Homeschooling and the PCA

Recently, a PCA pastor wrote an article concerning the issue of homeschooling(You can view here http://www.pal-item.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=201010010314). What is so unusual about this is that a pastor from a usually calvinistic, conservative, evangelical
denomination is agruing for statism and government control. He strongly believes that the government should regulate homeschooling. Because government control destorys the family, this is not a good idea.

Tom Stein, the PCA pastor who wrote the article, argues that school administrators in the state of Indiana are cutting corners about their dropout rates by having failing students sign homeschool forms. Rather than blaming the officials, Stein puts blame on the homeschoolers. So the solution? Regulate homeschooling!

So, if government school is working so well becuase it is run by the government, why regulate homeschooling? Let us make one thing clear, the state should never be involved in education. Education belongs to the parents and the communities. Stein thinks seems to think that if failing students sign a form to homeschool, they will be unproductive and lazy people who will not make any contributions to soceity. According to a study called Progress Report 2009, the "results support the large existing body of research on homeschool academic achievement and show homeschoolers, on average, scoring 37 percentile points above public school students on standardized achievement tests."(http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/ray2009/default.asp)
You think that a "a curriculum of potato chips and ESPN" is really what homeschoolers do? Think again. If the public school system continues to be a disaster as it has been, then the homeschoolers are the ones that are going to make the differences in our society.

But, you may argue, are homeschoolers social whimps? According to the study Homeschooling Grows Up, alot os homeschoolers are shown to be active in society more than the average U.S. Adult. It states "Seventy-one percent participate in an ongoing community service activity (e.g.,coaching a sports team, volunteering at a school, or working with a church or neighborhood association), compared to 37% of U.S. adults of similar ages." and "homeschool graduates work for candidates, contribute to
campaigns, and vote in much higher percentages than the general population of the United States." (Read this for yourself, don't just take my word for it http://www.hslda.org/research/ray2003/homeschoolinggrowsup.pdf) As you can see, my prediction will that if America returns to its traditional values, it will be the homeschoolers that will be the determining factor. This year, a homeschool youth political activist group, Generation Joshua, is assembling a thousand man army to help get pro-life, pro-homeschooling, pro-traditional values condidates to get elected. This group has set up camps such as igovern to teach homeschooled students about how our government works. The leaders of this group(William Estrada, Joel Grewe, Jeremiah Lorrig, Michael Zeller) are the people with a passion and a vision for the next generation. So, if America comes back to the values it was founded upon, it will be decided upon by the homeschoolers of this country.

What really is the solution to Stein's problem of school admistrators having to classify drop-out students as homeschoolers? We should go after the administrators, not the homeschoolers! The problem is with the public school system! It is broken. I believe that federally run education should be abolished. The Department of Education must be abolished! No more government intrusion into every aspect of our lives!

In closing, the solution is not to have government control homeschooling. We need to solve the issues of what is going in the public school system. A Presbyterian pastors goes against Covenant theology and family government that most PCAers I know embrace.