Come On, Judges!

I grew up on Bill Cosby. Some of my earliest memories are sitting around the living room listening to his record, Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow. In recent years, he has become an advocate for common sense in child rearing. He has called on extended families, church communities, and neighborhoods to work together to reverse the trend of single-parent households. He has spoken out about the inordinately high percentage of African-American males who die young or are incarcerated. His book, co-authored with Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D., Come on People, has as its subtitle: On the Path from Victims to Victors.

I don't agree with all of the authors' presuppositions or conclusions, but much of what they cover amounts to good common sense with a significant amount of influence from their own Christian upbringing. They stress the importance of parents being thoroughly involved in their children's lives. They don't pull punches when they point out statistically and anecdotally how out of control the situation is in most communities and schools. They take great pains to establish the importance of the father in the lives of children and teens, and preach taking responsibility for babies conceived, babies in the womb, and children born.

Recently three California judges, in closed proceedings, decided that the 166,000 homeschoolers in California are acting outside the law. If these judges get their way, they will deposit these homeschooled children in an already overburdened, low-achieving, and financially floundering school system. This despite the fact that homeschooled children test considerably higher than their public-schooled counterparts. Homeschool parents absorb the cost of educating their children while their tax dollars go to support schools their children do not attend. Could the problem be that homeschooled children are achieving too well? That their teachers (most of whom don't hold a teaching credential) are turning out responsible citizens who are hard working and self-sufficient and not placing additional burdens on society? The evidence is in that public schools are not accomplishing with their charges what homeschooling moms and dads accomplish with their children. Come on, Judges!

For years, homeschool critics predicted that homeschooled students would not match up academically with their public-schooled counterparts. History has shown otherwise. These same critics and their cronies pointed out the "danger" of homeschooled children not being socialized through attendance in public schools. Yet in situation after situation they become the leaders and most cooperative co-workers whether in university settings or the job market. It seems to me that this is a contrived crisis that these judges are claiming to solve and their actions are more in line with acts of desperation. We are witnessing the death throes of a dying ideology--humanism.

I'd like to meet Bill Cosby someday. My guess is that he would have many good things to say about homeschooling parents (especially fathers) who invest in their children and take responsibility for their education and support. Christian homseschoolers have never taken the path of victimhood, for their victory was won at Calvary over 2000 years ago when Jesus's death and resurrection put into force God's plan for victory.