A Significant Change in Education Demographics
The number of kids who home school is slightly lower as my two head off to college in a few weeks. However, this is certainly no dent in home education. A new report finds that even though many public schools will soon reopen for in-person instruction, the percentage of parents who are choosing to educate their children has jumped dramatically.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percent of students who will be educated at home has doubled from 5.4% in the spring of 2020 to 11.1% today. Prior to the pandemic, the number was 3.3%. The Bureau distinguished between households that were reporting true home education rather than virtual or remote learning from a public school.
Interestingly, one of the biggest surges is among African American families where the rate has jumped from 3.3% to 16.1%.
"The global Covid-19 pandemic has sparked new interest in homeschooling and the appeal of alternative school arrangements has suddenly exploded," wrote Casey Eggleston and Jason Fields for the Census Bureau.
One also has to wonder if the things many parents have observed remotely, such as critical race theory or radical sexual ideologies, have caused more to want to ensure that their values are being conveyed to their children rather than being undermined by leftist activists in the schools.
Whose-her Least Favorite Congressman?
You have probably heard that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi threw a temper tantrum when she saw that Indiana Congressman Jim Banks, head of the influential Republican Study Committee, was among five Republicans chosen to be a part of another "investigation" into the January 6th protests in the capitol building. In an unprecedented move, the Speaker denied the minority party the ability to appoint their desired members to a committee, particularly Jim Banks.
There is a rumor reported in The Hill newspaper that Speaker Pelosi was furious upon learning that Congressman Banks intended to call the head of the Capitol Police Union, a loud critic of the security failures on January 6th, to testify as a GOP witness. Such
testimony could point back to Pelosi's office role in event security.
In response to the Speaker’s blocking him, the Fort Wayne area Congressman said, "They were never interested in asking the questions that mattered about January 6. They wanted this to be a political witch hunt from the very beginning to go after Donald Trump, to go after Republicans in Congress, and to go after 75 million people who voted for Donald Trump."
An Effort to Protect Life & Taxpayers Blocked Again
A few years ago, Harvard University and Politico, two entities that can hardly be called conservative, did a poll that found strong opposition to taxpayer funding of abortion. It found nearly 6 in 10 voters (58%) oppose federal tax dollars being used for abortion. While supporters of tax-funded abortions, (most often through Medicaid) believe such funding is helpful to poor women, the lower the income demographic, the stronger the opposition to taxpayer funding polled.
President Biden has repeatedly pledged to support tax-payer funding, which is a change from his past position as a Senator.
Lifenews recently noted that Republican-led efforts to protect the Hyde Amendment, which prevents such funding of abortion, have been blocked by Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. She has blocked a vote to preserve the Hyde Amendment 38 times.
It is Curious what the Media Ignores
There was a very positive, citizen-led event not long ago in our nation’s capitol. Washington, DC has lots of members of the media. Still, I doubt that you heard anything about this in the news. The event was a "Black Fathers Matter" parade. Here is a very good editorial about this and why it mattered.
Weight, Indiana Ranks Where?
Here is a state ranking for a national problem that crosses state boundaries and has a wide variety of causes. The obesity rate in America is now 29.7%. To make matters worse, almost half of all US adults are projected to be obese by 2030 according to estimates published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Indiana ranks 10th highest in adult obesity with 33.9% of adult Hoosiers having a body mass index placing them in the obese category.
Interestingly, one contributor to obesity is a lack of sleep which impacts hormone balance. Indiana ranks high also in sleep deprivation (14th) with 38% of Hoosiers saying that they do not get enough sleep.
A Ghastly Idea
An activist for assisted suicide has written a criticism of limits on doctor-assisted suicide in the few states that allow this practice. In her criticism, Katie Englehart, admits that her goal is to pass laws allowing doctors to harvest organs (before the patient dies) as the means of assisted suicide, rather than life-ending drugs. (Basically, she wants to allow killing people under anesthesia as doctors
remove organs for procurement.) She doesn’t address the problem of incentivizing premature death or even murder that this idea could cause for the sake of procuring a liver or a heart.
In Their Own Words:
"Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families." — Dr. Benjamin Rush (1773)
Share