Unsupervised Church-Related Schools Result in Illiteracy, Poor Math Skills

In Tennessee, church-related schools are not supervised.  With the lack of oversight, kids can go for years without learning a thing and no one ever knows. In fact, the state doesn't even know how many children are enrolled in church-related schools.

Home schools have higher oversight than the church-related schools because there is mandatory testing at grades 5, 7 and 9. Home school teachers must also have high school or college level educations, depending on the grade levels that they are teaching.

This is not the case for church-related schools.

According to Nashville's WSMV TV (see video below), the state statutes specifically provide that the Board of Education and Department of Education have no supervision over church-related schools. Since they were established back in 1976, students who have attended them have been exempt from any kind of mandatory testing. Additionally, there are no certification or educational requirements for teachers at church-related schools. In fact, convicted felons can teach at them.

The news station interviewed a father who, shortly after his divorce, was horrified to discover how dismal his children's scores were when he had them tested. The kids were years behind.  He was eventually able to get his kids into public schools with a court order, and the children are beginning to catch up.

Rob Shearer, vice president of an organization that oversees church-related schools in Tennessee, opposes any kind of oversight or supervision of the schools, and claims that there is no evidence that people who are educated as teachers do a better job than untrained home school moms. He also says that there is no evidence that certification leads to more effective teaching.

It can be difficult to get kids who are in church-schools back into the public school system.

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Deborah is the owner and administrator of the site, starting it in February 2009. She received her business education at the University of Texas and operates a number of websites and small businesses. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work and editing.

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