What Do You Want, an Engraved Dismissal?

     Well, if you want one, the SSS (Soft Satanic State) is never going to oblige you, because the only way the remarkably infertile SSS can survive from one generation to the next is by making converts of your children, through the schools and through the broadcast and print media.  In a coming blog I'll explain what I mean by the SSS, as contrasted with those hard-edged, hypermasculine Satanic states that wrought such destruction in the twentieth century, and left a whole continent spiritually and culturally exhausted.  For now, all I want is to ask Christians, what on earth are we waiting for?  Why do we still support schools that despise so much of what we believe?  What do we think is to be gained by it?

     The question is prompted by a conversation I had yesterday with a millenarian, a Catholic-turned-evangelical who is helping to run a daily tent meeting up here among the Catholics and the lapsed in Nova Scotia.  He has five children, and his wife does not work outside the home, and yet he sends his children to the local public schools.  I asked him about it, and he gave me the reasons I have heard so often, and the reassurances.  He said that, while he thought homeschooling was an admirable response to a bad situation, he knew that his children would one day have to emerge from their protective shell and encounter the world.  He also assured me that the family study the Bible together every day, and that he has insisted that his children will not take part in any classes involving sex education or evolution.

     Now I am not insisting here that everybody teach their children at home, or that everybody do any single thing in particular.  I am simply wondering what it takes for at least a large minority of Christians, if not a numerical majority, to leave the public schools in a mass exodus and -- do something else: send them to private or Christian schools, establish new schooling cooperatives, or teach their children at home; anything but allow them to be fashioned by the new and determinedly antichristian state.  For it is simply not the case that a Christian can monitor a child's classes and opt out of this or that hour that is objectionable.  For what is objectionable are the very principles upon which contemporary miseducation rests: sexual indifference; statism; tolerance defined as the highest of virtues, so long as that does not include tolerance of people with traditional moral views; relativism in morals; subjectivism in aesthetics; skepticism in epistemology, except when it comes to certain sacred tenets, such as that the earth is getting awfully hot and that man is to blame and that we can all do something about it that will reverse the trend.

     But that is just the negative side of the question -- protecting your children from mayhem.  What I did not have time to say to my millenarian (but I hope soon to have the opportunity) is that we Christians are trading a great birthright for a mess of rather lousy soup.  For the students are not getting much of an education, even of a non-Christian or anti-Christian variety.  They miss the vast literary, philosophical, and artistic achievements of the Christian civilization that was; they (except for, in some places, the very few smartest of the students) will not read Milton, they will not listen to Bach, they will not study the paintings of Caravaggio, they will not pore over the battle plans of George Washington (not that Washington was a great tactician; he was a great leader of men).  They will, to boot, miss the great achievements of the Greek and Roman cultures that, in some ways anyhow, were a preamble to the faith that took the west by storm.  They are not reading Sophocles, they are not discussing the dialogues of Plato, they are not reciting the invectives of Cicero.

     Look, it is one thing to put a clothespin on your nose and stride into the school, knowing that you will find much filth, but also knowing that eventually you will be able to scan a line of Shakespeare, find the area under a polynomial curve, tell who Catiline was, and explain why Oedipus at Colonus is a great play.  But your children will, in all likelihood, be able to do none of those things, nor even diagram a sentence like the one you are reading.  The schools (with some exceptions) aren't giving students an antichristian education.  They are giving them antichristian pablum, and no education to speak of at all.

     So, do we need that engraved dismissal?  If even a third of Christian parents pulled their students out of the schools, imagine the effects of that, after a single generation.

Comments

[Matt Beatty]

Excellent, Tony. The argument might well extend to higher education, no? Many parents of bright and interested children are willing to send them to schools that will do everything in their power to fleece them of every good thing they possess. And the parents will pay them very large amounts of money to do it. Doesn't this begin - at least for many - with repentance before God of valuing reputation and influence over faithfulness? And for the rest, repentance over culpable ignorance and/or indifference?

[Steve Perkins]

I am stunned by the incisive brilliance of this piece. I should also add that I am reading it while on my lunch break at the public high school where I teach Latin (and yes, my students do recite the invectives of Cicero and know who Catiline was.) That said, there is a reason my wife and I were part of a group that started a Classical Christian school a couple of years ago, which has now merged with another Classical Christian school and that serves grades pre-K through 12. There is a reason our two children attend that school, that my wife...who is Classically educated with a Masters degree...teaches there, and that I serve on the board. It is true we do not want ours, or any other children, to be infected by the plague of anti-Christian philosophy on which the modern public school is built (see John Dewey if you think I am being too severe), but as you so rightly put it, we want on the positive side for our children to enjoy the birthright of a true Christian liberal education, understanding "liberal" in the best and classic sense of that word. I will share your post with everyone that I possibly can.

[Steve Perkins]

As I was sharing your post, I ran across this on a friend's blog http://redcardigan.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-cant-have-that.html. It details the evil and insidious (her words, but I agree) ruling of the New Hampshire court to force a young girl into the public schools because it believe she was becoming too much like her mother with regard to her Christian faith.

[Don]

Would love to send my kids to parochial school. I need $600/mo x three kids. How about getting the secularists that run our guvmint ed systems to give me back my cut of the property and income taxes I pay for public screwles? If there is a groundswell, how about a constitutional amendment requiring public schools to include faith-based curriculum?

"In the world but not of it." Some day - long after we have spent many nights reading to them and helping with homework and honing their God-given talents - my wife, kids and I will all be dancing before the Father's throne. In the meantime, I regularly remind them that the wisest, richest man who ever lived was that way because he humbled himself before God, not an 11th grade science teacher.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

Is there a website that lists most, if not all of the classic Christian elementary-to-secondary schools in the nation?

I have two young children and there are Christian schools sort of around where I live, but I'm rather dubious as to their curriculum. If there was a staunchly stubborn Great Western Classics Christian school around, then I'm highly interested.

Like a Hillsdale College or a HBU or a St. Thomas Acquinas sprinkled with a Dorothy Sayers or Susan Wise Bauer (sans her egalitarianism) curriculum that's adjusted for elementary and secondary school children.

Anything out there like that? Please?

[Magister Christianus]

Dear Truth Unites...yes, there is such a list. Check out www.accsedu.org. This is the Association of Classical and Christian Schools. Also check out the Circe Institute (http://www.circeinstitute.org/), especially a man named Andrew Kern, to see what lists they may have. You can also contact the school we are involved with, The Summit Academy (www.thesummitacademy.com), for more info. We have families connected with Hillsdale, and we use the Susan Wise Bauer books as well.

[Bill R]

Tony, first things first. Many areas aren't served by adequate private or Christian schools, which means the mother must home-school the kids. That's wonderful, but you'll first have to them to leave the work force. Lots of luck with that when many Christian families won't (or claim they can't) live on the father's income alone.

[Kevin]

As a parent of 4 & 2-year olds who will begin their schooling soon, I'd love have the chance to send my kids to such a "classical christian" school. Living were we do (in a small town) so that we're close to family, that's not an option for us. Public school or home-school that's it.

"eventually you will be able to scan a line of Shakespeare, find the area under a polynomial curve, tell who Catiline was, and explain why Oedipus at Colonus is a great play. But your children will, in all likelihood, be able to do none of those things" - but my wife and I are victims of the same public schooling - we can do none of those things either (well, as an engineer I can at least integrate a curve), and I don't even know enough to know what it is that I don't know...

The point being that things have progressed so poorly that many of us don't even know where to begin, even if we had the will to do so...

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

Thanks very much Magister Christianus!

There's good info on those websites. Unfortunately, I'm in the position as "Kevin". And I don't have the bandwidth to start up a new school.

Thanks again.

[Magister Christianus]

Many parents feel the way Kevin indicates. We were reared in the public schools and in the social environment of late 20th century America. As a result, we likely do not know how much we do not know, and even if we did, we would not know what to do about it. Yet God provides. Only because I believe so strongly in Christians standing together in the area of education do I take the risky move of putting my email out for any families who would like to talk more about where to begin. You may email me at steve@stevenrperkins.com

In addition, there are many good resources to help parents who want to provide for their children what they have not had. Here is the book list our founding families began with: Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine

Berkhof, Louis and Cornelius Van Til. Foundations of Christian Education: Addresses to Christian Teachers; Phillipsburg, NJ; Presbyterian and Reformed, 1991.

Cassiodorus, Introduction to Divine and Human Readings.

Cicero, Ad Herennium

Dabney, R.L. On Secular Education; Moscow, ID; Canon Press, 1989.

Gregory, John Milton. The Seven Laws of Teaching; Grand Rapids, MI; Baker, 1979.

Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism; Grand Rapids, MI; Eerdmans, 1923.

Machen, J. Gresham. Education, Christianity, and the State; Jefferson, MD; Trinity Foundation; 1987.

Milton, John. Areopagitica and Of Education.

North, Gary ed. Foundations of Christian Scholarship: Essays in the Van Til Perspective; Vallecito, CA; Ross House Books, 1979.

Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Books I and II

Perks, Stephen. The Christian Philosophy of Education Explained. Whitby, England; Avant Books, 1992.

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death; New York; Penguin Books, 1985.

Rushdoony, Rousas. The Messianic Character of American Education; Nutley, NJ; Craig Press, 1979.

Schlossberg, Herbert. Idols for Destruction; Wheaton, IL; Crossway, 1990.

Van Til, Cornelius. A Christian Theory of Knowledge; Philadelphia, PA; Presbyterian and Reformed Press, 1953.

Wells, David. No Place for Truth; Grand Rapids, MI; Eerdmans, 1993.

Wilson, Douglas. Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning; Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books, 1991.

Add to that Millstones and Stumbling Blocks, Bradley Heath; Tucson; Fenestra Books, 2006

Classical Education, Gene Veith and Andrew Kern; Capital Research Center, 1997

The Idea of a University, John Henry Newman; University of Notre Dame Press, 1986

The Paideia of God, Douglas Wilson; Moscow, ID; Canon Press; 1999

[Anthony Jacobs]

Educating children at home is not difficult, and great benefit is achieved even if you can only do it until your child is 8 years old. The first years are key to developing an attachment to the family as opposed to a peer-orientation. We started by reading The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jesse Wise, but one does not need to follow their suggested curriculum or schedule slavishly. I also recommend reading works by John Taylor Gatto for just how pathetic and inadequate institutionalized schooling is compared to self-directed education.

[James Kabala]

Most people are conformists at heart and do not want to do anything that makes them seem strange or unusual to their neighbors.

[Diane]

We began homeschooling nearly 25 years ago, when it was considered bizarre, irresponsible, and (in places) immoral or illegal. But even then the benefits were legion. We did not have to unteach as much, which actually takes more energy than teaching. Our kids got enough sleep to be healthy. It didn't occur to them to hate learning. They understood that adults are people too. We could honestly converse then, and still can and do. They spent hours outdoors and learned to love nature. They don't wait for someone to ask or permit them to act. Conformity holds little appeal.

For those who might be contemplating homeschooling, please know that educators have contrived a mystique about education that has no basis. If you can read, you can teach your child to read. Even if you have to learn alongside your child the basics of math or science, it's not that hard! If at least during the early, tender years you can keep them home, it will be immeasurably worthwhile.

[John Lussier]

I imagine that if a 3rd of Christians pulled out of Public School...Christianity would die. At least in the States.

Christ asked us to be part of the world around us, to keep pure during that time, but to be part of it. The only good salt has is in when it's in something. The same with light, it has to shine in the darkness.

Did you know that most believers make the decision to follow Christ before the age of 14? If a 3rd of Christians pulled their kids out of the public school imagine how detrimental a loss of witness would that be?

As a former homeschooler I feel it is absolutely necessary for Christian mission for Christian children to stay in public school! When we take the kids out we lose any kind of positive influence we could have. Which is exactly the opposite of what Christ did. He didn't stay in heaven, he came to earth, to speak about the Kingdom of God. Imagine if Christ had never come. Imagine Christians weren't in public school.

Change culture. Don't be changed by it. We have the Holy Spirit, Scripture, and so much more to keep pure. God is on our side! God wins! Proclaim it everywhere you go, but to go, you have to be somewhere!

Don't fear, God is with us!

[Margaret]

I don't see the kids witnessing to each other in the public schools and winning converts... and I don't see the schools changed by Christian families.

[Michael]

Margaret--

I know way too many people, some of whom I consider friends, who became Christian in high school influenced in no small way by their relationships with Christian kids. It would take more than both hands to count them up. And if you throw in the Mormon conversions among my peer group, it's higher. (Not that Mormons are Christian, but as a case study in the effectiveness of the youth witness...)

You can be a strong Christian in public schools, provided you have the proper support network.

[Diane]

For what it might be worth, all four of our children (who were homeschooled during their elementary years) attended public high schools and were indeed witnesses to Christ therein. I would contend that the early years of homeschooling provided them with the inner strength to stand against the crowd, and contributed to their capacity to care for others. Each has gone on well-equipped to understand the fallen world and God's power in it.

I'm not of the mindset that we should remove our children from the world, only that we should not send them out at too young an age.

[Magister Christianus]

I have taught in the public schools for nearly twenty years and have had the pleasure of having many Christian students. A fair number of those were engaged in trying to bring their friends to Christ. And yes, it is true, we are to be in the world, but not of the world. Yet Christ also said, "Woe to anyone who makes one of these little ones stumble! It would be better if a millstone were hung about his neck and he were flung into the sea!" Children are in the formative years of life. When they sit for the majority of their waking hours during those most formative years in an environment in which every breath they take breathes in an ethos antithetical to the Christian faith, it can be no more beneficial than those who work for years in a coal mine. No matter how healthy the miner, black lung disease is inevitable. As a result, I have seen many Christian students espouse values that are no different from their non-believe peers, especially when it comes to the relativism of belief itself. Study after study confirms that the actions of Christian teens are not statistically different from those of their non-believe friends. One does not need to join a brothel to witness to a prostitute.

[therecusant]

John Lussier,

I might have been convinced, if only you had used more exclamation points! ;-)

[James Kabala]

Upon reflection, though, I wonder if this post isn't partially based on false nostalgia (on the academic issue, not the moral issue). There was a time when the high school curriculum was more rigorous - and it was also a time when 10% of the population graduate from high school. I think overcredentialism - the need for a high school diploma, and increasingly a college degree, to have a good job - has forced many people to go through the motions of a subpar curriculum who would actually be happier and more fulfilled on a vocational track.

Of course, there were always people (some of the most brilliant people, in fact) who did not graduate from high school but became highly educated autodidacts, but there was never a time when the average person could speak Latin (except in ancient Rome, obviously!) or do calculus-level math.

A major exception is English literature - there really was a time when the man in the street was intimately familiar with Shakespeare and Milton and Pope. But of course, even today most students have to read a Shakespeare play or two before graduation, and while the rest of the standard modern high school English curriculum (e.g., The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ethan Frome, The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm and 1984, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird) is generally not on the level of Milton or Pope, most of the books used do have some merit.

[holmegm]

We do survive (so far) on one parent's income, mine. Unfortunately, that's because my wife is too ill to work or to homeschool the children.

So our children are in public school (except for one, who started in a church-based private school and is doing so well that we'll keep her there as long as we can).

I still think that Christian education, home or school based, is the best way, though. Just pointing out that it may not always be fully obvious why people make the choices that they do.

[Michael]

"[...] most of the books used do have some merit."

Until you get to "advanced" courses like AP, AICE or IB. And then you get drowned in, well, crap. Like Water for Chocolate and Spirits of the Ordinary do not belong on the shelves of "great" literature. Neither does The Bluest Eye.

It's kind of sad, but the "smarter" you get in high school, the more asinine your curriculum gets. Been there, done that.

[James Kabala]

I never even heard of Spirits of the Ordinary, but things may have changed in the last eleven years.

My AP English teacher basically assigned whatever he felt like re-reading that week, which did include Zola, Camus, and Sartre (he had majored in French literature in the fifties) but also the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chesterton (just his poem "The Donkey," but it was the first thing by him I ever read), and Waugh.

[Phil]

"For what is objectionable are the very principles upon which contemporary miseducation rests: sexual indifference; statism; tolerance defined as the highest of virtues, so long as that does not include tolerance of people with traditional moral views; relativism in morals; subjectivism in aesthetics; skepticism in epistemology, except when it comes to certain sacred tenets, such as that the earth is getting awfully hot and that man is to blame and that we can all do something about it that will reverse the trend."

Yes, these principles that are now in the schools are very objectionable. However, I’m of the opinion, as others have stated here, that we must be salt & light. Parents may not have to home school in order to protect their children and ensure that they have a good education. What they should do is continually remind their children that, as Christians, they have certain morals and values that come from God and that God wants us to love & obey Him. They should also explain that in public school, they will encounter people (teachers, students and parents) that have different morals & values. They will be taught some of these different morals & values as if they were truth and that they should learn to openly question these. If they are confronted and challenged with material that includes the principles that Dr. Esolen listed above, they best question they can ask is ‘why?’. They can be salt & light and inject their values and principles into their school experience. They must learn this in the home because they certainly won’t get it in school. I’m sure that at some point, they will be told that they are wrong or they are being disruptive or they may be threatened with suspension for not learning the right lessons. The case of the young girl in New Hampshire who was forced to go to public school is a good example. Now she has the opportunity to make a difference in her school.
Be salt. Be light and change your school with the Truth of Christ. Also, if you want to pray in school, go ahead and do it. What’s the worst they can do but expel you! Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t pray to your Lord and Saviour. If it offends them, then that’s their problem, not yours.

[David Gray.]

>Christ asked us to be part of the world around us, to keep pure during that time, but to be part of it.

Yes but Christ did not instruct us to use children as shock troops in the war we wage...

[Kamilla]

Being part of the world does not necessarily require we participate in every aspect of that "world" the state or our peers think we should. I don't need to read all the latest vampire novels in order to be a witness to my peers on the, ahem, difficulties in such material.

I live in a wonderful little community in which the neighbors are all influences on each other - and the children as well, though some go to private schools and some to the state schools. But those kids all play together and are parented by all the parents in the circle.

The contention that our children *must* be held hostage in the state schools in order to be an influential witness merely serves to convince me those schools are far too influential, period.

Kamilla

[Christopher Hathaway]

Napoleon said something to the effect "give me a child until he is ten and you can have him", meaning that the child's early training will make him the man he should be no matter what comes after. Solomon taught the same thing, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

I would make the age 13, the age when a child becomes an adult according to Jewish Law. Until then children should be sheltered from corrupting influences as much as possible. Then they will be well trained to resist and witness to the culture around them.

[Micah Watson]

One of the central questions can be turned around. What if all the Christian families who have been leaving since the 70s had stuck with public schools, gotten on school boards, served on PTO's? How one reacts to this question will reveal a fault line of principle: some here would never accept a "public school" even if the education was stellar, and others do not think education needs to be separate and so make their judgments on prudential criteria.

Not all situations are the same. And many public schools have sunk to the levels described. But many have not. Some qualification is in order in characterizing the Soft Satanic State as a catch-all that includes both the horror stories perpetrated by faceless federal bureaucracies and the Mrs. Smith, local 2nd grade teacher, who attends 1st Baptist, and is doing the best she can. Otherwise we should include in the satanic description schools like Houston Baptist and Union University who train teachers to work in the public schools, many of them serving amongst the least of these. Who knew they were unwitting accomplices of the prince of darkness?

[David Gray.]

>What if all the Christian families who have been leaving since the 70s had stuck with public schools, gotten on school boards, served on PTO's?

Why do you think they left?

>Some qualification is in order in characterizing the Soft Satanic State as a catch-all that includes both the horror stories perpetrated by faceless federal bureaucracies and the Mrs. Smith, local 2nd grade teacher, who attends 1st Baptist, and is doing the best she can.

Teaching in the public schools is excellent work for a Christian. Sending in the Marines, er children, is not such a hot idea.

[Kamilla]

Micah,

I think the 70s is far too late to have begun the battle to save the public schools from becoming what it might be more appropriate to call state schools. That salvation project should have begun in the early 50s when all those baby boomers began flooding the system. Of course, all that effort would have been wasted if SCOTUS hadn't also been turned around. Once you get a court activist and historically revisionist enough to rule prayer out - the game is already lost.

Kamilla

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

It would be a nice start if both teachers and students in public schools could explore the subject of alternatives to macro-evolution ....

[James Kabala]

A follow-up to my earlier comment about non-conformity and sticking out from one's neighbors: One should also not underestimate the class/reverse snobbery factor. I once had someone comment to me after hearing an annual diocesan charity appeal: "I can't stand it when they go on and on about Catholic schools and how great they are." Although a public school graduate myself, I said, "Well, you can't expect the Catholic Church not to promote Catholic schools," and the reply was along the lines of "I don't like it when people who went to Catholic schools think they're better than we are."

[Fat Albert]

Two principles are in play here. The first is that no school is adequate - public or private, secular or parochial - absent the constant involvement of a dedicated parent. That is why most public schools end up failing - the parents are uninvolved in the education of their children.

The second principle is that people value what is hard won or expensive, either in time or money. Thus, the overwhelming majority of children in private schools do well. Why, because having spent dearly to place their children there, the parents are quick to become involved and integrated into the educational process.

Certainly these are generalities and there are certainly other factors, but having been a child of the 60's and involved in the educational system for the last 15 years (both public and private), it seems to me that we aren't going to fix education in general until we fix the state of "families" (i hesitate to even use the word any more) in the US.

[Mrs Butler]

Well said, Dr. Esolen. We've also considered that sending our children to public school would teach them some cultural assumptions about taxation and the State which we would like to combat. State schools are funded by theft. In our county, I lease my home from the government, and they allow me to stay there as long as I pay them a large fee for sending other people's kids to their ideologically statist citizenry propoganda halls. Even if they were teaching godly Christian principles in the classrooms, their very existence belies our worldview.

[Eric W. Jorgensen]

Much appreciated Dr. Esolen. If I understand your comments contextually you are speaking to the whole not the part. Too many Christians see their faith in terms of the part (me or my family) rather than in terms of the Church. You asked why "we" support schools that despise so much of what "we" believe. "We" the Church, starting with local parishes, must answer the question.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

It looks like Sweden and Germany are banning home-schooling.

Thank goodness that won't happen here in the good 'ol USA. The liberal, tolerant, pluralistic, diversity-loving, inclusive progressives of the USA won't ban home-schooling in the name and meaning of all those aformentioned social virtues.

[Susan Peterson]

TUAD, I wouldn't count on it.
Susan

[Susannah]

I'm late to this discussion, but wanted to add that I started homeschooling as soon as my first child was born and have stuck with it even through periods of frustration, because of conscience issues. This excellent post encapsulated them so well. This year, I discovered a Classical Conversations program right here in our very town and enrolled my children in it. What a wonderful program! Just the support and structure we needed. I love the classical method and it suits us well; I was always too intimidated to try it on my own. Most homeschoolers I know are a bit intimidated by the Well-Trained Mind, on the first go-round at least. This program practically spoon-feeds us the content, and we just practice it during the week on our own. We too are a single-income family. We have homeschooled through all manner of financial times, good and bad. I first took to homeschooling for positive reasons, chiefly because I saw the lives of homeschoolers around me were happy and fulfilled and their relationships were close-knit. Over time, my husband and I became convinced that we would be out of God's will to send our own children to a secular, godless educational enterprise that would do nothing but work against everything we were trying to instill in them. I consider it none of my business what other families choose to do, but we now homeschool as a matter of conscience. To tell the truth, what sealed the deal for me was learning that my child, upon entering the doors of a state-run school, was no longer in parental custody but in the school's custody--and that anybody at all could interview or indoctrinate my child, catch my child off school property and have the police return him (this happened in a friend's county), or even (it happened in one case in our former state) take my child across state lines and I might never know about it, unless my child told me. The court of appeals decision in CA a few years ago made quite clear that parental input is no longer sought or accepted in schools. The very *fact* of compulsory state education is anti-parent, and has been from the beginning. I read Gatto a number of years ago, but recently came across Richard Mitchell's The Graves of Academe (which you can read online), and he includes some shocking statements from the earliest years of compulsory schooling. At any rate, we have reaped the blessings of family togetherness in so many ways, I cannot begin to list them, and I wish every Christian family could enjoy them too. But to each his own.

[Steve]

Just a question: is it worthwhile to start homeschooling kids in high school? Our children are at a fine Christian elementary/middle school ("fine" as in, respectable with some rough edges), but we have no good high school alternatives here.