THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE NEA

"Parents must not abdicate their parental responsibilities to their child's public school," says Finn Laursen. Laursen is executive director of Christian Educators Association International (CEAI). He is himself a product of public schools and worked 32 years in public schools.

Founded in 1953, CEAI became the first national organization of professional Christian educators working in public, private and charter schools. From the beginning, the group has served the education community by encouraging, equipping and empowering Christian educators in public and private education.

For many, CEAI is the perfect alternative to the National Education Association, a teachers union that has been leaning hard to the political left for decades. Like NEA, CEAI provides many benefits for its members, such as professional liability insurance. It also views teaching as a God-given calling and ministry and promotes the Judeo-Christian ethic in public schools.

CEAI does not become involved in local school debates. However, when moral concerns or parental rights are at stake, CEAI is eager to see parent-friendly results. For example, in Lawton, Oklahoma, CEAI regional director David Williams learned in January that the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) was attempting to form an affiliate at his son's high school. Lawton is a city of 81,000 in southwest Oklahoma.

Williams, who teaches in another school district, went into action. First he sought prayer from believers in the area. The local paper published his letter to the editor, and he enlisted the help of KVRS radio station manager Dan Allen. KVRS is the local American Family Radio station. Next came a local TV story addressing equal access and parental involvement. Local church members distributed materials by former homosexuals to students at the high school. Hundreds of e-mails went to local politicians, school board members, teachers and parents.

"To make a long story short," says Williams, "the club was voted down by the student government. What was intended to quietly appear without parent notification was thwarted." One result of the project was a practical 10-step plan of action that Williams will furnish to others who face the homosexual agenda in local public schools. (Williams can be contacted at davidw@ceai.org)

As a former public school counselor and administrator, Laursen agrees that teachers legally function in the role of parents when they supervise and teach children during the school day. However, he says schools should always respect the parent-child relationship.

As an example Laursen recently commended the school board in Roseville, California, for its decision regarding students leaving campus for medical procedures, including abortion. The school board was expected to amend district policy to allow students to secure such procedures without parental knowledge. However, when parents learned of the proposed change, they packed the January 4 board meeting and found the board responsive to their concerns and rights.

School spokesman Larry Brubaker told AFA Journal that, while this issue is certainly divisive in many school systems, the Roseville board stood with their parents. "The school will not release students for medical reasons without parental permission," he said. The city of 45,000 is near Sacramento and has 8,000 students in its school district.

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FROM AN INSTRUCTOR AT THE VIRGINA MILITARY INSTITUTE:

A great stimulus for Leftist bigotry

"So what's it like to teach in a uniform?" asked the Post-Colonialist as he turned ever so slightly, revealing UC-Whatever on his nametag.

"Gee, I guess I've never thought about it. You first; what's it like to teach in jeans and Birkenstocks?"

Silence (and no more Camembert on the plate); he has no answer simply because there could be no answer to such an inane question. Obviously the Post-Colonialist links his professional persona to his teaching and his research, not to his wardrobe. Who among us does not?

But the professional activity of academics that teach at a military school always comes second - if at all - to curiosity about the institutional aspects of our positions, especially in juxtaposition with the accepted archetype of the American professor, molded by the political activity of the sixties and cultivated by the visibility of the left-wing power structure within higher education.

"I think it would be far too stressful for me to teach children of Republicans," the Multiculturalist commented over cappuccino in Padua, after expounding on profiling as a bigoted, narrow-minded policy of Eurocentrists.

I was tempted to ask if children of Republicans, indeed, young Republicans themselves or - God forbid - conservative professors were forced to stay in a closet of their own at her college, whose mission statement, after all, stipulates diversity in regards to race, gender and religion, but makes no mention of political affiliation. Would she have them wear a bright red R lest they enroll in her classes or sit next to her in the faculty lounge?

I shuddered to think how any of us would react to a colleague making the same statement, substituting party preference with an ethnic, gender or religious denomination: "It would be far to stressful for me to teach children of a gay couple . to teach children of Arab immigrants . to teach children of "fill-in-the- blank" (then run for cover). Yet no one else at our table seemed to view her statement as bigoted or even the slightest bit outrageous, as the comment encompassed a group considered marginal but not conceded full minority privileges; no hyphen, no prefix, no slashes or parentheses.

"So," remarked the Feminist, cutting her breakfast sausage into tiny little morsels with both purpose and vengeance, "you lived in Spain during the Franco years and now you're back to fascism." The effortlessness with which she had established her analogy between a totalitarian regime imposed through a military coup and the academic environment in which some of her colleagues and their students have freely chosen, far surpassed arrogance to border frighteningly on ignorance. I imagined her at countless rallies, proudly marching behind her sign "Keep Your Laws Off My Body," and wondered how many times she had become infuriated with the small-mindedness of those who do not respect the right of each individual to do with her life as she chooses.....

Ours is the honor of teaching young men and women who have vowed, like generations before them, to uphold and defend those liberties all Americans hold so dear but too often take for granted. Many of them may be asked to pay the ultimate sacrifice so that the Queer Theorist can continue to speculate over wine and cheese; so that the Post-Colonialist may never have to wear a uniform, unless it be of his own choosing; so that the Multiculturalist may continue to enjoy a cappuccino in Padua, some Bordeaux in Paris, or a mate in Patagonia; and to ensure that no one ever deny the Feminist her First Amendment right to label them "fascists".

But the differences between college students and cadets, mainstream teaching assignments and ours, extend beyond the temporal and spatial characteristics of our respective professional environments and are best represented by the ethical code and personal sacrifices that intrinsically define the four-year cadetship. Cadets live by an Honor Code, which they themselves enforce. They answer questions truthfully, even if it means personal embarrassment or disciplinary consequences, because they have vowed not to lie as part of their Honor Code, and they leave a twenty-dollar bill laying on the street if it is has not fallen from their pockets, lest they violate their pledge not to steal. Having sworn to choose "integrity over personal gain," cadets do not copy, plagiarize, or cheat in any other way, and the few that do face the shame of dismissal. Professors at VMI do not take attendance, inflate grades or even proctor exams.

The cadets' rigid schedule requires a strong mind, body, and spirit, and the discipline needed to meet expectations permeates the classroom atmosphere as much as the parade ground or the obstacle course. Cadets thrive on inquiry and debate, exuberantly entering the open forum of intellectual exchange where their opinions, contributions, and inquest are not only accepted, but welcomed. They realize that understanding another language, other cultures, and respect for different value systems and ideologies will be as vital to their success, maybe even survival, as the firing of a weapon or the flying of a plane....

It is not the uniformity of the ranks, but the individual commitment and selflessness of each cadet there that inspires the profound respect and admiration I hold for them. This nation owes so much of its greatness to a series of Others - there have been many. Our cadets are this century's campus Radicals; I revel in their Otherness and they teach me to cherish my own.

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Direct loan taxpayer ripoff: "This year marks the 40th anniversary of the guaranteed student loan program for college students. The program, created by Lyndon Johnson as part of the Great Society, has made college affordable for thousands of students. But it also has had a scandal-plagued past, with billions of dollars of unpaid loans and massive taxpayer losses and has contributed to the runaway inflation in college tuitions. In theory at least, student loans are supposed to be paid over time once the students graduate and start working. Through the 1970s and '80s, the student loan default and delinquency rates were scandalously high. Tens of thousands of financially successful professionals walked away from their loans with relative impunity. Stories of highly paid doctors, engineers and lawyers defaulting on loans were commonplace. ... Taxpayers got socked with a multibillion-dollar tab."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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