Cuban Parents Sentenced, Judge Denounces “Capitalist” Homeschooling

April 26, 2017

Sign the petition to support the Rigals

Mike Donnellyby Mike DonnellyHSLDA Director of Global Outreach

HELP THE RIGAL FAMILY

Ramón and Adya Rigal have been sentenced, but are appealing their conviction. We are asking our members and friends to join us by signing a petition to the Cuban government to respect the rights of parents to homeschool their children and to cease its prosecution of the Rigal family.

SIGN THE PETITION »

Yesterday, a Cuban court sentenced pastor Ramón Rigal to a year in prison for homeschooling his children. Ramón’s wife, Adya, was ordered to spend a year under house arrest.

According to Ramón, authorities used the three-hour trial more as a platform for denouncing alternatives to state education than as a venue for delivering justice.

“They would not let me speak in my defense,” Ramón told me after the Tuesday trial. “I brought evidence that my children were learning—notebooks and materials—[but] they didn’t care.”

No justice in this court

The Rigals decided to homeschool their children earlier this year in order to remove them from an environment where they were being bullied and indoctrinated in the state school system.

In February, the couple were arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors for failing to send their children to state schools.

Ramón said he had intended to present a defense at the trial based on Cuba’s constitution and various international human rights treaties the nation has ratified. But his efforts were curtailed as authorities focused on defending the state system.

“When I tried to tell the judge about my evidence or to say that the government was acting unfairly, the judge told me that if I continued to speak she would have me removed from the courtroom,” Ramón said.

The judge also refused to hear testimony from a dozen witnesses Ramón had assembled to speak on his behalf. “Whenever I tried to bring up one of my witnesses,” Ramón said, “the judge would tell them to ‘get out of here.’”

The court relied instead on what appeared to be scripted presentations from state employees drafted as witnesses: a school director, school psychologist, teachers and a juvenile probation officer. The prosecutor asked them all the same basic questions and received the same answers: that only trained teachers are qualified to inculcate socialist values.

In closing remarks, the government prosecutor summarized the case this way: Homeschooling “is not allowed in Cuba because it has a capitalist foundation.”

Ramón’s account of the trial was distressing, but not surprising. It was just about what one expects from the communist courts of Cuba—anything but justice. Their jurisprudence reflects a disregard for accepted principles of due process and the rule of law, as well as Cuba’s international human rights obligations.

The outcome could have been worse; the Rigals faced up to eight years in prison and risked the state taking custody of their children. They were also given three days to appeal. However, finding attorneys willing to help them challenge a legal system overseen by the ruling Communist Party presents a major difficulty.

Communist governments do not appreciate lawyers who are willing to defend people whose human rights have been violated. Officials in communist China recently arrested hundreds of lawyers who were then accused of disloyalty for denouncing abuses by the government.

A courageous example

“This is a great injustice,” said Ramón. “They are trying to force us to send our children only to state schools—not having the option for the children to be taught at home. They should respect the right that parents have based on the human right to teach their children and to respect their faith and the right to homeschool.”

His wife added that she fears not only for the future of their family but for the congregation Ramón pastors.

“I am worried for my children and my husband,” Adya said. “We are only trying to do what is best for our children. I do not want to be separated from my husband. Our children need him. Our church needs our pastor. My children are very sad and worried.”

Although Ramón would prefer to remain in Cuba, he hopes that the United States may offer refuge to his family since the Cuban authorities are determined to jail him rather than allow him to homeschool his children.

Home School Legal Defense Association will continue to support the Rigals, and we encourage the global homeschooling community to affirm the parents’ right to teach their children at home.

The Rigal family are a courageous example to all of us who enjoy the freedom to homeschool our children. They are standing up to a totalitarian government that—no surprise—represses home education despite having signed international agreements urging respect for freedom of conscience and parental rights. Democratic countries like Germany and Sweden that similarly repress home education should question their policies, which are as draconian as communist Cuba.

Freedom is a precious gift that must be protected and passed on to future generations. It is a privilege to serve families like the Rigals and others whose courage and example inspire all of us to reflect on the blessings of liberty that we enjoy.

You can send a message to the Cuban government by signing this petition calling on them to respect the Rigal family’s right to homeschool their children.

HELP THE RIGAL FAMILY

Ramón and Adya Rigal have been sentenced, but are appealing their conviction. We are asking our members and friends to join us by signing a petition to the Cuban government to respect the rights of parents to homeschool their children and to cease its prosecution of the Rigal family.

SIGN THE PETITION »

Read more here: https://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Cuba/201704260.asp

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Needing help for your home schooling journey:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/

And

Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:

Information on getting startedhttps://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/

and

Information on getting an exemptionhttps://hef.org.nz/exemptions/

This link is motivational:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/

Exemption Form online:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-exemption-form-now-online/

Coming Events:https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/

Beneficiaries: http://hef.org.nz/2013/where-to-for-beneficiary-families-now-that-the-social-security-benefit-categories-and-work-focus-amendment-bill-has-passed-its-third-reading

Homeschool in Italy is in Danger

From home educators in Italy:

Hello!

Homeschooling in Italy is still small but it is already facing the danger of annual compulsory exams.
On the link below you will find all details about the new law and ways to help the Italian homescholing families.
Thank you,
Cinira
From the link:

exams

Dear homeschooler friends,

The Italian Parliament has recently approved an Act (no.384 “Buona Scuola”) stating that the fulfilment of the duty of Education by the parents must be proved through annual school exams. Up until today our regulamentation protected the freedom of teaching and families that chose this path simply had to notify the school officials on a yearly basis.

At present the Ministry is drawing up the final version of this Act that would lead home-ed families toward the same standardized and levelled situation that is already badly affecting the Italian school system.

It is now time to join our forces to lobby the Ministry for the removal of any references to home education from the Act no.384 or, at least, for their compliance with the current regulations.

Members of Parliament and Senate from different political groups are supporting us, as they perfectly understand that this Act from “Buona Scuola” set of rules is highly unconstitutional.

Ask your families and friends to raise their voices against this Act.
Join us and sign the following letter that will be sent to the Italian Ministry of Education and her staff.

Please personalize this letter with your name and Country of residence.

Thanks for your support from all the fellow Italian Home Educating families!

______________________________
Click here to send the email>
______________________________

It the button doesn’t work copy and paste the text in the link below

Please go to: http://www.controscuola.it/protect-our-education-rights-no-annual-compulsory-exams-for-italian-home-ed-kids/

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Needing help for your home schooling journey:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/

And

Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:

Information on getting startedhttps://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/

and

Information on getting an exemptionhttps://hef.org.nz/exemptions/

This link is motivational:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/

Exemption Form online:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-exemption-form-now-online/

Coming Events:https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/

Beneficiaries: http://hef.org.nz/2013/where-to-for-beneficiary-families-now-that-the-social-security-benefit-categories-and-work-focus-amendment-bill-has-passed-its-third-reading

New One-School Policy: China Bans Homeschooling–HSLDA Weekly

From the HSLDA

China's New One-School Policy

New One-School Policy

Enough Chinese parents have turned to homeschooling to make the movement a concern for the national government.

Mike DonnellyMIKE DONNELLEY HSLDA Director of Global Outreach

In February, the General Office of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China issued its first statement officially condemning homeschooling. It also warned parents that the practice is forbidden.

The statement follows a related decision by the Communist Party’s Central Committee in December, when it mandated that education must include ideological teachings on socialism, and that these teachings must be incorporated in the national curriculum. As reported in the South China Morning Post, this ideology must “cover all schools and those receiving education,” leaving no room for homeschoolers to escape the socialist worldview.

China’s 1986 Compulsory Education Law mandates nine years of education for all children at registered schools. But for many years, official oversight and legal loopholes have allowed parents to opt out of the public school system.

This leniency has apparently ended.

The government’s February policy states that “[Students] should not be allowed to study at home to replace the national unified implementation of compulsory education.” New restrictions requiring province-level approval for only certain excuses, such as health reasons, will now be imposed on any parents who want to homeschool.

“This is the first time the Chinese government has come out in public to speak against home education,” a local homeschool leader told HSLDA.

A Step Backward for Educational Freedom

The 21st Century Education Research website puts China’s homeschooling numbers at 20,000 children—a tiny group within the country’s population of over 1.3 billion.

But the Chinese regime increasingly seems to view these children as a threat, since they are not being indoctrinated in the state schools six-plus days a week. The research study noted that nearly 54% of homeschooling parents in China state that they disagree with the education philosophy taught in the public schools, and want to teach from a different perspective.

This new and more aggressive policy has apparently been in the works for some months, as local homeschoolers have witnessed increasing hostility.

Homeschool children already face the disadvantage of not being permitted to take the National College Entrance Examination. Without passing this exam it is very difficult for Chinese citizens to gain access to employment. Some have taken to studying abroad or transferring to a foreign university which may be the only option left for homeschool students looking at higher education.

Saying “No” To China’s Homeschooling Ban

It remains to be seen whether or not officials will actually enforce a crackdown on home education. In the meantime, parents and educators remain understandably fearful of this new, anti-homeschooling rhetoric from the Chinese government.

China’s renewed repression of Christian churches and other religious groups has been an ongoing source of concern for human rights advocates. These actions show that the regime is more than capable of taking brutal measures to prevent home education from flourishing.

China has signed numerous international human rights treaties that affirm the rights of parents and children to access home education. Homeschooling is a fundamental right of all families, regardless of the country they live in. HSLDA will be working to encourage the Chinese government to respect these rights, including the rights of parents to homeschool their children, as documented in the Rio Principles and Berlin Declaration.

HSLDA remains committed to standing by and fighting for the human rights of its courageous families in China and in other places like Germany, Cuba and Sweden which do not respect these rights.

TAKE ACTION

Protect your family: Join >>

Defend homeschooling: Donate>>

Stay informed: Subscribe >>

Other Resources

HSLDA’s China homepage
HSLDA’s Germany homepage
HSLDA’s Sweden homepage

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Needing help for your home schooling journey:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/

And

Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:

Information on getting startedhttps://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/

and

Information on getting an exemptionhttps://hef.org.nz/exemptions/

This link is motivational:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/

Exemption Form online:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-exemption-form-now-online/

Coming Events:https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/

Beneficiaries: http://hef.org.nz/2013/where-to-for-beneficiary-families-now-that-the-social-security-benefit-categories-and-work-focus-amendment-bill-has-passed-its-third-reading

Christians Urged to Pull Children From Public Schools

This following article was what Craig and I have been saying for many years now. We have stayed with Ray Moore in his home and followed the work of Exodus Mandate for many years:

Christians Urged to Pull Children From Public Schools

The warning was clear: Christian parents should pull their children out of public schools, now, to protect them from spiritual damage, extreme indoctrination, and other serious problems. Pastors and churches should work to encourage that “exodus,” helping and encouraging families to put their kids in homeschools or private Christian schools as quickly as possible. The alternative will be the continued decline of the church in America and an acceleration of the nation’s decline. That was the explosive message of an evangelical ministry leader speaking as a guest this week on one of America’s top Christian radio programs.

Dr. James Dobson, one of the nation’s most influential Christian leaders and a former public-school teacher, hosted the discussion on his national radio program focusing on the spiritual danger of allowing children to sit in secular or even anti-God public schools for over a dozen formative years. Dobson’s guest on his nationally syndicated show Family Talk, heard on hundreds of stations across America, was Lt. Col. E. Ray Moore, a retired military chaplain, a homeschooling pioneer, and the nation’s leading advocate of a mass exodus of Christian children from the government schools. The explosive interview could have far-reaching ramifications, forcing millions of Christian parents and thousands of pastors across America to re-consider their choices.

In the two-part interview, which aired Monday and Tuesday across the nation and is available online, Moore said churches and Christian families must launch a fresh effort to “really grow Christian schooling and homeschooling in the evangelical and conservative church community.” First of all, he said, there is a “scriptural pattern” that underpins his argument. “The Bible is clear: Scripture assigns the education of children to the family with assistance from the church — and not government,” said Moore, who leads Frontline Ministries and is the director of the Exodus Mandate Project to get children out of government schools. “So we actually do not believe in state-sponsored education in any fashion.”

Citing various Bible verses, Moore said parents are commanded to raise their children up in the “culture” of the Lord. Homeschooling and Christian schools help fulfill that, he explained, adding that public schools today are overtly hostile to Christianity and the Bible. Especially in the early years of child development, homeschooling is an excellent choice, with Christian schools available later for those who feel they can’t do it themselves. For one, it creates a strong solidarity in the family, Moore said, adding that many homeschooling families are able to avoid the “teenage rebellion” stage altogether. “These kids that are homeschooled, and their peers in Christian schools, are a different breed, it’s a different culture,” he continued.

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Dr. Dobson agreed, saying the sentiment was “absolutely true,” and that young children are especially vulnerable to lifelong effects from being bullied or teased in their early years. “Today, public schools don’t offer much in the way of values education, and if they do, it’s often wrong,” said Dobson, who was described as “the nation’s most influential evangelical leader” by The New York Times. “Particularly today, so much of what goes on in public schools is really harmful.” When Moore and Dobson were children, public schools still began the day with prayer and the Bible. “It was very, very different than it is today,” Dobson added.

When asked by Dobson about his concerns, Moore let loose. “We got a reprieve in the last election, so I think it’s time for Christians to take a look at resetting the agenda for the church in the area of K-12 Christian schooling and homeschooling,” said Moore, the author of the book Let My Children Go and an executive producer for the popular Christian film on government schools entitled IndoctriNation. “We have four years to do something better and different. I think it’s time for pastors and churches and Christian leaders to really look at the Exodus Mandate option, which is our ministry, to pull out and start up private Christian schools and homeschools, that’s what we’re advocating.”

Dr. Dobson asked Moore what damage the “indoctrination” the children are being subjected to in public schools — “they’ve been propagandized and given a philosophy that in many cases is contrary to scripture and what we believe” — has done to America’s children. Citing resources put together by the Nehemiah Institute, Moore explained that if only millennials (18 to 34 years old) had voted, the GOP would have won only five states. “Trump would have gotten 23 electoral votes, and Hillary 504,” Moore said. “What it shows is that about 80 percent of the millennials, are pretty left and progressive, they’re part of the Occupy crowd, that type of a voter. We’re losing the next generation.”

Perhaps even more alarming, the public schools are also responsible for the decline in morality and the church. “We believe you can make a case with data that the main reason the culture and the next generation are turning away from traditional values, from the Gospel, from Christianity, is primarily because of the indoctrination of the public-school system,” said Moore, adding that some 80 percent of evangelicals today have their children in government school. “So we’re losing about 70 to 80 percent of the Christian children, they’re abandoning the church and the Christian faith in their early adult years. And people will ask why this is happening. Well, you put them in a public school, you didn’t give them a Christian education.”

Moore, whose latest film, Escaping Common Core, goes through many of those arguments, said Christian churches need to be “fully committed to K-12 Christian schooling and homeschooling as a normal way of life among our people.” “If we do that, we can save our children, and maybe save our culture as well,” he said. After serving in Christian ministry for more than four decades, though, Moore said “it grieves me to have to say this, so I’ll be as delicate as I can, but a lot of our very good conservative pastors are not doing their job on starting up Christian schools or encouraging K-12 Christian schooling.”

He said many pastors have told him they are scared of taking a stand because so many in their flocks have their children in government schools. “So we’re in an awkward moment in history where the pastors may think, if I speak up and really push this hard, I might lose my job,” Moore said. “They do think that. But if they don’t, we lose our country and we lose our children.” While some have criticized his firm stance, Moore said that the criticism is actually declining. “The culture is changing in our direction, rapidly,” he said, suggesting Christian parents and leaders are increasingly realizing the threat posed by anti-God government schools. “They see it, they see what’s happening in their own children.”

Speaking to pastors in particular, Moore said they need to stand up. “Parents are going to have to give an account for their children, but pastors are going to have to give an account for their flock,” Moore said. “They have a charge to shepherd the flock, and part of that is providing Christian education for the children. I’m not talking about Sunday school, I’m talking about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday school. Now, it’s not going to be easy, but they’ve got to do it. And I think that a lot of pastors, if they don’t step up, they could lose reward…. In pastoral work, we have to warn the flock, we have to teach, admonish, and this is an area that must be dealt with.”

Moore also said he did not know of any “serious Christian leaders” who were still trusting their children to government schools. Across America, he said, Christians are increasingly realizing that the public-school system is a danger to their children, and are responding accordingly. And that is very good news, not just for the children, but for the whole country. In short, an exodus from the government schools, led by pastors and churches, could help save the children, the churches, the culture, and the country all in one, Moore argued.

At the end of the first segment, Moore thanked Dobson for all he has done to raise awareness over the years. If more prominent Christian leaders such as Dobson would stand up, Moore said, the effect would be tremendous. Dobson seemed pleased, too. “It’s nice having somebody else to beat this drum besides myself,” said Dr. Dobson, who founded both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, two of the most important and influential pro-family ministries in America. “I’ve said it for many, many years, and I don’t regret a moment of it.”

In the second half of the interview, which was broadcast on March 21, Dobson asked whether removing Christian children from public schools would deprive other children there of a Christian influence. Moore said he was glad the question came up. “That’s called the salt and light argument, and it’s the number one objection I get from people who don’t support what I’m doing,” Moore explained, acknowledging Jesus’ commands to the faithful to be salt and light. “But it doesn’t apply to little children at the K-12 level in the public schools … a little six, seven or eight year old is not ready for a hostile environment.”

In fact, since that argument was made so often, Moore decided to produce a pamphlet addressing that exact subject. “We’re putting them in harm’s way in pagan and godless public schools,” he explained. “And I think, frankly, even though it’s a valid text, it’s probably the most misused and abused text in the Bible…. It’s probably an excuse more than anything else, for not doing what scripture teaches on education. There is no wiggle room in the Bible on how we should educate our children.” In summary, children need to be brought up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, he said. And they are not getting that in government schools — in fact, they are getting the opposite — when, as Dobson argued, parents’ number one job is to ensure that their children follow Christ.

The consequences of the government school system are massive. Dobson and Moore discussed Abraham Lincoln’s reputed comments on the fact that the philosophy in the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. After that, Moore pointed to President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education, which stated in its landmark 1983 A Nation at Risk report that the government school system was so bad, it threatened the future of Americans as a nation and a people. “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war,” the report stated.

And since then, the situation has only gotten much, much worse, Moore and Dobson agreed. “We’re losing our children because of the extreme indoctrination going on,” Moore continued. “We have LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] teachings now in the schools, evolution — you can’t teach intelligent design or creation — they’re doing a revisionist form of American history, they’re not even learning basic, rudimentary education anymore in a lot of our public schools.” He also attacked Common Core, the controversial national “education” standards foisted on states by the Obama administration, as part of a “radical progressive agenda” that has even started creeping into some Christian schools.

Dobson, who was a public-school teacher at one time, explained how his journey into this field began in graduate school while at the University of Southern California, where he studied child development. “The big fad at that time … was that early childhood development was necessary,” he said. “The experts at that time, in my field, were all convinced that children should be ushered into formal education — usually in state-sponsored education — and to do it at younger and younger ages, to get them into formal education as early as three years or even younger. Everyone seemed to believe that, and there were many federal grants at that time to get kids into formal classrooms, much of it at the public school level.”

Multiple forces converged to push the idea — it created lots of jobs for teachers, it coincided with and facilitated the push to get as many mothers as possible into the work force, and of course the federal government drove much of the support. Dobson ended up believing in the idea. But on a speaking tour, somebody gave him a copy of Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child’s Education, a book by the late homeschooling pioneer Raymond Moore — no relation to the Moore on this week’s programs despite having the same name — and encouraged him to read it. “It was the first time I ever heard this notion that you would benefit children more by holding them out of public education than getting them into the early classroom situation,” Dobson said, adding that Moore had been in the same USC program as him. “It contradicted what I had been taught.”

Dobson was so intrigued that he contacted the late Moore and invited the expert to his radio studio for a discussion. “It was like putting a match to gasoline,” he said. “I got it. I saw it. I knew he was right.” The conversation then went on to homeschooling all those decades ago. “That was a new concept to me,” Dobson explained. “My wife Shirley and I would have homeschooled if we had known about it. But nobody was talking about that at that time. That was a brand new idea for my listening audience, too. And frankly, I didn’t know how many of them were out there…. The sky fell on me. You can’t believe the number of calls and letters that came. They weren’t mad at me, they were saying, tell me more, tell me more. And that was the beginning of the modern homeschool movement, and I supported it every year from that time on.”

One person who heard those early broadcasts in 1981 was the Moore on this week’s radio program who, by mere coincidence, shares a very similar name with the late Raymond Moore. The two Moores actually worked together after that. “I’m so happy to have this opportunity, Dr. Dobson, because I never have thanked you for that broadcast,” Moore told Dobson early on in this week’s two-part interview. “So I’m thanking you today, and I know you’re aware of the pivotal role it played in homeschooling. We think homeschooling started to grow exponentially after that, it just took off.”

Moore told Dobson that he was already homeschooling at the time of those broadcasts in 1981, having started in 1977. “I’m guessing that at that time there may have been several hundred families homeschooling nationally. It was rare, and those who did really kept it quiet. It was under threat,” said Moore, whose own four children were homeschooled until at least middle school before attending private Christian schools. “We were comfortable that we were doing the Lord’s will on it with our son, he was young at the time…. But even those of us doing God’s will — and we believe we have scriptural, biblical basis for it — we still need to be affirmed, we need Godly people and respected Christian leaders to say you’re doing the right thing, keep it up.”

Both Moore and Dobson noted that even Jesus was homeschooled until he was 12-years old. And Moore said it was clearly the right choice, noting that his children, now in their 30s and 40s, are “still walking with the Lord,” have “good marriages,” and are “very successful.” The same is true as a general rule, both agreed, saying that homeschooled children and children from Christian schools were more respectful, better educated, and more. The data that does exist seems to confirm that, with homeschoolers on average doing far better on every relevant metric than their government-schooled peers.

In a statement to The New American, Moore said his interview with Dr. Dobson was “a big moment for Exodus Mandate.” “After 50 years of service Dr. Dobson still holds the ´good housekeeping seal´ for the family,” he noted, saying he was glad to be able to expose the “educational malpractice called Common Core” and promote his latest movie on the subject, Escaping Common Core, Setting our Children Free. “K-12 Christian education and home schooling is one method to assure survival of traditional values and the natural family.”

The interview will certainly have a major impact. On the show, Dobson mentioned that he had heard Moore speak at the enormously influential Council for National Policy (CNP), a low-profile gathering of top conservative and Christian leaders sought out by GOP presidential candidates on down. “You did a great job, and it was on that basis that I asked if you could be with us here on the broadcast,” Dobson said of Moore’s CNP speech to many of America’s most influential political and religious voices. Moore said the sentiment among top leaders was quickly changing as people realize the danger of government schools. Plus, with Common Core and other developments, many parents are also realizing that something is very wrong.

Indeed, public schools have been getting more and more brazenly anti-Christian in recent years. And  the indoctrination — both political and religious — has become progressively more extreme, to the point where it is now becoming obvious to anyone who cares to look. However, it still remains to be seen whether enough American children will be able to receive a good enough education to sustain the churches, the values, and the liberties that made America great.

Read more here: https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/25675-christians-urged-to-pull-children-from-public-schools

Alex Newman is co-author of Crimes of the Educatorsand a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at: anewman@thenewamerican.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Needing help for your home schooling journey:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/

And

Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:

Information on getting startedhttps://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/

and

Information on getting an exemptionhttps://hef.org.nz/exemptions/

This link is motivational:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/

Exemption Form online:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-exemption-form-now-online/

Coming Events:https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/

Beneficiaries: http://hef.org.nz/2013/where-to-for-beneficiary-families-now-that-the-social-security-benefit-categories-and-work-focus-amendment-bill-has-passed-its-third-reading

WHY I’M THROUGH WITH HOMESCHOOLING

A great article to read:

As many longtime readers know, we homeschooled our two daughters, now both graduated. We live on a rural 20-acre homestead on which we are endeavoring to become food self-sufficient. With a home business, the kids grew up with both parents constantly present and involved. With the blessings of God, we were able to give our girls what has become increasingly rare in modern society: an old-fashioned, home-oriented, wholesome childhood.

When I first started writing this column in April 2008, our daughters were 12 and (almost) 10 years old, smack in the middle of their formative educational years. Currently they are 21 and (almost) 19. Seems hard to believe they’re both young adults now. How has homeschooling worked for them?

Most homeschooling parents, over the years, receive the usual litany of ignorant censure and snarks from self-appointed critics. “What about socialization!” “Won’t your kids grow up stunted and ignorant?” “Why can’t you just be normal?”

Back when homeschooling was still something of a novelty, no one knew what the long-term effects of parental teaching would be like. (Historical examples of successful home education were, of course, dismissed.) Would our children grow up to be unsocial, stunted, ignorant, abnormal and unable to function in modern society?

Of course not. But it wasn’t until Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute started quantifying and statistically analyzing the long-term “legacy effect” of homeschooling that it was numerically justified in the eyes of the wider world. Society began realizing what parents and defenders have known for decades: Homeschooling works. It works beautifully. It doesn’t just work academically; it works emotionally, intellectually, morally, psychologically, sexually and just about any other factor that can be made into an adverb.

At a time when general lunacy is the norm in public schools, at a time when teachers blatantly admit their goal is to brainwash students, my husband and I knew the only option was to teach the children ourselves (private schools aren’t available in our remote rural area). Interestingly, because our local public school district is so bad, many of the rural children around us are homeschooled as well, so we found ourselves surrounded by a vibrant community of families with similar goals. Our girls never lacked for friends.

So where are our daughters now? How did homeschooling work for them?

Besides volunteer work at county animal shelter, the first paid job both girls held was working as housekeepers for an upscale motel owned by friends. (Oddly, this provoked sneers of contempt from a certain unnamed critic who claimed maid work was demeaning. He never explained why.) In this job, our daughters honed their time management and efficiency skills, and earned glowing letters of recommendation.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/why-im-through-with-homeschooling/#VGtlHGw7ukhu4Lkt.99

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Needing help for your home schooling journey:

https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/

And

Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:

Information on getting startedhttps://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/

and

Information on getting an exemptionhttps://hef.org.nz/exemptions/

This link is motivational:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/

Exemption Form online:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-exemption-form-now-online/

Coming Events:https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/

Beneficiaries: http://hef.org.nz/2013/where-to-for-beneficiary-families-now-that-the-social-security-benefit-categories-and-work-focus-amendment-bill-has-passed-its-third-reading