Vouchers & the Death of Private Education

Recently I had the privilege of hearing one of my friends allude to his opinion that school vouchers are a good thing to have. Allow me to thoroughly debunk this idea by describing how school vouchers will efficiently annihilate private (and Christian) schools.

For those of you who are shaky on what vouchers are, here’s a summary. The program centers around the idea that one has a right to the best education possible. It also assumes (rightly) that some schools are failing to provide adequate, let alone satisfactory, academic program. Thus, parents of students in these schools blame the schools for their child’s failure and insist that their child be able to attend “better” schools. Hence, the school voucher program. Given that every person must attend school up to a certain age by law (varies by state), the voucher program allows parents to take their money that would be used to pay for their failing school and use it to pay for their schooling elsewhere, public or private.

Before I get to vouchers, I want to challenge the idea that we have a “right” to the best education possible, or even a state-administered education at all. The constitution neglects to mention education. Thus, the responsibility falls on the individual states to decide what to do with education. In essence, states can decide to have nothing to do with education or everything to do with education, but it is their choice and it was never meant to be a federal issue. The point is that we are not guaranteed an education, or even a good education, by the constitution.

Federal involvement in schools, including legislature, court decisions, and the appointment of the Department of Education as a cabinet level position, has yet to reap any benefits. Schools have never rebounded to the level they were at in 1963 as demonstrated by SAT math and verbal scpuores (even after the test was renormed in 1995 to make scores higher). Students leaving our schools today also leave with less knowledge of our country and the values for which it stood. To make matters worse, instead of repealing the unsuccessful attempts the government as made at correcting American education, they reform, either with money, fancy laws that seem noble (No Child Left Behind), or with politicky phrases that lie and try to tell us that we are among the most (and best) educated people in the world. The point of all of this is to show that vouchers were just the next bad federal reform in line.

School vouchers will mark the end of private education (and more importantly, of Christian private education). It is verifiable by any recent study that private schools are better than public schools. While some may debate me on this issue, let it rest to say that students in private schools, at the very least, perform better on the SAT and ACT.[1] When vouchers become a national commodity, parents will opt their children out of “failing” public schools and into superior private schools. Private schools, having an influx of students, will have to, as the cliché puts it, expand or die. Expansion will come in the form of increased teaching staff and administrators, and most importantly, more facilities. To afford these facilities (outside a generous outside donation), private schools will need to obtain loans. As time goes on, more public schools will be abandoned for the promised land of private schools. Private schools will experience a short period of prosperity due to the increased number of schools and students attending them.

Here’s the lynchpin point: Eventually, enough people in power will not welcome the idea of allowing federal/state funds (which is what vouchers are) going into religiously affiliated schools because of its “obvious” breach of church and state.[2] So what will happen? In order to not have federal money going into private, religious institutions, legislators will force schools either to become secular (that is, no longer religiously affiliated) or not accept voucher money. No matter what happens, the schools lose. Either the schools denounce that in which they believe or they die since they would be unable to repay the loans they took out to expand (apart from generous donations).

Here are some counterarguments I know are floating out there:

1. When private, religious schools can no longer accept federal money while remaining true to their faith, they can simply raise the cost of tuition. This is exactly what the people behind vouchers want to happen. Vouchers, proclaiming the right to the best education, also proclaims that this best education also ought to be as cheap as possible. The rising cost of tuition will cause parents to move their children either back to public schools or to another, cheaper, private, voucher-accepting, secular school.

2. Another counterargument will claim that religious private schools can simply drop their religious affiliation but maintain their mode of operations, including expression of faith. The one who argues this point has too much faith in government. Trust me, when federal money pours into recently unaffiliated private schools, the government will earmark it in such a way that no expression of faith on school grounds will be permissible.

Even if these two counterarguments hold true, they still do not get at the overall purpose of vouchers: to make private schools public. It’s taking the better education of the few and giving it away to the many. And we obviously cannot and should not allow this to happen because public education in America has failed us.

Don’t believe me? Our schools today are full of disinterested students from disinterested and often broken families who have lost all sense of purpose in education (and life!) outside the future material wealth they will acquire as a result of them enduring thirteen years of school. Society demands young people of character in its workplaces but fails to acknowledge what exactly good character is. Schools promote a postmodern view of moral relativity, relying on programs such as Values Clarification, which shamelessly admits that there is no Right and that any student’s guess at Right is just as good as the teacher’s. Addicted to the dancing colors of the television and the Internet, students expect to be entertained and amused instead of being instructed in the great subjects of the past. This fact alone has led to an entire shift in educational philosophy from teacher-centered learning to student-discovery “learning.” Not only do students today “discover” their own morality, they also “discover” their own education. Since students are in charge of their own learning, they decide what they will allow themselves to learn based on how it will best serve them in the future, not how much it will better them as American citizens. So the student who wants to learn about the business world will tune out in Western Civilization class and the scientist-to-be will only study enough Shakespeare and Bunyan to perform adequately on the test.

I would almost be so bold as to suggest that all of the ailments of American education can be summarized in one word: Progress. Death to the past and present! We have learned all we need to learn from the past; now is the time to move forward! History isn’t applicable anymore. Only a handful of people ever need to know Mathematics, not me. What does someone writing a book hundreds of years ago have to say to me today; I’ll gather all I need to know from the TV and movies. The morality of my grandfather is not for me; I will create my own! Look at the previous paragraph and try to prove that progress is not tied to each and every of the listed failures of American compulsory schooling.

But that was all just a parenthesis to my main thesis, and that is this: If private schools become public, we will have lost all hope for American education. As just described, public schools have failed us. Why would we want to bring private schools, which are clearly superior, down to the level of public schools, which are failing and deteriorating? This is truly the establishment of equality in its cruelest form: if public schools cannot be made better, then the next best thing is to make private schools worse. And when private schools become increasingly public, its students will inevitably achieve (and become) like public school students.

Though not having done too much research on the matter, I would be inclined to suggest that we ought not to make all private schools public, but make all public schools private. Don’t charge a property tax and keep the government out of education. This means that the government will have to do a lot of repealing, but frankly, it would be quite easy.

There is much more to say on this matter, and I admittedly am not very organized in my argument, but I hope that this at least has made the reader think about the perils of school vouchers. I wish readers will comment on this matter, not so much on my proper bashing of public schools, but rather on the argument of vouchers killing private religious institutions in the long run.

As a postscript, I anticipate someone will point out that I (or they) graduated from public school and do not exhibit all the ill effects of public schools. True; not everyone leaves public school as a monster (massive use of hyperbole). I submit that the best way to combat the ugliness of public schools is with involved parents. In fact, parents ought to be more influential in their child’s education than the schools themselves…but that is another topic.

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[1] Notice the phrase “at the very least.” Better performance on standardized tests is about the last thing I would care about in a school because those tests have a very utilitarian purpose. I use this argument simply because it is the easiest to prove and will enable me to proceed with my argument without the reader arguing that private schools are not necessarily superior to public schools.

[2] It is not a breach of Church and State. The Founding Fathers did not include this phrase in the constitution and allowing money to go into religiously affiliated schools does not constitute a breach of the federal “establishment of religion” clause. Those who think schools, public or private, can have nothing to do with religion should reexamine the constitution before making such a ridiculous claim.

Zebras Cannot Become Stripeless On Their Own

Regrettably, it has been a long time since I’ve updated the blog, but working 40 hours a week and spending the other times sleeping, at church activities, or talking to my wonderful girlfriend, it doesn’t leave a lot of time to write. Nevertheless, I’m here yet again to deliver another dose of entertainment and rants against Modern American Culture. Let’s roll.

Pretzel Gourmet and Cleaning with Blood

I figured I’d start with a Pretzel Gourmet update (wow. I am horrible at catchy introductions). Since I’ve been back, the store has made slow but steady improvements to make the place look less shady. The new girl, Jessica, and I have been working hard during the slow times to clean some of the more noticeably slapdash areas. I’ll admit, the place still looks like some shoddy ethnic restaurant that has changed leadership four times, but I still finding myself loving the place. I have worked there for nearly four years now, so there will always be a little special place in my heart for the PG. But seriously, it needs a facelift.

When you clean the Pretzel Gourmet (and when you’re not reacting to the caustic chemicals invading your nostrils), you tend to think about things. God has used this summer at the PG for me to concentrate less about fitting into a new job and instead for me to focus more on loving Him and others. Something I’ve been thinking about has to do with cleaning. As I’ve been cleaning the store, I’ve wiped away a lot of gunk that has probably been festering for months or even years. And it hasn’t been easy either; oftentimes it will take me several nights of hard scrubbing using a range of chemical cleansers to tidy up just one section of the store. But I know that no matter how hard I scrub, the store will never be totally clean or like new.

That exact thing is true of our sinful nature. We, by ourselves, can never wipe away our sins. The Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and David lamented that “surely I was sinful from birth.” We are all sinners, filthy rags worthy for nothing more than being thrown away. Like the cleaning rags I can use at the Pretzel Gourmet, which I try to clean with bleach and Goo-Gone and intense washing techniques, they still are not as good as they were when they were new. We can try to hide our sins by trying to ignore them, by calling them by different names (most popular being “sins do not exist”), or by focusing our attention on other “noble” goals, but they do not even come close to wiping out our stains that penetrate us so deeply. The most wonderful fact in the entire world is that though we are but filthy rags, there is a way for us to be spotless – it is a washing not with soap and water, but with blood.

It is a story that has been told so many times and yet too few times. Secular society knows it as the Myth of the Jesus and the Cross but Christians know it as the Good News. What I think makes it so hard to believe is that there is nothing in the physical world to which we can compare such a wonderful feat. Nowhere in the history of the world has there been a zebra who, feeling condemned by his stripes, consulted something higher than himself for relief from his birthmarks. Nor has an old automobile with 250,000 miles of wear ever been transformed into a car with no signs of use.

That is, unless it is made new. Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) And again, Jesus said, “You must be born again.” (John 3:7) That is the only way that the zebra weary of his stripes could ever become stripeless or the run-down car run like the first time its engine roared. It is the also the only way we, too, can be without sin. Only through the blood of Jesus are we washed whiter than snow.

It is not the point of my argument to explain exactly what being washed by the blood of Jesus means, but know that there was something outer-worldly in the person of Jesus that made is life, death, and subsequent resurrection and ascension so important in the history of mankind. What I mean to focus on is just how perfect this cleansing from sin is because it is truly the only cleansing of its kind. How perfect is it? The Bible says, “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalms 130:12) Try doing that on your own! It is this phenomenal cleansing that Christians call forgiveness and it is absolutely perfect. God remembers your sins no more and when you tell God that you know you are in the wrong, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us.” (1 John 1:9) The Bible is true, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”! (Romans 8:1) There is no shame, no guilt, no fear; his forgiveness is total and complete.

The hymn says it best:

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.^[1]

This is but one part of the Good News and much (much) more could be said about it, but I think God for helping me begin to see just how perfect God’s forgiveness truly is. I hope you were blessed too and if you have any questions, I would love to talk to you about it.

Within the next few days, I should have completed an entry on school vouchers. Stay tuned!

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^[1]Logos Hymnal. 1995 (1st edition.). Logos Research Systems, Inc.: Oak Harbor, WA

Response: Harvard Initiates the Fall of American Higher Education

Ahoy mates. I've finally received some feedback on something I have written, and as promised, I will defend (or amend) my arguments in light of this response. So here goes:

Story One:
The first source of criticism over my post was as follows:

"You describe multiculturalism as being tolerant, including and granting equality to distinct cultural groups, and then state that it is"obviously wrong." Are you implying that tolerance, inclusion, and equality are wrong?"

There's a lot to chew on in those statements, so I guess I will just clarify my argument in hopes that it will answer the question. What I meant to say explicitly about Multiculturalism is that it is, above all, relativist; Multiculturalism does not believe in truth - in a right and a wrong. But it does have its dogmas, the most prominent of which is tolerance.

Now I know it's difficult to go on the record anywhere and state that I am against tolerance, because that makes me out to be a bigot (and I would like to think that I am not one), but I will say that I am against tolerance in the way that Multiculturalists have perverted the word. Webster's Dictionary defines tolerance as having "sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own." Multiculturalist tolerance goes beyond sympathy and demands acceptance. Multiculturalist thinkers would say that I would be intolerant if I was not fond of a community or culture that based itself upon prostitution, for example. They would require me to believe "Well, if prostitution works for them, then that's fine by me." But I would be demonstrating true, Websterarian tolerance by simply thinking that we should not immediately destroy the society. I am sympathetic towards the people, but I do not agree with their beliefs, just as the Christian is called to hate the sin but not the man.

Multiculturalists are quick to call Christians intolerant because they do not accept other views. But wouldn't Christianity fail as a distinct religion if its members did not all hold to the same virtues? To call Christians intolerant (by their definition of the word) is to call Christians Christian! Or to call Buddhists Buddhist! To be a person with a soul, do you not have to make decisions of right and wrong? For to me, if you are a person who believes in nothing at all, you are worse off than the man who believes in the wrong thing because you at least have made some "moral" decisions in your life.

And this is what the Multiculturalists have done by making the world a cultural smorgasbord: created people with no convictions at all. Sure, they will have opinions on education and politics and economic policy, but they are mere talking heads with no foundation greater than themselves.

As such, in response you another argument you made, we can consider the ideas of other cultures and study them as long as it is not done relativistically. There are things that are right and wrong (such as a society that bases itself on prostitution or exploitation of the poor, etc). It is also important, again, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and simply denounce those societies because of their sins. I would argue, though, that since we live in America we ought to primarily study American history rather than concern ourselves with history of places we will most likely never have to deal with. Parenthetically, I realize that this opens me up to the counter-argument that "the world is becoming more globalized and soon American history will become the world's history, etc.". I'll save globalization for another day (or days) as it, too, is something I am completely opposed to. If you want to read a book that probably has a lot more wisdom on globalization than I do, read Joseph Pierce's Small is Still Beautiful. Also for a much more detailed argument of Multiculturalism, please read The Disuniting of America by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. as he has a jolly good argument in that book.

The critic also wrote that "The history of America is in fact found in Africa and Latin America and the East, since American citizens come from all over the world." This statement almost refutes itself. The great men of American history did not come from Africa, Latin America or the East, they were from the West (namely, Europe). To my knowledge, none of the Founding Fathers were from these regions and no President has been from those regions. Even so, today's culture is not shaped on culture from those areas.

Admittedly, I do not have a strong response to the critique that Multiculturalism and Scientism are "fruits of Western thinking." I first wanted to say that these ideas are a result of the globalizing trend that is prevalent throughout the world, but by good bud Wendell Berry himself once said, "Global thinking is not possible," so I have to abandon that argument. What I do know is that Multiculturalism and Scientism have ultimately stemmed from Romantacism and the Enlightenment, both time periods which doubted the existence of God and so sought to fill the void with science and reasoning or with human emotion and intuition, both of which, then followed unilaterally, cannot produce a healthy philosophy (or at the very least, for my sake, one that fits with a Christian worldview). But, again, I still cannot escape the fact that these are largely fruits of the West, except by making a familiar argument. The West is what has made America great. I shouldn't have to defend that, but I'll just throw out simpliest example, that of religious freedom. But the West has also produced bad ideas, namely, Multiculturalism, Scientism, Post-Modernism, etc. I cannot, then, fully endorse the West. But I can endorse that which agrees with my convictions, and that I do.

Stories Two and Three:

The critic writes:

As a counter-argument, I guess the ACLU doesn't like the bibles and the courses in the schools because it violates the separation of church and state. And even though the students can choose not to participate, because the state can't play favorites, it would have to allow every religion (even the crazy ones) to give out their writings and potentially have elective courses.

Church and state is a funny issue. Here is all the Constitution says concerning religion and the government:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

I'm sure books have been written about this very statement, but I'll try to keep it to less than a book. The law is simply that the government will not make a law establishing a religion as the official religion of the state. I realize that Court decisions have redefined this by ensuring religious topics are no longer taught in public (federal) schools and trying to extract "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Regardless, one of my professors at school gave me a copy of the Students' Bill of Rights. The Students' Bill of Rights outlines the religious rights guaranteed under constitutional and federal law that students and teachers have while in public schools. The list may surprise you:

1. The Right to meet with other religious students.
   The Equal Access Act allows students the freedom to meet on campus for the purpose of discussing religious issues.
2. The Right to identify your religious beliefs through signs and symbols.
   Students are free to express their beliefs through signs and symbols. (Including Christian t-shirts, etc.)
3. The Right to talk about your religious beliefs on campus.
   Freedom of speech is a fundamental right mandated in the Constitution and does not exclude the school yard.
4. The Right to distribute religious literature on campus.
   Distributing literature on campus may not be restricted simply because it is religious.
5. The Right to pray on campus.
   Students may pray alone or with others so long as it does not disrupt school activities or is not forced on others.
6. The Right to carry or study your Bible on campus.
   The Supreme Court has said that only state directed Bible reading is unconstitutional.
7. The Right to do research papers, speeches, and creative projects with religious themes.
   The First Amendment does not forbid all mention of religion in public schools.
8. The Right to be exempt.
   Students may be exempt from activities and class content that contradict their religious beliefs.
9. The Right to celebrate or study religious holidays on campus.
   Music, art, literature, and drama that have religious themes are permitted as part of the curriculum for school activities if presented in an objective manner as a traditional part of the cultural and religious heritage of the particular holiday.
10. The Right to meet with school officials.
    The First Amendment to the Constitution forbids Congress to make any law that would restrict the right of the people to petition the Government (school officials).

Some places have attempted to legislate laws that would permit teachers and students to further express their religious convictions under the banner that their statements are not the official views of the school district. Here's one example of a town in Fort Bend, Texas.

In short, the church and state debate isn't much of a debate. As long as the governing body (in this case, the school board) does not explicitly affiliate itself with a particular religion, any of the above things are permissible in schools. Both school districts, though they have histories with law suits, still stand today because they have obeyed the law. With the specific example of poor Jane Doe being forced to accept a Bible on school grounds, it is completely legal for this to happen (the only thing that could have been illegal is if she was forced to take it, but that would be awfully difficult to prove).

So when the critic writes: "[the state] would have to allow every religion (even the crazy ones) to give out their writings and potentially have elective courses," he is absolutely correct. But it will never happen because decisions of curriculum (especially curriculum of electives) is created and approved by local school boards and it would be hard to find a community school board that would allow for "crazy religions" to be taught in their schools. As such, Catholic public schools still stand and school districts with Christian-sympathies (though not officially affiliated) continue to teach our students the truths they desperately need to hear.

Thank you for the comment and allowing me to firm up my arguments.

Harvard Initiates the Fall of American Higher Education

It has been a while since I've looked at a news website, so I've decided tonight to take a gander at my personal interest: education.

Story One:

Harvard approves biggest curriculum change in 30 years

Western civilization took another hit last week when Ivy League member Harvard University, one of the leading institutions of higher learning in America, overhauled its curriculum to place a higher emphasis on discussing "societies of the world" and the sciences (and the moral implications of advances in science). This is merely a continuation of the progressive philosophy of American education that is already so prevalent in our failing public schools. Call it what you will, but the moves by Harvard University are moves toward Multiculturalism and Scientism in higher education.

Multiculturalism centers around the idea that Western Civilization has failed as a model for society and so modern societies should seek values and ideas from other cultures to fill this void left by the West. As Wikipedia puts it, "Multiculturalism is the idea that modern societies should embrace and include distinct cultural groups with equal social status." The only true difference in these definitions is my part about the failure of the West, which is an assumption of Multiculturalist thought.

The idea of considering ideas from other cultures doesn't sound too bad on the surface, but its implications on American education are huge. The trend of American education today says that we should teach our students to be, above all things, tolerant. It teaches students about other cultures under the presupposition that all cultures are equal. So the West is as good as the East, African culture is as valuable to us as Irish cultures, and the Jewish faith has accomplished exactly as much as Buddhism. The world is nothing more than a smorgasbord of equal cultures and all the modern student must do is have his fair share of each to be "educated."

This is obviously wrong. All cultures are not alike, nor are all cultures equal. The religion of China and the religion of the West are not the same nor comparable. The Irish have not accomplished as much in their history as the English or the Greeks. We live in a world of unique, individual cultures just as we live in a world of unique, individual people. If teachers are to teach children to be American citizens, they must become, above all things, experts in American history, and the history of America is not found in Africa or Latin America or the East, but in the West.

The effects of Multiculturalism already are apparent today as American students today leave schools with less knowledge of their country than ever before. However, what's most dangerous is that they leave school skeptical of their own heritage. Sure, every history has its dark moments, just as all people have fallen short of the glory of God, but that does not mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater; despite our efforts to eliminate our heritage, America is a product of the West.

I will leave Scientism for another day, but briefly, I will lay out the following argument. When we begin to emphasize the sciences in school, it tends to endorse the philosophy of materialism - that all we are is that which we can observe. While scientific observation is a way to better understand God's created order, it has its limits, especially in the realm of faith, ethics and morality. Science does not leave room for morality or religion. There is no quantitative measure for God or morality. If educators teach education outside its Christian context, science becomes an excuse to endorse a purely materialistic way of life. And I don't want to carry out this argument now, but this endorsement of materialism makes education's purpose purely utilitarian; that is, a materialist view of education makes students believe that the only purpose of education is to help them in getting more material wealth in the future instead of education being the means by which students become well-rounded people capable of being active citizens in their respective communities.

Stories Two and Three:

Louisiana school district sued over Bibles in school

Advocacy groups sue to halt Bible classes in Texas schools

There's nothing more refreshing than reading yet another story about the ACLU defending American "Freedom" from the poisons of Christianity. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued an eastern Louisiana school district for distributing Bibles on school property. As the story goes, students were instructed to pick up copies of the New Testament near the school's office. The fifth-grade student (whose parents filed the suit at the bidding of the ACLU) soon found herself in line with her class waiting to receive their Bibles from two men. Said the ACLU representative Joe Cook, "With her classmates and teachers looking on, Jane accepted the Bible out of a feeling of coercion and fear that she would be criticized, ridiculed and ostracized." This is the fifth time in thirteen years that the school district has been sued over religious issues.

In regards to this story, it's about time we get those nice gentlemen handing out Bibles out of our schools so we can concentrate our attention more fully on the secular humanist philosophies we cling to so dearly. I love this story. It's an example of a public school district (a parish school district at that) sticking it to the man by ignoring laws in order to teach the truth as they see it. And this isn't even the first time they've done it!

The only reason the ACLU cares is because the school took time that would normally be spent proclaiming its agnostic views in favor of Christianity. This is not an issue of freedom or about adherence to the constitution, it's an issue of a school not fitting into the standardized mold the government has put in place.

Did you read the quote from Mr. Cook?! Poor Jane was "coerced" into accepting a Bible from two men with her teachers and peers looking at her every move. You could make up a similar story about a Christian child in public schools being forced not only to accept but to read a Biology textbook proclaiming evolution as truth! But you will never hear of the ACLU fighting against the Scientism and Secular Humanism so prevalent in schools because its exactly what they want.

Jane may have accepted the Bible because the rest of her peers did, but no one made her read it. Not an ounce of Biblical teaching was disseminated during school hours and Jane still has her religious freedom. What this Louisiana school district does realize though, and unfortunately more school districts do not, is that it's what inside those Bibles that offer freedoms reaching above and beyond any freedoms man himself could ever legislate.

And now the third story. This one, another ACLU gem, is about two advocacy groups who have sued a Texas school district for offering a Bible course as an elective. The ACLU and the American Way Foundation (what euphemistic names!) have hailed the Bible course as "basically a Sunday School class within the walls of a public school."

This is a sticky subject. It is first necessary to recognize that the Bible class is an elective. Students attending the school are not required to take the class and can opt to have nothing to do with it. For that reason alone, this law suit will fail.

The real issue to me is if the Bible ought to be something taught in public schools or in private schools without Christian affiliations. I find it hard to make a judgment for all schools; that is, I would probably leave it in the hands of the parents, teachers, and school board members of each individual district and school to determine the best course of action.

Obviously, I would love Christian morality and Biblical teaching encouraged in a school setting. The Founding Fathers of our nation even thought that this was the best course of action in our schools. But the teaching would have to have a rherotical approach, meaning that the teacher would have to be laying out the thesis that Christianity or the Bible is indeed true. Many secular universities today offer courses on Christianity and the Bible, but the professors are adamate atheists or agnostics. They teach religion and Bible courses using a dialectic approach, laying out every religion as equal, every Biblical teaching as something Christians believe. Their approach is "here are the facts, but that's all you need to know so that you can interact with those people if the moment arises." Does this remind you of Multiculturalism? If schools are to teach the Bible, they must start with the presupposition that the Bible is true. If teachers desire to instill Christian morals in their students, they themselves must believe Christian morality is true and necessary.

Thanks for muscling through this series of essays. Please comment and raise counterarguments and I will answer on this forum.

Express mannequins are blind

If you don't know by now, I'm back in State College working at the lovely Pretzel Gourmet again this summer. For all you skeptics out there, there are good reasons for doing so, which are as follows:

1. More hours
2. More money
3. A feeling that my work-to-compensation ratio is better than at Hoss's
4. Assistant Manager (granted, only a title change...)
5. Less stressful

Now I know people who know me well will look at that list and not think that I would go back to such a place for those reasons, especially for more money, but let me rationalize a bit. It's only for times I'm off of school and there really aren't ways of acquiring teaching internships (especially since all teachers are required to be interns of a sort in order to graduate). Thus, the best thing I can do is earn as much money as I can. Now don't take this to mean that I should start acquiring money illegally, but in a way, unless your summer job is going to help you get a better job in the future (whatever a "better job" is), summer jobs are for money and keeping you from being bored. Unfortunately for me, the Pretzel Gourmet only accomplishes the former.
Bringing me to my thoughts of the day while sitting in the Pretzel Gourmet:

I love seeing the elderly. If you've been here before, you've no doubt read my mini-essay on the elderly. Well, here's another reason I love the elderly: elderly couples are adorable! I realize that it's not the most manly or culturally acceptable thing to say, but they are! Look at them next time you get the chance. I've worked at the Pretzel Gourmet for about three years and only this week have I ever really seen elderly couples as cute. But seriously, they are incredibly encouraging to me in that it shows that marriages do work; that no matter how hard society attempts to redefine the marriage and change the roles of husband and wife and destroy the family and community, love still prevails. But, of course, we knew that all along (cf. 1 Corinthians 3).

I hate Express. First of all, the place is as intimidating as Victoria's Secret, Hot Topic, the makeup counter at Bon-Ton and the DEB; I just can't do it. I get near the place and feel like I'm getting dizzy. It's too white, and big, and bright, and it has the most ridiculous music. That said, I want to discuss their mannequins. I'm not talking about what they're wearing (that's for another day). What I want to discuss is the design of their heads. Sure, who looks at the heads. Well, when you're stuck at a failing pretzel business 40-hours a week, you start to become very accustomed to your surroundings. Regardless, they're half-heads; that is, they end at the bridge of the nose and leave off the eyes and brain. I thought about why they would do that, but then I laughed at how truly simple their reasoning is. Express wants you to buy their clothes whether you like them or not, right? So they rely on advertizing to help "convince" you that their product is best. Not the best argument, but hang with me. So if the store wants you to buy their stuff and doesn't care what reasoning you go through as long as you buy stuff from them, their best tactic will be to get you to make an irrational decision. Disagree? Look at the mannequins at any store. They're all "perfect" people. And then look at how they present them under stylish lighting and hung in fancy ways next to other things that would look good with it. It's all very charming and clearly an attempt to convince you to buy something. Also, listen to the music at any big fashion place: it's loud, uptempo, and repetitive. Don't think that gets your heartrate going? Ever feel like you're always in a rush in a clothing store? At last you see where I'm going. Express doesn't want you to have eyes or a brain (figuratively, of course). They want you to make blind, irrational judgments to turn a fat profit. It's that simple. I really can't explain it any better.

That's all for now. I need to make these shorter if I want to update more regularly. Feel free to comment.

Forced Education Damages School and Students

Preventing students from dropping out of school may not be such a worthwhile goal. While the goal of keeping students in school is certainly a worthwhile aim, the method by which experts and legislators have attempted to fix the dropout situation is a flawed proposition. To combat the nation’s “Silent Epidemic,”[1] experts are trying to convince state legislators to pass laws that will raise the minimum age for mandatory schooling, forcing students to remain in school until they are 18 years old. It is a dangerous proposal, one that could undermine school and student alike.

To understand why forced schooling will not work, one must fully understand why students are leaving. According to a recent study by research firm Civic Enterprises, as many students drop out for not being challenged enough as those who quit because of lack of academic dedication.[2] In addition, researchers found that dropouts felt “too much freedom” in their school experience, a key factor according to 38% of dropouts surveyed.[3] High school students on the brink of dropping out are not always the teen moms, drug dealers, or neglected children society makes them out to be. They are sometimes the average or above-average students who have learned that school is purely about future monetary success.

Something students do believe is that more education will help them earn more money in the future. The statistics are clear: dropouts earn less than graduates.[4] Experts such as those at Civic Enterprises boast that one solution to the multi-faceted problem is to raise the minimum age for mandatory school attendance from 16 in most states to 17 or 18. Two additional years of mandatory schooling, according to experts, would allow more time for teachers to reach out to struggling students, but moreover, would help the students obtain the all-important diploma that will suit them better financially in the future.

This is a faulty conclusion. Forcing students to remain in school against their will en route to securing a diploma merely for the sake of the title cheapens school. If state legislators passed minimum age laws to ensure that every child is required to graduate, the value of a high school diploma will suffer. If schools force-feed students diplomas, they becomes valueless. School becomes a mere factory where students clock-in upon entrance, do their work, and then clock-out upon dismissal for thirteen years until they receive a piece of paper qualifying them as an “educated” person, when in reality, they have learned nothing more than to hate learning.

The way to prevent students from dropping out of school is not legislative, but philosophical. Teachers must teach students early, often, and throughout their school careers the importance of education in regards to the development of the person, which includes aspects of life that are more than economic such as character. What the student needs is a purpose for education, not laws or authorities telling him that he must become educated because that is what everybody else does. If done under the philosophy of education centered on the development of the person, it will make him a greater, more valuable member of society able to adapt and interact effectively with all aspects of life. The purpose of education is not to graduate, but to educate. Substituting false achievement in the form of spoon-fed diplomas does not develop the student in the least.

A majority of teachers in schools today teach students that education is a means of gaining material things out of life. However, if the student realizes that he can gain something greater without the assistance of school, it will become useless to him. Students must see a purpose in school.

There is yet hope for those who think of dropping out, or already have; a sense of purpose installed in the correct area in their life will infuse the student to learn. Schools and communities must reach out and help those students in need of attention. Teachers must challenge the gifted – and all others even more – so that they might see the value of education as a betterment of the person, not merely the improvement of their résumé.

Man cannot legislate achievement. Forcing kids to attend school will fix the dropout problem, but it will not ensure that students are getting a purposeful education.

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[1] Civic Enterprises, “The Silent Epidemic”, http://www.civicenterprises.net, 26 March 2006

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.