Waiting for Superman is not going to fix Education in America

Waiting For Superman is a move to correct the downward spiral of the American school system.  Bill Gates and his foundation seem to be a driving force behind this.

I want to send a message to Bill Gates and all of the Liberal People who want to reform our troubled education system.

I want to tell you all what happened to our system...  Your kind removed PRAYER FROM SCHOOLS in America in 1962 and ever since there's been terrible consequences.  Your new "charter schools" and this or that program is not going to fix the problem.  Keep waiting for superman, but you're in for a terrible disappointment. Because when you take God out of the equation it is doomed to fail and it has.

Don't believe me?  Check it out:

Here is a prayer commonly used in schools up until 1962:
"Almighty God we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our Country."
What happened in the United States in the years following the banning of prayer and Bible reading from public schools?

These are just some of the statistics covering "us", the students.
*Pregnancies in Teen Aged Girls - By 1994 had gone up 400%-Highest rate of teen aged motherhood in the West.
*Sexually Transmitted Diseases - Cases of gonorrhea up almost 400% among students age 10 to 14.
*Two Thirds of teenage boys say they've had sex. By the time they are 18 they've had on average, 5 partners.
*Rapes committed by 13-14 year old boys increased 186%.

These are statistics about the parents.
*Divorce rates - up 120%
*Single parent families - up 140%

What about the teachers?
*SAT scores declined sharply
*American students often place last in international scholastic competitions
* When attention focused on teachers to find the reasons for students' failure, many teachers failed certification tests.
*Dramatic increase in school violence
*Student suicides up 253%
*Students lack basic information - poor skills - bad for the business community
*Military forced to provide remedial education for recruits

Our Country
*Between 1962 and 1993 violent crime in the US increased 660%
*Alcohol use increased dramatically
*National productivity decreased
*Drug use
*Illiteracy
*72 million adults functionally illiterate
*26 million can't read at all

The founding fathers knew that these kinds of problems are controlled by the heart. When you take religion and morality away, you have taken away the restraints and the training of the heart. The heart does not respond to laws and laws cannot stop these kinds of things. All of the groups mentioned in that prayer, the students, teachers, parents, and our country, have paid dearly since 1962.

Statistics are from America: To Pray or Not to Pray by David Barton. He drew statistics from the Department of Justice, The College Entrance Exam Board, Department of Health and Human Resources, Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau and other official sources.

http://www.squidoo.com/banning-prayer-public-school-decline-morality-america

Notes:

Prayer in schools prior to 1962 was utilized in school districts all over the U.S. in many varieties. Some teachers used extemporaneous prayers, simply expressing their thoughts and desires; others implemented structured prayers, such as the Lord's Prayer or the 23rd Psalm, or others approved by local school boards. New York students prayed each day:

"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee and beg Thy blessing over us, our parents, our teachers, and our nation."

It was this simple prayer which came under fire and went to the Supreme Court for the landmark decision.

Much has been said both for and against prayer in schools. There is little doubt that neither the Lord Jesus Himself nor the founding fathers would have been in favour of ‘forced’ or ‘state sponsored’ prayer. The option to pray or not to pray is a matter of individual choice and has to come from the heart. It is a matter of some doubt whether the actual doing away of prayer in schools has directly contributed to the escalation of teen-age pregnancies and suicides and the downward spiral of the SAT scores. The Pharisees thought they would be heard for their ‘much speaking’, and similarly it is questionable as to how much value there is in a ‘canned’ prayer even if recited by thousands of young people across the country. (Consider that most schools in India start their day with a very generic prayer, similar to the one that sparked the U.S. Supreme court’s decision on the Engels v. Vitale case in 1962).

What Really Caused The Downward Spiral?
In the words of Greg Koukl..

Some have suggested that there is a causal relationship between taking prayer out of school and all the other bad things that happen in our society. I'm not sure that it's valid. The rooster crows and the sun comes up. Does that mean that the rooster causes the sun to come up? Because the sun comes up after the rooster crows, does it mean that if we killed the rooster we'll be perpetually in darkness? The point is that just because one thing happens after another doesn't mean that the second is caused by the first. [1]

However some indisputable statistics tell us that the downward slide in behavior started about the time of the court decision and was very evidently related. As we see it, the court ruling to remove prayer from the school system was nothing more than the ‘official’ stamp on the removal of God from a very crucial part of our society. It was simply one large step among many small ones, which has contributed to the moral & spiritual disintegration of the US. It was a flying leap across the narrow chasm separating a God fearing moral country and the chaotic ‘everything goes’ situation we find ourselves in today. The message the Supreme Court sent to the country that fateful day was that it was okay to ‘remove’ God from His rightful place. They were simply another, very effective, tool in Satan’s hand

Remove the fear of God from the human heart, whitewash the reality that, sooner or later, all of us will answer to a supremely moral Being, eliminate the concept that He demands adherence to His laws and it is but a short step to the deterioration of the cornerstone of society… The Family. With the fear of God done away with there is no longer any reason to treat the marriage vows as sacred, to bring up God-fearing children. From there it is an even shorter step to all the other sinister and evil circumstances we find ourselves in today…. Teen pregnancies, violent crime, suicide, drugs and alcohol abuse are the very logical fruits of a society that has forgotten that He is a God of wrath.

The elimination of the fear of God, symbolize

symbolized by the Supreme courts actions in the matter of school prayer, led to a dramatic increase in crime, venereal disease, premarital sex, illiteracy, suicide, drug use, public corruption, and other social ills. This documented by Specialty Research Associates, under the direction of David Barton, that has released a report entitled America: To Pray or Not to Pray. Below are just a few of the examples featured in Barton's report. A. Young People 1. For 15 years before 1963 pregnancies in girls ages 15 through 19 years had been no more than 15 per thousand  After 1963 pregnancies increased 187% in the next 15 years. 2. For younger girls, ages 10 to 14 years, pregnancies since 1963 are up 553%. 3. Before 1963 sexually transmitted diseases among students were 400 per 100,000. Since 1963, they were up 226% in the next 12 years. B. The Family 1. Before 1963 divorce rates had been declining for 15 years. After 1963 divorces increased 300% each year for the next 15 years. 2. Since 1963 unmarried people living together is up 353% 3. Since 1963 single parent families are up 140%. 4. Since 1963 single parent families with children are up 160%. C. Education 1. The educational standard of measure has been the SAT scores. SAT scores had been steady for many years before 1963. From 1963 they rapidly declined for 18 consecutive years, even though the same test has been used since 1941. 2. In 1974-75 the rate of decline of the SAT scores decreased, even though they continued to decline. That was when there was an explosion of private religious schools. There were only 1000 Christian schools in 1965. Between 1974 to 1984 they increased to 32,000. a. That could have an impact if the private schools had higher SAT scores. In checking with the SAT Board it was found that indeed the SAT scores for private schools were nearly 100 points higher than public schools. b. In fact the scores were at the point where the public schools had been before their decline started in 1963 when prayer and Bible reading/ instruction was removed from the schools. c. The scores in the public schools were still declining. 3. Of the nation's top academic scholars, three times as many come from private religious schools, which operate on one-third the funds as do the public schools. D. The Nation 1. Since 1963 violent crime has increased 544%. 3. Illegal drugs have become an enormous & uncontrollable problem. 2. The nation has been deprived of an estimated 30 million citizens through legal abortions just since 1973. Putting Prayer Back In Schools? Putting prayer back into schools may do more harm than good... In the words of Greg Koukl …. It may be that the thing that has caused our decline was not pulling prayer out of schools, but there is a third thing that caused both the decline and the pulling of prayer out of schools. The reason that's important is that if we try to fix the problem by putting prayer back into schools, and taking it out wasn't the thing that caused the problem, then we are kind of fixing the wrong part of a machine that's not working. But in the process of fixing we could do more damage, and this is a big concern that I have. You have to be careful of making decisions based on what appears to be a causal relationship if there isn't in fact a causal relationship. ...  “now that it's gone you will not be able to get back in the schools what was lost because if we reintroduce prayer in schools in any sense it's going to be kind of a benign civil religious prayer that satisfies everyone and offends no one... I think it may end up doing more harm than good by teaching people that as long as you have a kind of a benign, broad-brushed reference to some kind of deity then you are doing okay, and the details don't really matter that much. That would be a terrible message to send to young people.” [1] End Notes [1] Gregory Koukl. School Prayer: The Wrong Hill to Die On. http://www.str.org/site/News2?id=5556&page=NewsArticle