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The Christiansburg Christian School. Situated in a church basement in southwestern Virginia, Christiansburg Christian teaches all grades from kindergarten through twelve, although it has only seven faculty members (and just one of these has prior teaching experience). Total enrollment is 65 and the annual budget is a bare $110,000. The school's teaching is conducted with a package of self-study workbooks and tapes published by Accelerated Christian Education of Lewisville, Texas, a fast-growing company that markets start-a-school kits nationwide. The fee scale is complicated, but a basic initial A.C.E. charge is $950. Students work at their own speed, completing workbooks every three to four weeks. They are not allowed to proceed unless they score at least 80% on tests of each packet they complete. Sample English lesson: "It is a great tragedy that as talented a man as Mark Twain could never find peace with God instead of fighting Him."
The Rev. Charles Sustar, 39, whose Pentecostal church established the school in 1977, explains his position: "We completely rebel against the humanistic flavor of our public school system. Can you imagine the Children of Israel coming out of Egypt, camping on the desert, and the mothers packing lunches every day and sending their kids back to Egypt for school?"
The Rushtons' Basement School. Weekdays from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Nebraska Housewife Loralea Rushton, 39, is not called Mom by her three daughters, but Mrs. Rushton. Reason: Mrs. Rushton, who is a registered nurse, acts as principal and teacher for her children, who attend school in the basement family room of her home in Columbus, Neb. She sits at a small desk before a sign on a bulletin board that proclaims: HE is RISEN. The girls, ages 9, 11 and 12, are the school's only students. They sit at a large table partitioned into three cubicles, quietly working on a correspondence curriculum supplied by Illinois' Christian Liberty Academy. The curriculum covers traditional subjects from a religious perspective, and includes a special Bible course and "truth packs" criticizing such "liberal values" as equality for women, socialism, abortion and premarital sex. The academy grades schoolwork and issues report cards through the mail. On the nationally standardized Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, which measure linguistic and mathematical ability, the Rushton girls, who have studied at home for the past two years, scored two to three years above their grade levels.
"The girls like to be with other children," says Mrs. Rushton, "but they don't want to be with children who are taught contrary to our thinking." Nebraska authorities have challenged the activities of some Christian schools in the state, but have so far ignored home study in Columbus. Says Warren Rushton, 42, a mechanical engineer and teaching elder at the Platte Valley Baptist Church in Columbus: "It would be horrible if the sheriff comes some day when I'm gone and gives Loralea and the children a summons, when they let the dopeheads and potheads run loose. The dedicated Christians I know are not going to stop educating their children simply because of any whimsical decree of some court."