What Happened to my Four Children?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/26/22

            I have questions. Why did my oldest child Christy choose to mix public education and private education for each of her four children? Why has Christy’s younger sister Wendy chosen to home school her three children entirely? Why has their younger brother Jeff chosen to place his daughter in a private school? Why has their younger brother Reagan chosen private pre-kindergarten for his two small children?

            I ask this because Ole Dad was in public schools all of his life as a student and then as a teacher. That enjoyable journey of learning and teaching took place from 1950 (his first grade year) through 2021 (his last year to teach). Why, after being in public schools themselves and after expressing love and appreciation for their public school teachers, did my children not take the public school route for their own children? Where did I or the public schools go wrong?

            I believe I have answers. Those answers have little to do with their teachers but much to do with the culture in which and by which their schools were influenced. My twelve public school years as a student were from 1950 to 1962. Theirs were from 1975 (Christy’s first grade year) to 2000 (Reagan’s senior year). How different do you think the cultural influences on schools were during those two separate time periods?

            I believe I can illustrate the difference with a true scenario. It occurred at Wendy’s high school graduation in 1990. At Roswell Street Baptist Church my North Cobb faculty colleagues and I were lining up the seniors to march into the auditorium. Seeing Wendy across the way I walked over to her and asked, “Wendy, what did you enjoy most about high school?” Her quick smiling answer was “My teachers!”

“And what did you least enjoy?”  She answered with a frown, “The cigarette smoke in the girls’ restroom.” I will not hold up this single infraction as a symbol for all other educational ills. There are far more serious things than cigarette smoke in restrooms such as curriculum, discipline, student achievement, and the role of parents in their children’s’ education. However, little things unattended to can pile up and become big things.

As a matter of choice, my four children chose something other than public education for their children. Jeff’s wife Anna stated the following: “We wanted a school that presented a Biblical world view.” Notice she only said “presented,” not fostered. “For instance,” she continued, “I was taught in school that the earth evolved over billions of years and we wanted Saige to know there were other beliefs about origins.”  Anna also dispelled the argument that private school students don’t get a broad exposure to people different from themselves: “Saige’s school has a special program that reaches out to children of incarcerated parents and she attends school with them.” Our daughter Christy stated, “We wanted our children to have smaller classes, less influence from peers, and more welcomed parent involvement.”

Ah, “less influence from peers.” I observed long ago that the chief influence on teens in public schools is other teens. Teen culture, birthed by the American high school, has rendered adolescence dangerous. This cannot be blamed on teachers. Fault lies primarily at the feet of parents. It takes a strong family for teenagers to withstand the peer pressure of hundreds of other teens who surround them daily.

Schools can be blamed for certain things, however. If your local school board has been protecting your children from indoctrination on race and sexuality politics, be glad, because quite a few school systems throughout the nation are not so careful. Don’t take my word that public schools across the nation are indoctrinating students with Critical Race Theory, LGBT values, “preferential pronouns,” and transgenderism. Read the newspaper.

The momentum for school choice is undeniable. Covid has increased it. So has gender ideology that runs amok. For a century and a half public education has been the glue that held us together or, better put, it has been the pillar of American civilization. However, nationwide that pillar has been slowly crumbling. Cobb County’s good schools are not representative of the nation’s schools. Overall, public education has become uncontrollable. The countless influencers parents know nothing about – professional organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development – are only a few of  the powerful groups pushing progressive education.

What happened to my kids? They studied the matter, drew a conclusion about education’s future and decided “not with my children.” And I couldn’t be more proud of them.

 

Roger Hines

March 22, 2022