Allen Mooneyhan
Socio-Culture
Foundations of Education
Reform
Movements
National Association of Christian Educators/Citizens for Excellence in
Education
(NACE/CEE)
Dr.
Mitch Holifield
Arkansas
State University
February
24, 2001
National Association of Christian Educators/Citizens for Excellence in
Education
(NACE/CEE)
The
National Association of Christian Educators (NACE) was founded in 1983 by Dr.
Robert Simonds. The NACE objective
is to serve Christian teachers in public Schools.
Citizens for Excellence in Education (CEE) was formed to allow for two
avenues to reform teachers from within the system and enable parents to exert
pressure from outside the bureaucracy.
Founder
and president, Dr. Robert Simonds, served in the public schools for 35 years.
He served as a high school teacher and a high school principal.
He also worked as a professor of philosophy, architecture/engineering and
mathematics at a California community college and later as an adjunct professor
in teacher education at the University of California Los Angeles.
Dr. Simonds served on President Reagan's "Forum to Implement the
National Commission on Excellence in Education Report:
'A NATION AT RISK'". He
is the publisher of three journals and news letters and has authored several
books on (a) reforming education, (b) strengthening families, and (c) electing
school board members. Dr. Simonds
and the CEE claim to have over 350,000 parents involved in the organization from
all fifty states.
CEE's central purpose is to help parents and public school teachers
across the United States. CEE works
to help parents "restore academic excellence and traditional moral values
to the public schools", "strengthen and nurture Christian families at
home", and "rescue their children from public schools to private
Christian schools and home schools. NACE/CEE
cites several ways in which it helps parents.
First, this organization helps individual parents resolve public school
issues including opt-out policies for sex education and outcome-based education.
Second, it helps parents to form local "chapters" to make
positive change and elect good conservative school board members.
Third, it helps through networking with education leaders and bureaucrats
in order to affect laws and build bridges for understanding.
Fourth, it helps by providing resources for churches and individual
families and publishing balanced, objective resources to help parents understand
the issues in education. Finally, it helps parents make informed decisions between
public, Christian, and home school as well as helping parents accomplish their
desired action.
NACE/CEE has several areas of concern regarding Christian parents and
public education. They are
concerned about the "rapidly deteriorating moral and academic
environment" in public education. Further,
CEE wants to help "replace faith-destroying curricula" with programs
that support moral values and emphasize strong academics.
Additionally, CEE wants a Basics-Based Education Model as an alternate to
the Outcome-Based Education Model. Finally,
CEE claims it is not trying to "Christianize" the public schools.
Instead, it is believed that traditional moral values, which are based
upon Judeo-Christian ethic, should be upheld in the classroom.
CEE claims to simply want "SAFE PASSAGE" for Christian students
and parents. What is meant by this
is that students should have the opportunity for education without Christian
beliefs and values being destroyed. As
a final point regarding the concerns of NACE/CEE, it seems that the
organization's policies may be changing somewhat from a focus on school reform
to a focus on efforts to convince Christians to leave the public schools.
Following is a quote from the president of NACE/CEE, which indicates this
coming policy change. "After 17 years of diligent, loving efforts to get
reform in pubic schools, Citizens for Excellence in Education, CEE, (your
Christian parents advocates) has decided to urge all Christians to leave the
government indoctrination schools and save their Christian children from
spiritual and academic failure." This
quote was taken from the welcome letter which accompanied their information
packet and is written by Dr. Simonds.
The CEE's tactics for helping families fall into four categories which
are Individually, Groups, Running for school board, and Materials.
Individuality indicates that CEE staff can advise parents on the most
effective way to handle particular issues they face and can provide positive
alternatives to the schools for many situations.
The CEE will help groups by assisting them in forming a local chapter of
parents or organizing a public
school awareness committee within a church.
CEE claims to have supported thousands of children and families by
helping Christians win seats on local school district boards.
Finally, CEE offers many materials which it claims will help parents
understand the issues of public education and deal effectively with those
issues. Materials include brochures, journals, newsletters, and
books.
Funding for CEE comes from at least two sources.
First, membership dues for NACE/CEE are $25.00 annually.
If the claim of 350,000 members is accurate, this indicates a substantial
source of revenue. Second, many of the materials offered by NACE/CEE are for
sale to members and others. It is
likely that revenue from the sale of these materials supplements that of the
annual membership fees. Examples of
materials, some that are free and some that are available for a fee, are
Education Newsline, The President's Report, Education Decision Day brochure and
several publications. Education
Newsline is a quarterly newsletter. The
President's Report is a monthly letter that focuses on one timely issue and
solutions to that issue. The
Education Decision Day brochure assists churches in educating parents regarding
issues in education. Publications
include a host of books and reports authored both by Dr. Robert Simonds and
others not officially associated with NACE/CEE.
Contact information for NACE/CEE is provided below.
The mailing address is Citizens for Excellence in Education, P.O. Box
3200, Costa Mesa, CA 92628.
NACE/CEEs Telephone number is (949) 251-9333 and their fax number is
(949) 251-9466. The website for the
organization is www.nace-cee.org and the
email address is CEE4Kids@aol.com.