Hello, , from NHERI.

Consider the following three items:

 

Award-winning gains by Atlanta students were based on widespread cheating by 178 named [government] teachers and principals, said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday. His office released a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that names 178 teachers and principals - 82 of whom confessed - in what's likely the biggest cheating scandal in US history. [note 2]

 

"What I did was wrong, but I don't feel guilty about it," said a veteran Philadelphia English [public/government school] teacher who shared her story with the Notebook/NewsWorks. .....But she was adamant that she did not care about boosting test scores. Instead, she described her cheating as an act of self-styled subversion, motivated by loyalty to her students. [note 3]

One might think the first item above was written in response to the second and third items - written in the year 2011 - but it was not since the first item was written over three-quarters of a century earlier, in 1925, by J. Gresham Machen.

If State-school teachers are acting out on their beliefs that the end justifies the means, then they are transmitting the worldview of utilitarianism to students. If they are teaching them that a pre-born child is part of a woman's body and she has a right to destroy the pre-born child they are teaching children and youth that the majority public or State's opinion (in the form of law or judges' decisions) holds a higher ethical position than does the law of God, and are therefore transmitting Secular Humanism to their students.

The teacher ... presents the Children's Morality Cod as a reliable statement of the conduct which is considered right among boys and girls who are loyal to Uncle Sam, and which is justified by the experience of multitudes of worthy citizens who have been Uncle Sam's boys and girls since the foundation of the nation. [note 4]

Problematically, however, from year to year and decade to decade, "American values" change, even if one could know with certainty the essence of those values. Whatever they are, one can be sure that they are not based on biblical scripturalism and they are being transmitted to children and youth in government-run schools. Further, if parents daily send their children away from home to be taught, trained, and indoctrinated into utilitarianism, Humanism, or any other worldview, then they are guilty of endorsing that weltanschauung over scripturalism.

One of the top key reasons parents give for engaging their children in home-based education is to teach them a particular set of values and beliefs, a worldview. If these parents say that their worldview is scripturalism but cheat at something (however "small" it may appear) or encourage their children to cheat, then they are teaching them the same worldview that many government/public school teachers are passing along to their students. One would hope that homeschool parents, whether scripturalists or not, hold worldviews vastly different from ever-shifting sands on which utilitarianism and Humanism stand.

A code [of morality] which is the mere result of human experimentation is not morality at all (despite the lowly etymological origin of our English word), but it is the negation of morality. And certainly it will not work. [note 5]

It would be difficult to effectively argue against the concept that the "morality" taught in State schools is "the mere result of human experimentation"? Further, from a biblical perspective, consider what Machen had to say:

 

An authority [such as the morality taught in government schools] which is man-made can never secure the reverence of man; society can endure only if it is founded upon the rock of God's commands. [note 6]

The scandals involving cheating by State/government school teachers in the United States that have emerged over the past several weeks are likely one more explanation for why more of the general public is considering the option and value of parent-led home-based education.

P.S. Please feel free to send us your questions about homeschooling and we will try to answer them in upcoming messages.

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Notes:

1. Machen, J. Gresham. (1987, 1995, 2004). Education, Christianity, and the state. Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation. This quote is from an article or speech given by Machen in 1925; see page 60 of the book.

2. Jonsson, Patrik. (2011, July 5). America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta. Christian Science Monitor, retrieved August 5, 2011 from http://news.yahoo.com/americas-biggest-teacher-principal-cheating-scandal-unfolds-atlanta-213734183.html.

3. Herold, Benjamin. (2011, July 28). Confession of a cheating teacher. Retrieved August 5, 2011 from http://www.thenotebook.org/blog/113913/confession-cheating-teacher.

4. Machen (see above), page 61.

5. Machen (see above), page 62.

6. Machen (see above), page 63.