The Children of Caesar

I am a homeschooling mom. I have very strong opinions about homeschooling. And I am going to share some of those opinions. So fasten your seat belts and get ready!

I watched a video last week. It knocked my socks off!! It's by Voddie Baucham and it's titled "The Children of Caesar: The State of American Education". My absolute favorite line from it was "If we continue to send our children to Caesar for their education, we need to stop being surprised when they come home as Romans." That is it! That's the reason I had a secular worldview for so many years. I had a light go off in my head watching this video.
One of the statistics used was that 90% of Christians don't have a biblical worldview. I finally realized why I am starting to feel so outside the norm these days; I am now in the 10% category. And that's only talking about Christians; it's not including non-Christians. Wow! And Mr. (Pastor? Rev.? I'm not sure which) Baucham said that we are losing 70-88% of kids from evangelical families by the end of their freshman year in college. But 90-95% of homeschool kids kept the faith of their family. Does that paint a clear picture or what??

There is so much more about this video I was amazed by, but I don't want to just sit here and quote the whole thing. If you are even slightly considering homeschooling or you are a Christian parent unhappy with public school but don't think homeschooling is right for you, watch the video. It is worth it.

The HSDLA has many statistics about homeschooling. Homeschoolers outperform public schoolers on all standardized tests. There was little difference between boys and girls; household income level had little impact; the education level of the parents showed a difference, but still test scores were much higher than for public schoolers; whether the parents were certified teachers made no difference; and the extent of government regulation (by state) had no impact on test scores. Homeschoolers made an average of at least 30 percentage points higher than public schoolers across the board. As for socialization, the main concern many voice about homeschooling, it is not the issue detractors want to make it out to be. In a recent study, the socialization myth has been shown to in fact be just a myth.
From the article:
"When measured against the average Canadians ages 15 to 34 years old, home-educated Canadian adults ages 15 to 34 were more socially engaged (69 percent participated in organized activities at least once per week, compared with 48 percent of the comparable population). Average income for homeschoolers also was higher, but perhaps more significantly, while 11 percent of Canadians ages 15 to 34 rely on welfare, there were no cases of government support as the primary source of income for homeschoolers. Homeschoolers also were happier; 67.3 percent described themselves as very happy, compared with 43.8 percent of the comparable population. Almost all of the homeschoolers—96 percent—thought homeschooling had prepared them well for life."

I just don't see why so many people are against homeschooling. At the very least, why are so many people concerned about me homeschooling my kids? I have had many people question my choice. (By the way, when I say my, and me, and I throughout this blog post, know that Hub and I made these decisions together. Together we listened to what God had to say about this and chose to make the decision we feel He is most pleased with.) I have had many people question whether I was doing the right thing by my children. I have even (online, not in a face to face setting) had people say that I am abusing my child by homeschooling. Well, any intelligent person can look at the statistics and see that homeschooling does not harm children. And all someone has to do is come to one of our homeschool group meetings to see that my children are far from unsocialized.

I am responsible for raising my children, not the government. One day, I will have to stand in front of my heavenly Father and account to Him for all that He gave me in my life. He gave me three beautiful children, but He expects me to raise them His way. I sure don't want to fail. I want to be able to hold my head up high and say that I accomplished the task. And I personally feel that in this day and age, I would not be successful if I sent my children to public, government controlled school.