The Hidden Agenda in Public Education<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
by Kerby <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Anderson
 
 
            "While America wasn't looking, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic were largely replaced by Moral Relativism and Secular Humanism in our kindergarten, grade schools, and universities."
 
            Thus begins the flyleaf introduction to a new book by the late Marlin Maddoux. In his book, Public Education Against America: The Hidden Agenda, Marlin takes the reader on a personal journey of discovery of what public education has become in this country. By recounting the many interviews he did on the national radio program Point of View, he reveals that the transformation to a secular America is not by accident.
 
            The book almost didn't make it into print. Two years ago, when talk show host Marlin Maddoux died, his family found a nearly completed manuscript. They were fortunate to find a publisher (Whitaker House) willing to publish it. So with some work in tracking down content and footnotes, the book was published. Many believe it is the best book Marlin ever wrote. Already the book has received high praise from Tim LaHaye (who also writes the foreword), D. James Kennedy, Josh McDowell, Phyllis Schlafly, Dick Armey, Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Don Wildmon, Howard Phillips, Alan Sears, and Ted Baehr.
 
            At one time, public education in America was thoroughly Christian. The New England Primer not only taught students the alphabet, but also provided them with a Christian foundation for life. Within its pages, students learned biblical doctrine and read the Lord's Prayer, as well as the texts of hymns and prayers by Isaac Watts.
 
            Most of the major universities in American were founded on Christian principles. For example, the Laws and Statutes of Harvard College in 1643 states, "Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3)."
 
            Public Education Against America sadly documents the remarkable change in public education, especially during the 20th century. It shows how John Dewey built an educational system modeled after the Soviet Union. It shows the influence in the schools of such ideas as the Hegelian dialectic and values clarification.
 
            Today's public classrooms are often hostile to Christianity. Supreme Court decisions and an advancing secularism have made religious speech offensive and deemed prayers by students a punishable offense. Public school textbooks excise Christian content from their pages, replacing it with fluff and revisionism. Meanwhile, other religions, and even the occult are given free access to the classrooms of America.
 
            The classrooms have also become a battleground for sexual politics. Sex education classes teach students how to practice so-called safe sex while often neglecting to teach the physical, emotional, and moral consequences of premarital sex. Impressionable students learn about gay and lesbian sex at a very young age. And "families" of every shape and configuration are presented as natural and normal.
 
            Public Education Against America is a wake-up call to parents who routinely try to convince themselves that their children's schools are no different from the ones they attended decades ago. It is also a wake-up call to taxpayers who annually fund these institutions even though they inflict significant damage on students and their communities.
 
            A book like this surfaces many emotions. My experience as a talk show host has been that denial is the first emotion when confronted with the facts. I cannot count the number of times I have heard listeners say that while they are alarmed by the concerns we raise about public education, they are sure this isn't happening in their child's school. It seems everyone is convinced that these dangerous trends can be found in most public schools, but somehow they just never made it to their child's school.
 
            Denial soon gives way to anger. When a parent finds out what is happening in their child's school, they are often ready to take apart the school building brick by brick. They feel betrayed and express their concerns to school officials who often tell them, "You are the only parent that has ever complained."
 
            Marlin Maddoux in his book wants us to move beyond denial and beyond anger to resolve. These initial emotions should lead us to resolve to do something about the public school classrooms of America and make tough choices about where our children and grandchildren will be educated.
 
            Public Education Against America will probably make you mad. It might even make you depressed. But most importantly, it will make you want to do something now that you know the facts about public education in America.