Louisiana Black Pastors' Resistance to Home Education Surprises Advocate
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
October 21, 2005
(AgapePress) - The CEO and co-founder of the National Black Home Educators Resource Association (NBHERA) says many survivors of Hurricane Katrina are not aware that public schools are not the only educational option for their children. However, in her effort to raise awareness of home schooling in the black community, she has encountered surprising resistance to the concept. Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, NBHERA director Joyce Burges visited shelters in Louisiana, asking families whether they had ever considered home schooling their children, and talking to them about the practicality of that choice. She says many people with whom she talked had not heard of home schooling, but when they learned that the law permitted them to do it, they showed great interest in the idea.
However, when Burges asked local churches if they would be willing to provide space for learning centers to train parents in how to home school their children, she ran into a virtual brick wall. "Going into some of the black churches and letting some of the pastors hear about the need, I had very little response," she says, "and I was very, very shocked, because I'm thinking we all need to come together here -- this is an educational dilemma."
The NBHERA co-founder was both puzzled and dismayed by the lack of support she found for home education among the state's black congregation leaders. "I've gotten very little response from any of the black pastors across Louisiana -- little to none," she says. "I can only go from what has been told to me, and that is that home schooling is a white world and it does not apply to black Americans."
Another of the scant "couple of reasons" pastors gave Burges for being largely indifferent to home schooling had to do with some sense of tradition or loyalty to the public schools, she notes. She says some black pastors explained that they could not get behind the idea of home schooling "because our forefathers fought so hard to gain equality in the educational system, and we're not ready to pull out now."
However, the home-school advocate feels none of these excuses hold water, especially in light of the current educational crisis in the disaster-affected region. Under these circumstances, she asserts, "We all need to come together here to help our children, and home schooling is an option that applies to us."
Burges is concerned that many black families displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the subsequent flooding are still unaware that home schooling is an option available to them. One reason for this, she says, is that government and Red Cross officials have been telling parents they are mandated to enroll their children in public schools.
Federal Solutions: Public School-Biased or Private Education-Friendly?
This week the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is considering legislation to aid students displaced by the recent hurricanes. However, the head of the Washington, DC-based Family Research Council (FRC) warns that the federal government's answers to the post-Katrina education crisis may tend to favor public schools while leaving private education options out to sea.
FRC president Tony Perkins, who recently had an advance look at the legislation, feels it treats Christian and private schools poorly, in part by instructing that the money "shall not be used for religious instruction, indoctrination, or worship." The bill also insists on constant monitoring of private schools -- giving the public school system the job of monitoring them -- and the legislation contains a serious omission, in that it lacks language protecting religious hiring by private religious institutions and entities.
Instead of supporting that bill, Perkins suggests citizens contact the Senate Education Committee and urge support for a plan similar to the proposal by U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee chairman John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Representative Bobby Jindal (R-Louisiana) for Family Education Reimbursement Accounts.
According to that proposal, these education reimbursement accounts would be used to assist public and private school students affected by the hurricanes. Thus, Perkins points out, the plan falls in line with President Bush's belief that education funding should follow the student, not the school.
