Materials

Most of these books should be available through usedbooksearch.net

Brave New Schools: Guiding Your Child Through the Dangers of the Changing School System

"Parents have every reason to ask serious questions about the state of their children's education.  Instead of academics, schools today are aiming squarely at another goal - preparing children to become part of a global community ... and a global spirituality. With concrete examples from public [state] school material, [the author] demonstrates how myths, feelings, and imagination have replaced facts, logic, and history in out classrooms. This book will equip you to: (a) recognize dangerous teaching methods and content; (b) understand the national computer monitoring system; (c) help your child resist the seductive myths and misinformation; (d) communicate your valid concerns to teachers and administrators; (e) discover the inner workings of the new educational system.  You can make a positive difference in your children's education. This book will show you how"  [http://www.crossroad.to/text/1-books.htm]

The Underground History of American Education

"The shocking possibility that dumb people don't exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn't real."  This book "will take you on a journey into the background, philosophy, psychology, politics, and purposes of compulsion schooling."

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

"Twenty years of award-winning teaching in New York City's public [state] schools led [this author] to the sad conclusion that compulsory government schooling has nothing to do with education, doing little but teach young people to conform to the economy and the social order. [This book] reveals the shocking reality of today's school system and has become a beacon for parents seeking alternatives to it. ... the book continues to be highly relevant in setting the agenda for a complete overhaul of how we educate our children - and for what."

Censorship: Evidence of Bias in Our Children's Textbooks

"In 1983 [this author] systematically examined ninety widely used elementary social studies texts, high school history texts, and elementary readers to answer the questions: Are public [state] school textbooks biased? Are they censored? ... [This book] lays out the facts for anyone concerned about the future of the next generation. More than that, it serves as a handbook for parents, educators, and others who want to do something about it."

Why Johnny STILL Can't Read

"For fifty years the vast majority of American schoolchildren have been taught to read by the look-and-say method rather than by traditional phonics. Because of it, says [this author], the majority of today's American adults are handicapped readers. ... His wide-ranging research shows how educators have conducted a continuing defense of this teaching method despite hundreds of scientific studies proving its ineffectiveness. ... this book is must reading for parents, educators, administrators, and public officials."

How to Tutor: How to Teach Phonics, Arithmetic and Handwriting

"The failures of the public [state] school system are all around us: functional illiteracy, no discipline, hatred of study. [The author] witnessed these failures first-hand as a public [state] school teacher. .. [In this book] he shows how parents - teachers - can prevent educational disaster before it happens to their own children. ... [The author] provides parents and teachers with a complete instructional program: step-by-step lesson plans in the three Rs."

Step by Step Reading: A 50 Step Guide to Teach Reading With Synthetic Phonics

"My son Tim has Down's syndrome. He was my first pupil and he taught me how to teach reading. I was told his IQ was 65, and he didn't learn to read at school. So I started teaching him myself, untrained, using simple phonics. His progress never halted. ... His life now would be very different if he could not read. Intensive, systematic phonics saved him from a life of illiteracy. This book will show you how. ... This book uses synthetic phonics to teach reading. It will enable you to teach your child, an adult or even a class of children or adults to read. You do not need training, just common sense and the will to teach (not to help, encourage or facilitate, but specifically to teach) reading using phonics..."

Sex Education or Indoctrination? How Ideology Has Triumphed Over Facts

"During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a network of government-funded pressure groups began to pursue an agenda covering eugenics, population control, sexual and family law reform, sex and health education, and children's rights. ... The most insidious 'reform' has been the elimination of parents from decisions that vitally affect their children's lives. ... [This] can only be understood in terms of the ideology embraced by those who wish to subvert the family by replacing parental influence with the authority of the state"  [famyouth.org.uk]

Preparing Children for School and Life

"No teacher can teach on any subject without at times giving a viewpoint on moral and spiritual matters. Every person knows what he thinks is right and wrong and has a basis for thinking so. Also, every person has the desire, more or less, to defend that position. ... [Teachers] cannot help but influence the thinking of children. ... Whether [they] do it consciously or unconsciously [they do] it."

All Must Have Prizes

This book "charts the flight from literacy and knowledge that has taken place in Britain's education system from its nursery schools to universities. [The author] explains how the relationships between teachers and pupils, parents and children have been undermined. For many people, teaching a body of rules - in maths, grammar or family relationships - has become taboo. Systematic teaching has given way to subjectivity, approximation and guesswork. The result has been a rising tide of illiteracy and ignorance, a battered teaching profession and parents under siege."

Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong and What We Can Do About It

This "hard-hitting and controversial book, ... will not only open eyes but change minds.  [The West] today suffers from unprecedented rates of teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, suicide, and violence.  Most of the progams intended to deal with these problems have failed because, according to [the author], schools and parents have abandoned the moral teaching they once provided. In [this book, the author] shows how we can correct this problem by providing our youngsters with the stories, models, and inspiration they need in order to lead good lives... '...an incisive expose of values clarification, critical-thinking curricula, and morality-neutered sex and drug education'..."

Credentialed to Destroy: How and Why Education Became a Weapon

"If Education is a means to an End, what is the Real Vision for Transformation? (1) How the reading and math wars were never about how to teach, (2) How the new Common Core is actually not about content, (3) Why the logical, rational mind is the real target of education reforms, (4) Why higher education had to be changed to push equity in credentials as the goal, (5) What's wrong with a 21st Century Skills focus, (6) Why the classroom objective keeps coming back to the student's values, attitudes, and beliefs.  This book provides repeated proof of how education was seen by the Soviets as their favourite weapon against the West during the Cold War, and details the extensive evidence from the 80s that education became an invisible and purposeful means of restructuring the West, away from individualism and capitalism towards a more collectivist orientation in the future..."

Websites

Kjos Ministries - General Articles  |  EdWatch Index  |  Education Quotes

"We hope to provide vital facts ... that will help you prepare for a global society that shows little tolerance for the Christian world view. You will find resources that demonstrate and document: The cultural shift from a Christian to a global paradigm; The classroom shift from truth, fact and logic to myth, feeling, and imagination; The growing acceptance of an earth-centered spirituality and code of ethics ... ; How movies, television and schools promote this global spirituality; Why the "group thinking" or "consensus process" taught in schools and workplaces around the world turn young and old against absolute truth..."

Freedom of Education

"a portal to articles, commentary, and online resources pertaining to learning, educational and intellectual liberty, youth rights, and the separation of school and state."

The Cato Institute - Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace: Center for Educational Freedom

"Cato's Center for Educational Freedom was founded on the principle that parents are best suited to make important decisions regarding the care and education of their children. The Center's scholars seek to shift the terms of public debate in favor of the fundamental right of parents and toward a future when state-run schools give way to a dynamic, independent system of schools competing to meet the needs of American children."

The Campaign for Real Education

"The Campaign for Real Education was formed in 1987 to press for higher standards and more parental choice in state education. It is not affiliated to any political party and is funded entirely by voluntary donations. Formed in 1987 by 14 parents and teachers, all of whom were concerned about falling standards and damaging changes in state education which were being forced through without any evidence to support them. Since then, the Campaign has been contacted by thousands of parents, teachers and academics with similar concerns. We now have a nationwide network of supporters and important links with like-minded people in other countries."

No Greater Joy

"No Greater Joy is the ministry of Michael & Debi Pearl under the auspices of No Greater Joy Ministries Inc. Michael has been a pastor, missionary, and evangelist for 40 years. The Pearls have 5 children, all homeschooled. They have grown up to become missionaries and church leaders. Though holding a BS from Crichton College, when Michael is asked for his credentials on child training he points to his five children. As goes the child so goes the future adult—and the future parent. At every moment, parents holding little children are holding the future. Parenting, the most important and demanding job in the world comes on us by default. Ready or not, prepared or ill equipped, all parents produce fruit that lasts throughout eternity..."

No Greater Joy - Homeschooling Articles

"This is a general section with articles that pertain to homeschooling or home based education of just about any type."

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine - Articles

"Here you'll find a treasure trove of articles hand-picked from past issues of The Old Schoolhouse magazine."

Education Conversation

"One of the most important decisions you'll ever make is who will educate your children. Education is not just learning to read but learning what to think about what you read and how to choose worthwhile reading material. It's about learning to discern truth and falsehood in what you read. Education is not just learning the facts of science but learning why they matter and how to apply them ethically. Education is not just learning dates and events from history but learning to apply the lessons of lives well lived and lives poorly lived - and how to tell the difference. Who will teach your children the meaning behind the facts?..."

Katharine Birbalsingh

"Katharine Birbalsingh is the teacher who exposed the failings of the comprehensive school system at the Conservative Party conference this year. Her speech can be seen here. She is now looking for a job. Katharine has been teaching in inner London for over a decade and loves children. This is a resurrection of her popular blog, To Miss with Love,..."

Scenes From the Battleground

This blog "is intended to be an honest description of what is going on in secondary education in this country. The title of this blog indicates that I genuinely believe that education has become a battleground, or more accurately several different battlegrounds. Students who don’t want to study, managers who don’t want to manage, and even teachers who don’t want to teach are all too common obstructions for anyone that actually believes children should be learning in our schools. These everyday obstacles are combined with an entire education system that at every level doesn’t seem designed for education. For that reason it is often a fight to get to the point where the kind of teaching and learning, which would have been taken for granted less than a generation ago, can even take place. This blog will detail both my personal experience of fighting the battle to teach and also my take on the system that has turned our schools into battlegrounds..."

EdWatch: Education For A FREE Nation

"EdWatch.org is full of informative articles, links to radio interviews, links to newspaper articles, and links to other resource materials..."

Campus Watch

"Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum, reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them. The project mainly addresses five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students. Campus Watch fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds."

Death From Ritalin: The Truth Behind ADHD

"Parents have concerns about being pressured to diagnose, treat and drug their child for ADHD, attention deficit. The true story about our Sons death caused from Ritalin use. There are natural alternative treatments besides Ritalin..."

Is There A Difference Between Public and Christian Education?   /   Discover Christian Schools

"Most educators, and far too many parents, have bought into the myth that education can be 'religion-neutral'. They're convinced that teachers can train the mind without shaping attitudes, behaviour or spiritual beliefs. The company line goes something like this: government schools will supply the raw data - the 'neutral' facts - and parents can add the value system at home. Here's the problem. Even in schools that try their level best to achieve academic objectivity - and there are precious few of them - the goal is never reached, because neutral education is impossible..."  

Home Service

48, Heaton Moor Road, Stockport, SK4 4NX, UK.  Tel: 0161 432 3782,  Website: www.home-service.org

"A growing number of families are educating their children at home in the UK, and many of them are Christians, motivated by a desire to bring up their children in 'the nurture and admonition of the Lord'.  Many others are considering such a move, but are uncertain as to its legality and practicality. ... Home Service is a help and advice organisation for Christians teaching their children at home..."

Preschool with Ace and Christi

Christian Education Europe, Maranatha House, Unit 5, Northford Close, Shrivenham, Swindon, SN6 8HL, UK.
Tel: 01793 783783 / 787927,  Fax: 01793 783775,  Email: cee@christian-education.org  Website: www.christian-education.org

"Every child needs proper preparation for a successful school experience. Preschool with Ace and Christi prepares children to learn to read and develop the physical skills they need for success..."

Family Resources

40, Leivers Close, East Leake, Loughborough, LE12 6PQ, UK.  Tel: 01509 854340

"God's definition of education (i.e. comprehensive education) is the task he has given to every father in Ephesians 6:4.  It involves the whole of a child's life in his parents' care.  This is far more than most of us envisage when talking about education. ... For us, home education came about because ... we became convinced that the Bible teaches that parents are responsible for the education their children receive..."

Action for Home Education

"Action for Home Education (AHEd), an internet-based rights group for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, launches today [6th January, 2007] in Derby with a pledge to act to protect the rights of parents and children who wish to enjoy home-based education without undue state interference, which they claim has reached an intolerable high and is set to worsen. ... According to New Labour mantra, every child matters, yet it blatantly attempts to prescribe the same diet of schooling to every child regardless of his or her individual needs and wishes. ... AHEd asserts that EACH CHILD MATTERS individually ... to parents and it is parents who have the duty to make important educational decisions. But AHEd members are deeply concerned that current proposals by government threaten to remove parental responsibility and substitute the state as arbiter of what is best for children..."

HSLDA - Home School Legal Defense Association

(USA / Canada / with links to HSLDA sites for 35 further countries)

"Home School Legal Defense Association is a nonprofit advocacy organization established to defend and advance the constitutional right of parents to direct the education of their children and to protect family freedoms. Through annual memberships, HSLDA is tens of thousands of families united in service together, providing a strong voice when and where needed.  HSLDA advocates (a) on the legal front, (b) on Capitol Hill, (c) in state legislatures, (d) in the media, (e) for the movement..."

HSLDA - Home School Legal Defense Association

(United Kingdom)

Details as above.

Education Otherwise

"School is not compulsory - education is.  So what is 'home education'?...  do you have to be a teacher?...  what about socialisation?...  do you have to take exams?...  What is it REALLY like?...  can I do it?..."

The Christian Schools' Trust

"The Christian Schools’ Trust is a group of independent Christian schools working together aiming towards putting God back in His rightful place in the centre of the process of education. There are around 50 member schools who vary greatly in their profiles and backgrounds but our common vision draws us together in strong friendships and partnership. Although each school is completely autonomous in its government we work together through CST in many ways to enhance the effectiveness of our education.   CST has three broad aims: 1) To lay foundations of Biblical Christian truth in the area of education, 2) To develop networks that support and strengthen Christian schools of quality, 3) To serve others by promoting Christian education across the UK as well as in other nations. You can find out more about What we do and where our Member Schools are..."

The Cedars School

"The Cedars School is a small independent school with a family atmosphere for pupils between 3 and 16 years of age.  It was opened in 1969 to provide Christ-centred Biblically based education in Rochester, Kent.  Our aim is to equip children with skills, knowledge, understanding and attitudes so that they have a rounded education and are able to take their place in the world as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Alliance for the Separation of School and State

"We believe parents, and not the state, should be in charge of their children's education. That control may take many forms and levels of involvement, but the state will never be part of the picture. If this seems like an impossible idea, consider that 8 million children already learn free of state control. We're not starting from scratch here. The snowball of educational independence is already rolling. If you’re a parent, we offer not only the chance to learn how the government came to control education, but also ideas, resources and encouragement to help you on your road to educational freedom, as well as true stories of others who have already chosen educational freedom.  Leaders, friends, relatives, concerned citizens and freedom lovers will also find lists of ideas, resources and links to help them as they encourage others to choose independence."

Exodus Mandate

"Exodus Mandate Project is a Christian ministry to encourage and assist Christian families to leave government schools for the Promised Land of Christian schools or home schooling. It is our hope that this fresh obedience in educating our children according to Biblical mandates will prove to be the key for revival in our families, churches and nations."

Home Education Network

"Our web site aims to be a one stop shop for home educators or anyone wishing to find out more about their legal right to home educate. ... [W]e hope you will find all the information you need to help you on your Home Educating journey."

Rescue Your Child

"The purpose of RescueYourChild.com is to inform parents of their God-given right to avoid sexual indoctrination and other problems in the public schools by homeschooling or enrolling their children in church schools or private schools. Our years of researching legislation and representing parental rights have brought us to the conclusion that public schools are increasingly violating children's innocence.  RescueYourChild.com and SaveCalifornia.com are supportive of pro-family teachers and administrators in the government school system. But the chronically dysfunctional public school system and immoral laws forced on children, teachers and school districts are unacceptable. Therefore, we are urging parents to act now to rescue their sons and daughters from the perils of government schools."

Take Your Kids Out of Public School

"This website is a call, especially to Christians, to remove your children from the pagan institutions known as public, or government, schools. Evidence will be given to show how dangerous these institutions are spiritually, morally, and academically. If you don’t agree with everything you read here, I encourage you to do the research yourself and pray about it. If you do agree, I hope you will take action and begin home “schooling” or enroll your children in a bible-based private Christian school. ... We started homeschooling in 1994 and have never looked back or questioned that decision. It is a very freeing experience to be in charge of your children’s education and not under the rule of the school system. Someone once said that children were not meant to be raised in herds. God has entrusted each of our children to us to raise for His glory and His purposes. I pray that you will not turn them over to a system that has removed all references to our Creator..."

Sometimes Its Peaceful: Home Education in England: The Politics

"The System' takes my breath away with its blatant audacity sometimes: removing our children into full-time daycare at an ever earlier age, smearing elective home educators as potential child abusers just because we resist that process, ever-lengthening the school day and the number of years pupils must spend there - then campaigning for parental involvement in education! It's a joke, isn't it?"

The Old Schoolhouse: The Magazine for Homeschool Families

"This full-color, 200-page quarterly publication can be found across North America and on almost every other continent too! Each issue of TOS is distributed on newsstands throughout the United States and Canada, as well as in Borders and Barnes & Noble. Also, be on the look out because we’re coming to Christian bookstores soon. In addition, we support and encourage subscribers and homeschool groups the world over – copies of journey to South Africa, England, Germany, Australia, Brazil, Thailand, Japan, China, the Philippines, India and many other lands..."

Websites and Materials on Related Subjects

Preying: Protecting Children in a Christian Context

"It's no secret that there are many child molesters on the prowl today. Less well known is that these people represent a headache for Christians, because our fellowships are usually open to all and because we can be too trusting. ... This on-line book and accompanying website reveals the chilling growth in child sex attacks throughout [church] denominations. It also explains why this growth is taking place, and describes the simple, God-ordained ways in which churches can avoid this hazard and keep their children safe from even the most cunning, determined and experienced molesters and their devastating actions"

Sara Sue Learns To Yell & Tell  and  Samuel Learns To Yell & Tell

"A warning for children against sexual predators. Ninety percent of all child sexual predators are close friends to the family or family members themselves. The only way your child will ever know how to avoid being sexually exploited is that he/she has been carefully taught how to know ' the bad guy' and what to do when he says, 'Don't tell'. Yell & Tell books are written to save your child"

"Never, anywhere in the Holy Bible will you find God giving civil government any authority to rear or direct the rearing of children ...
God told parents, not the government, to 'train up' their children"
(Laura Rogers, Societal Structures vs. Restructuring,
as quoted in Berit Kjos, Brave New Schools, p185)

© Bayith Ministries     http://www.bayith.org     bayith@blueyonder.co.uk