Benson: “When You Reach For The Money The Handcuffs Go On!”

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The state of Utah has a new homeschool voucher law which is supposed to help homeschool families with educational expenses. At least that’s what we’ve been told. The ink was hardly dry on the legislation before some were concerned that it could be used by some homeschool groups to possibly promote neo-nazi and white supremacy propaganda. It seems such happened someplace in Ohio and some Utah parents were concerned that could happen in Utah. And I expect this concern was genuine on the part of some parents.

I suppose this concern will eventually lead to some do-gooder proposing that Utah enact some legislation that will act as guidelines forced on those who take any state money–and forced on all homeschoolers if they feel they can get away with that! Continue reading →

Benson: Parents Majoring In The Minors

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Depressed boy sitting on floor & holding his head. Frustrated with exam pressure.

Articles about the horrible quality (on purpose) of what passes for education in public schools have become so prevalent that people now tend to take this inferior education for granted and so are tempted to just ignore it.

We recently were informed that some schools are now ending their honors programs so they can promote “equity” (racism). It seems that lots of the white kids do well in the honors programs so that now must cease and we must begin to enforce a stultifying conformity, a “one size fits all” program they have mislabeled as “equity,” The concept of “equity” has trumped any idea of real education–but, then, real education has not existed in public schools for generations anyway. Continue reading →

3 years since the pandemic wrecked attendance, kids still aren’t showing up to school

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GOOD – maybe they have made the decision to Homeschool!

A Louisville, Ky., classroom sits empty in January 2022, during a COVID surge driven by the omicron variant. Students lost the routine of going to school during the pandemic, and now many are struggling to get back in the habit. ~ Jon Cherry/Getty Images

When this school year began, Issac Moreno just couldn’t get himself to go. During the pandemic, he’d gotten used to learning from his family’s home in Los Angeles. Then, last fall, he started junior high, five days a week, in person.

“It was a lot,” he says. Continue reading →

Seven Events That Enraged Colonists and Led to the American Revolution

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Colonists didn’t just take up arms against the British out of the blue. A series of events escalated tensions that culminated in America’s war for independence.

The Battle of Bennington

The American colonists’ breakup with the British Empire in 1776 wasn’t a sudden, impetuous act. Instead, the banding together of the 13 colonies to fight and win a war of independence against the Crown was the culmination of a series of events, which had begun more than a decade earlier. Escalations began shortly after the end of the French and Indian War – known elsewhere as the Seven Years War in 1763. Here are a few of the pivotal moments that led to the American Revolution. Continue reading →

Book of Revelation Has Terminology Similar to Ancient Curse Tablets

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Researchers from the Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz (jgu), have found that the book of Revelation has some descriptions and phrases similar to ancient curse tablets.

Curse tablet cursing Priscilla from Groß-Gerau: The lead tablet consists of three fragments and is inscribed on both sides with a prayer for revenge in Latin. It probably dates from around 100 AD – Image Credit : René Müller/LEIZA

The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament, spanning three literary genres: the epistolary, the apocalyptic, and the prophetic. The book is traditionally believed to have been written sometime during the 1st century AD, although the precise identity of the author (who names himself simply as “John”) has long been a point of academic debate.

During antiquity, curse tablets were very common in the Greco-Roman world, where they would be used to ask the gods, spirits, or the deceased to perform an action on a person or object, or otherwise compel the subject of the curse. Continue reading →

The Classics Are for Everyone, Not Just Old, Dead, White Men

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Yes, yes, and YES!

That was what I shouted, in the silence of my heart, when I finished Louis Markos’ online review “How Classical Education Can Liberate Black America.”

Earlier that same week, I’d read yet another account of an attack on the classics of Western civilization, the Great Books as they were once called, as racist and misogynistic. Though I can’t recollect where I saw this piece, I was once again knocked for a loop, wondering if those who were panning Aristotle and Pascal had ever read any of the writers in this canon… Continue reading →

The Bamboozling Bogus Baron of Arizona

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An aspiring fraud put in years of hard work to become a nobleman — and still failed.

When it comes to big frauds, many names may come to mind: Charles Ponzi’s measly take of $10 million, Bernie Madoff and his $65 billion pyramid scheme, or Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay’s $74 billion accounting scam at Enron.

One other name should be included in this company: James Addison Reavis. No other fraudster worked as hard as Reavis. And none of them could match the size of his deception. Continue reading →

What Can Parents Do When School Isn’t Working for Their Child?

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Now is often the time of year when parents begin looking into other learning options and schooling alternatives for their kids. The new school year has been in session for several weeks and some parents may be finding that bubbling issues may have reached a boiling point.

Perhaps their child isn’t a good match with his or her assigned teacher. Perhaps parent-child battles over homework have emerged. Perhaps parents see certain elements of their child’s curriculum that they dislike, or hear about various classroom practices that they find unsettling. Perhaps their child is bored or withdrawn, frustrated or irritable, anxious or depressed. Perhaps the bullying has started or worsened. Continue reading →

Stansell: Might Our Storm Clouds Be Parting? A Child Shall Lead…

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Last week, students at small Christian college in Kentucky gathered for their regular Wednesday chapel service. Ten days later, it has not ended. People from around the country and the world continue to join in. No matter your religion or lack thereof, THIS is an exceptional happening. More exceptional even, is that this spirit has spread to other colleges and universities. Continue reading →

Parents: Take Charge of YOUR Children’s Education

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Are America’s public schools falling apart?

The evidence certainly points in that direction…

In 2022, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” found historic declines in reading and math scores among American students. Scores by grade level and subject fell dramatically in all categories. Continue reading →

Screen Time and the Battle for Your Child’s Mind

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There is no substitute for consistent interaction between a little one and his or her mom and dad. The two greatest gifts parents can give their kids are the knowledge of Jesus Christ and their time.

Any tool can be misused. A hammer can construct or kill. An electrical wire can give instant light or, if mishandled, bring sudden death.

So it is with computers and televisions. They are valuable and helpful but also potentially dangerous. So, when children use “screens,” parents need to be extra vigilant. One reason is the predatory nature of some of the internet’s more evil components, like pornography or horribly violent images, and the rot that’s on both network and cable TV. Continue reading →

Sjursen: The Decade That Roared, and Wept

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…and nearly one-hundred years later – we have yet to learn from these harsh lessons of our past! ~ Editor

A new look for a new day: Models show off the “flapper” dress style in this circa-1925 photo.

The Jazz Age. The Roaring ’20s. The Flapper Generation. The Harlem Renaissance. These are the terms most often used to describe America’s supposedly booming culture and economy during the 1920s. No doubt there is some truth in the depiction. Real wages did rise in this period, and the styles and independence of certain women and African-Americans did blossom in the 1920s – at least in urban centers. Still, the prevailing visions and assumptions of this era mask layers of reaction, racism and retrenchment just below the social surface. For if the 1920s was a time of jazz music, stylishly dressed “flappers” and lavishly wealthy Wall Street tycoons, it was also one infused with Protestant fundamentalism, fierce nativism, lynching and the rise of the “new” Ku Klux Klan. How, then, should historians and the lay public frame this time of contradictions? Perhaps as an age of culture wars – vicious battles for the soul of America waged between black and white, man and woman, believer and secularist, urbanites and rural folks. Continue reading →

Benson: The Theology Of “Woke”

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According to a lady interviewed on Fox News recently, many parents are beginning to get fed up with “woke” indoctrination being perpetrated on their children. One place this occurs is in public schools across the country. One way to combat this satanic (and it is satanic) indoctrination is to get your kids out of public schools. While you may not get rid of all of it that way, as you will get some of it on television and in the movies, you will get rid of a large portion of it by getting the kids out of public school. Continue reading →

Parents are 100 Percent Qualified to Homeschool Their Children

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Get your children OUT of the System – NOW

For seven years, I slogged through the public school system before my parents made the decision to homeschool. At the time, I couldn’t understand why they were so concerned about making the switch.

Frankly, I wasn’t learning anything in public school, so from my perspective, it couldn’t get any worse. Only later, when I asked my parents about their thought process, did I learn how much propaganda there is against homeschooling.

The core of this propaganda is the idea that parents are unqualified to teach their kids. After all, public school teachers are required to have a degree and license. Continue reading →

Goodhart’s Law Explains Education Decay

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Everywhere in education, you see incentives at work. The incentives, though, are so far removed from the actual goals of education that they produce perverse results.

Goodhart’s Law is usually stated, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Economics textbooks often use the allegory of a maker of nails, who receives word that his measure of success at producing nails will be based on the number of nails made. He retools his factory, adjusts his resource use, and produces as many nails as possible, even though many are too thin, or small, or bent to use. When his higher-ups decide to measure productivity on the weight of nails, instead, he makes only a few very large nails, too heavy to be used. Once your incentives are aligned in service of a particular metric, in other words, that metric isn’t an objective measure anymore. Continue reading →