Is American Education going the way of Nazi Germany?

I have been reflecting on my elementary education recently, particularly my vastly inadequate understanding of American History and why our public school system failed to teach me the truth.  For example, I was taught that the Founders of the United States of America were not Christians but deists.  As I look back, no proof was ever given for such statements, but then again neither were the original documents ever opened to me for examination.  I never read the Constitution, although I did get the first amendment.  I never read the Articles of Confederation, or any of the primary source documents related to the revolution.  I was not shown the state constitutions which made explicit reference to God the Father and Faith in Jesus Christ as conditions for serving in the government.  Yes, these conditions were considered legal even after the ratification of the Constitution for the states reserved unto themselves all the rights not expressly stated in the Constitution.  I was told the Civil War was fought over slavery when in fact it was fought over state's rights.  Why were so many things left out?  Was it purposeful or accidental?  

Requirements for Baby sitters exceed that of teachers?

"One of the great ironies among modern evangelicals is the fact that many have higher and stricter standards for their children's baby-sitter than they do for their children's teachers. Is a baby-sitter needed?  She should be a Christian, and a reliable one.  She should be known to the family, or highly recommended by someone who is.  And for what task?  To keep Johnny safe and dry until bedtime and then to tuck him in.

But five years later, Johnny comes home from his first day of school.  He bursts in the front door, full of news.  His parents ask all kinds of questions.  And one of them is:  'Who is your teacher, Johnny?'  The parents don't know the teacher's name.  They don't know if the teacher is an atheist or a Southern Baptist.  They don't know is he is a socialist or a conservative Republican. They don't know if she is a lesbian or straight.  And what is the teacher's task?  Her task is to help them shape the way the child thinks about the world.  Does God exist?  If He exists, is His existence relevant to the classroom?  And what is the nature of man?  what is the purpose of society?  How did many get here?  Where should he go?  How should he conduct himself on the way?  None of these questions can be answered without certain worldview assumptions, and the parents in this example do not even know whether they share the worldview of their child's teacher."

from Douglas Wilson, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, pg 57.

Christian Education and Parenting

"Just being around godly people is insufficient...some of the most tragic stories in the Bible concern parental failure."  (Wilson, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, pg. 72)

These words, present a challenging view to most modern parenting and most Christian approaches to education.  Somehow we took the epitaph, "Bad company corrupts good people" and inverted it to say, "Good company creates good people.  As parents we often think that our children will catch the faith by being around us, other church going believers, and by attending a Christian school.

William Morris' Thoughts on Education - 19th century

I ran across this vignette while reading Nature's Unruly Mob by Paul Gilk.  I thought I would share this story, from page 65: The Educator’s Engine

"In News from Nowhere, a late nineteenth-century novel by William Morris, there is an interesting dialogue I will shortly quote. But first a little background, News from Nowhere is eutopian.

As News from Nowhere opens, the author, as first person character, has fallen asleep in his bed (in Hammersmith, a London suburb, in 1980) and awakens in the twenty-first century.  He finds himself in the same location, except that everything, including the building in which he went to sleep, is new and different.  After an episode of discovery and introduction—an experience as puzzling to the author as to his amused hosts and hostesses—he gets a guide by the name of Dick Hammond; and as they are traveling the following day (by horse and carriage!), our author sees many strange and transformed sights.  A group of children, tenting in meadows near the edge of the forest, sets the following scene: