On the Corner, Jonathan Adler points out that both homeschoolers and the New Hampshire NEA love Huckabee, the latter because of his opposition to school vouchers. Asks Adler:
If both groups are enthusiastic about Huck, my question is which group understands who they're really backing, and which is being taken for a ride?
I don't know why Huckabee opposes school vouchers, but I'm betting it has to do with his Southern Baptist convictions. Baptists have historically been strong on the separation of church and state, chiefly to prevent the church from being entangled with the state. It seems plausible to me that Huckabee might want to keep a firewall between the government and religious schools, for the sake of maintaining the integrity of religious schools. But I don't know that for sure. Point is, it's theoretically plausible that neither side is being taken for a ride.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Donny:
I still see secular humanism in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Washington, DC ...
Larry; yes, vouchers will not automatically make secular humanism vanish overnight, but it will give it a run for its money.
Many prefer tax credits in lieu of vouchers, but tax credits will not help the poor who can better education for their children because they pay not taxes to "credit".
You'll always see the kind of ideology (and its accompanying immorality) that is secular humanism wihtin "cities." Interesting how sodom and gomorrah-like behaviors follow man's thinking he is in charge of his own path. Our "secular" schools are now cesspools of violence and licentiousness precisely because the humanists have been the totalitarian "leaders" of our youth. With bad role models come bad followers. With vouchers come real diversity and actual freedom to have children taught "education" and not the humanist indoctrination that is literally killing so many of them in and outside of the uterus. What ever happen to "pro" choice? Now see the true colors of secular humanism. They are always dark.
Donny:
Ah, a Jeffersonian who believes we must all live off the land and that cities are wicked dens of iniquity.
OK.
Remember EXACTLY how Jeffersonians lived off the land in the 1800s, as least south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Then tell me what the real "wicked dens of iniquity" were.
Lisa writes:In Saint Louis, where I live now, we have the opposite problem, and the microcosm of the dilemma of this issue. We have an amazing system of private and parochial schools, great public schools in areas where it takes min $90-100k salary to buy a house, and horrid ones elsewhere. The non-parochial schools have college-level tuition rates. What's an average Protestant St. Louisan to do? Send the kids to Catholic school by day and spend your evenings running a remedial course in Protestantism? Pray to make the magnet school lottery? mortgage your future in private school tuition? Vouchers won't help--most of us won't be poor enough to meet the limits being discussed.
Thank you. I live in St. Louis as well, and you've described the situation very well. I might add that homeschooling in Missouri is generally pretty easy, and for many does provide an alternative to paying outrageous home prices or tuitions.
But one thing about Missouri homeschooling to keep in mind - while I am not homeschooling now, I did for many years, and one thing I can say for certain is that many MO homeschoolers would go berserk at the kind of bill Huckabee signed into law in Arkansas. Homeschooling in MO does *not* require the permission of the local school district. That is a critical aspect which homeschoolers ignore at their peril. As soon as the state can deny them permission to homeschool, even for 14 days, the fundamental freedom to homeschool has been seriously eroded.
This ties in with vouchers, too. Homeschoolers working for vouchers are cutting their own throats, especially in a "free state" like MO where you don't need district permission to h.s., and where h.s.ing is statutorily treated as PRIVATE education. Further, we don't have any kind of "certification" or licensing for h.s.ing. I can assure you that were Missourians to receive voucher dollars, there would be some kind of registration, certification, gov't "approval" saying that *this* homeschool qualifies for voucher money, while *that* homeschool doesn't.
Homeschoolers who want to keep their freedoms intact should not support someone who (according to the Home School Legal Defense Association) had the dubious honor of being the *only* governor to sign a bill taking away rights from homeschoolers, and presiding over the only state to make h.s. laws *more* restrictive, rather than less.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.