Baptist Pastor Raps Home Schooling
You'd think the only people left to defend the public schools today would be teachers' unions, gay activists, politicians supported by teachers' unions and gay activists, and persons who are abysmally uninformed. So it's with some astonishment that we find a Baptist pastor upholding Big Education and voicing his "Concern About the 'Exodus' Movement" (http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=7091).
Ed Hogan, pastor of Jersey Village Baptist Church, Houston, Texas, doesn't like home schooling. He says it's because a) proponents of alternative education just want to scarf up the "huge dollars at stake," b) anyone who wants to pull his kids out of the public schools is probably a racist, and c) home-schooling parents teach their children to be intolerant--which would never, never happen if they went to public schools.
Mr. Hogan's wife is a public school teacher, so he can't claim ignorance--although his article does reveal a comprehensive lack of knowledge about home schooling. So why does he say what he says?
First, he has a personal and professional vested interest in the public schools--and I don't mean just his wife's paycheck. No one wants to admit he's totally on the wrong side of an issue, and working for a bad cause. Some, like Mr. Hogan, will probably never admit it.
Second, by his pre-emptive play of the race card--ignoring the fact that the fastest-growing demographic in home education is black families, and that the widest support for school vouchers is in the black community (how could he ignore that?)--Mr. Hogan tips his hand, politically.
Hogan wrote his piece for Ethics Daily, a solid Religious Left publication. See their "Talk to Action" website (http://talk2action.org/).
These are the folks who are delusional. They claim that their incredible shrinking denominations represent mainstream Christianity in America. Their definition of "mainstream Christian values" includes abortion, gay rights, feminism, confiscatory taxes, an all-powerful federal government, and hysterical fears of an impending "theocracy" in an America where The Sopranos dukes it out with Desperate Housewives for the top TV ratings on Sunday night. Now that's delusional.
Without the oceans of money and the hosts of unpaid campaign workers provided by the teachers' unions, liberal politics in America is dead. That's why the Left defends the government schools. To them it doesn't matter how poorly these schools perfrom academically, how many crooked school administrators get caught with their hands in the till, or how many school sex scandals they have to hush up. If the public schools fold, they've had it.
As for Hogan's charge that home schooling "teaches our children to be intolerant," can he really keep a straight face if he denies that public schools have become notorious as vehicles for political indoctrination?
Hogan bemoans "that lack of respect for public educators and what they do."
Well, brother, they've earned it.
Ed Hogan, pastor of Jersey Village Baptist Church, Houston, Texas, doesn't like home schooling. He says it's because a) proponents of alternative education just want to scarf up the "huge dollars at stake," b) anyone who wants to pull his kids out of the public schools is probably a racist, and c) home-schooling parents teach their children to be intolerant--which would never, never happen if they went to public schools.
Mr. Hogan's wife is a public school teacher, so he can't claim ignorance--although his article does reveal a comprehensive lack of knowledge about home schooling. So why does he say what he says?
First, he has a personal and professional vested interest in the public schools--and I don't mean just his wife's paycheck. No one wants to admit he's totally on the wrong side of an issue, and working for a bad cause. Some, like Mr. Hogan, will probably never admit it.
Second, by his pre-emptive play of the race card--ignoring the fact that the fastest-growing demographic in home education is black families, and that the widest support for school vouchers is in the black community (how could he ignore that?)--Mr. Hogan tips his hand, politically.
Hogan wrote his piece for Ethics Daily, a solid Religious Left publication. See their "Talk to Action" website (http://talk2action.org/).
These are the folks who are delusional. They claim that their incredible shrinking denominations represent mainstream Christianity in America. Their definition of "mainstream Christian values" includes abortion, gay rights, feminism, confiscatory taxes, an all-powerful federal government, and hysterical fears of an impending "theocracy" in an America where The Sopranos dukes it out with Desperate Housewives for the top TV ratings on Sunday night. Now that's delusional.
Without the oceans of money and the hosts of unpaid campaign workers provided by the teachers' unions, liberal politics in America is dead. That's why the Left defends the government schools. To them it doesn't matter how poorly these schools perfrom academically, how many crooked school administrators get caught with their hands in the till, or how many school sex scandals they have to hush up. If the public schools fold, they've had it.
As for Hogan's charge that home schooling "teaches our children to be intolerant," can he really keep a straight face if he denies that public schools have become notorious as vehicles for political indoctrination?
Hogan bemoans "that lack of respect for public educators and what they do."
Well, brother, they've earned it.
