Advocates of Government's Removal from Education Gather in WDC
by Jim Brown
November 19, 2004
(AgapePress) - Christians who advocate a mass exodus from public schools are meeting in Washington, DC, this weekend for the tenth annual "Separation of School and State" conference.Since the Alliance for the Separation of School and State was started ten years ago, more than 26,000 people have signed a proclamation calling for the end of government involvement in education. Many of those signatories will be on hand for SepCon 2004, beginning Saturday (November 20).
Alliance founder Marshall Fritz says SepCon is "the world's boldest education conference" because those who attend are willing to consider or already believe that socialism is the wrong way to educate children.
"The Russians proved [in 70 years of trying that] it's the wrong way to grow wheat. [And] we've tried for 164 years to use socialism to grow children," Fritz says. "More and more, we Christians are finding that these [government-run] schools are not only officially godless, but they're trying to destroy children's innocence."
According to Fritz, the conference will feature some of the most "interesting" thinkers in education who support the complete privatization of schooling.
"They're way outside the government box of trying to figure out if we can just change the people who are running the system, then everything's going to be alright," the SepCon spokesman says. "We've been trying that for 164 years, and there's not a single school reform that's ever done any good."
In Fritz's opinion, the existing educational system in America cannot be reformed. "It's not broken," he says. "It's doing what it meant to do -- and that is to displace or replace the family with the government."
Among the featured speakers at this year's SepCon are WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah and Christian author Tim LaHaye. In addition, Fritz will officially tap a new executive director to head an affiliate group called "GetTheKidsOut.org."
