Has anyone noticed that the Federal Government has slowly been amassing and centralizing power since World War 1 and this includes our school systems. In fact, it has been so successful at taking our rights at self governance away from us bit by bit that the center of the arguments about education always focus on what the federal government should or should not do next about education instead of whether it should even have the power to rule public education in America.

 So what’s the big deal

You may be asking, “What’s the big deal?” The big deal is this: decisions made at the federal level that affect our local communities and the way we educate our children eliminate parent’s influence on the educational policies that govern their children’s education. It is all most impossible for concerned parents and citizens of local communities to demand change at the Federal level, but if the power had remained at the local level, where it belonged, parents would have a much greater influence on the schools they send their children to.

The Big Clause—And I don’t Mean Santa

The general welfare clause in the constitution has become a gift giving Santa Clause to the Federal Government which has used it to strip away the rights of the citizens of the United States under the guise of “providing for the general welfare.” In its arrogance the Federal Government has always felt that it knows how to run the lives of its citizens much better than the citizens do themselves. On this pretext the Federal Government has stripped away “a government by the people and for the people” and replaced it with a paternal nanny state where it tells us how our children must be educated and installs state sponsored secular humanism in place of religion. How come we have allowed the executive branch of our government to become the dictator of educational policies to our families and children.

The Death Of The American Family

 The result of the federal government’s interference in education has only further exacerbated the decline of the American family by assuming more and more control over our nation’s children and the way they are raised by dictating what can and cannot be taught in our schools. Instead of removing obstacles and burdens from the American family, the federal government punishes it and readily assumes the responsibilities parents traditionally had in the family structure. And all of this happened because we the people have allowed it.

 Big Government Loves A Crisis

 Starting with the great depression the Federal Government through its politicians begin to realize that every crisis could be used to steal power from the people and train them to look to the government for solutions instead of to themselves. Slowly, crisis by crisis, the government assumed more and more power until the arguments about solutions to issues like education are always centered around what the federal government should do and not what should the people do. Now we look to the Federal Government to save our nation when it is powerless to do so. The only entity powerful enough to save our nation is we the people.

Education By We The People

As with all other lost liberties, education should be empowered by we the people and not unelected bureaucracies like the Department Of Education which demands the teaching of things like secular humanism even when over 70% of the American people do not believe in that quasi religion. It also regulates parents to the bleachers and redefines parental involvement in education to that of cheerleaders while leaving the heavy thinking to the so called experts. Parents are viewed as uninformed dupes when it comes to creating policy and so the education of our children fall to computer tracking, number crunching bureaucrats who can’t even be fired for incompetency.

Parents Are Their Children’s Educators

You can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear the old saying goes and it is still true today. Even with all of the political power the Government has amassed so that it can dictate your children lives even down to what they eat in a day they have failed to educate them. In the end, most children follow in the footsteps of their parents. Those parents who are independent thinkers produce independent thinking off spring and those that value true education pass that value on to their children. True reform in education means evolving the parents clear up to the policy making level. This process would involve empowering parents to guide their children’s education.

Power to the Federal Government is like slop to a pig and as Ronald Reagan Observed, it is dangerous to get between the hog and the trough. So achieving these goals will not be easy, but if we want a strong nation, we need to roll up our sleeves and make our government for and by the people again.

There are two approaches to the controversy of man’s origins. Of course to the adherents of modern science there is no controversy because they have already drawn their conclusions even in the face of such failures as the latest global warming debacle. Modern science simply accepts its own axioms without so much as a wince at the sour Kool-Aid as it drains down their throats. But to those of us that still have open minds there are two approaches. The first approach would be to argue scientific facts and the second approach would be to look at the philosophy and common sense arguments for each position.

Naturalism

You see, modern science, long ago, determined that there was no such thing as supernatural and therefore any explanation that did not adhere to or fit into its definition of naturalism was dismissed no matter how compelling. Any explanation that involved naturalism was accepted regardless of how preposterous or ridiculous it might seem. In other words, the axiom of naturalism was the iron rule to which even reason was made to bow and scrape. When Charles Darwin first proposed evolution, much of the world accepted it with giddy Joy. They did so for reasons that were probably more political than scientific. Human beings were suddenly faced with the prospect of there being no God and with it the freedom from repressive religious dogma. They jumped at. As Professor William Provine wrote:

‘ … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.’

Provine, W.B., Origins Research 16(1):9, 1994.

Fossil Record?

Most people believe that evolution was founded on the fossil record evidence when in reality the fossil record caused just as many problems for the theory of evolution as it did support it. First of all, there were no intermediate fossils that clearly demonstrated one species turning into another, but instead the fossils’ seem to lie in layers and abruptly change from where to layer. These stages between these abrupt changes had to be imagined by artists because no real samples existed. This problem and many other problems that crop up were simply paved over because the scientific and political powers joined hands and allowing their conclusion to rule the investigation.

One Dogma Replaces Another

My personal objections are not so much a person’s adherence to evolutionary theory as it is the dogmatic approach that evolutionists take. It is quite ironic that in their exuberant haste to dethrone religious dogma, evolutionist’s have replaced it with their own dogma that is ever bit as harsh and punishes those that break its taboos just as much as the system it replaced. This is the system that rules public-school science and influences the rest. It is true that intelligent design, creationism, and evolution all have their difficulties but in our modern world evolution is simply enthroned and all other explanations are discarded out of hand.

To make matters worse a lot of the religious world has succumbed to the pressure to count evolutionary theory as fact and they try to explain how God used evolution to create even though God Himself has never ever hinted that this might be true. What an oxymoron: evolution, which is driven by random chance, is the result of intelligent design! This approach only destroys both evolution and intelligent design as viable candidates for our origins and throws muck all over logic. It also makes a farce out of a God of love. Because, according to this scenario, God would demand love the from his creation which he perfected by the use violence, death and destruction that survival of the fittest demands in order to produce higher ordered beings. Once all the creatures have finished fighting, killing, and eating each other until one perfected species stands atop the dust pile, then supposedly God steps in and tells these creatures to ” love one another.” Nonsense!

The philosophy of evolution as our origins is antithetical to a God of love and its tendrils reach far beyond the science classroom. This is because evolution renders our existence meaningless. It also makes a mockery of absolute morality and instead consigns morality to the political power base. It also produces the radical political correctness that we all suffer under today, because there is no point to moral behavior in a pointless universe other than to please the political establishment. All of this is detrimental to the developing child who enters schools and is faced with a morass of conflicting expectations and in the end left to fend for themselves the best they can.

In the end our origins matter. If we were designed and made by God and are governed by God’s expectations for us, we have the antithesis of chaos. On the other hand if we are mere accidents produced by naturalism then we are left adrift in a chaotic environment ruled by the whims of those who are able to amass power.

For those who think the theory of evolution came about by scientific thought, I would advise they read their history because it had more to do with religion and politics than it did pure scientific principle. I would also warn parents that today’s secular society, including public schools, is ruled by the effects of evolutionary theory in a much deeper sense than they think.

It used to be that the churches were the source of education in the United States. The idea of secular education is a recent newcomer in terms of history. Secular education in its need to bean count, control, and demonstrate a tangible body of evidence to support its own relevance has narrowed the idea that education down to its smallest common denominators.

Secular educators have thought and thought and parsed and parsed and whittled until there is nothing but a pile of shavings that they hold in their hands and call benchmarks. If a child is lucky enough to possess the ability to formulate the skills that these benchmarks indicate, they will be rewarded by the system, but if they are not, they will have to find a way to survive in spite of secular education.

It was not always this way. In the book, Education the author paints a picture of education from the Christian world viewpoint when she wrote:

“Our ideas of education take too narrow and too low a range. There is need of a broader scope, a higher aim. True education means more than the pursuit of a certain course of study. It means more than a preparation for the life that now is. It has to do with the whole being, and with the whole period of existence possible to man. It is the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers. It prepares the student for the joy of service in this world and for the higher joy of wider service in the world to come.

The source of such an education is brought to view in these words of Holy Writ, pointing to the Infinite One: In Him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom.” Colossians 2:3. “He hath counsel and understanding.” Job 12:13.” -Education

I guess it is a fair question to ask, what is the purpose of education in the United States? I mean, exactly what are we trying to accomplish. In our secular world, view education was originally to prepare people to be productive citizens of this country. Whereas in a Christian world view, education was to prepare people for this life and for eternity. In other words education was redemptive. Since no child left behind has been enacted, the purpose of education in the United States has become increasingly narcissistic, that is, it seeks to teach people to pass its tests and exams so that it can pat itself on the back in a self congratulatory celebration.

Jesus on the other hand was all about redeeming an individual and creating a connection between them and God that would change their existence both in this temporal world and throughout eternity. As you can see, these are two very different definitions of education, one being narcissistic and self-absorbed with little or no real concern for its students outside of what they can do for the system and the other which seeks to sacrifice itself, give it itself for the redemption and salvation of its constituents.

Secular education is king at the moment. Even many private and parochial schools seek to judge themselves by the rule of secular public school standards instead of grasping their liberty and using it to truly bring education to their students. Ask yourself this, what is the overarching purpose of those who are teaching my children today? I can tell you from experience that the 900 lb. gorilla in the room for public school teachers is the benchmark exams and the yearly assessments dictated by no child left behind. Secular education has become an end unto itself with no real concern for its students lives beyond the classroom walls. This is not necessarily true of the teachers and staff of a any given school, but of the program itself. Secular education to date spends a copious amount of time and energy in covering its own tail. Time that could be used in teaching students.

It is funny how Jesus is still radical today. His ideas of education stand in stark contrast to that of secular education. Jesus in his teaching always dealt with men individually.

“It was by personal contact and association that He trained the Twelve. It was in private, often to but one listener, that He gave His most precious instruction. To the honored rabbi at the night conference on the Mount of Olives, to the despised woman at the well of Sychar, He opened His richest treasures; for in these hearers He discerned the impressible heart, the open mind, the receptive spirit. Even the crowd that so often thronged His steps was not to Christ an indiscriminate mass of human beings. He spoke directly to every mind and appealed to every heart. He watched the faces of His hearers, marked the lighting up of the countenance, the quick, responsive glance, which told that truth had reached the soul; and there vibrated in His heart the answering chord of sympathetic joy. Christ discerned the possibilities in every human being. He was not turned aside by an unpromising exterior or by unfavorable surroundings. He called Matthew from the tollbooth, and Peter and his brethren from the fishing boat, to learn of Him.” -Education
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It is important for teachers, students, and especially parents who are immersed in a secular culture with its secular education to come to a full realization of how far secular education has strayed from that which Jesus practiced. The principles that Jesus used and his teachings are more appealing than the narrow, self-serving scraps that no child left behind offers as true education; even to non-believers.

There is no one so blind as he who will not see. This old saying is true today. Those who are invested in secular public education will not see the destruction that their system wreaks every day on the children of our nation. We have so constructed our secular education upon our own mythology and pride that it has become impossible to deconstructed it with out deconstructing ourselves.

At this point there’s probably not much you can do to change the system, but you do not have to accept the system. Your children are our nation’s most valuable resources, and giving them an education that includes the mind, the body, and the spirit is essential. An education that teaches them about redemption for themselves and for others, and education that teaches them the value of the individual and not value based on scores received on assessments or measured by benchmarks or conjured up by public policy. This is education as Jesus saw it, education far beyond control and definition of secularist who desire to promote their fallible vision of utopia. This type of education is everlasting.

Horace Mann