As we work on our strategic plan, we have been considering some of the same things. This sort of innovation and cooperation speaks well of the leadership at the three districts—especially Penn Manor who came up with the idea. As budgetary realities start slamming us in the noggin, this sort of creativity is going to be critical. It will, no doubt, become more of the norm, but the people that come up with the ideas first should get some credit. So kudos!

Astute observers of education should recognize that the locus of control over education is shifting. Monolithic public school districts are breaking down. This is both necessary and good. The system is going to (has to) change. We can hope that more power and control over the process is restored to the parents and to the locals. (See the article that I posted recently from First Things on why this is good.)

Here are the articles:

3 school districts will merge teaching efforts article

PM supports open campus plan

Note, however, in an article published today (which people have not yet tied together) that the other shoe is poised to fall. Hempfield, one of the districts involved in the open campus idea, is facing a $4.4 million budget shortfall next year. Sharing teachers means needing fewer teachers. Open campus is, no doubt, a prelude to fewer teachers. This is a necessary correction, but no one seems to see it coming yet, so you heard it first here. Here is the article:

Hempfield facing budget short fall

Deficit Debt video

Enjoy? (It is scary to think about 40% of every dollar we spend in our government is borrowed.

I think I found the common thread. See how this strikes you. Both the Tea Party (and Ron Paul’s supporters) and the Occupy movement are reactions to the bailout. The Tea Party knows that the bailout was wrong. They believe it was morally wrong. They tell this truth to everyone that will listen. The yell, “No!!!” When the government contemplates more relief because they rightly see it as theft (either from us in the present or from future generations).

Occupy is also a reaction to the bailout. It also says that the bailout was wrong. It believes that it was wrong, however, not because it was morally wrong or because it was theft, but because it was unfair. They are steamed that Wall Street Bankers who made idiotic decisions were protected by the full faith and credit of the government (i.e., by the wealth or selling of present and unborn taxpayers [if you read slavery when you see this you are probably closest to the truth]). We all should be steamed about this! They are most steamed, however, because the government helped those folks, but is not helping them. They want their own bailout so that they can avoid foreclosure, or so that they can be given a job, or so that they can have whatever they want. They reason that if the government gave someone a cupcake, then it has to give everyone a cupcake. Of course, this is insanity because we can’t afford any more cupcakes—nor could we afford the cupcakes that we have recently bought (i.e., recently in the last thirty years).  

These movements are not consistent. How does this relate to a classical Christian education. It is an application of what Sayers says about the Logic Stage—in which we teach students to think critically and clearly—when says that its aim is that we Distinguish! We see the differences between one thing and something that sounds (at points) very similar, but is, at its roots, quite different.

Classis Article

It will take you to the new issue of the Association of Classical and Christian Schools (ACCS) Journal called Classis. See page 4 and you will find Veritas’ own Chris Walker who wrote an article entitled “Integration: Theology and Methodology”. Chris has been a such a blessing out our school and community. Hats off to Mr. Walker!

In the long term you have to bring in more than you spend. I do not believe that all debt is wrong. I do think that in the long run the borrower is the slave of the lender. I am sort of astounded by the politics of the thing. The Republicans (the party I find most affinity with most of the time) raised the debt limit seven times under George W. Bush. They could have been fiscally conservative then. President Obama, who is now concerned about the debt, must have undergone some sort of epiphany. He has been spending at a rate that would cause our Founders to stick with Britain and not found this new country. It is horrifying for all these august looking people to thunder away on principles that they obviously did not hold only a few years—or even a month—ago. They think that this sort of pontificating will fool the people, and, sadly, it seems to work. We, the people, seem to have some sort of unbelievable amnesia. It looks to me like the progression of Romans 1 judicial blindness.

Here is the conclusion that I am reaching. I do not think that this system will fail. The powers that be (in Washington and New York) have too much at stake. These powers increasingly have little connection to the people that they are fleecing in the middle of the Country (from Lancaster County to eastern Washington and Oregon). America is becoming a battery to power the aspirations of these powers. The system will not fail, but for the people to have freedom it probably needs to fail.

As an educator at a school that loves Christ and the personal freedom and responsibility that flows from the Bible and the commitments of the West, I am working to make my students ready to bear freedom. I hope to give them a taste for it and a longing for it. Someday, maybe, they can have more of it than we have now. I am afraid that they might suffer much for the folly that we are allowing both in the recent past and in our day.

If we are to survive as a country, we must plan an escape from Nixonland.

This will be challenging and, I must admit, on the surface of things I see only a faint reason to be hopeful that this escape could happen. (I really worry that the forces of deep division, selfishness, and the lust for power in our country will pose frightening challenges for our future.)

If we are to escape, this escape begins with a recommitment to classical Christian education or sometime like it. Here is why:

Nixonland is built on continual sins against truth. These sins are deft misuses of some of the most brilliant tools that God has given us—logic and rhetoric. We are mixing up convincing sounding arguments that move the passions and obscure the truth. This has always happened. Today, however, as a result of our schools ceasing to teach logic and rhetoric (i.e., giving up a classical liberal arts education) most people are duped by slick sounding language. (We have ceased being free men and women and we are now told that we are free even though we don’t have the tools that it would take to be free.) If we would return to classical education—at least for a significant number of our children—there would be more accountability for telling political lies.

Also, classical education connects us to the past and helps us to put issues into some sort of priority list. Today, politicians typically bang the gong in “whatever way necessary” to drum up support, humiliate a rival for power, or, most often, raise money. Nixon was a savant in this arena. He was the “law and order” president approving criminal break ins to get the scoop on his rivals because he was convinced that they were planning to humiliate him. Classical education with its emphasis on the great books frees us from the tyranny of the urgent present and the shouts of the 24 hour news cycle.

Finally, the skills taught in and the content of a classical education helps people see the shallowness of the great technological catalyst for political lying which is the television. I am not against TV. It is good, but it is only good for one thing—entertainment. It enables political mischief because (like text messaging) there is never time to tell the whole truth. It was TV used thoughtlessly as a political tool that led us into Nixonland. Nixon lost the first presidential TV debate to good looking, articulate, witty JFK. By losing this debate (mainly because he did not understand the medium where his five o’clock shadow had more to do with truth than his arguments), he probably lost the presidency. Nixon learned his lesson. He obsessed over TV, hiring the prodigy Roger Ailes as a 25 year old to run his image (Ailes now runs Fox News). He scripted (or tried to script) everything. He won the presidency and won re-election. Lying on TV is too easy. By amplifying someone’s ethos over a short period of time, or by making one mistake something that can be replayed an infinite number of time, it makes politics inhuman and keeps us from making good decisions.

But, one mights say, “Can’t all of this be done by simply having a classical education? Does the educational reform need to also be Christian?” These are excellent questions. So far, all that I am suggesting could be done at a classical school that is not Christian. An escape from Nixonland, however, cannot happen without a return to Christ and to the Christian ideas that built this nation.

First, we need repentance and forgiveness. This seems like an easy thing. Can’t we all just get along. In truth, we cannot. Only in Christ, in His blood, can wrongs be washed away.

Second, we need to be reminded that it is the thing that counts—not the sound of the thing. God looks on the heart. Slick words and unjust measures are abominations to Him. Politicians weighing out words that they do not believe so that they can confuse or convince or co-opt half the people plus one is an outrage to Him. It must become repugnant to us as well.

Third, we need to have a vision for where we are going. Taking the road out of Nixonland is not an answer. We need to be headed somewhere. (This is the main problem with our present educational system right now, I believe, there is no ultimate aim for students outside of their own personal peace and prosperity.) And we need to be headed somewhere as a people and as a community. This can be found outside of Christ. We could become (and are becoming or are) an economic empire where profits and unemployment rates are more important than prophets and righteousness. We could adopt some other religious vision of life—lslam or Hinduism. It is only upon Christ that an ongoing foundation for civilization can be laid because He is the reason for this world. He created it. It reflects Him. The false gods and our idols (like Mammon) crush and disappoint. Jesus dies to save us from our sins and is raised again to found an order that promises the restoration of the world. In the Lord’s Supper, we see a hint of this coming world (that is already here and is growing). In this service, we offer thanks back to God for the world and for the redemption that He has given to us in Christ. As we do this, the very order that was established in the Garden is restored. Man, with thanks, praises His gracious Father. God with joy pours out blessing on His children.

It is in the power of God that we hope. It is in the power of God that we trust. It is His grace and mercy and power that can bring us out of Nixonland.

Second, Hat’s Off to Kim Seldomridge, the business manager of the CV District (and an old friend). He prudently started setting aside funds to ease (not fix because it cannot be fixed) the jolt that the district would feel as the cost of funding more retirement benefits for teachers skyrockets. These funds are allowing CV to avoid staggering tax increases with fewer cuts to staff and program. As a CV taxpayer, I am thankful for the work that he is doing.

The real question for me has been whether Governor Corbett will shepherd these ideas through to completion. Early observations have been unclear. Governor Corbett has been vaguely supportive, but not charging forward (in all areas but the non-taxing of Marcellus Shale). In the story in today’s paper seems to indicate that the Governor is going to support both bills. If he does, and if they are passed, education (and the state of PA) will be changed greatly over the next 10 years. I have concerns about both these bills, but I am beginning to wonder what a free market education system would look like. (There are no children in Atlas Shrugged! No help there.)

Today, I woke to find that the Hempfield teachers are possibly the smartest in the state. Teachers in many districts have turned down pay freeze proposals. Hempfield was smart enough to accept it—overwhelmingly. I have family members that teach in the district and my hat is off to them. They, unlike every other district that has considered this so far in PA, realize that this is not about 3% this year, nor is it about protecting hard fought collective bargaining rights (actually they are protecting these things by taking the freeze). It is about the survival of public education in PA. Honestly, the next five years are going to be interesting. Things could look radically…and I mean radically…different just five (maybe even three) years from now.

Hempfield School District forum looks at deficit

I have a lot of respect for superintendent Becker, but there are a couple of things about this story that concern me. I think that getting people together to “air grievances” might be a good tactic, but I cannot imagine doing something like this.

I really like Superintendent Becker’s attitude toward competition—“Bring it on.” She asks, however, that public schools and their charter and private competitors be made to play on “a level playing field.” Really!?!?! I must be misreading this quote, but I am thinking that she is saying that public schools are somehow not on “a level playing field” with their competitors. This is true, but I am pretty sure not in the way that she is implying.

I am pretty sure that what this translates into is that she wants private and charter schools to—1) have to accept all comers, and 2) she wants them to have to meet all the government standards and fill in all the forms that they have to.

While I guess this would be some sort of a “level field”, let me suggest another. No one needs number #2, but she has to give up taxing authority, charge tuition (they can ask for donations too), and run pay and services that way.

Note, also that no real answer were laid out concerning how this funding gap was going to be closed. I was on Hempfield’s (excellent) website two days ago trying to find out when they were having their early dismissal. It was the same day (only  a few hours after) I had read the story about the meeting mentioned above. I wondered if the irony was that everything pictured on the scrolling pictures on this site will have to be cut.

The slow train is coming. It will not be turned aside.