Jesus Is a’Comin’ But Not Soon Enough
Y’all, in the year of our Lord 2006, which according to my faux jewel encrusted pocket calculator is pretty much exactly almost 8 years ago, the Texas Education Agency met with some parents who were not teaching their homeschooled kids much of anything except music. The reason? Jesus was coming.
Apparently, there are no SAT questions in heaven.
According to a ruling last week by the Texas Eighth District Court of Appeals, Michael McIntyre and Laura McIntyre removed their nine children from a private school in 2004 to homeschool them.
Michael McIntyre’s twin brother, Tracy, testified that the parents used empty space in a motorcycle dealership that he co-owned as a classroom. But Tracy said that he never saw the children reading books, using computers or doing arithmetic. Instead, the children were seen playing instruments and singing.
“Tracy overhead one of the McIntyre children tell a cousin that they did not need to do schoolwork because they were going to be raptured,” the court document noted.
I have no explanation about why they continued to sell motorcycles because best I understand the scriptures, you cannot ride a Harley through the Pearly Gates. Well, maybe you can but it doesn’t seem proper.
So, two years later, the Texas Education Agency looks into it.
And then last week, Texas courts ruled that those parents, with Jesus coming or not, had to educate their children.
So, they quit educating their kids in 2004 and it’s now 2014. That means 10 years of education is gone. I cannot prove this, but I believe that those kids are the founders of the Texas Tea Party.
Just thought you’d want to know.
Thanks to Frank for the heads up.
Aha. So that explains all the misspelled protest signs.
1If’n you can’t ride a harley, can ya open carrey… If not, I aint going!
2I like the part about an older daughter running away so she could attend school.
There’s a black sheep in every family, I guess.
3Geesh. My daughter rides a Harley.
No way….. she will be “raptured”.
I know her better than anybody… Ain’t gonna happen.
BTW — Harley is Pearl White…. and Lipstick Pink.
Not a candidate for “The Rapture”. Sorry About that.
4If you opt out of public-schooling your kids in Virginia and claim a religious exemption, there is NO government oversight. You can legally teach your kids nothing. Here’s a Washington Post article from last year about a kid who managed to get himself an education but was worried about his 11 (big surprise) ignorant and semi-literate siblings:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/students-home-schooling-highlights-debate-over-va-religious-exemption-law/2013/07/28/ee2dbb1a-efbc-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.html?tid=pm_local_pop#
5It happens in Canada too. Hey, are you thinking what i’m thinking? You reckon Ted Cruz was home schooled before he went off to college? Back when I shelved children’s books in the John Henry Faulk Library (look him up; he was harassed about First Amendment rights) lots of home schoolers came in. Some were very bright, focussed and ahead of everyone else. Some, whose moms often seemed like they were from another galaxy, were totally annoying and tiresome. Me, I like books and I like to see kids reading them.
6I’m just stunned at this. Maybe it’s because I believe in the value of an education, and these parents are clearly unqualified to be parents in any sense of the word. I really do feel for these kids, they’ve lost out on ten years of schooling, ten years of developing social skills, and ten years of learning how to deal with reality all because of their parents’ delusional behavior along with the state’s lack of concern for ensuring that the kids were being educated properly.
And the sad part is that these kids may never achieve to the same extent that kids who did attend school will. All because of a religious delusion…
7I read this and the article that Rhea provided – I feel so sorry for the poor kids that will so negatively affected by not having an education. What hope do they have for decent employment?
8As a retired music teacher, I would be the first to commend the McIntyres for including music in their children’s education, but in completely neglecting the other forms of communication: reading, writing, math science, history, social studies, art etc., they have done serious harm to these children.
9Those parents should be forced to attend classes with them. They are obviously in need of educating.
I’ve a long-time friend who taught school on the plains east of Colorado Springs a hotbed of evangelical religion he ran into many ex homeschooled kids and always said the hard part wasn’t catching them up on their education but catching them up on their socialization skills. They did not know how to learn or to get along with other people.As for Harleys I’d also a friend ,who, for a number of years, carried the number one plate in the Colorado amateur road racing Association he claimed people rode Harleys because they were afraid of real motorcycles It might be kind of interesting to do a followup and see where those kids are now and what and how they are doing especially in comparison to the daughter who ran away.
10Religion is an STD. Sectually Transmitted Disease.
11Those children may be part of the technical support system I’ve been dealing with. Jesus would have to be judged pretty stupid to come back to the earth we created.
12and on their death bed, they will exclaim that their mama told them that jeebus was coming for them……75 years ago!
13In my prganization there are about 60 employees. Maybe Two or three have their brains intact. Some of the 58ish Republicans are T-baggers. I was not aware homeschooling was so pervasive. But it does explain the content of emails I am sometimes forced to decipher and read. Geesh.
14prganization = organization.
I can type better than this.
15Mmmm … Sounds like those kids will have a bright future in Texas politics.
16I’m surprised they weren’t teaching their kids to fly to Heaven on gossamer wings. It would have been almost as useful.
17I reckon they are learning music so they can join the Angel Choir.
18I’m thinkin’ about this. Folks who actually are waiting for Jesus to return are told to be ready all the time because they will be judged on how they used their time, energy and resources, always a good idea regardless of one’s theology or lack of it.
19Picture a full grown Jethro Bodine cyphering in 5th grade(Beverly Hillbillies) with visions of being a brain surgeon and there you have this family predicament.
20The separatist Christian homeschool movement was getting rolling about the time I started homeschooling our autistic son because the local school didn’t have (and couldn’t get) the resources to give him more than unpleasant placeholding. So I ran into quite a few people who thought because I was homeschooling, I was doing it to prevent his being in contact with anything ungodly. Er…no. I had two college degrees (history, from Rice, and biology, from U.T.), I’d done private tutoring in math, English, and chemistry, taught a first-responder class in a public high school as a volunteer, and knew (by then) more about autism than anyone in the school and most of the cr*p then being written by “experts.” (Yes, yes, I have an ego. I also have a 30 year old son who is honest, polite, gentle, and thinks learning is fun.)
21Elizabeth, I applaud you and your son.
22