The Land of Ozz

Riley is a 7 1/2 years old and has been taking piano lessons for just over a year.  MrsOzz made piano practice part of Riley’s 1st grade home school curriculum.  Riley’s hard work and developing his gift has paid off.  I am one proud daddy.

I got my most recent edition of Dad’s and Mom’s Corner today and found that the Maxwells have added Charleston as a stop on their Southeastern tour this winter.  MrsOzz’s bestest friend, better known in our house as Aunt Addie is th primary contact if you want to come get some encouragement from the Steve and Teri Maxwell from over at Titus2.com on the subject of Homeschooling.

You can see the Maxwell’s full schedule at Titus2.com.  Aunt Addie said I was the first to RSVP for this event.

The word socializism (some spell it socialisism) is not found in dictionaries or even on Wikipedia. Simply put, it is the value system that results from being socialized. Americans parents will eventually reap what they sow. The 2008 Presidential election win for Barack Obama will likely be credited to the young Americans in this country. Parents who have sent their children into the government run schools and universities without a second thought about what their children were being taught should not be surprised with the values that are appealing to the young voters of this country these days. I went through a spell of detox after I left public education as did my wife. Had this election been held ten years ago my wife and I would have likely voted for Barack Obama based on the beliefs that had been given to us oh so subtly through our country’s public education system. It took a maturing process and a realization that I did not want the government deciding what if any moral character training would be given to my own children. I believe that parents make the best choices for their own children. A liberal democratic run government has proven that they think they know better than parents what is best for children. I will remind you of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in 2006.

“…parents of public school children are not possessed of a constitutional right, either under the
Substantive Due Process Clause or the related right to privacy, to restrict the public schools from providing information on the subject of sex.”

These are the types of decisions you can expect from judges appointed by liberal democrats.

A majority of the children in this country are growing up in a system that teaches them that the system knows what is best for them.  Joel Belz wrote in the November 1/8, 2008 issue of World Magazine in an article titled Children of the state and said:

” Socialized medicine? Most of us recoil at the idea. Socialized airlines? Reminds us of Aeroflot. Socialized banks? When it happened last month, it terrified us.

But socialized schools? Nine out of ten of us patronize them regularly…

…With a nine-to-one edge in value shaping influence, why shouldn’t the government be producing products who think government-sponsored-everything is best?”

We see Barack Obama chosen as the next president of the United States even though he is likely to fight to have the government decide for Americans:

• When a person dies (abortion and euthanasia)
• How much can be earned and still be fair (wealth redistribution)
• Where children go to school (limited choices in private or home school)
• What children learn (including things like sex ed at very young ages and evolution only science)
• What talk show hosts are allowed to say (fairness doctrine)
• Who provides you medical care (nationalized health care)

Let us hope and pray that Barack Obama does as he says and not as he has done in the past. He has made some fairly appealing promises about uniting the country during his presidential campaign. However his voting record leading up to his presidential bid does not line up with what has been coming out of his mouth.

“Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal’s 27th annual vote ratings.”

That is a quote from the National Journal annual assessment of how politicians vote during their terms of office in Washington.

The liberal Democrats tend to lean towards a philosophy of allowing the government and public school systems to prepare children to make wise choices on issues like the ones mentioned above.  I disagree.  I believe that parents do a better job of preparing thier children to make wise choices on these subjects.  What do you think?

A story released today by The Time and Democrat shows that the SC State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex (D) is baking the public school SAT scores and using private and home school success as the yeast in his recipe.  The story titled Honest is foundation of improvement by Randy Page states that Jim Rex fails to mention that the reported two point improvement in 2008 SC SAT scores over 2007 is based on private and independent scores shoring up the average.  The public school scores in SC actually dropped by three points when you look at public schools only.   Here is how the score stacked up in SC for 2008:

2008 SAT scores in South Carolina

Type School       AVG Score*

Public School          980

Private School       1043

Home School         1088

*These scores do not include the new writing section of the SAT.

One observation I took away from this article is that SC is already spending over $11k per student which is more money per student than any of its neighbor states, yet SC is trailing in results. The home schooler are barely mentioned in this article, but at least they shine as the class act with the highest SAT scores mentioned in the article.  I have more to say on education as a whole as it relates to the upcoming election, but I will save that for a separate post on another day.

The President and CEO of Nelson Publishers Michael Hyatt has posted some observations on the lack of modesty in the world today.  Mrs Ozz and I took Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo’s Reflections of Moral Innocence class a few years ago that helped us gain a perspective on how to lead our children down a pure path.  And yes we have all boys and they need to be taught about modesty too.  Now we teach the Reflections of Moral Innocence classes in our home as a follow on to Growing Kids God’s Way so we can help educate other parents on modesty and sex education.

What are the benefits of teaching parents about modesty and sex education?

• No one can do the job better than properly trained parents, for they are the only ones who have the right to determine what value system is placed into the hearts of their children.
• By training parents it puts the responsibility for this education back where it belongs.
• It reduces moral intrusion into the family structure since the value system of the family is not violated by a secular interest.
• It avoids forcing the institutional morality on family and child such as is represented in various public pro-homosexual curriculums.
• It can be done under the best conditions since parents pick the time and place for its implementation, rather than resorting to a group classroom setting.
• It is more cost effective. As pointed out by Josh McDowell in The Myth of Sex Education, the more money spent per capita on sex education of children the higher the percentage of sexual activity. Expensive public programs are not effective.

Thanks to Shawn Wood for leading me to this post by M. Hyatt.

The following video is of our visit with Aunt Robin and Uncle Mac on our way to see Grandma and Grandpa over the Memorial Day weekend. Riley and Caden both got to drive Mac’s truck through the pasture.

The beginning of the video is basically a slide show of still pictures. The last part of the video is of Riley and Caden driving the truck.

Having trouble viewing YouTube videos at work? You can download a copy of the video here (6mb file).

It seems that homeschoolers are outperforming public school kids on the ACT college entrance exam. I heard some of these statistics at a homescchool conference here in Charleston a few months ago while talking to an HSLDA representative, but I did not realize that the homeschoolers had been out performing the public school kids for as long as the home schoolers have been being tracked. You can read the full story on WorldNet Daily.  You can also read about why we plan to homeschool.

“Top teacher arrested for criminal sexual conduct”

Top teacher means that this same teacher was selected as “Teacher of the Year” for 2007 by her peers at Westview Middle School in Goose Creek, SC. The teacher’s name is Kanesa Hopkins. Ms. Hopkins is charged with sexual misconduct that allegedly occurred back in 2003 and 2004 with a girl from her Sunday school class.

The headline article on the front page of The Goose Creek Gazette adds support for local residents to consider alternatives to public school. This article hits the front page of the local paper on the same day that I write the following comment on a recent blog post on reasons to homeschool.

“…even those claiming to be Christian, may not be as aligned with your family values as you might think. Teachers are not given a morality and character test before being allowed to enter the classroom. And in most cases you do not get to choose your child’s teacher. So for 6-7 hours per day for 180 days out of a year, you get that one teacher’s moral and ethical values transferred into your child’s heart and soul no matter how much you agree or disagree with that teacher.”

When writing this comment I was focusing on my upcoming article on “worldview”. I had not even considered extreme issues like the ones being dealt with in this case against teacher Kanesa Hopkins.

Westview Middle School is were my children would have to attend based on our address.

This is a valid question no matter how determined you are to homeschool your children. I am told that homeschooling is not easy. Since we have not technically begun homeschooling, I am only speaking from the limited experience of homeschooling a four and a half year old preschooler. We have received our share of questions from friends and family. They want to know why we are homeschooling. The answer to this question is more valuable to us than it is for our family and friends. The list of reasons why we have made this choice will server us best as encouragement when reviewed on the tough days that will come in the future. Below are a few my answers to the question.

1. Best opportunity for moral training based on family values
2. Best student to teacher ratio
3. More opportunities to build family relationships
4. Dynamic learning environment