Re: 2013 SBC Annual Meeting
Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:09 am
Tim, I join in your resentment of the characterization of public education as the godless failing ground of secular culture. My wife spent several years as the Title I Parent Involvement Coordinator for a school system, and some of the finest Christians I have known were working in that system. I have also served as co-chair of an 18-month planning process for a school system in one VA county involving the work of more than 100 community people. After moving here, I served on and later chaired the Gifted Education Task Force in the public schools. I also served one church that had 28 teachers in it. My wife now works in the community college system where students often struggle to make it.
Sandy, your school seems the exception in that students can actually fail. The private school systems that I have dealt with operate on the mentality that the parents pay for their kids to pass. There was a great outcry a few years ago over a student who did not get to graduate with his class. Parents were up in arms because they were paying $4,000 plus a year for their children to graduate. After that incident, the headmistress retired before the fall term started because she did not have parental support.
The greatest problem I see for public schools comes from the Republican effort in VA (and many other states) to gut public education in favor or a voucher system. There are good private schools in some areas, particularly urban ones, but much of the country has few good alternatives to the public schools. I believe it is a part of my Christian civic duty to support public education. I'm sorry the SBC has bought the Republican voucher program and is so anti public education.
Sandy, your school seems the exception in that students can actually fail. The private school systems that I have dealt with operate on the mentality that the parents pay for their kids to pass. There was a great outcry a few years ago over a student who did not get to graduate with his class. Parents were up in arms because they were paying $4,000 plus a year for their children to graduate. After that incident, the headmistress retired before the fall term started because she did not have parental support.
The greatest problem I see for public schools comes from the Republican effort in VA (and many other states) to gut public education in favor or a voucher system. There are good private schools in some areas, particularly urban ones, but much of the country has few good alternatives to the public schools. I believe it is a part of my Christian civic duty to support public education. I'm sorry the SBC has bought the Republican voucher program and is so anti public education.