Original Intent for American Education

The majority of Americans who refer to education in this nation, think only of public schools as we know them today, but that’s not how education started in America, and a quick look at history reveals two educational systems. The first educational system was the original intent of our founding fathers. Known as the Father of Public Education, Horace Mann is responsible for implementing the second public school system, the major system we have in the United States today. This is the system that is predominant in our country today.

From the standpoint of the founding fathers, the original intent was for schools to be founded and funded by local communities. The first laws on education were passed in the 1640s in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where the Pilgrims lived. The laws required that parents saw to it that their children knew how to read the Bible and to be able to understand the laws of the land. It was clear that parents were to be the ones who oversaw the education of their children.

The primary system consists of the secular public schools we have today funded by taxpayer money and steeped in socialism and social issues. The original system is what our forefathers intended at the inception of this nation. To pray effectively for America’s education, we must look at the history behind how we got to our present the failed state of education and pray for the restoration of the original system.

We have an early glimpse as to the value early colonists placed on education by the laws the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed in 1643-1643. These laws required parents to educate their children and other children , The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed of the first laws regarding education. In 1643, they passed a law that required parents to teach any child under their care to read and to work with numbers. If parents failed to educate their children, the government could remove them and place them in a home where they could receive a good education.

Most schools Early settlers used a Bible-based education, held high moral standards for the students, and stressed hard work and academics.

The Bible Although Massachusetts stressed education, the same was not necessarily true for the other colonies. Schools, if they existed at all, were organized by town councils, local churches, urban charitable societies, or put together with a rotation of the town’s citizens as teachers. More often than not, the Bible was the only textbook available in a classroom. Mandatory attendance was not required, which resulted in a high rate of absenteeism. The demands of children to sustain the family’s subsistence by helping with household chores, working in the fields, and assisting with a family business often took precedence over schooling.

The original system intended by our forefathers barely holds a glimmer of hope but can be revived.

Conclusion for Original Intent for Education of Children in the Colonies: The original intent of education from the standpoint of the Founding Fathers was for children to be taught the Bible in such a way that their lives were to be lived by God-given principles, knowing God as their creator, and ultimately knowing Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Westward Expansion Spreads Secular Education (1812-1860)
From 1812-1860, education took a drastic turn in America away from its original intent. The diversion occurred as a result of two people: Horace Mann and Catharine Beecher.

Horace Mann served in the Massachusetts Legislature from 1827-1837, at which time he resigned to take the position of the newly created Massachusetts office of Secretary of Education. Horace Mann was raised in a Christian family but rejected Christianity and became a secular humanist and attended a Unitarian church. While running for office in the state legislature, Mann made a campaign promise to the Unitarians that he would start secular public schools funded by taxpayer money, which he did during his time as Secretary of Education. He is known as the Father of Public Education. Mann hated Calvinism with a passion and fought the churches who opposed his new school proposal. The Calvinists of the day feared the long-range effects of secular education and stated, “We do not need this central, all-absorbing power; it is anti-republican in all its bearings, well-adapted perhaps, to Prussia, and other European despotism, but not wanted here.” (The Christian Witness 1844)

Opposition to public schools was so prevalent that Horace Mann and his supporters secretly organized the placement of people in communities for the sole purpose to lobby in such a way to sway public opinion toward government schools.

Catharine Beecher’s father, Lyman Beecher, pastored a Presbyterian church in Ohio. As a pastor, he opposed the spread of Unitarianism, preached predestination, preached a conversion experience, advocated for the gradual elimination of slavery, and fought against the forming of secular public schools. All of her life, his daughter, Catharine expressed great opposition to the idea of conversion and a personal relationship with God. She instead embraced logic and reasoning as redemptive qualities. She refused to convert and embraced the belief that public works could serve society as well as a private faith.

In 1803, America under President Thomas Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase, which gave America 828,000 square miles of land for expansion. The humanistic concept of Manifest Destiny fed into the ideas of the two secular educators, Horace Mann, and Catharine Beecher, who seized the opportunity to secularize the settlers and their children in the newly acquired territory. They Europeanized the heathen and uncouth inhabitants of the new land, thereby creating a new secular society, devoid of Christianity in the new territory.

Horace Mann and Catharine Beecher joined forces to promote a new teaching profession for women. Beecher and Mann saw women as the best way to expand their new religion of secularism throughout the country and particularly felt that teaching was a great profession for unmarried women. They coined the term “missionary teachers” to entice women whose mission would be to educate “ignorant and neglected children” of the frontier. The ideal school fashioned after Prussian schools that Mann admired, were based on the teaching of humanistic philosophy.

Mann particularly liked to hire women teachers because women willingly suffered the hardships of frontier life and worked at a small fraction of the cost of a male teacher. He often bragged at how much money he saved by hiring women. As people moved west, frontier schools sprang up like wildfire through the new territory.

Conclusion for the Original Intent of Public Schools Funded with Taxpayer Money: With the formation of public schools, education was taken from the church and local communities and put under the direction of the government. Those who attended church held to a high standard of morals that Mann and Beecher wanted to be taught, without any teaching on religion and certainly not a salvation experience.

If any two people can claim credit for changing American social, academic, and ultimately political direction from libertarian to one governed by the state, the credit must go to Horace Mann and Catharine Beecher. They redefined public education as America’s new, more gentle church and female teachers as the ministers of American morality.
They were able to overcome the Church’s objections and teach a secular, watered down religion that attempted to retain moral content without referring to Jesus or conversion. They were on a passionate mission, well-financed with taxpayer money, and had the social backing of the Harvard Unitarian elite.

Note: On April 26, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to begin the process of returning school control to state and local officials. If carried through, President Trump’s order is a major step in returning schools to the original intent of our founding fathers.

Prayer for the Mountain of Education During the Month of Tishrei

Prayer for the Mountain of Education during the Month of Tishrei – Linked to the Tribe of Ephraim
The month of Tishrei begins September 10th and ends October 9th. God has a redemptive plan for each month and this month we look at Tishrei, as the month of the ancients. As we speak to the Mountain of Education, we honor those who came to this country in order to worship God and teach their children to love and serve Him.

• Tishrei is the month of the strong –
We decree: That only the Godly will rule over education in this Nation. We call forth strong men and women of God, who are righteous and who will not back down in the face of evil.

• Tishrei is the month of appointed times –
We decree: As this month is the official beginning of school, it is an appointed time for the students in America to learn the Word of God and discover their Creator.

• Tishrei is the month we return to God to experience His glory –
We decree: Thank you, God, for our forefathers who experienced firsthand Your Glory and came to America to establish “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.” We proclaim their words will ring throughout this land! We are one nation under God with liberty and justice for all!

• Tishrei is the month of Leviathan- the time to return to one’s absolute source.
We decree: Education in America returns to its absolute source where students are instructed in the Word of God and share Your love throughout this nation.

• Tishrei is the month of reflected light –
We decree: The light of Jesus shines in the hearts of our children and that light is reflected to the world around them.

• Tishrei is the month to press through to touch HIM –
We decree: Intercessors everywhere rise up to pray for America’s Mountain of Education. We press through. We do not give up. We are not weary. We are not faithless. We are strong in our faith and we do not back down when faced with humanism and evil teachings. We boldly declare that America’s schools are free to teach Jesus.

• Tishrei is the month to be fruitful and multiply –
We decree: We speak multiplication of Godliness in America’s school administrators, teachers and students. Godly schools will increase exponentially.

Prayer for the Mountain of Education During the Month of Av

Linked to the Tribe of Simeon, the month of Av (July 13- August 11, 2018) is associated with the time the twelve spies explored the promise land. Ten spies brought back a discouraging “evil” report, “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is the fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there….” Two spies, Caleb and Joshua, brought back a good report, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

Av is the month:
• to believe the good report.
• for the divine will of the Father to be executed!
• to advance through partnerships.
• for a new level of discernment

Mountain of Education decrees for the month of Av:
• Although there are giants in the land we say with Joshua and Caleb, “Our God is mighty and although there are giants who have strongholds in the land by our God we are well able to overcome!” We decree that we are well able to bring education under the jurisdiction of the God and creator of the Universe!

• We decree that this month of Av is the time to turn the tide of unbelief – we no longer look at the Mountain of Education as unmoveable. This mountain will be transformed by the power of God!

• We decree that strongholds of humanism are broken over Americas Schools.

• We decree that Mountain Moving Faith will rise in believers across America to change education.

• We decree that as we start a new school year, this is the year for the divine will of the Father to be executed in the cultural Mountain of Education!

• We decree that divine partnerships are established this month that will advance Godly education and expose ungodly, corrupt, practices in American education.

• We decree that the Godly decision makers will rise to a new level of discernment that will penetrate and destroy the culture of death in our schools.

Prayer for Tulsa Public Schools

Prayer for Tulsa Public Schools

August 16, 2018, TCI sponsored a call to prayer for Tulsa Public Schools. Thirty-six people from almost every spectrum of Tulsa’s education came. The keynote “pray-er” was Dr. Madeline Manning Mims, an Olympic Gold Metal winner. I very grateful to Chloe Allen and Sherrill Cressman. Chloe is an outstanding woman of God who brought Spirit led and Spirit directed people of prayer to the event!! Sherrill is a TCI board member, former teacher, and a great friend.

Special Guest Speaker
Dr. Madeline Manning Mims
Dr. Mims is an Olympic Gold Metal winner and a motivational speaker for the youth of our nation.

School Board Members came to pray.

Principals prayed.

Students Prayed

School supplies for teachers give-away.

Don’t Back Down – Your Prayers Change History

Standing for LIFE in front of the Supreme Court

Lately, I’ve been reminded of the first time I took fifteen intercessors to Washington, DC to pray. Early in the planning process I contacted Sandy Grady, who had worked for years as a key intercessor for David Barton of Wall Builders. As I shared with Sandy my desire to pray at educational sites in DC, she said, “Nancy, everyone who comes to DC goes to the same places. They go to the White House, the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, and other famous landmarks. But I’ve never known a group to go to the National Department of Education. Please go there and pray. Our schools need our prayers and intercessors don’t think to include education in their prayer trips to DC. What you want to do will be hard, but don’t back down.”

That was in 2001 and Sandy’s words never left me. That first time to pray at the Department of Education was every bit as difficult as she’d prophesied it would be. Over and over, I heard her words ring in my spirit, “Don’t back down. Don’t back down. Don’t back down.”

In order to go inside the Department of Education building one must have an invitation from someone employed there. Somewhere I’d been given the name of a man from Oklahoma—Jim—who worked in the Department of Education, so I called him a couple of weeks before my group was to be in DC. We had a nice chat. He agreed to host our group, give us a tour of the building, and allow us to have a brief moment in the building’s small auditorium to pray. I hung up thinking everything was all set.

I called Jim early on the day of our visit. He didn’t answer of return my calls. With our appointment “iffy.” I gave those in the group an option to stay behind if they wanted to not take a chance on whether or not the appointment would actually happen. Eight people decided to stay behind. To be honest, I was the most frightened of any one in the group, but I felt the need to go as Sandy’s words repeated over and over in my mind. “Don’t back down. Don’t back down.”

We entered the National Department of Education building, went through security, and asked to speak to Jim. Instead of Jim, two burley security guards came to greet us. They demanded to know why we were there and what our relationship was with Jim. I told them we had come to pray for America’s educational system and gave them the name of the man from Oklahoma. One man left and a few minutes later came back and told us that Jim was busy and couldn’t meet with us.

Scared, I then asked if there were a room we could use to pray. The security men ushered us to a small auditorium where we placed chairs in a circle and began to pray for America’s schools. They eventually realized we were harmless and disappeared. Twenty minutes later, “Mr. Oklahoma” showed up and confessed he had been afraid and had backed out (without telling me). He redeemed the time as he showed us around the building and introduced us to the head of the Department of Education as well as key people in the building. We ended up praying in every office, even the office of the head of the department. It was a victory that would not have happened without one seasoned intercessor telling me, “Don’t back down. Don’t back down.”

No matter what circumstance you find yourself in as an intercessor for you, your family or for the children of America, don’t back down! It’s not an easy task and certainly not for the faint of heart, but persistence and tenacity are paramount when taking on a spiritual giant.

Should We Do Away with the Department of Education?

The US Department of Education employees approximately 5000 people and has an approximate annual budget of $69 billion. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics there are 57 million elementary and secondary school age children in the United States, of which 8 million are either enrolled in private schools or homeschooled. That leaves 49 million children educated by America’s network of public schools and for whom the Department of Education serves. Does the Department of Education produce $69 billion dollars worth of results for the public school children in America? It produces no curriculum, teacher training, or personalized educational training. So what does it do?

According to the Dept of Ed web site, they have four areas of concentration:
1. Establish policies and administer financial aid,
2. Collect data and oversee research on America’s schools,
3. Identify major issues and problems in education and bring national attention to them,
4. Enforce anti-discrimination in public education.

Since the US constitution does not mention education, but the constitution does state that all powers not mentioned in the constitution are delivered to the individual states. Which is the reason why many Americans believe that the US Department of Education has no constitutional standing and must be dismantled. I believe that it is imperative that we pray on a regular basis for the Department of Education—it will remain only if it serves the best interest of our children and improves the educational quality of our schools.

Prayer for the Mountain of Education during the Month of Tammuz – Linked to the Tribe of Reuben

The month of Tammuz is associated with the tribe of Reuben, who veered from his original intent by committing adultery. Reuben was able to reestablish himself and continue his life with his new redemptive purpose. Our forefathers established schools for the primary purpose of teaching children the Bible. That purpose was abandoned, but as we pray this month, we will pray that God’s redemptive purpose for the Mountain of Education is established in this nation.

• We decree that this month of Tammuz is a month of worship. As ungodliness looms in education, we turn our attention to worship the One True God, who will make Himself known throughout the Mountain of Education.
• We decree that since this is the month to watch our words, we watch our mouths and speak only the best the Lord has for America’s education.
• We say that there is a moral outcry among the leaders of our nation against the “golden calf” that has been built in education. No longer will our children worship idols. We reset, and make adjustments in the Spirit for education to be as our forefathers intended – Godly and moral.
• We speak the redemptive role of education in our nation. We decree that our children are educated intellectually as well as spiritually. They know the Word of God and are led by the Spirit of God.
• We declare shells of deception are broken off Americas schools. Education in America will go to a new redemptive level.
• We decree revelation to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team. God will give them insight on new ways to improve education. They will implement change in education.
• We call Godly teachers into classrooms across America, who will accept their call and step into God’s redemptive purpose for them and their students. As teachers are selected for the 2018-2019 school year, we call forth instructors at every level of instruction who have the life and light of the living God in their lives.

Where is the Moral Outcry?

Convinced of the importance of religion in the lives of America’s new settlers, our forefathers refused to entertain any suggestion that the people who lived in this nation would be better off without Christianity. In 1794, humanists Thomas Paine, penned an anti-Christian book, The Age of Reason, there was a moral outcry among the citizens and leadership of colonies. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, as well as prominent Christians of the day refused to recognize Paine or his writings. While people may have read the book, because those of influence rejected the content, the book was not well accepted. When Paine passed away, no cemetery would give him burial space. He was buried in a cow pasture. The moral outcry of the people at all levels of education day refused Thomas Paine’s anti-god book. As a result the book had little effect on the beliefs of the people.
Almost 200 years later during President Reagan’s first term in office, a poll revealed that 85% of Americans were in favor of prayer being a part of a child’s school day. President Reagan, thinking he had grassroots support, secured a majority of votes in the House and the Senate to get the measure permitting prayer in school passed. He was stopped when the courts ruled against his efforts. Justice Antonin Scalia spoke out against the decision to not allow school prayer. Justice Scalia felt striking prayer out of school would please a few to the detriment of the majority. Justice Scalia also spoke out against abortion. He is credited with making the remark to a group of friends, “Where is the moral outcry against abortion?” Justice Scalia was asking: Where are the Christians who will do more than give a nod against evil?
A look at America’s Educational system today reveals how different our schools are from 200 years ago. Educators have led us down a path that has almost destroyed our culture, our religion, our families and ultimately our future. Yet, there is little moral outcry among those who hold to strong Christian beliefs.
I pray God gives each of us insight on how to participate in the moral outcry that is necessary to change this nation – in particular the Mountain of Education. No matter where we are or what station we hold in life, we can begin to take a stand against the tide of evil that has flooded our schools. Let every one of us participate in the outcry against the ungodly agenda in the American Mountain of Education!

Pray for America’s Schools Like You Would Pray for a Sick Friend

Many people are very concerned for the future of our children and our schools but feel that it is only a matter of time until our educational system will fail. The educational system is so bad that, “well, why even bother to pray for education?” The next comments that usually follow are about how the Lord’s return is so near, and after all things are just going to get worse and worse before Jesus comes back to earth and rescues us. End of discussion. They continue to worry and look for the rapture. In my opinion, the negative comments and the steady look for redemption in the form of rapture are a cover-up for lack of faith and prayer.
I agree that our educational system is in need of great help. It is sick. But how would those of us who are supposed to be faith-filled believers react if we had a good friend who was in sin and because of that sin he was sick? What if that person had turned his back on God? What if that person had done a lot of good deeds in the past and was trying to get well? What if you knew that if that person regained his health he could change this nation? What if that person’s friends had all turned against him and refused to pray? What if that person had been exploited by people who had taken advantage of him? What if that person had provided for the education of hundreds of thousands of children throughout the world and would do so again, when he recovered? What if you knew that friend, when recovered, would engage in even greater humanitarian acts than he had ever done before? Would you pray for that friend? Yes, every one of us would pray for such a friend. America’s educational system is that friend who needs our prayers for health and healing. Now is not the time to turn against our schools and the education of our children and watch the educational system go downhill – Now is the time to rise up in faith and believe God for her healing!

Are we all animals? Funny you should ask….

In the history of America, the period of 1880 to 1933 were pivotal for this nation’s education. New theories of how to educate children were being birthed at ivy league colleges that would gradually trickle down to be taught in every school room in America. It was a time of great change—and not for the betterment of our children in our schools.

One of the more prolific change agents was Edward L. Thorndike. Mr. Thorndike graduated from Harvard in 1897. While at Harvard, he began investigating instinctive and intelligent behavior in chickens. He wrote a dissertation for his degree in education on “Animal Intelligence.” In 1911, his work was published as a book. His theories still stand today as a benchmark in educational psychology.

Edward L. Thorndike believed in evolution and wrote in his book, “His [man’s] instincts, that is, his inborn tendencies to feel and act in certain ways, show throughout marks of kinship with the lower animals, especially with our nearest relatives physically, the monkeys. His sense-powers show no new creation. …” Dr. Thorndike wrote concerning teaching, “The best way with children, may often be, in the pompous words of an animal trainer, ‘to arrange everything in connection with the trick so that the animal will be compelled by the laws of his own nature to perform it.’”

The theory of evolution, applied to the mind, was used by Thorndike and other evolutionary psychologists as a basis for building a new theory of learning by conditioning. This method of teaching completely omits any consideration or training of the spiritual component of a child. Score one more huge win for humanism in American education! The truth is, if our children are trained as animals, we should not be surprised when they are without a moral compass and act accordingly.