Special Report

The thin blonde teenager was wearing a pink bikini top and cut-off shorts as she sauntered slowly toward the lake, oblivious to the worried stares of onlookers.

Without pause, the counselor walked toward her with a smile and explained that she should leave, pointing a finger toward the entrance.

Besides learning the tenets of conservative ideology — yes to intelligent design, no to same-sex marriage, yes to prayer in schools, no to new taxes — students attending the National TeenPact Conference in Winder, Ga., a gathering of politically active home-school students from around the nation, are required to look a certain way.

“Oh my gosh! Was that one of us?!” said a young girl with braces, retreating to the side with a group of friends to discuss the incident.

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The politics of home schooling

The first thing the camp counselor saw was the flash of flesh.

“That is totally not T.P.A.”

Belly buttons may not be T.P.A., or TeenPact Approved, but neither are a lot of things, said 16-year-old Lineville native Steven Franklin.

“Outside ... there are so many distractions that can get in the way of learning,” Franklin said. “At TeenPact they are trying to get you to focus on politics, on the attitude they are trying to teach you, and on God and stuff.”

TeenPact, and organizations like it, want to provide the ideological backbone for a Joshua Generation — an assemblage of Christian home-schoolers who will claim the culture much like the biblical Joshua led the Israelites to claim Canaan.

And teenagers like Franklin are on the front lines, part of an intricate grassroots youth network that home-school leaders believe eventually will overturn Roe v. Wade, stop same-sex marriage, and bring the country back to what they believe is its biblical heritage.

“These students are impacting political organizations all over the country,” said home-school mother Jean Whatley, 55, whose four children have worked a combined total of 20 political campaigns. “They want to transform the culture for Christ.”

Yet educators who have studied home education question the civic education of home schoolers.

Instead of influencing people for the better, they see home-school students as nothing more than messianic messengers who peddle their convictions in a world they know nothing about.

Maintaining an Edge

In the last 10 years, TeenPact has tripled in size. Last year, 1,832 students participated nationwide, 140 of them in Alabama. Nearly 15,000 students are considered alumni, said Tim Echols, the organization’s director, who founded TeenPact.

Other organizations such as Eagle Forum and Home School Legal Defense Association also have supported the political aspirations of home schoolers.

TeenPact is a 501(C) 3 non-profit organization that was modeled on the YMCA Youth Legislature and Boys and Girls State programs, Echols said.

“Our mission is to turn students into statesmen,” Echols said.

He said TeenPact is open to students from all educational backgrounds, but it’s probably no coincidence that 99.5 percent of participants are home-schoolers. Home-school children, Echols noted, not only have the time to commit, but many of their parents count the experience as a high school government credit.

TeenPact is supported through state chapters. Each state chapter holds four-day classes at its capitol each year when the legislature is in session.

During the class, neatly dressed and well-behaved teenagers spend the morning hours in devotionals, worship and prayer walk.

They write and debate legislation, meet political leaders and review civics — all taught from an evangelical viewpoint.

Children ages 8-12 can attend one-day classes in the capitol building advertised to teach “the legislative process …the influence of constituents on lawmakers and the role of Christians in politics.”

Before attending a state class, students are expected to pray for their local representatives every day, write to their local representatives, analyze the governor’s most recent state-of-the-state address and analyze and write legislation.

They define vocabulary words — government, authority, church, justice and morality — using the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary, a reference the TeenPact Web site calls “untainted by modern secular humanism and politically correct revision.”

Not all students are accepted to attend TeenPact state classes, Echols said. Students are approved through an application process in which they are asked to write about their relationship with Jesus Christ. They also must agree to abide by appearance standards, which forbid girls from wearing pants and requires that skirts and dresses have a hemline mid-calf or longer.

Echols has watched his organization expand with the growth of home schooling, but he said he has also seen the attitudes of home-schoolers change. They own iPods, have blogs and watch YouTube videos, he said. Many plan to go to college.

Home-school students are looking and talking more like their public school neighbors, and that isn’t a good thing, he said.

“The trend I’m seeing is that there are more and more kids with a squishy world view,” he said. “They are too socialized now. The values out in the culture are impacting home-schoolers, with a detrimental effect.”

Whistle while you work

After taking a quick sip of his Dr. Pepper, 14-year-old Adam Franklin stuck the phone in the crook of his neck and moved his fingers across the dial with one goal in mind — shatter the record: 50 calls in one hour.

“Hello, my name is Adam and I’m volunteering for Paul Broun who’s running for Congress. Do you have a minute for me to tell you a few things about him?”

Franklin picks up a glossy brochure and reads the bullet points.

“OK ... he’s a member of the National Rifle Association, and he believes we should secure our borders from illegal aliens, we should support our troops and he is pro life.”

“One more vote,” he said, thumbs up, checking off a box on the computer screen.

Franklin, a thin boy with a bowl cut, was one of 10 home-school students under age 18 who paid $50 to come to Athens, Ga., for a week of door-to-door visits, phone calls and sign-waving.

Formally titled “the student project,” events like this evolved from organizations such as TeenPact and the Home School Legal Defense Association years ago.

They are managed and organized on a case-by-case basis through Echols and other independent political contractors across the country, said 18-year-old Paul Sellers, a native of Tallahassee, Fla., and director of the Athens project.

Sellers has worked on student projects for several years, and he has directed three.

The formula for deciding which candidates get home-school assistance is fairly straightforward, he said: “If we are happy with the way the candidate stands on the various issues, then we will agree to have a student project.”

Projects are sold to parents as a spiritual retreat and campaign school, said Tabatha Radcliffe, a 19-year-old from Woodville, who has participated in student projects.

Students meet for devotionals every night and a debriefing session to discuss political strategy and grassroots organization, said Sellers. They follow a strict dress code and agree to a code of conduct that forbids romantic relationships, complaining, and the discussion of news or entertainment.

Regardless of the work and the rules, student projects appeal to many students because it is an opportunity for social interaction, said Sara Blackmon, 19, of Anniston, who has gone to Florida and Louisiana to campaign for conservative candidates.

Blackmon, who describes herself as artsy, said she isn’t really interested in politics beyond voting, but has participated with home-schoolers in the past to make friends.

“It’s something to do,” said Blackmon, who still attends TeenPact events.

The Right Guy

Nearly 20 years after vocally opposing the home-school movement as a member of the Alabama State Board of Education from 1979 to 1983, 69-year-old Ron Creel had a sudden change of heart.

When he met the students, he said, they looked and acted differently than he had expected. Instead of socially awkward people, he saw children who didn’t wiggle or whisper in church. Their skin wasn’t covered in earrings and tattoos. The young girls covered their curves, and the boys seemed more like little men.

And it didn’t hurt that these well-mannered adolescents were coming in droves from all over the country and state to work for his friend, Roy Moore, whose under-funded gubernatorial campaign needed help, he said.

“(Home-schoolers) were a major part of our grassroots organization, and they approached us,” said Creel, Moore’s campaign manager. “Hundreds, from all over the state. It was like we were a magnet.”

Ten home-school students worked full time on the Moore campaign, organizing, strategizing and recruiting volunteers in the campaign’s 25 target counties, he said. The weekend before the Republican primary, 600 home-school students, ranging in age from 14 to 18, distributed 50,000 pieces of information.

“They are dedicated. Paid employees don’t work as hard as home-schoolers do,” he said. “Those people are workers, and they do it because of their indoctrination and what they learn at home.”

Many of the teenagers who worked alongside Creel had worked on several other campaigns, and Creel said he was always taken aback by their suggestions and political savvy.

On more than one occasion, he recalled students telling him their persistence would produce big results: “They said a dripping faucet could break concrete.”

Then again, that tenacity, while laudable to some, troubles experts who say that home-school organizations and parents are fostering a bad approach to civics education.

“Home schooling is the only school environment where parents can screen in and screen out what they want,” said Rob Reich, an associate professor of political science at Stanford University who has studied home schooling. “Instead of school becoming a place to explore other ideas, it becomes a place to cement the parents’ values into the brains of the children.”

While home-schoolers are playing by the rules and are very effective at political organization, Reich said the civic education of home schoolers is designed to transmit and mobilize one world view. In contrast, students in public and private schools are prepared to engage in a diverse democracy, he said.

Parents have every right to teach their values to their children. However, Reich said, schools are supposed to counter the ideology of parents and help students find their individual beliefs.

“There are some things you can’t protect your kids from, and that’s a good thing,” he said.

Meanwhile, Creel said it is critical for campaigns to endear themselves to home-schoolers. Home-school parents are willing to send their children across the country to support conservative Christian candidates, which means they are a crucial volunteer force.

Though Roy Moore was unsure about the exact number of home-school volunteers on his campaign — he estimated around 200 came during the last few weeks — he said every student he met seemed to know exactly what they were fighting for.

“They were more aware of our history, the meaning of our constitution, the understanding of the biblical foundations of government,” he said. “They learned the importance of God and country.”

It was refreshing, he said, even though he lost.

“They were very hard to get discouraged,” he said. “They will keep going. They will be there the next time, if there is a next time.”