Take the state out of the schools!!!!!

What you are (realistically) suggesting is more input from the locally elected school councils. This already occurs in some regions doesn't it? And in some schools in the USA creation can be taught alongside evolution. With a particualrly slanted school baord one could probably even ban macroevolution. True?The real issue is that one is up against democray. IN the USA, andnowhere else really, it is possible to have a mojity of 6-day creation believers. I prefer the idea of a good Christian school rather than relyingon conveniently slanted majorities.

FunkSo how do you compare a 'good' Chrsitan school vs home schooling? I actually agree with you that significantly more family involvement in schooling would be a great idea.If I were completely redesigning school I would propose the following for primary and juniour high school:1. Mornings: school-based learning (Christian school would be my choice of course)
Conventional academic learning
2. Afternoon: community/project/sports-based learning (optional home-based learning decidable by parent)I really think kids spend too much time in academic classes but I also see the obvious value in having kids spend some time in this environement. Does it need to be 7 hours a day, 5 days a week for most of the year for 14 years?? Categorically, no.The afternoon session would be run by the school (and optionally the kids could help/learn with their parents at home or in the family business) but be based on learning throuhg work. Visiting the sick, cleaning up a park, planting trees, weaving baskets etc etc. Alternatively parents could have the kid at home. I don't have a problem if the home-based learning was working for the family business or helping Mum/Dad at home in the afternoons. Others I've talked to see it as slave labour but I just don't have a problem with it and I think our society would be better if kids grew up seeing work as a part of their lives from a much younger age than they do.Currently our kids come home from school around the time that Mum or Dad is getting dinner ready (unless your in the US and its time to work out which take-away to order). It seems crazy to me that for most of the day our kids are in the hands of the state and the TV. I'm convinced it isn't right. But I'm also equally convinced that academic learning is a fantastic leagacy that should be maintained - bu perhaps at half its level until senior high.

I agree with you but I thnk it needs to be balanced out by a 50% contribution from professional educators. The issue of getting the sate out of it then becomes an issue of finding a good Christian school. On the other hand if the parenting really is done properly it doens't matter what school the kids go to. And in the system I outlined kids would spend an afternoon with paetns or community projects than they do now. In my proposal I would also suggest that optionally the parents at home got inovled in the afternnon community/sport sessions if they could.I don't really agree that every parent needs to become an academic educator. In a good Christian society we should be able to trust our kids for half a day to teachers. With good parenting we should be even be able to trust our kids to the world for a mrning. But is it good to trust the mto the world for the whole day and the n TV when they get home? That's where it crosses the line and things go wrong even in Christian households.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-16-2002]