7 Reasons Not to Let the Government Educate Your Child - Reason #4

One of the biggest reasons I’ve read against homeschooling is that it is simply too expensive. And don’t get them started on private schools.  It’s much better to send children to the public schools, where the education is free.

That line of thinking annoys me.

Government education is never free.  The only difference is that they get their money from you in different ways.  The two that come straight to mind? Taxes and gambling.

We all are used to the concept of sales tax, but do we actually know how it is being used?  I’ve always figured it had some blend of healthcare, education, and fixing roads.  After doing some digging, it turns out there is a lot more to it.  I live in the St. Charles county of Missouri, and this is our tax rate: http://www.sccmo.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/2388

It is difficult to read, but what is clear is that the vast majority of money from St. Charles taxes goes to the public schools.  This is in addition to Missouri’s own sales tax, which takes a full percent of whatever you are buying and taxes you to give it to the schools.  I am sure that there are other taxes I am not aware of that funnel into the education system, but note that this is standard fare in the U.S.  If you’ve just bought a $1,000 TV, then Congratulations!  You’ve just donated $10 to the public schools, and not necessarily with your knowledge or consent.  I don’t want to give off the impression that we shouldn’t give to good causes.  I just don’t like the idea of being forced to give to what I think is not a good cause.  Whether you use the public schools or not, you still have to pay for them.

Secondly is gambling.  Often known as a “tax on the stupid”, casinos and lotteries use education very well.  Often it is the case that a town does not want a casino.  Some casino company decides to try and convince that town otherwise.  With the help of pastors and others, the town maintains a firm resolve.  Then the casino reveals the ace up its sleeve.  The casino promises to donate massive amounts of money to the schools.  At this point the town is divided between people who “care about our children” and those who don’t.  Eventually the casino wins.  They act as though they get free money, when in fact the money that is donated to schools came from the down and out patrons who live in that very area, who lost their money to the allure of gambling.  It is truly shameful that the education system gets its money in this way.

So how much does it actually cost for the government to send a child through the public school?  It varies by state, and it varies by region within that state.  Missouri, for example (as of 2012) spent an average of $9,514. (Source: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/01/29/how-states-are-spending-money-in-education)  New York, by contrast, spends over double that!

Let that number soak into your head.  9,514.  Nine Thousand, Five Hundred, and Fourteen.  You might think, “Well, that’s not too bad for 12 years of education.”  Wrong.  This is $9,514 per student, per year. 12 years of that means that by the time your child graduates high school, it cost Missouri $114,168. Your children have a huge economic footprint by simply being in the public schools.  And not only that, but people fight to spend more money on children, as though more money = better education.  It simply doesn’t.

The decision to homeschool isn’t a decision to start paying for school instead of getting free education.  The decision to homeschool is a decision to offload some of the burden from the economy and take it upon yourself.  It is being responsible.  It would be absolutely irresponsible of me to not pay my child’s medical bills, but rather expect others to pay it for me, even if they don’t want to (even if they have accepted that they have to pay it).  My child’s educational bills are no different.

So what does homeschooling look like, financially?  The HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) has found that the average homeschooling parent pays $900 per student, per year.  However, they acknowledge that the majority of homeschoolers pay significantly less than that (those who pay more are the type to buy special satellite classes and other expensive things).  It is probably more likely to say that parents spend about $200 per student, per year.  But for the sake of bigger and more verifiable numbers, we’ll use $900.  After 12 years, the parent will have spent $10,800.  This is only $1,300 more than what it would cost to public school that same child for first grade!  To homeschool a child is to spend over $100,000 less, on education that we have already seen is higher in quantity, and is centered in the reality of God’s universe, and not in the fictional story public schools like to weave.  Public schools simply cost too much money for the economy.  We, as parents, need to take on the load (and share it with those who are willing), not force it on the unwilling and unsuspecting.

7 Reasons Not to Let the Government Educate Your Child - Reason #3

If I’ve learned anything from watching boxing or UFC, it is that the bigger guy doesn’t always win.  Sometimes the game is won by speed, not strength.  True, the bigger guy has much more power, but all that power is useless if you cannot hit your opponent. Bigger is not always better.

This is true of corporations as well.  For example, I know a guy who owns a business.  He has a pretty up-to-date Mac, running the newest version of Mac OS X.  Most big corporations have just recently moved to 5-year-old software on 7-year-old machines, and only because Microsoft is leaving Windows XP behind. The reason is simple: it costs a lot less money to upgrade one computer than it does to upgrade 10,000.  Bigger is not always better.

This is also true of churches.  I know a pastor whose church has maybe 40-ish congregants.  However, the intimacy and connectedness between those congregants as a whole is greater than that found in megachurches.  Bigger is not always better.

Most people can see that.  However, many people do not even think for a moment to apply the same logic to education.  Homeschools can’t do what public schools can do, so they are inferior.  But this simply isn’t true.  The gains that public schools enjoy come at great costs (some of which we will defer to a later post). Today I just want to talk about the actual experience itself (One aspect of this I want to flesh out, and is important enough to warrant classification as a Reason).

Before I get started, I have to make an important disclaimer.  Trust me, I won’t do this often, but in this third Reason, it must be admitted that their are gains that the public school has that homeschools are very unlikely to have.  Most families don’t have 10 different instruments in their homes, or their own personal laboratory.  That said, much of the key laboratory equipment can be purchased somewhat inexpensively (especially if you shop thrifty).  There isn’t much outside of some special utensils, a microscope, and its equipment.  A telescope would be nice as well (something public schools don’t have, because class is never at night, something we’ll get to later).

Perhaps the best way to illustrate the difference between the public school experience and the homeschool experience is to talk about the different ways that they go about field trips.  The zoo is a great example, so we’ll use that.

Steps to a Public School Zoo trip:

     1. The idea comes before school management.  Whether it is one teacher’s idea, or the plan of a whole department, the first step is for the higher ups at the school (and district, if necessary) to decide that they want to pursue a possible zoo trip.  Of course, this must be done well in advance of the trip.

     2. Set a date and contact the zoo.  Since a large amount of students will be present, it is important to check with the zoo to make sure five different public schools aren’t planning the same trip on the same day.

     3. Send the forms. With a date set, it is now time to send release forms to students to bring to their parents in order to sign.  Once these forms have been collected (and any payment necessary procured), it is safe to proceed.

     3.5. Since children often lose forms, and parents sometimes delay, schools have to deal with late forms.  One can expect that the day before the trip the school will know everyone who is coming.

     4. Finally, we reach the day of the trip.  The school will have readied a bus, and, after getting all the children from home to the school, they are sent on to another bus to go to the zoo.

     5. Having reached the zoo, the children are organized to go into the zoo.  

     6. During the zoo trip, great care is taken to ensure that children are not lost.  As such, a specific, pre-approved pathway through the zoo is typically followed, giving each child little to no control over what is seen and when.

     7. When the trip comes to a close, the kids get back on the bus and wait to call roll, because the teachers can’t keep track of all of these kids all the time, and it would be terrible to lose a child.

     8. The bus comes back to school, and kids are either picked up by parents who have driven to school, or are shuttled back home via buses.

Steps to a Homeschool Zoo trip:

     1. Parents and children decide to go to the zoo.  This could be done well in advance of the trip, or even the night before.

     2. At this point, the next step is to decide the date according to what works best for the family.  Since a large-quantity trip is not in view, the zoo does not need to be notified.

     3. Before coming to the zoo, homeschool teaching is coordinated to relate to the zoo trip.  For example, if students are learning about Africa, then special worksheets and other material is prepared.

     4. The day of the trip, the family gathers in their vehicle and drives to the zoo.

     5. Once arriving at the zoo, the family enjoys the zoo and the students learn about African animals and whatever the family decides to view.

     6. After enjoying the zoo, the family returns home.

Both school trips go to the same place.  They could even go on the same day.  But the experiences are very different.  The public school experience separates kids from parents, and leaves the children to a pre-approved walkway.  Every child’s experience is relatively uniform.  This isn’t to say that it is not fun, or educational.  But it is standard, everyone relegated to a single-file line in order to maintain efficiency.  The homeschool trip stresses freedom, children having the capability to exert some influence over when to go see the turtles.  I would argue that from the child’s point of view, the homeschool experience is more enjoyable and educational.  From the parent’s point of view, the homeschool experience is definitely more enjoyable.

     While the large-scale format of the public school does provide some minor benefits, on the whole the smaller, more intimate, more fluid nature of the homeschool provides a better experience.

7 Reasons Not to Let the Government Educate Your Child - Reason #2

As I said in the beginning, from this point on, we are dealing with minor reasons for homeschooling (all these reasons apply to Christian schools as well as government public schools).  So keep in mind that if they seem like minor things, it is because they are.  That said, they do add up.

This reason will use a lot of math, so be prepared.

The second reason I have is that these schools are incredibly time-inefficient.  At the end of the day, it takes longer for schools to do less.  We see this both within the individual classroom, as well as the standard class day as a whole.

        One note: For the sake of comparison, I am treating homeschooling as though it is lecture-style.  While it certainly does contain lectures, homeschooling is much more flexible (to which we will return).

        Let's think about the average classroom.  Each class is given one hour.  But anyone who has attended a public school class knows that all of that hour is not learning new material. Before and after class, a number of time-consuming activities occur.

        5 minutes typically pass before the class settles down enough to actually teach.

        Another 5 minutes is usually taken up to take class roll.

        Another 5 minutes are usually taken as recap for previous lessons.

        Finally, after the lesson is done, it takes 10 minutes to go from one class to another before the whole cycle starts over again.

        If you subtract all that time from the hour designated for learning, only 35 minutes of that class time is spent learning new material. That is scarcely over half! How is that not extremely inefficient?

       Compare this with a lecture-style homeschool class.

          With less children in the room, it takes less time for kids to settle down, but we’ll still give 5 minutes just to be conservative.

          No time is needed to take roll because the teacher knows all the students extremely well (being their parent, and all).

          We’ll still give 5 minutes to recap previous lessons.

          After the lesson is done (again, presuming that you’d even be taking another class immediately after the first one), since the class would be in the same room in a much smaller building, all that is really needed is 5 minutes for a bathroom break.

          Subtracting all that, you are left with 45 minutes learning new material.  At face value, that seems like a small gain, only 10 minutes.  But after four classes, you would have accumulated 40 minutes of extra teaching time, more than the functional time of one public school class!  Time-wise, teaching four homeschool classes has the value of teaching five public school classes.

     Having looked at the individual class, let’s look at the child’s schedule at school.  Again, we will limit homeschooling’s flexibility for the sake of comparison.

          Typically, a high school student has about 6 classes per day.

          We have seen from above that since only 35 minutes of each hour is allotted for learning new material, the 6 hours spent at school boil down to 3.5 hours of new learning.

          Add in an hour for lunch.

          Remember, children don’t teleport to school; most often, they take the school bus.  I lived at the absolute edge of my school district’s zone, and it took me about 30 minutes to get to school.  I think, then, it is fair to say that 15 minutes of driving time is a reasonable average.

Adding everything together, let’s set a hypothetical itinerary for a child, from the moment they step out the door to the moment they walk back in.

Child wakes up at 6:15 am.

Gets ready for school, and leaves the house at 7:00 am

5 minutes waiting for bus

15 minutes bus travel

10 minutes to get off bus and get to class

7:30-2:30 School time+ lunch

10 minutes to get on bus

15 minutes bus travel 

Leaves house at 7:00 am, gets home at 2:55 pm

Just shy of 8 hours to get 3.5 hours worth of education.

That's less than half!

How does homeschooling fare?

Each class takes an hour to get 45 minutes of learning.

Total that is 4.5 hours of learning.

30 minutes for lunch, because you aren’t feeding hundreds.

6.5 hours of total time.

No need to get on or off the bus, because you live at school!

An itinerary for homeschooling can go like this:

     Child wakes up at 7:15 am.

     8-2:30 school time + lunch

     2:30+ is non-school time.

The homeschooling child gets up an hour later, gets done 25 minutes earlier, and gets an entire hour more time of learning new material than the public school child!

While an hour seems like a small gain, let us look at a week, and a month, to compare.

The public school child spends about 45 hours of time in a week to get 17.5 hours of learning.  The homeschool child spends about 32.5 hours to get 22.5 hours of learning.

The public school child spends about 160 hours of time in a month to get 70 hours of learning.  The homeschool child spends about 130 hours to get 90 hours of learning.

Put another way, in order to get 100 hours of new learning time, it will take the child enrolled in public school 28.5 school days.  The child who is homeschooled will need only 22.2 days to get the same 100 hours of new learning time.  In other words, the homeschool child could take an entire week off for no reason and still beat the public school child to 100 hours of new learning time.

Public schooling simply is not efficient.

7 Reasons Not to Let the Government Educate Your Child - Reason #1

Reason #1 - Public Schools are not grounded in a biblical worldview

      "Every Christian parent is obligated to give their children a Christian education." - Voddie Baucham

        If nothing else, the fact that our public schools are banned from giving our children a Christian education should be the clearest sign that it is not a place where our children belong  (For more information, research the ESEA adopted in 1965).  Unfortunately, many Christian parents do not even think about whether or not God's Word might shed light on the issue.  Let us now look at three passages, one concerning the sphere of Christian living, one concerning the origin of knowledge, and one concerning the purpose of Creation.

       First, we'll look at Deuteronomy 6:4-9.  This is known by many as the Shema (Shema is Hebrew for "Listen", the first word in this section).

      Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, all pasages HCSB)

      Typically when we hear this, we hear it in the sense that it is important to worship as a family, and that is absolutely the case.  However, let's move from the perspective of the parent, to the child's perspective.  The child is being told constantly about the Lord and His works.  Wherever he is, correct beliefs follow him, from the bed to the gate to the road. While this doesn't mean that we have to paint laws on our doorposts, the real command is to make sure that our children are raised not with occasional Christianity, but absolutely drenched in it.  If you can find any event done frequently by you or your family that does not showcase Christ in His glory, you should take greatly question whether or not you should take part in it.

                Next, we'll look at Proverbs 1:7.

                The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and discipline. (Proverbs 1:7)

                

         This passage is not insignificant; in fact, a number of scholars think this to be the key verse of the entire book of Proverbs! To understand this passage, we must understand the phrases used.  We will look at each one in turn.

         We will first take a quick look at the phrase “the Fear of the Lord”.  When people first think of the word ‘fear’, typically negative images come to mind.  We don’t typically think of ‘fearing’ puppies.  But the word fear used here is  יִרְאָה (“Yirah”), and is, with little exception, used exclusively in reference to God.  At any rate, the meaning here is not so much to be “wet-your-pants” terrified as it is to give reverence.  No English word really contains all the meaning packed into this Hebrew word, but the two words that come closest are fear and awe.  Perhaps it would be helpful to think of this as the Awe of the Lord as well as the Fear of the Lord. So this Fear (or Awe) of the Lord is an intense understanding of just how glorious and powerful God really is.  How this fits into this passage will be observed after tending to the next phrase.

        We look next at the phrase “the beginning of knowledge”.  What does it mean for something to be the beginning of something? This isn’t a phrase that we use today, but a good synonym is foundation (or perhaps the core).  In other words, for A to be the beginning of B means that A is the foundation upon which B exists.

         Putting these two together, we see that the the reverential, fearful awe of God is the foundation upon which knowledge itself is grounded.  Anyone who has built a house (or played Jenga, for that matter) knows how important it is to keep something important on a firm foundation.

               Finally, we turn to the New Testament letter of Paul to the Colossians.  In one of the greatest passages of the entire Bible, Paul lays down the greatness of Jesus Christ, and he explains that Jesus is the Agent of Creation in Colossians 1:16:

For everything was created by Him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through Him and for Him. (Colossians 1:16)

               As beautiful as that description is, I want to turn your attention to the very end of it, “all things have been created through Him and for Him.” Think about that.  Everything that exists exists for Jesus Christ.  The universe’s very structure and order (science, math) exists for Jesus Christ.  The earth’s land, its animals, its plants, and its people (history, law, literature) exist for Jesus Christ.  If the purpose of everything is Jesus as Θεός (“Theos”, God), then everything is inherently theological.

How public schools fail

     If we put all three of these verses together, we see that secular education is simply inadequate.  While we could probe into more areas, I will instead make the following observations:

     In public schools today, Jesus is not allowed the prime place.  Even if someone tried, you know the ACLU would be there in a flash to “restore order and non-sectarianism”.  Could you even imagine a government public school that has, right in its logo, “The Fear of the Lord is beginning of knowledge”?  Of course not!  In school, Darwinism is king, and I’m not just talking about in the science class.  

     If the views of evolution and cosmology found in the science class is true (as is assumed), then math is not the discovery of the incredible order integrated perfectly in God’s creation.  Rather, it is simply a series of dry facts.  The universe came about haphazardly, and math is simply a byproduct of randomness.  History is not the providence of God, carefully guided to His ends, but rather entirely man-centered.  It is considered in schools far better to read manuals to prepare students for jobs than to read Romans to prepare students for a life of Kingdom ministry.

    At this point, I have to take an aside to make a clear distinction.  I am attacking the public school as a system.  I am not attacking Christian teachers in these places.  As I’ve explained in the previous post, it is not the place for Christian kids (or kids from Christian homes) to take on public schools.  However, for the established Christian who is an educator in the public school system, I encourage you to use your position to be a positive influence in the lives of children.  Unfortunately, for most students, one teacher will not accomplish much.  But for some students, whose lives are in great turmoil at home and at school, one Christian teacher may be the stable rock that will help that child find the Rock of Ages.  

          The problem is that sometimes people make the argument that some teachers are Christians, and therefore the public school system as a whole is justified.  This simply is not the case. Can a Christian teacher pray for her students in class?  Absolutely.  But absolutely silently.  The Christian teacher will not model prayer for her students, and so even when Christianity finds its way into the system, it is only limited.  Christian social studies teachers do not have carte blanche freedom over the curriculum.  If he speaks the truth about Christian sexual morality, it will not go unnoticed.  He will be silent, or he will be silenced. I pray it be the latter.

Where homeschools can succeed

     Where the public school fails miserably, the home school (and the high quality, private Christian schools) can succeed.

        Firm Christian theology taught freely

               Christian parents need not fear their jobs by teaching their children Christian principles (at least for now).  No government public school would put on their logo “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge”.  Below is our homeschool’s logo:

     As you can see, the children taught here are taught God’s Word, and they are taught God’s Laws, completely unashamedly.  A thorough Christian education can be found in a Christian homeschool in a way that simply cannot be found in a public school.  For example, every teacher can pray to God reverently before, during, and/or after every class, something that simply cannot happen in the government schools. As we have seen in the above Scriptures, we have an obligation to give our children an education that shows that everything is for Christ, and a homeschool is capable of providing that to them.  I do not need to speak much about homeschooling, simply because the problems with government schooling is fundamentally a problem with government intrusion and regulation, something that homeschooling, as a whole, does not have to deal with. 

This is the most important reason.  Whatever else I write over the next couple months, the simple fact is that my children need to be taught about the world from a Christian perspective, and that will simply not happen.  Whether it is evolution, sex education, or history, the world’s views are very different from Christ’s view.  How dare I let the world’s views be the main education my children receive.

7 Reasons Not to Let the Government Educate Your Child - Aside

I would love to just jump out of the gate, and start with my first reason (which, as I tried to emphasize last week, is the biggest reason of them all), but I must first deal with a major objection.  The sad truth is that many Christian parents will refuse to even engage in this discussion, and default to one exclusive argument: My child needs to be a light in the schools.  If I pull him/her out, the schools will just get worse.  Some even go so far as to equate pulling your children out of government schools with sheltering them, as though if we shouldn't put our kids in schools, then we shouldn't bring them to the grocery store, because what's in the schools is in the stores too.  This line of thinking comes from a severe lack of thinking on the issue.  I hope to address both the issue of children being light, and the difference between the school and the store.

        Oftentimes, parents will claim that their children are to be the "light of the world" (referencing Matthew 5:14). While I would certainly question their interpretation, that is outside the scope of this post (for more info, I point to Dr. Bill Mounce's work, especially his sermons from about a decade ago).  In short, it might be wise to notice that the light is not with the darkness, but away from it.  Lighting a lamp under a basket illumines the basket.  Lighting a lamp on a lampstand illumines the whole room.

        In any case, the argument rests on several presuppositions.

        

        First, it is presupposed that the institution itself is capable of positve change in the first place.  Unfortunately, we have no evidence for that.  Government education started off ungodly, and it has only gotten worse. The schools cannot go back to what it never was.

        Second, it is presupposed that our children are Christian.  At the risk of sounding insulting, I would venture to say that most high school students who claim to be Christian are not actually Christian.  I say this not as a pretentious adult, but as an adult who recognizes that he himself was not saved.  I was, as Matt Chandler has called, a "nerdy lost kid".  When I graduated, I was a virgin who had never been drunk, never got high, and claimed to be a Christian.  But I had no concept of repentance.  In all honesty, I didn't even know what the gospel even was.  Most "Christian" kids fall into this (if you doubt this, research the percentage of people who leave the Church after their first year of college).

                Even for those who are genuinely saved, that doesn't mean that these children should be tossed into a cesspool with little to no Christian supervision.  After all, do we throw people into combat the day after they sign up for the army?  Absolutely not!  Before they are useful for combat, they must be instructed about how combat works.  A lot of training goes into a soldier before their first day of active combat.  It is the same with Christians.  How dare we think that we can give our children 3 hours of religious education at church per week concurrently with more than 5 times that at school and think that we are adequately training our children!  No.  We need to train our children diligently so that they are adequately prepared to share the gospel.

        Third, it is presupposed that children are to be reached within the confines of the school building.  Don't public school kids socialize outside of school?  Homeschool parents are regularly thrown the charge that homeschooling inhibits socialization.  Certainly they wouldn't throw that accusation if public school children have the same problem.  Homeschooling teaches children how to make friends without being forced to sit next to people.  After all, kids go to malls, and restaurants, and theme parks, and zoos, and swimming pools, and libraries.  Why limit evangelism to one building?

           It would also do us well to remember that school aged children become non-school aged adults.  It isn't as though once they graduate, they can't get saved.  No matter how tightly a high-school student wants to stay in school (because there are so many of those), they will be thrown out into the real world.  If we can’t get them in school, we’ll get them then.

     Fourth, it is presupposed that our unsaved children will become saved.  If the above presuppositions had merit, one could at least advocate for a Christian parent’s saved child going into the school.  But how many parents only put their child in public school after they get saved?  While I do not discount young conversions, I think we can all agree that most conversions happen after the age of 7.  In my state, you have to start schooling your child at 7 (whether it be sending your child to school, or homeschooling them).  In other words, most people find themselves in the odd position of actually putting in children they know aren’t saved in school.  Why?  In order to be light?  You can’t give off light if you are full of darkness!  So we put them into the government school system in the hopes that at some point they will get saved, and then be a light.  I say that is a very risky move.

     Fifth, it is presupposed that the children are the ones to be evangelizing.  If we pull the children out, they say, who will share the gospel with the children?  The answer should be clear.  I say it is not primarily the job of the Christian student to be a light, but rather the Christian teacher.  The Christian teacher should put their jobs on the line, and use their position, having been trained with the gospel (unlike most students) to stand for Jesus Christ in the schools.  

     These presuppositions, as I have hopefully shown, are baseless.  Therefore, the conclusion drawn from them is also baseless.  So please, for those who plan on shutting me out simply because our kids need to be light in the schools, please take a hard look at the arguments above.

     For those who would go so far as to equate taking kids out of school with taking kids out of grocery stores, allow me to explain the difference to you.  Simply put, when we send our children to school, whether it is a Christian school, or a public school, we are enlisting those teachers as representatives of us.  We are implicitly endorsing everything they say.  I would not put my child in a school based on the Qu’ran, or the Book of Mormon, because I myself do not believe those books.  This isn’t to say that we agree with absolutely everything, but when we implicitly tell the schools “Teach my children”, we are really saying “[I trust you to teach my children well, therefore] teach my children.”  Therefore, educators are put in something of a position of authority over the children.  When this educational authority figure says that homosexuality is perfectly normal and should be embraced, it carries with it a weight that you, parents, have entrusted to them.  This is a weight and authority that simply does not exist at the grocery store, or the DMV, or the mall.  It is found exclusively in the educational context.  Therefore, we have to be significantly more careful about who we let teach our children than what they glance at in the tabloids.