t send my child to an American public school. Not even for a million dollars.” A price tag cannot be placed upon the education of our children. The Little Red School House is collapsing. It is time that American parents take the same stand and remove their children from the public schools.
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May 9, 2007 Heartland Publications (Williamson) NOTE: Not likely published
Public Schools Threaten Our Freedom
A critic of public schools once said, “Humanist taxidermists have done well. Public schools are hollow shells, a stuffed charade, a glass-eyed cadaver. They have knowledge without wisdom and facts without truth.”
Parents are usually unaware of messages that are conveyed to their children "under the radar". For example, the Early Childhood Equity Alliance (ECEA), a network of activist educators promotes a teachers guide for teachers of young children (pre-kindergarten) that portrays the Navy’s Blue Angels as heartless killers who could bomb innocent American kids.
Public schools are run like prisons with medical sedation, metal detectors, uniformed officers, searches by drug sniffing dogs. and video surveillance.
I am not criticizing specific people because the pervasive influence of university education schools and departments of education is too strong for mere intellect (smart college students) to overcome. Good teachers are hamstrung by the bureaucracy and poorly disciplined children. I find fault with the inept bureaucratic system masquerading as the benevolent guardian of children.
Totalitarian regimes have always claimed that children belong to them.
“For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age…and this Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take the youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.” Everyone knows who made that statement.
Public schools are really government schools and the more the government controls of any thing, the less effective it becomes. A monopolistic system of education that is controlled by the State is far more efficient in crushing our liberty than weapons of war. America would be much better served if public schools lost their financial monopoly. Then, public schools that could convince families they were providing a quality education would still have plenty of students.
We do not need more reform. We have wasted millions (perhaps billions) of dollars on utopian efforts to reform public schools. Every president, since the Department of Education was formed, has had a utopian plan to solve the problems raging through the public schools. Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing, that doesn't work, over and over. History has proven, beyond all reasonable doubt, that pouring money into public schools is crazy. We merely pay for our own subjugation!
The time is now for parents to seek educational freedom by placing their children in home or private schools.
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