BY PAULA BOLYARD | P J MEDIA
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
If there’s one thing we’ve learned during the pandemic
it’s that many parents had no idea what was going on in their kids’ schools.
Oh, parents knew there was crazy stuff going on in other schools,
but by and large, there was a sense of NIMBY — it’s not happening in my backyard.
Sadly, we’ve become increasingly aware of the abuses and indoctrination
children across the country are suffering at the hands of unhinged teachers —
teachers pushing their left-wing political agendas, encouraging children to be
sexual deviants, and treating parents like they are not qualified to raise
their own children without the state intervening in their families.
Here are but a few examples:
‘Trans Closets’: The Latest Way Schools Are Sneaking Around
Behind Parents’ Backs
WARNING: These Pics From a Book in a Georgia School District
Will Shock and Disgust You
DeSantis Goes Beast Mode on Woke Culture, Disney, and the Media
Lies About the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill
So You Still Don’t Think LGBTQ Is a Cult?
Teacher Caught Taping a Mask to the Face of a Young Student
Chasten Buttigieg Leads Kids in Pledge to the Gay Flag
National School Board Association Labels Parents ‘Domestic
Terrorists’
EXPOSED: Tennessee Schools Flagrantly Breaking Anti-CRT Law
How One Bad Teacher Almost Destroyed a New Mexico Family Using
the State as a Weapon
Florida Teacher Says She’ll Break the Law to Keep Secrets About
Sexuality From Parents
Loudoun County School District Called CPS on Dad for Asking
Questions About Bad Teachers
Parent Livid After School Instructs 8th-Graders to Describe Sex
Acts Using Pizza Toppings
Leftist Loudon County Wants to Suspend Maskless Kids, But Not a
Transgender Rapist
Ok, that was more than a few. But you get the point.
And, of course, we all know the damage that has been done
to children as a result of lockdowns, forced masking, and sub-par education
delivered by local schools. Kids have shown serious declines in both education
and their mental health.
Many parents are completely fed up with the nonsense
being shoved down their kids’ throats in public schools. Not only that, many
realized during the lockdowns that they enjoyed having their kids home and
overseeing their education and began to seriously consider homeschooling as a
viable option.
The results are simply stunning. The homeschool
population, as
estimated by Dr. Brian Ray at the National Homeschool Education Research
Institute, has grown from 2.6 million school-aged children in 2019 to a
whopping 3.7 million in 2021.
(Dr.
Brian Ray, National Homeschool Education Research Institute)
Homeschooling had been growing steadily from 2016 to
2020, but the explosive growth in the educational option is staggering.
“Over the last two years, with government lockdowns of
schools and parents becoming much more aware of the limitations of
institutional schooling and how much the institution called school controls
children’s and families’ lives, many thousands more parents have been awakened
to the freedom space that is parent-directed home-based education,” Dr. Ray
told PJ Media. “Rather than education being controlled by an institution that
is often non-accommodating to a student’s needs and dreams or hostile toward a
family’s values, homeschooling opens up many more possibilities, freedoms,
dependabilities, and joys. Parents are learning that homeschooling is
associated with academic success, strong social development, children with a
joy to learn, and family life that is not controlled by the vicissitudes and
dubious values of a state-run institution.”
At the end of the day, I believe that parents know what’s
best for their own children and that God has entrusted them and them alone to
make decisions about education. And I’m fully aware that not all parents are
able to homeschool for a variety of reasons (more on that in a minute). But at
what point do we say it’s abusive to force a child to spend 6.64 hours per day, 180 days a year, being indoctrinated by
people who don’t have your child’s best interest at heart and who are actively
recruiting them into a radical left-wing ideology, not to mention the
LGBTQLMNOP cult?
Of course, there are still a lot of good teachers out
there — including my daughter-in-law and several good friends — who aren’t
abusing and indoctrinating kids, but they are fewer and farther between with
each passing year. America’s universities are hotbeds of radicalism, and the
teachers coming out of them are products of those regressive indoctrination
machines. They’d rather teach kids to be woke, to question their gender, and to
disregard the authority of their parents than teach the three Rs. It’s
appalling — indeed, terrifying — to see the lengths many teachers will go to in
order to subvert the will of parents. Every sane person knows it’s wrong, but
we’ve now had several generations of children who have suffered through such
abuse and indoctrination. A quick glance at any social media platform will give
you a glimpse into the world of teens and college students. It’s a sea of
delusion, mental illness, and downright evil.
The notion of truth itself is in dispute. The wokesters
are telling your kids that if they can imagine it, they can make it true. Don’t
like what God did when you were conceived in your mother’s womb — when he wrote
your gender into every cell in your body? Then change it! Are you a male who
can’t succeed in men’s sports? Put on a skirt and crush the real women in
competition! The sky’s the limit!
But that’s not even the worst of it. It’s one thing for a
bunch of people with mental problems to deny reality, but it’s another thing
completely to force children to go along with their delusion and then punish
them when they refuse to repeat the lies. Several generations of anti-bullying
programs in schools have conditioned children to remain silent when confronted
with statements that go against their faith and their families’ values. There
are dire consequences for dissenters. Go against the grain and you will be
punished, branded a bigot, a racist, or worse.
Can America even survive this? It’s hard to imagine how —
unless parents step in to stop the madness. And one of the best ways to stop
the madness is to pull your kids out of public schools and homeschool them.
But, Paula, I can hear you
thinking. I can’t afford to homeschool! Our family needs two incomes to
survive! Besides, I would go crazy having my kids home all day. And anyway, I’m
not qualified to teach my own children (the stuff you allegedly
learned when you were in school). And perhaps for many families, that is true.
But maybe you could do without the second car or give up fancy vacations or buy
your clothes at the thrift store, or shop at Save-a-Lot instead of Whole Foods —
or all of the aforementioned, as many, many homeschooling parents do. As our
family did. What’s it worth to you to protect your kids from what’s going on in
public schools? Is any sacrifice too great? Our family went without a lot of
things so I could stay home with our kids. It wasn’t always easy and sometimes
it was downright scary, but do you know what I learned? That God provides for
those who are faithful to Him and He gives us what we need when we need it.
Note the use of the word “need” rather than “want.” I’m here to tell you that
the sacrifices are worth it.
One thing I know for sure is that there’s a lot of bad
stuff going on in public schools and kids are spending the majority of their
waking hours with people who are not their parents — who couldn’t possibly love
them as much as you do.
If you’re worried about how your homeschooled kids will
turn out, there’s plenty of research demonstrating that they’ll
do just fine — and probably even better on any number of indicators than their
peers in public schools. Like, way better.
Dr. Ray told PJ Media that the reasons for the explosive
growth of homeschooling in recent years “are deep and fundamental, such as a
desire for stronger family relationships, better academic achievement than in
state/public schools, more pedagogical freedom, treating children as
individuals rather than as a homogeneous group, a safe and friendly
environment, and for passing on values and beliefs dear to a family rather
[than] allow the state-run school [to do] the values-teaching.” Who wouldn’t want
that for their family?
Look, I’m not here to tell you what to do. What you do
with your own children is none of my business. But I urge you to at least
consider homeschooling. There are so many resources out there to assist parents
and support the decision to homeschool that it’s easier than ever to teach your
kids at home. What have you got to lose?
I’ve been writing about homeschooling and school choice
at PJ Media for a decade now and it’s been exciting to see the widespread
acceptance of what was once considered odd and exotic. Nearly 20 years ago I
reached out to Dr. Ray as I was preparing to debate the issue of homeschooling with a hostile
reporter from the Akron Beacon Journal before a mostly hostile
audience at the Akron Press Club. I quipped to Ray this week that they looked
at me like I was a monkey in the zoo. Times have certainly changed and
homeschooling is now considered a mainstream educational option. But as regular
readers of PJ Media know, the left wants to take away our freedom to raise our
kids without the government’s interference. They believe your kids are safer at
school (as if!) than they are at home with you. Sites that support choice in
education — like PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, and others — need your help now
more than ever so we can continue to report on the abuses children face in
public schools and defend your right as a parent to do what you think its best
for your kids. By becoming a PJ Media VIP
member, you can help us fight back against those who want to
control your family and corrupt your children. Use the promo code FIGHTBACK for a 25% discount
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