EXODUS MANDATE-WV
Submitted (not published) Letters and Op-Eds Urging Folks to Rescue Their Children
The following “articles” were submitted to various papers in West Virginia. I have no indication that they were published. These, and some of the above, were excerpts from my speech “We Must Get Our children Out”. Each email began with a “Dear (editor’s real name—to personalize the email): The following is submitted exclusively to the (name of newspaper). Please run it as a guest Op-Ed. Thank you." Then I provided my name, address, and telephone number. That was followed by the proposed Op-Ed. Each Op-Ed concluded with the usual brief bio: "Karl Priest is a retired teacher who now is the state coordinator of Exodus Mandate-West Virginia, which promotes Christian education and home schooling."
(See "Traveling to Truth Transformation" for an article about censorship.)
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May 9, 2007 Dominion Post ( Morgantown) NOTE: Not likely published.
Stupid in West Virginia
John Stossel (of television’s “20-20”) recently ran a “Stupid in America” series which reported that a South Carolina governor would not send his own children to public schools because---it would “sacrifice their education”. The governor wanted to allow the free market to deliver an alternative to public schools. Teacher unions and politicians (who are controlled by teacher unions) complained. They asked, “How can we spend state money on something that hasn’t been proven?” In other words, it’s better to spend state money on something that is proven NOT to work.
Stossel described how the national School Board’s Association (NSBA) claimed, “ America’s Public Schools out perform Private Schools when variables are controlled.” Actually, the Private School students scored higher on the tests, but there were adjustments for race, ethnicity, income, and parent’s education backgrounds. That may be a valid statistical tool, but it’s prone to bias and leads to statistical hocus-pocus.
Many public school teachers are nice people trying to make a living, but the number of good teachers and administrators, whether Christian or not, has been decreasing from retirement. The good teachers that remain are entangled victims of the agenda that controls what they can do. Textbook publishers are puppets of the education establishment thereby making it nearly impossible for well-meaning teachers to avoid participating in the indoctrination.
The curriculum has been injected with lies of humanism and evolutionism. New teachers are likely to have been trained to believe that their main function is to reconstruct values and beliefs. Public schools indoctrinate generations to believe in evolutionism, relativism, feminism, socialism, mindless tolerance, sexual promiscuity, phony self-esteem, homosexuality as normal, and God as irrelevant. All of that with lower academic standards. Graduates of public schools will eventually carry their humanist orientation into politics. Humanism will saturate their work and their personal lives.
I personally have proven that it is a waste of time to try to reform public schools. It is time for thinking parents to remove their children from the public schools and either home school them or place them in private schools. If we lose our children, we will lose America.
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May 9, 2007 Register-Herald ( Beckley) NOTE: Not likely published.
Public Schools Are Dangerous
In 1940 teachers reported their major problems were talking, gum chewing, noise, running in halls, and cutting in line. In 1990 the problems were assault, robbery, drug abuse, and pregnancy. Forty-three percent of teachers now say they spend more time trying to keep order than teaching. A United States Department of Education 2006 report disclosed that the average is 45 crimes per 1000 students in public schools---and ONLY 28 violent crimes per 1000 students. School shootings are extreme cases of a grimmer fact---public schools have grown increasingly dangerous. In Governor Manchin’s 2007 State of the State address he expressed his concern about school security in West Virginia schools.
A 2005 Associated Press report revealed that during the period of 2000-2004 West Virginia dismissed 41 teachers for sexual misconduct. A Hofstra University professor believes that educator sexual misconduct is “woefully understudied”. The Sexuality Information and Education Council (SIECUS for short) produces lessons for “sex ed” classes known as “Programs That Work”. Parents probably do not know that SIECUS criticizes “ abstinence-only-until-marriage” curricula as “based on religious beliefs (that) rely on fear and shame”. SIECUS also complains that these abstinence (i.e. Christian values) programs do not view homosexuality as normal. SIECUS promotes policies, like what we have in West Virginia , where the school can provide birth control without consulting parents.
Trying to reform public schools is like putting a finger in a bucket of water. After the finger is removed the water returns to where it was originally. In the meantime our children remain in danger zones. Loving parents would not allow their children to walk through a mine field just because they see some children making it through without getting maimed. Once the mine explodes it is too late. It is time for thinking parents to remove their children from the public schools and either home school them or place them in private schools.
Let's rescue our children.
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May 9, 2007 News and Sentinel ( Parkersburg) NOTE: Not likely published
Public Schools Pull Down Society
The Apple Computer CEO, a Democrat, lambasted teacher unions in February 2007. He believes that no amount of technology in classrooms will improve public schools until teacher unions lose their power. The CEO of technology giant, Intel , has repeatedly warned the country that the poor academic quality of public schools, especially in math and science, threatens our economic future. The National Committee on Excellence in Education issued a 1983 report that concluded---our entire way of life is endangered by a “rising tide of mediocrity”.
Public schools have been a major instrument in the hands of humanists (i. e. atheists) in shaping America. Issues such as abortion are only symptoms of a major problem caused by raising generation after generation in public schools. The religious faith of citizens determines a nation’s moral character, not what is written in the nation’s documents. For example, our Constitution is now used to promote rights that are opposed to what the nation's founders believed. If a country accepts things like abortion---then those abominations will find legal protection.
Well protected by teacher unions and a huge bureaucracy there are no incentives for public schools to ensure a quality education. It is useless to try to reform public schools. Winning a local battle requires a big sacrifice of time and effort, and then the minute change cannot be monitored unless a parent makes a living policing public schools. Let’s give up the delusion of changing public schools and put our energy into providing more opportunities for giving children an education controlled by the family.
It is time for parents to get their children to the safety of a home or private school. The education we choose will inevitably shape our children and ultimately shape our world. Families are succumbing to education smoke inhalation. It is time to yell, "FIRE"! Why fiddle with the school board when our children's future is burning? We must salvage our children and families from the ashes of the public schools.
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May 9, 2007 Intelligencer (Wheeling) NOTE: Not likely published
The "Little Red Schoolhouse" Is Gone
The “Little Red Schoolhouse” is not what it used to be. In a 2007 speech to business leaders, U. S. Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, said, “Everybody here knows that before this act ( NCLB ) became law, kids often moved from grade to grade and nobody knew whether or not they had learned to read, write, add, or subtract. We invested billions of dollars and basically---hoped---for---the---best.”
Standards are lowered to mask the failure of public schools. Public schools are plagued with grade inflation, and manipulated standardized test results . U. S. News and World Report published an investigative article about widespread cheating in administration of standardized tests. Students are graduating from public schools in record numbers without having acquired basic reading, writing, and math skills and with a woeful lack of knowledge of history and geography. Universities have had to expand remedial programs that did not exist fifty years ago. Look at the product being pumped out of public schools and wonder how much potential is being lost.
Public schools have plenty of money and they waste a lot of it. In West Virginia we spend over $8,000 per student per year—that comes to over $200,000 for a class of 25 students. Nationally, we spend over $10,000 per student, and school spending has tripled over the last 30 years. It costs a whole lot less to educate a student for a year in a homeschool or even a private school and those schools are not dependent on tax-funded resources. Free enterprise is always more efficient and unleashes the God-given, creative ability of individuals. Private education can be accomplished with existing resources and saves the taxpayer money.
Public schools are stumbling blocks, not building blocks. One foreigner said, “I wouldn’t send my child to an American public school. Not even for a million dollars.” A price tag cannot be placed upon the education of our children. The Little Red School House is collapsing. It is time that American parents take the same stand and remove their children from the public schools.
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May 9, 2007 Heartland Publications (Williamson) NOTE: Not likely published
Public Schools Threaten Our Freedom
A critic of public schools once said, “Humanist taxidermists have done well. Public schools are hollow shells, a stuffed charade, a glass-eyed cadaver. They have knowledge without wisdom and facts without truth.”
Parents are usually unaware of messages that are conveyed to their children "under the radar". For example, the Early Childhood Equity Alliance (ECEA), a network of activist educators promotes a teachers guide for teachers of young children (pre-kindergarten) that portrays the Navy’s Blue Angels as heartless killers who could bomb innocent American kids.
Public schools are run like prisons with medical sedation, metal detectors, uniformed officers, searches by drug sniffing dogs. and video surveillance.
I am not criticizing specific people because the pervasive influence of university education schools and departments of education is too strong for mere intellect (smart college students) to overcome. Good teachers are hamstrung by the bureaucracy and poorly disciplined children. I find fault with the inept bureaucratic system masquerading as the benevolent guardian of children.
Totalitarian regimes have always claimed that children belong to them.
“For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age…and this Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take the youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.” Everyone knows who made that statement.
Public schools are really government schools and the more the government controls of any thing, the less effective it becomes. A monopolistic system of education that is controlled by the State is far more efficient in crushing our liberty than weapons of war. America would be much better served if public schools lost their financial monopoly. Then, public schools that could convince families they were providing a quality education would still have plenty of students.
We do not need more reform. We have wasted millions (perhaps billions) of dollars on utopian efforts to reform public schools. Every president, since the Department of Education was formed, has had a utopian plan to solve the problems raging through the public schools. Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing, that doesn't work, over and over. History has proven, beyond all reasonable doubt, that pouring money into public schools is crazy. We merely pay for our own subjugation!
The time is now for parents to seek educational freedom by placing their children in home or private schools.
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