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"In Russia, parents say, 'Go to school work hard and learn!' In America, parents say, 'Have fun at school today!'" -Russian history teacher, Larissa Kokareva

In this time of deficits, one Utah state senator has an idea about how to save the state money; make 12th grade optional. He argues that students fritter away their final year of high school anyway.  The idea may be financially appealing, but with American public schools turning out so many poorly educated students, having the kids graduate a year earlier likely won't help the problem.

A large number of high school seniors waste their final year of high school, Senator Chris Buttars argued before Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee this month. "You're spending a whole lot of money for a whole bunch of kids who aren't getting anything out of that grade," he said. "It comes down to the best use of money." Getting rid of 12th grade altogether would save the state $102 million, Buttars said. He estimates that just giving students the option to graduate early would save about $60 million in a state facing a serious budget shortfall.

Despite the financial incentive, it's not surprising that Buttars' idea has been met with opposition from teachers, parents, and students. Many students do not waste their senior years, and cutting out the year would not solve the problem for those that do. Even if that year became optional, students would simply shift from frittering away their senior years to frittering away their junior years.

More to the point, American students seriously need an education. John Balden, president of the Utah chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, told ABC News., "In higher education we find an awful lot of students unprepared for college. Twelfth grade is really a necessary grade."

And that is just the problem. The dropout rate may be down, but so is the educational quality of graduating students. The US Department of Education reports that the dropout rate fell across all racial groups from a total average of 14.1 percent in 1980 to 8.7 in 2007. While more kids are staying in school, though, colleges find that increasing numbers of new students require remedial classes in core courses. The Detroit Free Press reports that one in five Michigan college students is enrolled in catch-up courses, and according to the annual report by the Colorado Commission for Higher Education, about 53 percent of new students entering two year-colleges in the fall of 2008 needed remedial help in reading, math or writing.

The No Child Left Behind Act created in 2002 was supposed to bring accountability to schools and keep students from falling through the cracks. The original plan put together by the Bush Administration purposed to cut out government bureaucracy and give more flexibility to the states and local school districts. What came out of Congress, though, gave the Federal government even more control over American education, and according to the Federal Register, Vol. 71, No. 202 (2006), NCLB increased the paperwork burden for schools by an estimated $141 million.

NCLB was supposed to improve the educational quality of failing schools, but has instead had a variety of disappointing results. Many teachers have focused on "teaching to the test" to make sure students can pass the standardized tests that NCLB requires, while neglecting many important aspects of education, not to mention driving the natural love of learning out of children. College professors complain that new students have no critical thinking skills but have been trained to be simple fact-collecting machines. 

Things are not better at the government level. States do have the freedom to set up the standardized tests, but to avoid the consternation of the Federal Government, many state governments have given in to the temptation to simply lower their standards so that more students are able to pass.

Most recently, a cheating scandal has erupted in Georgia, where it has been discovered that a number of teachers have "corrected" the answers on their students' standardized tests in order to ensure the desired test results. Attempts to make schools truly accountable seem to be backfiring.

The public school system is not the only problem in American education, though. Increasingly, more students are left unaccountable for taking charge of their own learning. Too many students go home to empty houses or to parents who do not bother to make sure they get their homework done. Some teachers are no longer allowed to give students failing grades, and their calls home produce no improvement in student motivation or effort.

A variety of cultural problems can be blamed. Students watch too much television and play too many video games, exacerbating the problem of children with short attention spans. Many young people in American culture expect things to be handed to them and do not realize that good jobs have to be earned. There is little thinking about the future as kids focus on feeding the desires of today. Kids are neglected and abused, ignored and rejected, and have a difficult time learning because they are afraid of bullies. The list goes on and on.

What do we do about it?

We need to pray. The problem is a multi-faceted one, and throwing money at the problem or starting a host of new programs will not magically fix things. We do not just have to fix American education, we need to fix the societal fabric of America. We need to start with prayer.

There are also some very practical steps Americans can take to help the situation. More power and flexibility need to be returned to the state and local school districts, because local districts understand their own specific problems better than do distant federal bureaucrats. Parents need a variety of choices in where to send their children to school, whether through charter schools or voucher programs or home schooling clubs. These alternatives not only offer students a way out of failing public schools, but, but also relieve some of the public schools' large class sizes.

Students need to be held accountable for their actions much more than they are in schools where grades lower than a C are not allowed. Parents and teachers need to cooperate in making sure their children do their school work and behave themselves.  Administrators need to hire teachers who are good communicators with a passion for the material they teach, and they need to really listen to parents and teachers.  

Perhaps most importantly, parents as a whole need to take charge of making sure their children learn, whether by helping them with their homework, or reading to them, or just getting them away from the television for a few minutes of real conversation. Best yet, parents need to help instill in their children a love for learning by involving them in exploration of this world, both indoors and out. If kids develop their own love and motivation to learn, we will get the well-informed, clear-thinking young Americans we need them to be.

"My dad asked me what I was giving up for Lent this year. I told him I was giving up God for Lent so I wouldn't have to feel guilty." -A Catholic teen overheard on a bus.

Ash Wednesday is upon us, a day when Catholics gather to have their foreheads marked with ashes in the shape of a cross as a sign of penitence and dedication to Christ. It marks the beginning of the 40 days leading to Easter. The idea of community repentance and fasting is a good one, one that could bring much spiritual fruit in our churches if practiced with the right heart. The question is, how much of Lent becomes just another gotta-do religious act? If Christians from any denomination choose to take this time to seek God's face in the days leading up to the celebration of our Lord's death and resurrection, that is excellent. Prayer and fasting are still biblical, but they must be done carefully and in truth.

Many instances of fasting are found in the Old Testament; Moses fasted for 40 days when he went up to receive the Law from the LORD (Exo. 34:28); Daniel entered into a three week partial fast which removed all delicacies (pleasant bread, meat and wine) from his diet (Dan 10:3); the people of Nehemiah's time fasted and prayed and repented in sackcloth as the Law of the LORD was read to them (Neh. 9:1); Esther and her maids fasted from both food and water for three days before she went in to speak to the King in order to save the life of her people (Est. 4:16).

Fasting does not only belong in the Old Testament, though. Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert before choosing his disciples (Luke 4). In Acts 13, the church at Antioch was fasting and praying when the Holy Spirit told them to separate out Barnabas and Saul (Paul) for the work He had for them. Jesus never said, "If you fast…" he said, "When you fast…." (Matt. 6:16) and prayer and fasting can still be a valuable practice for the Church today. In fact, Jesus indicated that certain evil spiritual forces are only driven out by fasting and prayer (Mark 9:29).

Before beginning a time of prayer and fasting, though, it is important to keep some things in mind:

1) Fasting is not an obligation.

The purpose of fasting is to seek God's face, to examine oneself and get any unconfessed sin out in the open. It's a time to put other things aside and remember that nothing is more important than Jesus – a time to remember our "first Love." It's a time to once again present ourselves as living sacrifices before God, humbling ourselves before Him in love and worship, saying, "Here I am, Father. I'm Yours." There is little value in fasting as merely a religious act, out of guilt, or because everybody else is doing it.

2) Don't be a self-denial hero.

Fasting is not about the simple act of going without. It is not a battle of self-control or willpower. We should save willpower for dieting. Fasting is about putting God first in our lives, setting aside other things that are just not as important as our relationship with Him.

3) Fasting requires care and prudence.

While Moses survived 40 days without food and water, his circumstances were especially unique. People have died through imprudent fasting.  Both entering into a fast and getting off a fast should be done slowly and gradually, so as to give they body time to adjust, and it can be wise to get a medical examination before starting a major fast.

For some people, fasting can be harmful. Certain people should never fast all food, especially people with a history of eating disorders, those with heart conditions, diabetes, hypoglycemia, or pregnant or nursing women.

4) Fasting food is optional.

There are many ways to fast. A 40-day food-free fast is possible and can be spiritually beneficial, but it can also be life-threatening if not done properly. There are partial fasts, like when Daniel avoided meat and wine for three weeks. There are short food-free fasts like Esther's three days. Some people fast only one day or one meal - or one day each week.   Many people go on juice-only fasts, which can also be cleansing for the body.

There are many things that can be fasted without starving oneself, however. Some people give up chocolate and sweets, and others give up watching television. Any things that could come between us and God are good candidates for fasting, especially our time wasters, like computer games or endless texting on the phone.

5) Don't let Satan get you down.

God can use our fasting and prayer times to win powerful spiritual battles, and, because of that, Satan is guaranteed to try to discourage us. We need to be ready for opposition and distraction, determined to keep our commitment to the end, but we also need to remember our artillery against the Enemy is prayer and worship. Any time we get discouraged and aggravated or distracted, we need to quickly take the matter before the Throne of God. As James 4:7 says, "…Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

6) Focus On God.

The purpose of fasting is not simply the act of self-denial; it is a time to come before the Lord. If we give up watching our favorite show, it should be because we are putting that time toward the purpose of seeking God. Setting aside our golf clubs for a month is fairly useless if, instead of playing golf, we just go bowling.

When we fast, we need to set aside specific time to dedicate ourselves to going before God. He is the whole point of the fast, after all. And beyond our special quiet time with our King, we should enjoy worship and prayer throughout the day, taking every opportunity to enter His presence. Bill Bright writes:

"Read His Word and pray during what were mealtimes. Meditate on Him when you awake in the night. Sing praises to Him whenever you please. Focus on your Heavenly Father and make every act one of praise and worship. God will enable you to experience His command to "pray without ceasing" as you seek His presence."

7) Any time can be good for a fast.

It may be the season of Lent, a popular time for fasting and prayer. However, fasting is not limited to set times on a calendar. Community fasting and prayer can be a powerful weapon and an excellent way for a church body to get on track with the Spirit of God. However, the most important time to fast is when the Spirit leads us.

May God bless us all as we come before Him and prepare our hearts to serve Him now and every day throughout this year.

"The entire universe is a cryptogram set by the Almighty. "   - Sir Isaac Newton

Fans of the popular TV science fiction series, Star Trek, are familiar with the "Beam-me-up-Scotty" concept of "teleporting." In an Austrian laboratory several years ago, scientists were able to destroy bits of light in one place and make perfect replicas appear about three feet away. They did this by transferring information about a crucial physical characteristic of the original light bits, or photons. The information was picked up by other photons, which took on that characteristic and thus became replicas of the originals.

While broader applications of these techniques still remain rather distant on the horizon of our new 21st century, the experiment raises some basic questions. Is our universe itself digital?

Our Macro-Boundary:
The startling discovery of 20th century science was that our universe is finite. Scientists now acknowledge that the universe had a beginning. They call the singularity from which it all began the "Big Bang." While the details among the many variants of these theories remain quite controversial, the fact that there was a definite beginning has gained widespread agreement.  This is, of course, what the Bible has maintained throughout its 66 books.

From thermodynamic considerations, it also appears that all processes in the universe inevitably contribute their losses from their inefficiencies to the ambient temperature, and thus the universe ultimately will attain a uniform temperature in which no work - all of which derives from temperature differences - will occur. Scientists call this final ultimate physical destiny the "heat death."

Mankind, therefore, finds itself caught in a finite interval between the singularity that began it all and its inevitable termination. The mathematical concept of infinity - in any spatial direction or in terms of time - seems astonishingly absent in the macrocosm, the domain of the astronomers and cosmologists.

Our Micro-Boundary:
In the microcosmic domain, there appears to be an even more astonishing boundary to smallness.  If we take a segment of length, we can divide it in half.  We can take one of the remaining halves, and we can divide it in half again.  We naturally assume that this can go on forever.  We assume that no matter how small a length we end up dealing with, we can always - at least conceptually - divide any remainder in half.  It turns out that this is not true. There is a length, known as the Planck length, 10^-33 centimeters, that is indivisible.

The same thing is true of mass, energy, and even time. There is a unit of time which cannot be further divided: 10^-43 seconds. It is in this strange world of subatomic behavior that scientists have encountered the very boundaries of physical reality, as we experience it. The study of these subatomic components is called quantum mechanics, or quantum physics.

The startling discovery made by the quantum physicists is that if you break matter into smaller and smaller pieces, you eventually reach a point where those pieces - electrons, protons, etc. - no longer possess the traits of objects. Although they can sometimes behave as if they were a compact little particle, physicists have found that they literally possess no dimension. They call this non-locality.

The more we know about quantum physics, the less confidence we can have concerning the nature of our own physical reality. It seems that it is but a subset of a larger hyperspace we call the spiritual reality.

A Glimpse of Hyperspace:
Current cosmological conjectures assume a universe of more than three spatial dimensions - mathematically called a hyperspace. Current views envision a universe of ten dimensions: four directly measurable (three spatial dimensions, plus time) and six that can only be determined indirectly. This is precisely what the ancient Hebrew sage, Nachmonides, writing in the 12th century, concluded from his study of Genesis!

The Bible is unique in that it presents a universe of more than three dimensions (Ephesians 3:18), and reveals a Creator that is transcendent over His creation.  It is the only "holy book" that possesses such contemporary insights.

[This is an excerpt from Chuck Missler's article, "Our Digital Universe? Quantum Teleporting: Part 1."]