Tag Archives: Education

Commentary

Greg Koukl’s plan for raising his kids to be effective Christians

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Here’s a neat post from Stand to Reason.

First, the introduction:

Last weekend I was in Ottawa, Canada, speaking at the Metropolitan Bible Church. While I was there I met a number of fellows who were dads, and we spent an afternoon at a barbecue, talking about raising our children in the Lord. We have a responsibility to do this. We cannot just pawn it off on teachers, or Sunday school teachers, or our pastor, or a Christian school, if we have one. They can help, but it is our primary job to raise our children in the Lord.

And here’s an excerpt:

There’s another thing that I’m doing to teach my kids theological content that is more of a guideline than a program. I think a lot of times people like me, and maybe you, want to have a program. Sometimes we think if we don’t have a program we’re not being good parents. But even if you don’t have a program, it’s good to have a plan. One thing I’ve been using is a concept that I’ve been developing the last few years. I call it Credo, “I believe.” Credo consists of five words that capture the entire Christian worldview, and I think when I give you the words, you’ll see the relationship between them. Here they are: God, Man, Jesus, Cross, Resurrection. And here, by “resurrection” I mean the final resurrection to reward or judgment, the eschatological last things. I don’t mean any particular understanding of Jesus’ second coming; I mean that there will be a final day of reckoning. History is moving towards that point.

These five words capture the essence of the story of Christianity, starting with God, then man,then the fall. Then God invading the world–the physical world–by becoming a man Himself as part of a plan to die on a cross to rescue man, so that at the final resurrection they will be numbered among the sheep and not among the goats. This is the Christian story in five words.

Read the whole thing – he explains his program.

News

Michelle Rhee dismisses 241 teachers from DC public schools

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From the ultra left-wing Washington Post. (H/T Wes Widner)

Excerpt:

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee announced Friday that she has fired 241 teachers, including 165 who received poor appraisals under a new evaluation system that for the first time holds some educators accountable for students’ standardized test scores.

[…]Dismissals for performance are exceedingly rare in D.C. schools — and in school systems nationwide. Friday’s firings mark the beginning of Rhee’s bid to make student achievement a high-stakes proposition for teachers, establishing job loss as a possible consequence of poor classroom results.

The Washington Teachers’ Union said Friday that it will contest the terminations.

[…]Although the teachers dismissed for poor performance represent only about 4 percent of the city’s 4,000-member corps, Rhee also announced Friday that 737 other instructors were rated “minimally effective.” Under IMPACT, they have one year to improve their performance or face dismissal. Rhee declined to speculate on how many might be sacked next year. But she said that over the next two years, “a not-insignificant number of folks will be moved out of the system for poor performance.”

[…]…few tenured educators have faced dismissal for poor performance. Rhee said that according to her staff’s research, no teachers were fired for lack of effectiveness in 2006, the year before she was named chancellor.

[…]The great majority of teachers routinely received evaluations showing that they met or exceeded expectations. At the same time, the District compiled one of the weakest academic records of any urban school system in the United States.

I wrote about Michelle Rhee before here. You need to understand that teacher unions are the backbone of the Democrat party. Every vote for a Democrat politician is a vote against quality education for children.

Must-see videos on education policy

Related posts

News

Sex education for kindergarteners proposed in Helena, Montana

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From the Family Research Council. (H/T Muddling)

Excerpt:

Unfortunately, sex education that indoctrinates children into a liberal sexual ideology is no longer being found just in big cities and liberal “blue states.” It’s reaching even small cities in the heartland, like Helena, Montana–where Tuesday night, parents and other citizens will have their first chance to respond to an outrageous new K-12 health curriculum (pages 45-50) that’s been proposed there.

It would teach kindergarteners the names of male and female sex organs, first graders about homosexuality, and fifth graders about “oral or anal penetration.” It would also teach sixth graders about sex changes, and high schoolers would be taught to “understand erotic images in art.” These lessons aren’t age-appropriate, and may result in more confusion than understanding. For example, in elementary school virtually all children like their own sex better than the opposite sex–we should not be planting the idea that this might mean they are “gay.” In fourth grade they would learn that “taunting” and “teasing” may be illegal sexual harassment. Sadly, teasing and taunting are sometimes a fact of life for fourth graders, but they have nothing to do with sex. And here’s the kicker–the program’s implementation may be paid for with federal “stimulus” money.

You can kind of get an idea of what their goals are for your children. They want your children to oppose chastity and oppose traditional marriage, etc. and they think that these attitudes are healthy.They want your children to normalize behavior that you might think is unhealthy and immoral. And they don’t ask parents for permission to indoctrinate your children. They take your money, and change your children’s beliefs to match their worldview. And they tell the children not to tell their parents anything of what goes on in the classroom. In some places, there is no parental notification, and no opt out.

Here’s a video with a sex educator squaring off against an FRC scholar.

There are real people pushing this on children – your children – and they’re not sorry! And these are the people who decide how MY tax dollars will be spent, and the rules by which my kids and the neighbor’s kids will be educated. This is what you get when you vote for Democrats.

Remember Kevin Jennings, Obama’s safe schools czar. A vote for Obama was a vote to sexualize children.