Christians Schools not so hot when it comes to educating kids?

[BOSSHOG]

A report, conveniently released on a friday afternoon indicates 8th grade math scores of those in conservative christian schools ain't too good.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0715-01.htm

Interesting that the report, asked for by the education department was released on a Summer Friday afternoon with no news conference and no evidence of the Secretary of Education anywhere around. An NEA spokesman said that if the christian conservative schools had done well there would have been press conferences and over the top hoopla about the results. I guess 2 plus 2 equals four does not fall under the realm of belief. And what citizens need math anyway??

[Wickerman]

1. Interesting

for those who want to read the data themselves:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006461

What's most interesting is to compare Conservative schools against Lutheran an Catholic. :D

[unschooler]

12. Math might lead to science, and you know what that means....

[bluestateguy]

2. They don't care about math because they all think the rapture is coming

nt

[Wickerman]

3. rofl

With respect to the Conservative Christian schools,
the average difference in unadjusted means with public
schools is not significantly different from zero. (That
is, there is no initial difference between Conservative
Christian schools and public schools.) When the average
difference in school means is adjusted for student
characteristics, the average school mean is higher for
public schools than for Conservative Christian schools.

translation: stfu about yer faith-based (conservative christian) education.

[BOSSHOG]

4. Christians students will be taught and

will learn at the level necessary to grow up to be outstanding "christian" servants of their church. Math skills are not necessary when the pastor starts sticking them for the ole 10% tithing. "Can you figure 10% honey?" "I don't know sweetheart, but reverend goodbody said these three bills will do."

[hobbit709]

6. Math skills were not required

among the itinerant sheep herders back then. They could count up to twenty since they wore open toed sandals but the real math was left to the Egyptians, Greeks and Babylonians.

[tinfoil tiaras]

5. Yeah, I've been to the websites of some Conservitive Christian schools

And wow. Okay, we do Geometry in 9th grade, they do it in like 11th grade. Calculus is unheard of. WTF.

[FormerDem06]

7. I went to a christian school....

And we did algebra in the 7th grade. The problem is, they will let anybody open a school, and they don't even have accredidation. I took 33 credit hours with me to college thanks to taking the AP tests my senior year, our school was top-notch, but they aren't all like that.

[tinfoil tiaras]

11. Yeah, I go to an episcopal (which is Christian) school

and it's the best private school in the state.

I could open the tinfoil tiaras school for posting on DU and have like 3 kids attend. Anyone can open a school, which is pretty scary, IMHO, but it's their right I guess.

[egran]

8. Lutheran Schools best in math.

-"In eighth-grade math, children in Lutheran schools did significantly better than children in public schools, but those in conservative Christian schools fared worse."

[tanyev]

14. Woo-hoo! Lutheran school graduate here.

Granted, it was a couple decades ago, but at that time we learned all the same stuff as the public school kids, we just had an extra class--religion. Even now, I think most Lutheran schools are working hard to earn their accreditation. But I do know of some that use fundie materials in the classroom. I guess any parents thinking of putting kids in a private school need to look at them all individually and examine their curriculums very carefully.

[slampoet]

15. I grew up going to Catholic school.

We had a GREAT math program,
though fact is we shared our advanced placement math program with the Lutherans down the street.

[egran]

16. Lutheran schools tops in reading and best in math

-"The initial difference between Lutheran schools and
all public schools was substantially larger (19.5 points)
than was the case for all private schools.

While the results for Catholic schools, both
with and without adjustments, were very similar to the
corresponding results for all private schools,..."

I taught in a Lutheran school and in some excellent public schools.

The Lutheran school had a superb music program. On the whole it did not have nearly as much in the way of resources that the public schools had. But the faculty and administration were tops. ( Of course it was accredited.)

eg

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. Makes sense -- conservative christians are taught to count to

10 (commandments) while lutherans are taught to count to 95 (theses).

:-)

[AspenRose]

18. Wait'll Stephen Colbert finds out!

Aren't Lutherans on his list....they're "On Notice"/"Dead to Him" :rofl:

[kineneb]

21. Makes sense, given the Lutheran traditions of learning

(some of which I inherited)

Literacy and education are a Lutheran tradition, even for those in public schools. My grandfather's parents were Lutherans, and all nine of his siblings attended high school, and I would guess, graduated. He was a life-long learner, always reading something. I was informed, as a child, that I was to attend school, do well, and go to college. There was no question about it.

Luther was really the first Christian leader to encourage reading and education of the masses. The Luther Bible was one of the best translations available for some time, and was produced to allow the German people to read the Bible for themselves.

[FormerDem06]

9. You'll also find that on average private schools did better.....

but you have to break it down by race, gender, etc. to figure out the real comparison. I guess the lack of poor kids in these private schools skew it a little:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
It went through a lengthy peer review and includes an extended section of caveats about its limitations, calling such a comparison of public and private schools "of modest utility."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

and also

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Friday's report examined fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading scores for students attending public, private and religious schools. Students in private schools typically score higher than those in public schools, a finding confirmed in Friday's study. The report then dug deeper to compare students of like racial, economic and social backgrounds. When it did that, the private-school advantage disappeared in all areas except eighth-grade reading.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

So private school kids can read. That's got to count for something I guess......

[WhiteTara]

10. these are the xtian version of Madrassas

just a different language and god.

[nealmhughes]

13. There is a very real disconnect between actual parochial schools, i.e.,

those run by accredited Catholic, Jewish, Lutheran, Episcopal organizations and the so-called "Christian schools." Most of the above are accredited by their states and are under the law "private schools," not religious schools. The difference is very important, as there are NO standards at all -- not even fire codes or educational standards for teachers in Alabama. English does not even have to be the language of instruction for a "religious school."

I was once working on a very important long article on this (specifically Alabama, since the standards for public and private schools are amazingly strict in this state -- odd, eh?) topic, but got so disspirited from the websites of the textbook suppliers and the right wing spin (new take on Whig History these guys!) of the administrators that I just have my notes and could not stomach to write text.

Some of these are actually seg acadamies. They circumvent the private school statutes by claiming to be "eucumenical religious schools."

I have a friend with whom I went thru much of the Ph.D. program at Alabama who has a first cousin who sent her kids to one of these "to keep the Nigras out of there" and the kids who had straight A's at the seg academy -- oops, Christian academy -- did not get decent enougb ACT scores to go to a public liberal arts university, they had to take remedial everything for a year at the local community college to get to a Tier III public college...

[AspenRose]

19. You are absolutely right

The motivation for a lot of these homeschoolers is to purposefully keep the children segregated from students of color, and teach/indoctrinate prejudices under the guise of 'education.'

Bob Jones University provides homeschooling supplies to a lot of these 'Christian' schools.

Ironically, those kids you describe will be the same kids upset and screaming about 'affirmative action' when a 'nigra' has good enough grades to go to a college they can't get into.

[leftofthedial]

20. they are not intended to educate children