July 5, 2016 7:27 AM

Is our children learning? Not if they're home-schooled in Texas.

The all-Republican Texas Supreme Court made a 6-3 ruling on technical grounds in favor of Laura and Michael McIntyre who have stopped teaching their homeschooled children because Jesus is coming back soon, so what’s the point, the AP reports. The case was sparked by a nosy uncle who narced on the kids to the school district for not doing “much of anything educational” and said he heard one brag to a cousin that “they did not need to do schoolwork because they were going to be raptured.”

I’ve never been a fan of home-schooling. In too many cases, it’s about parents wanting to a) insulate their children from the outside world, b) indoctrinate them in a specific religious tradition to the exclusion of any and all other ideas, or c) both. We require public school teachers to be trained and credentialed, and yet any parent who uses the term “home schooling” can call themselves a “teacher.” Yes, that’s every bit as messed up as it sounds.

Home schooling is a great way to insulate children from the outside world…the same environment they’ll be thrust into largely unaware when they turn 18. Since much home schooling is as much about religious indoctrination as it is education, there’s no convincing argument to be made that a home school education is superior- or even equivalent- to that provided by trained, professional educators. Yet most states cave to home schoolers, primarily because they don’t want to be accused of “religious discrimination.”

Some states are more diligent that others in monitoring home-schooling situations and ensuring that the education being providing meets minimum standards. And then there’s Texas, which

doesn’t require their kids to be registered, take standardized tests or prove that they’ve been taught anything. They could have been learning that Cabbage Patch dolls are possessed by Satan and semen causes cancer.

‘Course, if they’re just going to be Raptured and spent eternity playing flag football with Jesus, why would children need to learn ANYTHING? And who does the State of Texas think they are, asking parents to account for the edumication they’re allegedly providing their offspring?

It’s Texas; of course no one in a position of power and/or authority wants to do anything to piss off the uber-Jesus-y, hyper-religious Social Conservatives who control the Texas Republican Party and therefore the State of Texas. Those who claim the imprimatur of the Almighty have historically been given free reign by the State to do everything short of sacrifice their children to prove their fealty to God.

When the school district’s attendance officer asked the McIntyres to prove they were “properly educating” their kids, the McIntyres sued the “anti-Christian” school district for violating their 14th Amendment rights. They lost their appeal, and the case went to the Texas Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided that the McIntyres’ 14th Amendment rights weren’t violated but ruled in their favor on a technicality anyway. It bounced the case back to the El Paso Court of Appeals, which could now bounce it back to the trial court. The case has been dragging on for a long time up to Friday’s ruling—almost all of the McIntyres are actually grown—and yet, no judge in Texas wants to issue any constitutional statements on the ongoing “religious liberties” vs. “educational requirements” showdown.

Public edumication, so far as it goes in Texas, has never been about preparing children for the future. It’s almost always been about indoctrinating children in an effort to create a never-ending majority of good, God-fearing, obedient Conservative heterosexual Christians who’ll vote Republican as if their very lives depended on it.

Home-schooling in Texas is about as close to guaranteeing that your children will have no future as is possible.

As for the kids, at least one had a backup plan in case Jesus is late. In 2006, the McIntyres’ oldest daughter, then 17, ran away so she can go back to school.

Sometimes, even kids are smart enough to wake up and smell the cat litter. It seems the McIntyres’ oldest daughter decided she wanted a future with a potential of something more rewarding and remunerative than waiting on tables at a truck stop in Pflugerville.

When kids start running away from home just so they can get an actual education, you’d think it would be time for the State of Texas to jump in and do right by children. Then again, this is Texas we’re talking about- where children are considered property and edumication is for losers, Liberals, and godless atheists who can’t handle Jesus. After all, expecting accountability for home-schooling parents is the very definition of anti-Christian oppression, knowhutimean??

Any REAL Christian knows they’re not going to need an edumication…’cuz they’re just gonna be Raptured to Heaven, where never is heard a discouraging word and the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl every day.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on July 5, 2016 7:27 AM.

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