The other day I was reading a political opinion piece online, and a couple of the things the author said made me stop and think. But one thing especially caught my interest, and that was, he made the case that public schools are unconstitutional, something I have never thought of before.
Now, I have never supported public schools, and I never will. I have argued against them many times, in many ways, and for many reasons, but it never occurred to me that the very system itself might actually be inconsistent with the Constitution.
The first amendment phrase, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, also known as the establishment clause, is the basis of this argument. In short the reasoning runs thus: 1) the establishment clause prevents the government from controlling the religion of its subjects or restricting their right to freely practice what they believe; 2) public schools are “establishments of religion”, as, no matter what they teach, they will always be promoting some “religion” be it Christianity or atheism; 3) public schools are government run, thus the government is making laws respecting an establishment of religion and is in violation of the constitution. It’s an interesting argument, and regardless of the fact that there are minor debatable points, it’s something worth considering. Not that anyone anymore really cares what the Constitution says, but it’s just another piece of evidence on the side of those who oppose pouring millions of tax dollars into a broken system which we now see may not even be constitutional.
However, it may (or may not) surprise you to know that this is not my main reason for opposing public schools. Neither is my main reason the fact that public schools are full of perversion, immorality, swearing, drugs, violence, etc. Nor is it the statistically proven truth that although we pour millions upon millions of dollars every year into public schools across the country, we seem to get very little in return, and those results we do get are not exactly stunningly positive—speaking strictly academically, most public school grads can barely read or spell, and very few are above even a fifth grade level in math—I’m not intentionally insulting public school grads, just making the point that public schools do not bring out the academic potential in kids. On the moral side, for 5 or 6 hours every day our children are taught that they are only animals, and nothing in life really matters; they are told that homosexuality and unrestricted sex is and should be the norm. Is it any wonder teenage pregnancy rates have soared, STDs are rampant, and suicide rates are high?
Yet aside from all this, my big ticket question is, “Where are the parents?” The solution for the mess public schools are in is not pouring more money into them, nor is it necessarily bringing about school reform, although that would be nice. There has never been and never will be an adequate or effective substitute for parental involvement in the lives of their children.
Therefore my biggest objection to public schools is not necessarily that they are pagan and teach our children to be pagan (which they are and do); I do care about that very much, but the root problem that causes all the rest is they remove parents and specifically fathers from the lives of their children, and in doing so rip apart the very family that child needs most. On top of all that, the government—perhaps unconstitutionally—stands behind the schools and mandates attendance, thereby ensuring that kids are taken from their parents and satisfactorily indoctrinated.
So what should parents do? Worst case scenario, they should at least take
time to develop close personal relationships with their children. Best case scenario, remove your kids from the public school and homeschool them.
You’ve heard it before, but I am going to say it again, the statistics all say that children who have close relationships with their parents, particularly their fathers, are less likely to commit violent crimes, get divorced, commit suicide, have premarital sex, etc., you name it, the list goes on and on. So peel your face away from the TV, shut off the video games, turn down the music and just spend time together. I promise you it will be hard; it will be a challenge, but it will be the best thing you could ever do for yourself and your kids.
