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Higher Education and Liberal Indoctrination

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There is an interesting article about liberal views on college campuses seeking to address the question, “Does college make students more liberal?”   It is written by several college professors, funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and promoted by Ohio State and North Carolina State Universities.

With that understanding, it is not all that surprising that they find that students are not that much more liberal after four years of college.  However, their only measure of this concerns student attitudes towards liberal and conservative leaders.

Through our analysis of 3,486 students at 116 U.S. colleges and universities, we found that students’ positive attitudes toward political conservatives were largely the same when they started college and four years later. Compared to their responses in fall of 2015, graduating college seniors in the spring of 2019 were just as likely to report that political conservatives made positive contributions to society and were ethical people. Similarly, they were also just as likely to say that they had things in common with – and had positive attitudes toward – political conservatives.

However, those views were at or below 50 percent during their four years of college. This is contrasted with Liberals having a 70 percent positive view among those students at the end of four years, after having started at 58 percent positive as Freshmen. The study’s authors concede that students’ attitudes steadily grow more positive toward liberalism the longer they are in school.

It is possible that many students are predisposed toward liberalism by the time they graduate from High School and that college is just a natural leftward progression. I think it is also possible that many students are deeply engrained postmodernists who struggle with making judgements about any particular worldview as being true when asked to compare and judge people from differing camps.

What we do know is that the balance if college professors is heavily slanted to the left. A study earlier this year found that for every 1 professor who makes a political donation to a Republican candidate, 95 other profs made a donation to a Democrat. The same study found that of the 12,372 college professors studied, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 8 to 1.

This article was originally published at AFA of Indiana.



Student-Athletes Boycott Practices After Athletic Director Said All Lives Matter

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Written by Matt Lamb

Athletic director apologized for comments

Student-athletes at Illinois State University are boycotting practices because the school’s athletic director offended them with a comment during a conference call at the end of August.

Athletes at the public university in central Illinois announced a boycott after Larry Lyons, the school’s athletic director, said that “All Redbird Lives Matter,” a version of the “All Lives Matter” statement that used the school’s team name instead.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported:

Students in all but one of the university’s 17 athletics programs have said they won’t return to their teams until their list of social justice demands are met, including a concrete, comprehensive plan of action to support racial justice protests and a commitment to diversity in the athletics administration. The missed team events are mostly practices because competitions are postponed or canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Athletic Department released a plan Monday afternoon that partially addressed some of those issues, but that athletes quickly said was insufficient.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the baseball team is the only team that does not have athletes participating in the boycott.

Kimathi Johnson, a track and field athlete, posted the list of demands on his Twitter account on August 30.

The list includes: required diversity seminars for the entire athletic department, putting “more people of color in positions of power,” “more diversity in athletic trainers and student athletic trainers,” and a plan for the athletic department to publicly support Black Lives Matter.

The student-athletes say they will not end their boycott until that last demand is met. The Athletic Department released a response on August 31 that appeared to largely agree to the demands of the athletes.

Jeff Proctor, a running back at the school, said Lyons’ comments downplayed the Black Lives Matter movement.

“It makes us feel like that he doesn’t have our back and doesn’t care about the Black community,” Proctor told the Vidette, the campus paper. “How a lot of people took it is down playing the Black Lives Matter movement.”

Even coaches at the school criticized Lyons.

“The movement is BLACK LIVES MATTER. The statement ‘All Redbird Lives Matters’ is insensitive and frankly one that attempts to drown the movement,” Mary Wood, the associate head track coach, tweeted August 27.

Lyons explained his comments and apologized in an August 28 comment to the campus paper:

My intention was to tell all 413 student-athletes that they matter to me and I care about them. The words I choose to use, ‘All Redbird lives matter’ was offensive to many of our student-athletes and I know I hurt a significant number of them by the choice of those words. That was not my intention and I am truly sorry for that.

Black lives do matter and I am serious when I say that, and all Redbird student-athletes lives matter equally. I should have said that, and I did not. I have a lot of trust to build back.

At least one athlete refused to attend an August 26 apology meeting with Lyons.

Mya Robinson, a track athlete at the school and a sports reporter for the campus paper, wrote that she cannot forgive Lyons.

“I did not attend the meeting for his apology because I do not want to hear his pity toward us,” Robinson wrote. “He was wrong, and for that, I can never forgive him.”

MORE: Syracuse athletes feel upset because white peer was given second chance

This article was originally published at The College Fix.



Homeschooling Surges Amid the Pandemic

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As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to play out across America and the world, many questions still remain about what life will look like moving forward. One much-debated topic, of course, has been education. Should schools open their doors or remain virtual? What might hybrid options look like? What safety procedures should be followed for in-person classes?

While those questions have been discussed in the public square, other decisions have been made by families in private. And one decision that many families have made is to begin homeschooling.

According to a report on a Gallup poll1 released on August 25, the number of parents opting for homeschooling has doubled since 2019, from 5 percent to 10 percent. This ranks homeschooling as the second-most popular option this year, ahead of private, parochial, and charter schools. (Public school, of course, remains on top at 76 percent, but that’s down from 83 percent last year.)

This has the potential to represent a major change for education in America.

Of course, there are unanswered questions. Will these new homeschoolers continue homeschooling even if public schools return to a more normal condition in 2021? Will even more parents abandon public schools as the year progresses if outbreaks occur or safety measures such as masks and social distancing become too onerous? How will public schools (and policy makers) react to the decreased number of students?

It will be fascinating to see how these questions are answered as time goes by.

If the number of families opting for homeschooling continues to rise, it could mean decreased funding for public schools. It could also mean new efforts to woo families back to public school, or to add new regulations to the growing homeschooling community.

In the meantime, new homeschoolers would do well to get informed and connected. If you’re homeschooling here in Illinois, be sure to check out the Illinois Christian Home Educators website (iche.org) as well as HSLDA. Both sites will help equip you for this new journey.

As a homeschool advocate, I hope that many Christian families are turning to home education during this uncertain time. But I also hope that if you’re a new homeschooler, you’ll seriously consider the benefits beyond the pandemic. Homeschooling is a great choice no matter what’s happening in the public schools.

This, by the way, is an important point for even veteran homeschoolers to remember. Homeschooling shouldn’t be primarily a reaction to the negative influences of the government school system. It shouldn’t be a run from something, but to something. As homeschoolers, we have the opportunity to teach, instruct, and guide our children in an incredibly personal, hands-on way. That’s an inherently good thing no matter what is going on in the broader educational world.

If you’re a new homeschooler, allow me to offer a few words of advice:

  • Get connected. Find other families either in person or online that you can connect with. Homeschooling doesn’t need to be a solitary journey.
  • Educate yourself. There are plenty of resources for homeschooling parents to help you on your way. Books, magazines, e-newsletters, recorded conferences, etc. Educating yourself could also include finding a mentor—an experienced homeschooling parent who can answer questions and give you encouragement along the way.
  • Don’t replicate public school at home. You have flexibility they don’t have in a formal school. Use it. That doesn’t mean you should throw out all routine, textbooks, etc., but it does mean you don’t need to be a slave to a model that was built for a classroom, not a home.
  • Think about the positives. As I said a moment ago, homeschooling shouldn’t be a reaction to something negative in the school system (it might start that way, but it doesn’t have to stay that way). Watch for the blessings of homeschooling. Embrace them. Change your focus from avoiding the problems at school, to enjoying the blessings of home.
  • Ask God for His help and blessing. We all need it. Homeschooling was His idea in the first place (check out Deuteronomy 6:6-7), and I believe He’s glad to help any Christian parent who is embracing their responsibility to oversee the education of their children in His ways.

1Brenan, Megan, K-12 Parents’ Satisfaction With Child’s Education Slips, Gallup, August 25, 2020; (Accessed August 29, 2020.)

IFI recently held two important webinars to help better inform, equip, and encourage parents to make the move to home education. These webinars can be found on the IFI YouTube channel under the “Home Education” playlist tab. These videos are posted for anyone curious about homeschooling.

In our first webinar we featured three experienced homeschool mothers who address frequently asked questions about Illinois law and how to begin homeschooling.

The second video features Dr. Brian Ray, a leading researcher in the area of homeschool education. He is the president of the National Home Education Research Institute (nheri.org).



BLM’s™ Totalitarian Youth—Sieg Heil

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Videos have been circulating of young bestial thugs—whites and blacks, women and men—shrieking in the faces of al fresco diners, commanding them to raise a fist in solidarity with BLM/Antifa totalitarians. To leftists nothing says freedom quite like coerced performative acts. See for yourself the future of the Democratic Party:

Maybe these young bestial thugs never learned about Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard composed of young people that Mao used to intimidate, humiliate, and attack his political enemies. The New York Times described the Red Guard’s efforts:

Students who answered Mao’s call for continuing revolution … targeted political enemies for abuse and public humiliation. … Under a campaign to wipe out the “Four Olds”—ideas, customs, culture, habits—they carried out widespread destruction of historical sites and cultural relics.

Or maybe today’s totalitarian culture-destroyers are inspired by the Red Guard, whose salute they mimic.

Before Chairman Mao thought to use easily indoctrinated youth to advance political oppression, the Nazi Regime had mastered the tactic. Here’s an eerily relevant description of the Nazi Party’s exploitation of German youth to advance the pernicious Nazi cause:

Millions of German young people were won over to Nazism in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. In January 1933, the Hitler Youth had approximately 100,000 members, but by the end of the year this figure had increased to more than 2 million. By 1937 membership in the Hitler Youth increased to 5.4 million before it became mandatory in 1939. The German authorities then prohibited or dissolved competing youth organizations.

Education in the Third Reich served to indoctrinate students with the National Socialist world view. Nazi scholars and educators glorified Nordic and other “Aryan” races, while labeling Jews and other so-called inferior peoples as parasitic “bastard races” incapable of creating culture or civilization.

After 1933, the Nazi regime purged the public school system of teachers deemed to be Jews or to be “politically unreliable.” Most educators, however, remained in their posts and joined the National Socialist Teachers League. 97% of all public school teachers, some 300,000 persons, had joined the League by 1936. In fact, teachers joined the Nazi Party in greater numbers than any other profession.

In the classroom and in the Hitler Youth, instruction aimed to produce race-conscious, obedient, self-sacrificing Germans who would be willing to die for Führer and Fatherland. Devotion to Adolf Hitler was a key component of Hitler Youth training. …

Schools played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas to German youth. While censors removed some books from the classroom, German educators introduced new textbooks that taught students love for Hitler, obedience to state authority, militarism, racism, and antisemitism.

Since some Americans—particularly leftists—struggle with analogical thinking, let’s paraphrase that description to make its relevance easily comprehensible:

Millions of American young people were won over to socialism/Critical Race Theory/“LGBTQ” theory/feminist theory in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. By 2020 membership in or support for what became known as the Intersectionality Regime had increased dramatically. Dominant leftist cultural forces had persecuted youth organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts into reinventing themselves to align with the Intersectionality Regime.

Education in America served to indoctrinate students with the socialist/racialist/feminist/pansexual world view. Race, sexuality, “gender,” and Marxist scholars and educators glorified people of color, homosexuals, opposite-sex impersonators, and Marxists while labeling whites, men, heterosexuals, conservative Christians, and capitalists hateful oppressors and bigots incapable of creating culture or civilization.

The race/“gender”/sexuality/class Intersectionality Regime purged the public school system of teachers deemed to be members of the oppressor classes or to be “politically unreliable.” Most educators, however, remained in their posts and joined the race/“gender”/sexuality/class Intersectionality Regime. In fact, teachers joined the Intersectionality Regime in greater numbers than any other profession.

In the classroom, corporate boardrooms, social media, the arts, the mainstream press, and organizations like BLM™ and Antifa, instruction was aimed to produce race-conscious, class-conscious, man-hating, sexual-deviance-supporting activists who would take the fight to the streets. Devotion to the Intersectionality Regime was a key component of cultural conditioning.

Schools played an important role in spreading Intersectionality ideas to American youth. While censors removed some books from the classroom, educators introduced new textbooks that taught students love for socialism, racism, feminism, homosexuality, the “trans” ideology, and anti-Christianity.

Co-founder of the Toronto chapter of BLM™, Yusra Khogali, once tweeted, “White ppl are recessive genetic defects. this is factual. … black ppl simply through their dominant genes can literally wipe out the white race if we had the power to.” She tweeted, “Please Allah give me the strength to not … kill these … white folks out here today.” In 2015, she tweeted, “whiteness is not humxness. infact, white skin is sub-humxn.”

Kinda, sorta, maybe sounds like a Nazi talking about Jews.

Compulsory performance of the Sieg Heil/Red Guard/Black Panthers/BLM salute is part of the effort to compel freethinkers to pretend to embrace the ideas of slave reparations, systemic racism, and collective guilt, which hold individuals culpable for sins they have never committed.  The notion of collective guilt for the past sins of other individuals is both unbiblical and poisonous.

In a speech delivered in 1988 in Vienna on the 50th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of his home country of Austria, Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl warned against the dangerous idea of “collective guilt”:

[M]y father … died in Theresienstadt Camp; my brother … did not return from Auschwitz; my mother … was killed in the gas chambers of the same camp; and my first wife[’s] …  young life came to an end in Bergen-Belsen Camp. And yet at the same time I will ask you not to expect to hear from my mouth a single word of hatred. For whom should I hate? I knew only the victims; I do not know the perpetrators—at least, not personally. And I categorically refuse to attribute collective as opposed to personal guilt.

There is no such thing as collective guilt. Believe me, today is not the first occasion on which I have said that. I have been saying it since the day I was liberated from my [fourth and] last concentration camp. It is my conviction that anyone who assigns collective guilt to every Austrian [or German] citizen between the ages of zero and fifty is committing a reprehensible and insane act. Or, to put it in psychiatric terms: it would be reprehensible if it were not insane–and it would be a relapse into the Nazi ideology of collective family guilt [the difficult German word Sippenhaftung here refers to the dangerous Nazi dogma of kin liability, tainted blood(line), or genetic guilt by association]. Let this be said to all those who believe they have the right to expect people to feel guilty or even ashamed of something they did not do or fail to do but something their parents or grandparents had to answer for. …

I’ll tell you I think there are only two ‘races’ of people: those who are decent people, and those who are not. That distinction goes right through every nation, and within nations right through every political party and every other group. Even in the concentration camps here and there we came across more or less decent people who belonged to the SS. And in the same way there were also scoundrels amongst the prisoners.

The decent people are in the minority; they have always been in the minority and, I think, always will be. But the danger lies elsewhere. The danger is to be found in a regime or a system which brings the scoundrels to the top; in other words which puts the reins of power in the hands of the worst representatives of the people. Therein lies the true peril. And no nation … can claim to be immune from such danger. Which is why I presume to say that in principle any country is capable of perpetrating the holocaust.

… In my view there are only two … types of politicians. The first is the politician who believes that the end justifies the means—any means, even terrorist means. The second type is profoundly aware that there are means that can desecrate even the most sacred ends.

[T]he need of the day … is that all men of good will should finally reach their hands out to each other across all the graves and divisions.”

One of my daughters once expressed disappointment that I hadn’t saved any of my clothes from the early 1970’s. I explained that although styles return, they never return in exactly the same form. Same goes for history, which explains why even remembering history doesn’t guarantee we won’t repeat it. Today’s cultural revolution has all the earmarks of past revolutions, and yet too few Americans recognize those earmarks because on the surface this one appears different.

Unless we tear the blinders from our eyes and look clearly at the big picture, the republic as we have known it will be gone in a short time. The children and grandchildren of Millennials will grow up in a world of oppression and depravity the likes of which America has never known but civilizations around the world and throughout history have.

Viktor Frankl points to the solution to evil in our midst:

[P]lease remember one thing: Resistance always requires heroism. And there is only one person of whom anyone has the right to expect heroic acts. And that is oneself.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/BLMs™-Totalitarian-Youth.mp3

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Outrage for the Children

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At what point does this stop? At what point does our society say, “Enough is enough” when it comes to the assault on our children? At what point do we stand up as a nation and put a stop to this attack on innocence?

There was a time when our kids were not bombarded with “pornographic” sex-ed curricula in middle school.

There was a time when condoms were not given out to elementary school students.

There was a time when first graders were not taught LGBTQ terminology.

There was a time when we did not celebrate 8-year-old drag queens (and when drag queens did not twerk for our toddlers in libraries).

There was a time when movies were not made about 11-year-old girls joining sensual dance teams.

But that time is not now, and the assault on our children’s innocence is at an all time high. Should we not be concerned? Should we not be grieved? Should we not be outraged?

Lest you think I’m exaggerating, the California Globe reported on May 9, 2019,

Despite hundreds of parents protesting and testifying, on Wednesday the California State Board of Education approved highly controversial changes to the state’s health and sex education framework including teaching children about bondage, anal sex, pederasty, sex trafficking, sexual orientation and transgender and non-conforming students.

One book, recommended for transitional kindergarten through third grade includes “graphic, close-up illustrations of child/adult genitals and the sex act itself.” This is for kids aged 6-9!

Another book, also recommended for the same age group, teaches “kids they can be a boy, a girl, both, neither, gender queer, or gender fluid, etc. and that adults guess a child’s gender based on body parts.”

As for high school students, one textbook, “Introduces or encourages anal sex for all sexual orientations, BDSM (bondage, domination, sadomasochism), body fluid (urinating on each other) or blood play, fisting, and a long list of other sexual debauchery.”

If you blush while reading these words as an adult (or don’t know what some of the terms mean), can you imagine teaching this to high school kids? Yet it is adults, many of them parents, who approve of trash like this. What an outrage.

Now, Netflix has come under attack for its new documentary called Cuties. Yes, “The streaming giant is facing backlash for its promotional poster for the French film, whose young stars are 11-years-old. The promo image in question shows the children wearing revealing dance attire of shorts and crop tops and striking various dance poses, like kneeling on the floor and squatting.”

Netflix quickly apologized for the poster, removing it from the promotional material. But it did not apologize for the movie itself, stating,

We’re deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Mignonnes/Cuties. It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance. We’ve now updated the pictures and description.

Ah, but of course. The film won an award at Sundance. It must be good and moral. After all, Sundance is kind of like the Bible Belt of movies. Conservative. Almost prudish. Right.

Rather, as Indie Wire noted, “The Sundance Film Festival has been shocking audiences — and launching careers — for years.” An early Sundance winner was the 1989 movie “Sex, Lies, and Videotape.”

As described on IndieWire, “In someways the quintessential movie of Sundance’s early years, Steven Soderbergh’s landmark debut remains one of the best movies ever to come out of the festival — and one of the most sexually frank.”

So much for winning an award at Netflix.

And what, exactly, is “Cuties” about? As reported on Heavy, in the movie, which earned a TV-MA rating, “Amy, an 11-year-old girl, joins a group of dancers named ‘the cuties’ at school, and rapidly grows aware of her burgeoning femininity – upsetting her mother and her values in the process.”

It is also described as a “coming-of-age moving about an 11-year-old,” which really says it all. Girls that young are not “coming of age” to sensual dancing unless someone else teaches them. The thoughts would never enter their minds on their own, especially when they come from traditional religious backgrounds, as does Amy.

A headline in The U.S. Sun reads, “THIS IS GROSS! Netflix’s new ‘Cuties’ show sparks fury with ‘highly sexualised’ drama about 11-year-old girl joining ‘twerking squad.’” This should spark fury among parents. (And what about the little girls who posed for the Netflix poster? Should anyone think about them?)

Someone might say, “But the film simply tells the increasingly common story of a girl raised in a religious home (in this case, a Muslim home) who discovers a whole new world through social media and her school. This is the new reality.”

But that’s the whole problem. The new reality is rotten. The new reality defiles. The new reality destroys. And the new reality gets worse by the day. Almost all innocence has been lost.

Young kids grow up singing the most salacious lyrics, gyrating sexually as they mouth the words, being exposed to filth long before they can even understand it. And kids as young as 8 are regularly encountering porn. How have we let this happen? How have we let our children be emotionally and morally raped?

There is even concern now about pedophile dolls. I am not making this up.

As a nation, we are outraged over the allegations against the late Jeffrey Epstein. And we are mortified when we learn that sex trafficking is taking place in front of our eyes in major cities across America.

But our outrage should go deeper. The very souls of our children are under daily assault, from their cell phones to their classrooms. Shall we not put up a wall of protection around them?

Dr. Brown is the founder and president of Fire School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina. He is also a radio and podcast host of The Line of Fire and a prolific author. Jezebel’s War With America: The Plot to Destroy Our Country and What We Can Do to Turn the Tide is his latest book. This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.



School Officials Continue to Lie and Bully

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Written by Diane O’Burns

Public school parents are terrified of entering back into horrible remote learning programs like the ones they encountered this past spring. They need information so they can make plans for their children’s education, and yet many schools still do not know what materials or e-learning system they will be using later this month. It sounds like the 2020-2021 school year will be one giant experiment using precious human beings.

Ryan Scott, principal of Main Street Elementary School in Shelbyville said this in an email to a parent who inquired about the upcoming school year:

We do not have a specific plan in place for remote learning until we can gather more information.

Mr. Scott then changed his tune in another email:

Each building level Principal works with the parents and student to find the best fit for a student that has been homeschooled and is either returning to the public school, or entering a public school for the first time. The main area of concern is if the student will struggle with the material at a given grade level when they either enter or return to in person learning in the school district. With that being said, the district has not had any discussions about holding students back if they are homeschooled for a semester or a year. It might come into play in extreme cases, but I do not believe it will be the norm.

The public schools are expecting homeschoolers to abide by an arbitrary set of standards that far too many of their own students are failing to meet.

In a separate email to the above parent, Shane Schuricht, superintendent of Shelbyville Unit School District #4, goes on to say this when asked about the remote learning choice:

At the elementary, we are exploring the possibility of an external platform such as “Edgenuity” or the possibility of dedicating a teacher per grade-level to plan, support, etc. … the remote learning families.

Mt. Olive School district provided this inaccurate information regarding homeschooling on their Facebook page as well as in a letter to parents:

All homeschoolers are required to register with the state of IL, they have to make an appointment to bring in their full curriculum for approval by the state, and then they have to also turn in records to the state each year.

Mt. Olive homeschoolers are not required to do any of the above.

Jenny Gregory Binney, a teacher from Mt. Olive School district, decided to post the following on Facebook when the false requirements came into question:

Why in the world would you not be required to register your homeschoolers as homeschoolers? That seems absurd. How in the world are homeschoolers in Illinois held accountable … if they don’t need to be registered or need a certain curriculum? Some parents may say they are “homeschooling” when they are not doing anything. Just seems like there isn’t a way to hold parents accountable.

She later deleted her comment after she was informed by many homeschoolers that the district information was incorrect.

Well, Ms. Binney, I would like to ask the same question of the public school: Who is holding them accountable for the poor student outcomes that are happening in the Illinois public school system. Let us look at the Mt. Olive District stats for the 2019 school year. The district has an 83 percent graduation rate, with 31 percent of students meeting state standards in ELA and 34 percent meeting state math standards.

Of the 11th grade students taking the SAT college admissions exam, only 21 percent met the standards in ELA and 18 percent met the Math standard. The average score for the SAT in the Mt. Olive district was a 949. Out of the 37 high school graduates in Mt. Olive in 2017 (most recent year listed), 18.9 percent attended community college after graduation, and 14.3 percent of those graduates required remediation before being allowed to take college level courses. Is this acceptable after being educated for 12+ years?

I reached out to several principals and superintendents in other districts regarding what needed to be done to homeschool, but none returned my emails.

The most shocking and egregious statements from public schools have come from district employees stating that should students be homeschooled, they will not be able to return to the public school setting again–ever. This is completely untrue.

For years, many parents homeschooled until 8th grade and sent their children to public school for high school. Some homeschooled students want to try a year of high school out, so they transfer in and most transfer back out to homeschool the next year.

Parents in the Shelbyville and Taylorville district report that they have been warned that should their child be high school age, they will automatically be placed at the freshmen level, no matter how many homeschool high school credits they have earned or what their age is upon seeking to enroll in the public school.

Parents have also been told that a high school diploma will not be achievable in homeschool and that a GED is necessary. They are also told that colleges will not accept homeschooled students. Again, these claims are false.

Many public schools in Illinois are already tainting the pathway for homeschoolers by providing false information and bullying parents so they are too afraid to leave the supposed safety and comfort of the public school system. What loving, caring parent would want to cause their child not to get a high school diploma or not to be able to get into college? All this false information keeps parents from choosing homeschooling.

These schools, along with countless others in Illinois and across the nation right now, are showing a blatant disregard for the homeschooling laws that we have fought so hard to keep in place. Government school educators are bullying and lying to parents who are seeking to educate their children via a viable and legal alternative: homeschooling.

This is Part3 (of 3) of an extended article about parents seeking to homeschool their children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

IFI recently held two important webinars to help better inform, equip, and encourage parents to make the move to home education. These webinars can be found on the IFI YouTube channel under the “Home Education” playlist tab. These videos are posted for anyone curious about homeschooling.

In our first webinar we featured three experienced homeschool mothers who address frequently asked questions about Illinois law and how to begin homeschooling.

The second video features Dr. Brian Ray, a leading researcher in the area of homeschool education. He is the president of the National Home Education Research Institute (nheri.org).



Important Webinars Regarding Homeschooling

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Over the years, we have reported on the ever-increasing corruptive influences within public education. We’ve changed our message from a suggestion that Christians exercise educational choice to an urgent appeal to parents and grandparents to get them out of government indoctrination centers. If you have been reading our alerts, you know that school officials (and state lawmakers) have approved the teaching of subjects that run contrary to biblical Christianity. In order to protect the hearts and minds of our children, it is wise to consider other education options.

The current COVID-19 lockdown of school districts statewide presents parents and grandparents with an opportunity to make a jump to home education. As a veteran homeschool father, I can tell you that it is not as difficult as some think it might be. Once you get started, chances are that you will not only love spending quality time with your children, but you will grow to appreciate the freedom we have in Illinois to provide your children with edifying Christian instruction.

IFI recently held two important webinars to help better inform, equip, and encourage parents to make the move to home education. These webinars can be found on the IFI YouTube channel under the “Home Education” playlist tab. These videos are posted for anyone curious about homeschooling.

In our first webinar we featured three experienced homeschool mothers who address frequently asked questions about Illinois law and how to begin homeschooling.

The second video features Dr. Brian Ray, a leading researcher in the area of homeschool education. He is the president of the National Home Education Research Institute (nheri.org).

These videos provide a wealth of information for those who are new to homeschooling or just curious about the subject. Anyone seeking information about statistics, law, philosophy, trends, or fundamentals about homeschooling are encouraged to check them out.

We pray that you will be excited about the prospect of taking your children out of government schools to educate them at home where they can work at their own pace and focus on their own interests. Moreover, we pray that you will see the value of discipling them in the faith. Teaching Christian ethics and instilling a biblical worldview in your students has never been more important. Instead of learning to celebrate sexual immorality, to fear a climate apocalypse, and to hate America, you can cultivate in them virtues like honesty, purity, gratefulness, patriotism, diligence, courage, kindness, self-control, humility, respect and responsibility.

Homeschooling is a far superior means to raise God-honoring productive members of society who love and serve their neighbors than is public schooling.

Read more:

Three Steps to Start Homeschooling Now 

How to Start Homeschooling: Free Resources for Beginners

Three Big Reasons to Consider Homeschooling This Year 

Escape Charter School Bottleneck—Homeschooling Has No Waiting List!

Illinois Public School Officials Spread Disinformation

Coronavirus, Education, and Tofu: Why Choice is the Solution to the Education Conundrum

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U.S. Senator Tom Cotton Calls Out 1619 Project for Revisionism

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The 1619 Project has been controversial since its publication by the New York Times a year ago. While many on the left have praised it, with Oprah Winfrey even announcing plans to adapt the project into a television series, historians and those on the right have noted errors and call the collection of essays and poems revisionist history. Now, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has proposed a bill seeking to ban public schools from teaching it as part of their curriculum.

While the project acknowledges the founding of the United States as taking place in 1776, it seeks “to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year.” That year is important because it marks the arrival and enslavement of the first known Africans in the North American colony of Virginia. The project further determines that the American Revolution occurred because the original 13 colonies understood Britain would soon outlaw slavery, thus making war the only pathway to preserving the foul institution on this side of the Atlantic.

When the project was rolled out by the Times, it included K-12 curriculum for schools. The curriculum is being used in several major school districts in cities, including Chicago, across the country. Cotton’s bill would prohibit school districts from using federal funds to teach the project.

On July 30, Cotton told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “The entire premise of the New York Times’ factually, historically flawed 1619 Project … is that America is at root, a systemically racist country to the core and irredeemable. I reject that root and branch.” Cotton’s bill is called the “Saving American History Act of 2020.”

The bill calls the 1619 Project “an activist movement” that is “gaining momentum to deny or obfuscate this history by claiming that America was not founded on the ideals of the Declaration [of Independence] but rather on slavery and oppression.” It notes that “this distortion of American history is being taught to children in public school classrooms” through curriculum based on the 1619 Project, which “claims ‘nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional’ grew ‘out of slavery.’”

It further states, “The 1619 Project is a racially divisive and revisionist account of history that threatens the integrity of the Union by denying the true principles on which it was founded.”

Of course, Cotton is meeting fierce opposition. The 1619 Project has been so well received by the mainstream media that in the spring of this year, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist responsible for the project, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Jordan Cohen, a spokesperson for the Times, said the project “is based in part on decades of recent scholarship by leading historians of early America that has profoundly expanded our sense of the colonial and Revolutionary period. Much of this scholarship has focused on the central role that slavery played in the nation’s founding.”

The same day Cotton’s bill was introduced, July 27, Hannah-Jones joined a Twitter conversation regarding whether the 1619 Project was about history or memory. She tweeted, “The fight here is about who gets to control the national narrative, and therefore, the nation’s shared memory of itself. One group has monopolized this for too long in order to create this myth of exceptionalism. If their version is true, what do they have to fear of 1619?”

She continued in the next tweet, “I’ve always said that the 1619 Project is not a history. It is a work of journalism that explicitly seeks to challenge the national narrative and, therefore, the national memory. The project has always been as much about the present as it has the past.”

Considering her statements, one wonders how can the 1619 Project be taught as history in public schools.

Even Hannah-Jones tweets later in the thread, “Further, the curriculum is supplementary and cannot and was never intended to supplant U.S. history curriculum (which is pretty terrible but none of these folks seem concerned about that.) Teachers have used it in English, social studies, art, foods classes.” However, reports are the curriculum is being taught as history. Protestors are proclaiming it as history in the streets.

The Illinois Angle

The 1619 Project and Cotton’s bill appear to have had an effect on Illinois State Representative La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago). As you may know, Ford recently called on the Illinois State Board of Education to remove all history books in Illinois schools, and for schools to stop teaching history until new curriculum can be developed. He said current history books and curriculum “unfairly” communicate history.

Ford said, as reported by WGN, “We’re concerned that current school history teachings lead to white privilege and a racist society.”

A few days prior, Ford told Politico’s Illinois Playbook, “What’s being taught is inaccurate,” saying blacks were only depicted as slaves and that other minorities, including women and people of Jewish heritage, were also portrayed unfairly.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your federal lawmakers and urge them to support the Saving American History Act of 2020, a bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the divisive 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts.

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How May & Should Christians Speak About Evil

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On July 23, 2020, conservative University of North Carolina professor, Townhall writer, and Christian, Mike Adams, was driven to suicide by the vile and relentless bullying of devotees of diversity and teachers of tolerance who fancy themselves “progressive.” They were aided and abetted by spineless Christians who failed to come alongside a brother in Christ because of his “sins” of violating leftist language rules.

Leftists and some Christians were especially peeved by a metaphor Adams employed to criticize oppressive pandemic commandments issued by North Carolina’s Democrat governor Roy Cooper.

On May 29th, Adams tweeted, “This evening I ate pizza and drank beer with six guys at a six seat table top. I almost felt like a free man who was not living in the slave state of North Carolina. Massa Cooper, let my people go.”

Which of the following metaphors is more offensive: Comparing a political leader who oppresses citizens with unjust orders to a slave master or comparing those with wealth who ignore the starvation of the poor to cannibals?

Is one acceptable speech and the other unacceptable? Are both acceptable? Neither?

Of course, the cannibal metaphor was employed by Jonathan Swift in his satirical essay “A Modest Proposal,” which we teach in public schools.

When Reverend Jesse Jackson referred to President Trump as a slave master and knee-takers as slaves, I can’t recall anyone on the left or right batting their exquisitely sensitive eyes. Are only blacks allowed to use slave metaphors, or does it depend wholly on whose ox is being gored with condemnation that determines whether metaphors should send adults to the fainting couch?

While their sanctimonious and empty proclamations of fealty to inclusivity, love, equality, tolerance, subjectivism, autonomy, freedom, and diversity echo systemically throughout American institutions, Leftists reveal their inky underbellies rotted with hypocrisy and depravity when they screech hater and hurl death wishes at those who dare to disagree with Big Brother, Critical Race Theory, or their anarchical sexuality ideology.

But it’s not just leftists, secularists, and atheists who faux-tie their own panties in a twist about bold language from conservatives. Even conservatives get the heebie-jeebies if Christians use bold language.

In a mostly moving tribute to his “close friend” Mike Adams, political pundit David French made sure to include that, although protected by the First Amendment, some of Adams’ writing was “acerbic,” “intemperate,” “insensitive,” “excessively provocative,” and “outright infuriating.” French further said, he “cringed at some,” of Adams’ comments and that “my friend could frustrate me. He could say things I disagreed with. He could say things that outraged me. He could be wrong.”

With “close friends” like French to write a tribute, who needs enemies.

New Testament professor and friend of Mike Adams, Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, wrote about Adams’ sadness at the socially distancing of David French:

[W]hen [Mike] reached out to David by phone for help in his hour of greatest crisis in June 2020, he viewed David’s brush-off as due to the negative change in David in the Trump era. While he couldn’t be entirely surprised by David’s failure to help, there’s no question that it was a body blow to his gut. He twice initiated mention of David to me in mid-June and on July 1. I didn’t bring David French up as a topic of conversation. Mike did, unsolicited from me. …

Mike felt that David had abandoned him precisely because he didn’t share David’s NeverTrump stance and because of David’s heightened desire to distance himself from Mike’s tweets in order to preserve his (David’s) reputation with people on the Left. …

I would never say that David French single-handedly killed Mike Adams. … David was simply the most painful among many acts of silence and detachment toward Mike by Christian “elites” and “friends” at his end. The primary blame belongs with the vicious Left.

Every Christian on the frontlines of the culture war has experienced the voluntary social distancing of brothers and sisters in Christ who don’t want to be tainted by friendship with cultural lepers. We all know the experience of having friends or colleagues either secretly whisper their thanks for our work, or avoid us entirely, or turn against us. There’s no skin in the game for many Christians when the game gets rough. Instead of marching into battle accoutered with the armor of God, they scuttle into their safe havens accoutered with protective platitudes acceptable to God’s enemies.

Oddly, I’ve seen very little criticism of Andrew Klavan—another Christian who uses satire brilliantly and effectively to mock stupid and evil ideas that deserve mockery. For example, assuming the voice of a presumptuous Hollywood celebrity, Klavan recently wrote,

I take responsibility for being a fatuous, virtue-signaling, useless, celebrity knucklehead. Which is a much better life than yours by the way. For which I take complete responsibility… and then run away before you realize I haven’t done a damn thing for you and your life still sucks.

Before reading Klavan’s satires, all those legions of PC Christians holed up in their bunkers hoping no unbelieving colleague learns they disapprove of homosexuality better stock up on smelling salts.

Not quite a year ago, I wrote an article about the superintendent of a large Illinois high school district who sexually integrated all locker rooms in the five-school district—a decision so wicked that all Christians should have felt enraged.

He was aided and abetted by wealthy Hollywood Matrix director “Lana” Wachowski—a man who pretends to be a woman—homosexuals from outside the district, and a school board member with a vile sexuality podcast for children. In strong language, I wrote about this evil action and the vipers who promoted it.

In response, I received an email from a conservative Christian who identified herself as the “dean of rhetoric” in a “Christian co-school.” She chastised my “language and tone,” saying that she found them “disturbing.” She criticized the “vitriol and loaded language … name calling and hyperbole” and “uncharitable language,” saying it “would never be tolerated” in her rhetoric classes, that she was “disappointed to read” such language, and that she found my “writing style offensive.”

So, a Christian is teaching children that the use of biblical language and tone are sinful even when describing egregious sin.

I asked if she had ever sent an email with as much passion and strong language as the one she sent to me to any of the many political leaders, public school teachers, administrators, or heretical “Christian” leaders who promote sexual deviance to children. No response.

“Progressives” use the phrase “my truth” a lot—a phrase that Boston College philosophy professor Dr. Peter Kreeft describes as both oxymoronic and moronic. Much of what “progressives” affirm as “their truth,” seems to be sexual desires that originate in their dark bellies—or what in The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis calls the seat of mere animal appetites.

Lewis argues that to protect against domination by our imperious appetites, human emotions must be properly trained:

Without the aid of trained emotions, the intellect is powerless against the animal organism…. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful.

Do tell, Christian brothers and sisters who favor warm milquetoasty language at all times, how do we train human animals of all sizes to feel disgust and hatred of those things which really are disgusting and hateful while using only warm milquetoasty language?

Lewis continues, describing what education should do:

Until quite modern times all teachers and even all men believed the universe to be such that certain emotional reactions on our part could be either congruous or incongruous to it—believed, in fact, that objects did not merely receive, but could merit, our approval or disapproval, our reverence or our contempt. … Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.

Yes, there are things—desires, ideas, images, words, and acts—for which we should properly feel hatred. The prophet Amos said, “Hate evil, and love good.” In Romans, Paul teaches us “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” For love to be genuine or true, we must abhor what is evil.

Children must be taught to feel love for the good and feel hatred for that which is evil, which is wholly different from hating people. True love requires first knowing what is true and good. Affirming in and to people that which God detests is not love; affirming in and to people that which God detests is detestable.

“Progressives” understand that the emotions must be trained, which is why they use the arts—especially our myth-making machine, Hollywood, and government schools to shape the hearts of America’s children. Tragically, since “progressives” don’t know truth, they’re training America’s children to love evil and hate good.

In our public schools, interactions with friends, and Facebook posts, we have at our disposal many tools for training emotions, among which are rhetorical tools. The Bible warns that the tongue “is a restless evil, full of deadly poison,” and that “Kind words are like honey—sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” But such verses do not and cannot possibly mean Christians must never use strong language or sarcasm. We know that because the Bible includes numerous examples of the use of strong language and mockery.

Amos called women fat “cows” and warned that God would take them away by harpoons or fishhooks. Imagine how today’s evanjellyfishes would feel if a Christian were to use that biblical language.

Paul wrote this to Titus: “As one of their own prophets has said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true.” In other words, Paul called Cretans liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

Jesus said,

“You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! … You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.”

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”

Paul said this about sinners,

There is none who does good, no, not one.”
“Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“The poison of asps is under their lips”

In Revelation, those who are not saved are called “dogs.”

Peter describes false teachers—of which we have many in the church today—as “irrational animals … born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant. … They are blots and blemishes. … Accursed children!”

Paul calls the Galatians, “foolish Galatians.”

John the Baptist called the multitudes a “brood of vipers.”

If the dean of rhetoric of the Christian co-school thinks calling a top school leader who sexually integrates the locker rooms of 12,000 minor children “depraved” undermines our witness—as she claimed I did—then logically she must think John the Baptist undermined his witness by calling the multitudes a brood of vipers.

Theologian and pastor Doug Wilson makes clear that the Bible does not mandate the kind of saccharine language that corrupts evangelicalism or prohibit bold, bracing, condemnatory language from which many evangelicals flee:

Evangelical Christians are very sweet people and there’s an upside to that. … But they’re so sweet they can’t be friends with diabetics. And what happens is, if you respond to the prevailing ungodliness with a response that’s tart, or serrated, or pungent, or satiric, you will have more than a few Christians taking you aside saying, “Hey brother, you probably don’t want to talk to them that way. … Would Jesus have responded that way?” And when you reply, “Well, yes, he would have. And here’s how he did it in Matthew 23 where he disassembles the Pharisees.”

[Evangelical Christians] don’t have a category for that. They’re so used to having Christlikeness defined by their ecclesiastical culture instead of having Christlikeness defined by the Bible, it is astonishing for many Christians to discover that this kind of verbal polemical engagement is preeminently biblical. It’s a very common biblical way of expressing righteousness. … If you take the smarmy, sweetie, nice discourse that many Christians think is supposed to be the norm and drive it into the Bible, you can’t find examples of that anywhere.

American philosopher and Catholic, Dr. Edward Feser, shares Wilson’s disdain for the unbiblical and unhelpful contemporary perversion of the Christian obligation to love our neighbors:

Niceness. Well, it has its place. But the Christ who angrily overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, who taught a moral code more austere than that of the Pharisees, and who threatened unrepentant sinners with the fiery furnace, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, was not exactly “nice.”

Feser finds fault with the unbiblical notion that “even a great many churchmen seem to have bought into,” which is that “inoffensive ‘niceness’ is somehow the essence of the true Christian, or at least of any Christian worthy of the liberal’s respect.” He argues that in,

innumerable vapid sermons one hears about God’s love and acceptance and forgiveness, but never about divine judgment or the moral teachings to which modern people are most resistant—and which, precisely for that reason, they most need to hear expounded and defended.

Feser argues against church “teachings on sexual morality” that are delivered “half-apologetically, in vague and soft language, and in a manner hedged with endless qualifications”:

Such “niceness” is in no way a part of Christian morality. It is a distortion of the virtues of meekness (which is simply moderation in anger—as opposed to too much or too little anger), and friendliness (which is a matter of exhibiting the right degree of affability necessary for decent social order—as opposed to too little affability or too much).

Maybe, just maybe, if every theologically orthodox Christian spoke in biblical tones and language about the perversity and corruption that confront our children every day in their TV shows, picture books, and government schools, and defile our society there would be less of it, and maybe, just maybe Mike Adams would still be alive.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/How-May-Christians-Speak.mp3

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Illinois Public School Officials Spread Disinformation

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Written by Diane O’Burns

Lies to parents continue to spew forth across Illinois from the public schools as we get closer to the first day of school. In recent days, many school districts and schools across Illinois have informed parents via the school or district Facebook pages and in online school platforms for parents of the school or district rules for homeschooling. For example, Staunton School district released the following question (#29) and answer in a document:

If I should choose to not enroll my student and want to homeschool my child, what process must I follow?

The district responded,

“in the event that you choose to homeschool your student, you must contact the Regional Office of Education to register your student as homeschooled, provide a curriculum to be monitored, and approved for your child, and are subject to rules and regulations provided through the state of Illinois.

Nothing in the district’s statement is accurate information based on the Illinois Homeschool law.

The Elwood CCSD #203 listed in their Transition Plan Back to In-Person Instruction,

Those parents who wish to just keep their children at home, but have no medical reasoning for this, will need to register for homeschooling through the Regional Office of Education.

First, homeschoolers are not “just keeping” our “children at home”; we are educating them as required by the guidelines listed in the Illinois Homeschool law. Second, homeschoolers are not required to register their homeschool.

ROE #17 Bloomington sent this to parents:

Homeschool–if you choose not to enroll your child in Prairie Central Schools, or any other public or private school, you may choose to homeschool him or her. Please know that if you do not enroll your child, you will not be entitled to receive resources from the Prairie Central school district. A copy of the homeschool registration form is available at ROE #17 in Bloomington, IL, where you will submit copies of your planned curriculum for approval.”

Again, we are not required to register, and we are not required to have our curriculum approved.

The Vandalia Elementary School Facebook page recently posted this warning:

if a parent chooses to homeschool that is of course their decision (as it has always been) but it will have to be done by registering as a homeschooler through the local Regional Office of Education in the former Jefferson School building.

Again, homeschoolers are not required to register their homeschool with anyone.

Also, numerous parents who are choosing to homeschool have discovered that their child has been automatically registered by the school for the 2020-2021 school year. Upon contacting the school regarding this automatic registration, parents have been told that sometimes the system just does that. So, will these homeschooling parents who were automatically registered as public school students now have truant officers show up at their door in the fall? How does automatic registration occur? No one in the schools seems to be able to give an answer.

Ryan Scott, principal of Main Street Elementary School in Shelbyville said this in an email to a parent who inquired about whether or not a child could return to the public school after being homeschooled:

As far as re-entry into Shelbyville schools from a home-school program, it is more case by case with the different programs. … I have had some students enroll from home-school with zero evidence of standards mastered. … or proof of even attendance. In cases where we have data from a home-school program such as accredited organization, it is easier to assess & enroll in the appropriate grade-level. In cases where I have nothing more than parent anecdotes on student mastery/progress. … we assess the student w/multiple data sources such as our nationally “normed” standardized assessments for ELA & Math & make decisions regarding the most appropriate placement.

Homeschools are not required to submit attendance records to public schools. As far as evidence of standards mastered, let’s take a look at Main Street Elementary School’s test scores from 2019. Forty percent of its students did not meet standards in ELA. Fifty-three percent of its student body did not meet state standards in Math in 2019. This is a school district with a 15:1 student-teacher ratio too. Mr. Scott should concern himself with the failing student body, rather than a few select homeschool parents that he claims to have come in contact with in his district.

This parent also asked about the upcoming school year and what they had planned for (this was in late July). Mr. Scott continues by saying,

Obviously, the most “stream-lined” system for families choosing to not send their child to in-person learning @ school, is the district “remote learning” program. I can’t tell you exactly what this will look like yet but we are definitely working hard on it & plan to communicate with our families ASAP.

This parent believes they cannot in good faith send their children into this giant unknown educational black hole, which in the spring was a total disaster.

This is Part 2 of an extended article about parents seeking to homeschool their children during the COVID-19 pandemic.



Leftist Lawmakers and Activists Call for Cancellation of All History Classes

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Before you read this, you might want to have a fire extinguisher at the ready, because this news just may light your hair on fire.

State Representative La Shawn K. Ford (D-Chicago) held a press conference on Sunday in which he called for all Illinois schools to cease teaching history because he’s “Concerned that current school history teaching leads to white privilege and a racist society.”

In a press release titled a “Call for the Abolishment of History Classes in Illinois Schools,” Ford proclaimed from his high horse,

When it comes to teaching history in Illinois, we need to end the miseducation of Illinoisans. I’m calling on the Illinois State Board of Education and local school districts to take immediate action by removing current history books and curriculum practices that unfairly communicate our history. Until a suitable alternative is developed, we should instead devote greater attention toward civics and ensuring students understand our democratic processes and how they can be involved. 

Has Ford created and made public the criteria that would be used to evaluate the fairness of “history books and curriculum practices,” or does he just presume that all current history books and curriculum practices communicate history “unfairly”?

The press release announced that speakers would discuss “how current history teaching practices overlook the contributions by Women and members of the Black, Jewish, LGBTQ communities and other groups.” Take note of the implicitly racist bias in Ford’s press release that capitalized “Black” while not capitalizing “white.” Yes, persons of Color can be as racist as Colorless people.

Here’s a translation of Ford’s rhetoric: Ford wants schools to cancel all history classes until all textbooks can be reviewed by Big Brother to determine if they are sufficiently woke (i.e., leftist/revisionist) in their treatment of properly melanated persons, women (i.e., persons with DNA-determined vaginas), homosexuals, and opposite-sex impersonators. In the meantime, Ford proposes teaching “civics,” focusing on presenting BLM and Antifa riots as constitutionally protected intensely peaceful assemblies.

In the early stages of the pandemic, when most Americans were fretting about the Chinese Communist virus, leftists were hatching plans on how to weasel the widely criticized New York Times revisionist 1619 Project into Illinois public schools.

To achieve that goal, Ford first proposed the silly partisan bill HB 4954 to add yet more “commemorative holidays” to the school calendar and mandate the teaching of the Civil Rights Movement, which is already taught in schools everywhere.

Then just two weeks later, Ford, who in 2012 was charged “with eight counts of bank fraud and nine counts of submitting false information to the bank in a 17-count indictment,” filed an even more partisan and dangerous amendment that would require the following:

“The study of the pre-enslavement history of Black people from 3,000 BCE to AD 1619, including instruction about ancient civilizations, kingdoms, kings, queens, and warriors; their contributions to medicine, literature, technology, architecture, and economics; and their achievements,” and “The study of the reasons why Black people came to be enslaved.”

The amendment was the brainchild of community activist Meleika Gardner who also wrote the amendment.

According to Scene Chicago, Gardner attributes the murders of “her father, a stepfather, her nephew, and several friends to gun violence due to systemic racism,” which she seeks to eradicate through school indoctrination. I’m unable to find, however, any identification by Gardner of the systemically racist acts that allegedly killed her loved ones or explaining exactly how these racist acts killed them. It seems, for example, that her nephew, Xavier Joy, was the tragic victim of robbery in Woodlawn, a neighborhood on the South Side that is 98 percent black. Maybe some intrepid reporter will ask Gardner for some specific details on how systemic racism killed her friends and relatives.

Ford and Gardner were joined at the press conference by their collaborator, Evanston alderman Robin Rue Simmons, who tied the amendment that would mandate yet more leftist propaganda in government schools to both slave reparations and the riots destroying America:

Simmons, who has spearheaded the push for reparations in Evanston, called education “a key piece of what repair looks like.” Acknowledging the recent Black Lives Matter protests and nationwide “awakening” to the oppression black people face, she said “now is the time” to fight for this bill.

The collaborators know that it would be infinitely easier to get brown, yellow, red, and white Americans who have never owned slaves to support paying reparations to blacks who never were slaves if these Americans have been propagandized.

Ford, a former history teacher in Chicago Public Schools, made this jaw-dropping statement to Fox News:

We know that the history books that we have were written years ago, decades ago, centuries ago by pretty much one group of people, and that’s white men.

Does Ford think teachers are today using textbooks written centuries ago? Is he so racist that he thinks white people can’t write about historical events involving black people? Does he believe black people are similarly incapable of writing about historical events involving white people? I guess we should be glad Ford is no longer in the classroom.

Ford’s policies are likely shaped more by his desire for political power in a leftist city than by principle. When running for mayor in 2019, Ford was asked by the homosexual newspaper Windy City Times if he has any “experience working in LGBTQ-related issues.” Ford, who pretends to be Catholic while supporting abortion and issues related to homosexuality, acknowledged that his lesbian sister is a “strong adviser on issues.”

If this Trojan horse filled with 1619 Project swamp gas looks like it’s going to pass in the Springfield swamp, some good conservatives should file an amendment that would require a complete history of slavery throughout the world to be taught and would require that all resources used in history classes be ideologically balanced between conservative and leftist. So, if resources by 1619 Project author Nikole Hannah-Jones are used, then equal time must be spent studying resources by Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and John McWhorter.

Let’s make sure Illinois children know that between 1501-1866, more enslaved Africans went to Brazil/Portugal (5,848,266), Great Britain (3,259,441), France (1,381,404), Spain/Uruguay (1,061,524), and the Netherlands (554,336) than the United States (305,326), and that “Less than one-quarter of white Southerners held slaves,” and that it is estimated that “3,776 free Negroes” owned slaves.

And let’s make sure they study the work of prolific black scholar Thomas Sowell who writes that,

Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century. People of every race and color were enslaved—and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed. Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others.

Sowell further points out the hypocrisy of leftists on slavery:

The treatment of white galley slaves was even worse than the treatment of black slaves picking cotton. But there are no movies or television dramas about it comparable to Roots, and our schools and colleges don’t pound it into the heads of students.

Sowell offers a corrective to the myopic perspective offered by America-hating leftists—a corrective of which students should be made aware:

The inhumanity of human beings toward other human beings is not a new story, much less a local story. There is no need to hide it, because there are lessons we can learn from it. But there is also no need to distort it, so that sins of the whole human species around the world are presented as special defects of “our society” or the sins of a particular race.

If American society and Western civilization are different from other societies and civilization, it is that they eventually turned against slavery, and stamped it out, at a time when non-Western societies around the world were still maintaining slavery and resisting Western pressures to end slavery, including in some cases armed resistance. Only the fact that the West had more firepower than others put an end to slavery in many non-Western societies during the age of Western imperialism. …

Every American should be troubled by the goals of leftist demagogues and censors in government schools. Sowell makes clear that they are not interested in ascertaining truth but, rather, they seek to distort children’s understanding of America for power and money:

It is not just the history of slavery that gets distorted beyond recognition by the selective filtering of facts. Those who go back to mine history in order to find everything they can to undermine American society or Western civilization, have very little interest in the Bataan death march, the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire or similar atrocities in other times and places.

Those who mine history for sins are not searching for truth but for opportunities to denigrate their own society, or for grievances that can be cashed in today, at the expense of people who were not even born when the sins of the past were committed.

Why did Ford collude with other leftists to concoct this amendment? Leftists understand that it’s easier to forge 15-year-olds into good leftist foot soldiers than it is to forge 25-year-olds and easier still to squeeze malleable 5-year-olds into desired shapes by plunking them into government Play-Doh molds. Leftists want to prevent freethinkers who may later become incorrigibly resistant to leftist dogma and then have to be cancelled.

Conservatives best get their kids out of government indoctrination centers and re-education camps pronto. Leftists are not winning the culture war by the persuasive force and rationality of their ideas but by indoctrination and intimidation.

The Orwellian anti-freedom sharks smell and taste the blood of conservatives in the water. Every day that conservatives choose fear over courage, capitulation over resistance, and silence over bold dissent, they sacrifice the future freedom of their children for one more hour of uneasy peace.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your state lawmakers and urge them to vote no on both HB 4954 and Rep. La Shawn Ford’s amendment, which would politicize the teaching of history in Illinois schools and foment more division.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Leftist-Lawmakers-and-Activists-Call-for-the-Cancellation-of-All-History-Classes_audio.mp3

Please consider supporting the work and ministry of Illinois Family Institute.

As always, your gift to IFI is tax-deductible and greatly appreciated!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.



Homeschooling: What in the World is Going On?

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Facts, Stats and Biblical Truth with Dr. Brian Ray

Christian parents, grandparents and church leaders must seriously consider other options for their students and make the move away from government schools. The prevalence of perversion, subversion, and indoctrination are becoming more prevalent, and in order to protect the hearts and minds of our children, it is wise to consider other education options.

We invite you to join us Monday afternoon, August 3rd for a special webinar presentation about the blessings of Home Education featuring Dr. Brian Ray.

Dr. Brian Ray is a leading international expert in research on homeschooling and president of the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI). That sounds a bit lofty, but keep in mind that Brian and his wife Betsy raised 8 children, homeschooling all the way. Brian has also been interviewed by major media around the world, taught undergraduate and graduate university courses, and has taught children of all ages in public school, private school, and homeschool settings. Dr. Ray has a lot of fun challenging norms, and you might even find that he makes statistics and facts pretty fun!

Brian holds a Ph.D. in science education, a M.S. in zoology, and a B.S. in biology. Dr. Ray really enjoys wandering with Betsy and being out in the forests and mountains and on adventures in search of deer, elk, bears, and mountain lions.

Where:    Zoom Webinar
When:     Monday, August 3rd
Time:      1:30 PM (CDT)

Dr. Ray has graciously agreed to a Q&A session following his presentation.

To register for this webinar and receive the link, email Kathy at v.kathy@illinoisfamily.org or call the IFI office during office hours at: (708) 781-9328. (The link to the webinar will be emailed out on Monday.)



Public School Authorities Bully Would-Be Home Educators

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Written by Diane O’Burns

Illinois parents, along with millions of other parents across the nation, were tossed into an at-home learning environment this past spring that the public school coined “Homeschooling.” The public schools were ill-equipped for this change-over, despite years of “e-learning days” when public school children learned how to use the software during snow days and other days off.

During this time of COVID-19 homeschooling, many parents reconnected with their children, enjoyed the time spent with them, and heeded the words of Bible teacher Dr. Tony Evans: “Don’t waste the Covid.”

This parent-child reconnect helped foster additional learning opportunities when parents realized that they really are the best teachers for their children. Many parents actually threw the public school busy work paper packets into the trash and began teaching their children themselves.

As a veteran homeschool mom, I was keenly aware of the number of parents entering into homeschool groups asking questions about how to supplement the busy work and get on to some real teaching. These parents lamented the long ZOOM meetings, sometimes 4-5 per day, plus all the busy work in addition to the crying, bored, and bleary-eyed children who stared at screens for way too long each day. These parents reached out for help and found a loving homeschooling community waiting to accept them.

Special online communities were created for these COVID-19 homeschoolers to encourage them in the middle of a pandemic. The Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE) started a special Facebook group called Homeschoolers Encouraging Loving Parents (H.E.L.P.), whose mission is to provide “help for those suddenly schooling at home.” In addition, there is a Facebook page called Illinois Homeschooling, seeking to remind parents that “there is nothing better than networking when you homeschool.”

Becoming part of these communities as well as getting involved in local homeschool support groups has helped parents make the decision to leave the public school system for home education. These parents were encouraged to send letters of withdrawal to their child’s school informing them that the child was transferring to a private school. No more information is required.

School Administrators Intimidate Parents

In Illinois, homeschools are legal private schools. Some parents who thought they were on a solid footing with their friendly local public school decided to go in person to the school office instead of sending their letter to withdraw by mail as is recommended. Some of these parents were completely shocked and caught off guard by the hostile environment they found themselves in. For the first time in their lives, they were making educational decisions for their children, and government school administrators were not pleased with this newfound parental right.

Parents were told in some cases that the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) could become involved if they began homeschooling. They were told that truant/resource officers could come to their home at any time to make sure the children were being properly educated. Parents were told that by law they had to register their child with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), which is not accurate. In 2011, a homeschool registration bill SB136 was tabled after more than 4,000 Illinois homeschoolers gathered at the state capitol in Springfield to show their disapproval of this bill. Illinois homeschoolers do not register with the ISBE, the local school, or the Regional Office of Education (ROE).

Some Illinois parents were told they had to bring in their 2020-2021 school year curriculum (books, workbooks, teaching materials, videos etc.) and show complete lesson plans for the entire school year and that these all had to be approved by the school district. School district teachers are not even required to complete an entire school year of lesson plans at one time.

Others were told that all Individualized Educational Plans (IEP) services would be denied if they chose to homeschool their special needs children. Again, this is not accurate information. According to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), students with special needs may be eligible for services, and “homeschool students with disabilities have a right to enroll part-time in the public school in the district where they reside.”

During a Taylorville school district board meeting, superintendent Dr. Chris Dougherty, PhD, said this regarding the choice to homeschool:

We’re more than willing to work with families who make that decision, then realize they are in over their heads because we are the educational experts. The ROE said really, once they start the year in that status, we can honor it and they can be a homeschool student the entire year. But because of the pandemic and because we run education for the community we will absolutely review them case by case and get kids where they need to be and support to the families (heard on taylorvilledailynews.com).

Here, parents were told that they did not have the educational background and expertise required to homeschool their children. This is coming from a school district in which in 2019, only 35 percent of students met state standards in English Language Arts (ELA) and only 29 percent of the district’s students were meeting the state standards in math. If those numbers are not enough to scare you, then maybe the fact that in 2017 (the most recent year listed), 57.4 percent of the Taylorville High School graduates required remediation in college. That 57.4 percent only includes students that actually went on to attend community college and not the total number of graduates that year.

Think about the 57.4 percent that needed remediation in basic course materials. These students had been in school for 12+ years, and some as many as 15 years when you include kindergarten, preschool or Head Start. Over 57 percent were ineligible to enroll in college level courses such as basic composition or a college-level math course. The Illinois state average is only 44.2 percent of students needing remedial college course work. It would be fair to say that with those low numbers, parents would be wise to homeschool their children and get them as far away from the “educational experts” (as Dougherty calls them) in the Taylorville school district as possible. (Statistics come from illinoisreportcard.com)

This month, the Taylorville CUSD #3 Facebook page, as well as a letter sent to parents, reads,

Homeschooling requires parents to withdraw from school, complete the state form, and inform the school district and Regional Office of Education of homeschooling.*

The Taylorville school district has been known as unfriendly to homeschoolers for many years. In addition to the above statement from the Taylorville superintendent, parents have been told that if they choose to homeschool their child, the child may never be allowed to return to the public school. They have also been told that high school credits earned in homeschool will not count toward graduation if the child returns to public school in high school. The comments to parents differ between superintendent and principals as to whether or not children are allowed back into school after attending homeschool.

Even in past years, principals and superintendents in Taylorville have threatened to sic the DCFS on parents inquiring about homeschooling or turning in letters to withdraw their child to homeschool, and they have sent parents to the Christian County Courthouse to fill out “mandatory paperwork to protect against truancy claims.”

Imagine how intimidating that was to that mom who only wanted to make an informed educational decision for her children. She went to the school office that was normally friendly and helpful and was told that she had to go to the courthouse to fill out paperwork to homeschool. She then goes timidly to the courthouse and is put in a room with a supposed truant officer (she never did find out who the man in uniform was that made her fill out papers to be allowed to homeschool). I have seen copies of the papers that she was required to fill out, and they are the homeschool registration form from the ISBE website. This registration paper is not required to be filled out in Illinois to homeschool. It is voluntary, not required, and can be detrimental to homeschoolers.

These lies and others create unnecessary difficulties for parents seeking to homeschool their children in the upcoming school year.

This is Part 1 of an extended article about parents seeking to homeschool their children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Diane O’Burns is a veteran homeschool mother from Illinois.

Please consider a gift to the Illinois Family Institute.
As always, your gift to IFI is tax-deductible and greatly appreciated!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.



Three Big Reasons to Consider Homeschooling This Year

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With the debate raging across America about opening the nation’s schools this fall, many parents are considering home education.

As a homeschool graduate and second-generation homeschooling dad, I’d like to share with you three huge reasons why I believe homeschooling is a great choice whether the public schools are in session this fall or not. 

#1: We Get to Do Our God-Given Job

God has commanded parents to teach their children in His ways. It’s the example of Scripture from beginning to end, in passages such as Deuteronomy 6, Psalm 78, and Ephesians 6.

Viewed through a Biblical lens, home education is simply a method for parents to take seriously—and, I would add, at face value—God’s commands to teach their children. Homeschooling gives parents a platform for discipleship like nothing else.

Even if there were no problems in our public schools, it could still be argued that home education is the most Biblical form of education available to parents today because it puts them in the driver’s seat of their children’s training and instruction.

Too often, parents in modern American culture have a mindset of delegation when it comes to the raising of their children. We delegate our children’s minds to the teachers at school, their physical development to a coach or P.E. instructor, their spiritual well-being to a youth pastor, and their leisure time to devices and friends. But does God call us to simply coordinate our children’s lives while others do the heavy lifting, or does He call us to be the ones getting our hands dirty in the daily teaching and training of our kids?

As my brother once pointed out, God gives parents the jurisdictional responsibility to teach their children—not as something to delegate but as something to do. Homeschooling gives us the opportunity to do more than delegate—and that puts it right in line with God’s model.

#2: We Know What Our Children Are Being Taught

Andrew Pudewa, founder of the Institute for Excellence in Writing and a popular speaker at homeschool conferences, raises an important point for parents whose children attend public school. Could you read the textbooks your children are using and say, “I approve of my children being taught this?”

It’s probably safe to say that most parents haven’t thoroughly perused and evaluated their children’s curriculum, let alone decided if they approve of it.

Homeschooling changes this dynamic. Not only do we have the opportunity to guide our children through their studies each day, we get to pick the curriculum! In other words, we get to choose the worldview that forms the basis of our children’s education.

There are many curriculum options available to homeschoolers that are written from a Christian perspective. If your desire is for your children to develop a Biblical worldview, homeschooling is a great choice on that basis alone.

#3: We Can Tailor the Education to the Child

Another incredible blessing of homeschooling is that we can tailor each child’s education to where they are and what they need. We can appreciate both their strengths and weaknesses and adapt their education to fit them.

Have you ever stopped to think about the artificiality of our modern system of grade levels? Is it rational to think that every student who is ready for fifth grade math will also be ready for fifth grade language arts—or vice versa? Chances are, many students are being held back in some subjects and forced ahead in others.

Homeschooling gives you the flexibility to allow your child to press on in subjects where they excel, while giving extra time and attention to subjects where they struggle. It allows you to pick resources that will help each unique child reach their full potential rather than being forced into the same cookie cutter as everyone else.

Blessings Abound

These are just a few of the blessings of homeschooling. The good news is, these blessings—and many others—hold true whether the public schools are open or closed, whether masks are required or not, and whether the pandemic is still disrupting lives or things are getting back to normal.

If you’re considering homeschooling, be sure to check out Illinois Christian Home Educators and Home School Legal Defense Association. You’ll find helpful information on both sites as you prayerfully consider your options.

Please consider a gift to the Illinois Family Institute.
As always, your gift to IFI is tax-deductible and greatly appreciated!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.



Three Steps to Start Homeschooling Now

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Written by Ruth Hoskins

In the age of COVID-19, many people are finding themselves in an unfamiliar educational camp with their children. Homeschooling is a subject that every parent with school-aged children is now talking about. But with so much information on homeschooling available online, many parents are overwhelmed and unsure of how to get started. The question I am asked most often is “Where do I begin”?

Below are three steps to getting a good start with homeschooling your children. Follow these three steps and you will be well on your way to having a successful homeschool year.

Step One:  Write down why you intend to homeschool your children.

As you begin your homeschooling journey, one of the first hurdles to cross is one of the most important. Why are you homeschooling? If you do not spend some time with this question, and really get clarity on why you are deciding to take the homeschool journey, you might find yourself having difficulties down the line. I almost guarantee it. Please don’t skip this step.

People homeschool for a variety of different reasons. I am hard pressed to say that one reason is more noble than another. They are all different. The important thing is to know why you are doing it. Knowing why from the onset is going to be your guiding light, your north star. It will be what you come back to again and again. I don’t think that the initial reason that you homeschool will change. It might expand or shrink, but the root of the reason for homeschooling will remain.

Knowing why will also determine how long you will homeschool, and it will impact the curricular choices you make. I am a firm believer in homeschooling from kindergarten through high school. Many people choose a shorter time frame. Knowing how long you intend to homeschool will help you decide if you need to teach your children in a way that will keep in step with the local school, or if you have a broader window to set your own pace with your children.

You do not have to have everything determined at the onset of homeschooling, but you should know why you are doing it.

Once you decide why you are homeschooling, write it down and keep it in a file folder. You will have this as a reference when the challenges of teaching your children at home arise.

Below are a few questions to consider when thinking about your why:

1.) Am I homeschooling because I want to or because my kids are begging me to?

2.) Do I intend to homeschool throughout the compulsory educational years or just a fraction of them?

3.) Am I homeschooling because of my child’s educational needs (i.e., gifted, slower learner, different learner, etc.)?

4.) Am I homeschooling because of family life? I want our time to be our own, not dictated by our local school. We can take vacations when it is best for our family. We move a lot, and homeschooling can help to keep the educational process constant.

5.) Am I homeschooling because of religious reasons and convictions? I want to teach my children my faith and what that looks like in everyday life. I want to help my children navigate life’s complexities. I disagree with the liberal ideology that public schools are bringing into K-12 classrooms.

6.) Am I homeschooling because of bullying or some other unpleasant situation that is occurring in school?

You may find that you homeschool for a combination of reasons. There is no wrong reason. Just be clear on your reason.

Step Two: Know the homeschooling laws of your state. Print them out and file them in a convenient location.

It is amazing what peace of mind and confidence comes from knowing that you are meeting all of the requirements of homeschooling in your state. Confidence comes when you operate your homeschool freely within the confines of the law. Complete the requirements for your state. In Illinois, homeschools operate as private schools. Check out these frequently asked questions from the Illinois State Board of Education.

Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) is another wonderful resource for checking out the homeschool requirements for Illinois, or any other state in the country.

Step Three: Choose a curriculum and get started.

There are so many methods of teaching, and curriculum choices, that it is very easy to get overwhelmed. The important thing to remember is that the curriculum choice that you decide today is not something that you have to stick with forever. The curriculum is a tool to help you reach your goal and, as with all tools, if one does not do the job, you choose another.

Here are a few things to consider when choosing a curriculum:

First, think about your level of involvement. Do you want an online teacher (school at home) or are you going to be the hands-on teacher, leading the lessons and learning objectives? Do you want to create the lesson plans, or would you like that worked out for you? Do you plan on grading the work yourself and thus will need answer keys, or will you look for a way to outsource that? Will you be keeping records, grades, and creating transcripts? (This is important for high school students.)

Next consider how you would like to have your homeschool structured. Do you prefer a textbook and workbook learning environment, or an all online learning atmosphere. Are you comfortable seeking and creating the learning objectives for each grade, or would you rather follow a plan that has the learning objectives all laid out for you by grade?

What is your budget?

Once you know what you are looking for, search homeschool curricula online with those markers, and choose 3-4 different publishers. Go to their websites and take a look at a few sample lessons. Check to see which publishers have what you need, and then choose one. You are not going to choose wrong. Once you try something, use it, and if possible, use it for the entire year. Then evaluate what worked, what did not, and choose again the next year. It’s that simple.

Here are a few companies to get you started: Abeka books, Time4learning, Saxon, Pearson Online Academy, Calvert Homeschool, and Khan academy. There are hundreds to choose from. Set your sights on just a few to keep from getting overwhelmed. Also, keep in mind that if you are teaching multiple ages, some subjects can be taught together using a Unit Study method of teaching.

Spend some time determining what you are searching for first, and this will help to keep you from venturing into the curriculum world only to come out overwhelmed, discouraged, and defeated. What you choose today may not be what you use next year. That’s okay.

One more thing about choosing a curriculum. There is a lot of talk about understanding what your child’s learning style is before choosing a curriculum. Although helpful, don’t let not knowing stop you from moving forward. You do not have to have everything worked out at the onset of homeschooling.

You can teach your children at home. Understand that you will have good day and not-so-good days. If you prepare with the above steps, you will be on your way to having more good homeschool days than not throughout the year.

Ruth Hoskins is a veteran homeschooling mom, who along with her husband, taught their children from birth through high school. They did this without having an educational degree or certificate. She says that it was one of the most rewarding and challenging endeavors she’s had in her life. Ruth wants to encourage others who have a desire to homeschool their children to go for it. The benefits are so much more than academic achievements. 

Check out Ruth’s blog: Homeschooling As A Lifestyle for more information.