September 24, 2025 · 54:19

Dr. Brian Ray, President of NHERI, steps into “The Corner” for the very first time.

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0:00 - 15:00. 1 Corinthians 16:5-9. An effective door for Gospel engagement has been opened. 15:00 - 31:00. Dr. Brian Ray, President of NHERI, steps into “The Corner” for the very first time. 31:00 - 48:00. The research is in. Cultivation of our children’s minds is most effective when it is led by the parents. | 1-800-326-4543 ext. 345 To donate call : 877-616-2396

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1-800-326-4543 ext. 345
877-616-2396

Full transcript Auto-generated · 10,174 words

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
0:03It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
0:07This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
0:11It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
0:18And the philosophies of this world.
0:21God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
0:24Even in this dark moment.
0:26Let's not miss our moment.
0:29And now, the Hamilton Corner.
0:34Good evening, everyone.
0:36Welcome to the Hamilton Corner.
0:37My name is Abraham Hamilton, the third.
0:39And I am the host of this program.
0:42Grateful that you have joined us.
0:45Today, we're broadcasting live from Denton, Texas,
0:49as I am attending the homeschool legal defense
0:53association's national leaders conference.
0:56And we're broadcasting live from this conference.
1:01As many of you are making right now are making your transition from your part time jobs to your full time jobs your part time jobs is where you generate an income.
1:11Your full time jobs are where we cultivate an outcome as you do so I want to remind you to make your transition with intentionality, recognizing the primacy that God has placed on the family.
1:23We will never be able to out politic or out church, out vote, out Supreme Court opinion our
1:29way out of deficiencies that are prevalent in the home.
1:34This is why I often remind you that what goes on in your house is far more important than
1:40what goes on in the White House because it's simply true.
1:44You and I are responsible and accountable for what goes on in our homes.
1:49I am still in many ways processing Charlie Kirk's martyrdom, the memorial services, the
2:04first time I'm on the air since Charlie Kirk's funeral Sunday where you had hundreds of thousands
2:11of people who showed up in person where you had millions of people around the world watching
2:17that and I was just struck by the, frankly, the witness of Charlie Curtis' life, but beyond,
2:29in addition to, not beyond, in addition to that, the repeated clear gospel presentations
2:37that were made during the service.
2:44And one of the things, and I'm going to point this out, there's a brother who lives in London
2:50His name is Jamie Brainbrick and he posted something following that memorial service.
3:00And man, I'm so grateful for the public witness that Charlie Kirkman.
3:07I know there are some people that are haters and they're trying to take certain things out
3:10of context.
3:11You know, it's one of the downsides of social media and the internet age that we're in.
3:18On one hand, you can reach people more quickly, you can disseminate information broadly.
3:23On the other hand, you have people who are all into gotchas and soundbites who try to
3:27take two phrases, slap them, twist them, flip them, and rub them down and make them look like
3:32something entirely different from what a person is and who a person is.
3:36Unfortunately, we have too many people who are one willingly ignorant and two eager to
3:44to try to attack something, that their disagreement
3:50has nothing to do with what the person actually says,
3:52but it's a caricature of the person.
3:57But Jamie Bainbrook wrote this.
3:59And you wanna talk about perspective, he wrote this.
4:03He said, quote, my dear American friends,
4:06we British Christians would get excited
4:08when once a year Queen Elizabeth would make a mild
4:11but sincere reference to the love of Jesus Christ
4:13in her Christmas address.
4:15And Charlie Kirk's Memorial Service
4:16watched by tens of millions I just heard multiple clear presentations of the gospel from men like
4:21Pastor Rob McCoy, Dr. Frank Turic, with clear calls to repentance and faith, worship songs
4:27full of scriptures sung by tens of thousands, live and millions at home, personal testimonies
4:33of lives transformed by the work of Christ and the witness of believers, demonstration
4:38and explanation of the value of marriage, child rearing and family, calls to Romans 13 for
4:43government to bear the sword for the protection of good and punishment of the wicked, declarations
4:48of spiritual warfare on the forces of evil and promises to endure no matter the cost.
4:53Calls to be prophets and calls to be prophets and calls the nation to repent, more scripture
4:59references and bible readings and I can count and a widow publicly forgiving her husband's
5:04killer because Christ forgave his killers on the cross.
5:08All of it done before and by the most powerful people in your nation and the world.
5:12You guys should be on your knees thanking God for your country.
5:15It's a light to the world.
5:17Never stop fighting for it."
5:22You want to talk about perspective.
5:26And really, that is an example of the provocation that the Lord really stirred in me to start
5:41the program with today from 1 Corinthians 16, 1 Corinthians 16 verses 5 through 9.
5:49in this is really with the Lord is stirring in my heart
5:52for this moment, man.
5:53And as I'm saying this, you know, you have Erica Kirk
5:56on stage expressing forgiveness for her husband's murderer.
6:00And then you contrast that with this morning,
6:02you have some evil inspired dude
6:10who attacks an ICE facility in Dallas.
6:12Not far from where we are right now.
6:14You know, and injured several people
6:19ended up murdering two detainees at the ICE facilities.
6:23no law enforcement officers were murdered according to the reports that are available
6:27now.
6:28But that is an amazing, amazing contrast.
6:32But Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 16, starting at verse 5, from
6:36go all the way to verse 9, really demonstrate what the Lord is stirring in me and I want to
6:42encourage you with this same passage.
6:46The Scripture says this, this is Paul writing, but I will come to you after I go through Macedonia
6:52for I am going through Macedonia.
6:55Perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter
6:57so that you may send me on my way wherever I may go.
7:00For I do not wish to see you now just in passing,
7:04for I hope to remain with you for some time.
7:07If the Lord permits, but I will remain in Ephesus
7:11until Pentecost, for a wide door of effective service
7:16has been opened to me.
7:19And there are many adversaries.
7:23There are many adversaries.
7:27That is the thing that the Lord is stirring in me.
7:30Charlie Kirk's funeral demonstrates
7:35and the responses to that thereafter,
7:40that our nation in many ways,
7:42the people, when I say our nation I wanna be clear,
7:43the people in our nation are more open
7:46to having gospel conversations
7:47than they have been recently.
7:52They're more people, you can stop at a gas station
7:55and have conversations.
7:56An effective door has been opened,
7:58but I want you to note what verse nine said.
8:01for a wide door of effective service,
8:03for effective service,
8:04so some translators say effective work
8:06has been open to me,
8:08and there are many adversaries.
8:10Notice that the Apostle Paul's observation
8:13that there were adversaries
8:15did not cut away from,
8:18or to detract from Paul's perception
8:22that God had opened a door
8:24for effective ministry work for him.
8:27Many people may be familiar with this.
8:29This epistle to the Corinthians
8:31written toward the latter part of Paul's residency in Ephesus. He's writing to the church in Corinth
8:35while he's in Ephesus. So we have Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. Paul is physically in Ephesus while
8:42writing to the body of believers in Corinth. Paul observes that there are adversaries against
8:51the work that God has for him, but that doesn't affect his perception that a wide door, this is
8:56This is what he says, a wide door for effective service has been opened.
9:00Brothers and sisters, I want to tell you as plainly as I can, God has opened a wide door
9:07for his bride and our country to work effectively.
9:12Now is the time I've been saying this for quite some time.
9:15Let's not miss our moment.
9:17Let's not fail to recognize what God by His divine grace has made available for us.
9:22A wide and effective door for work has been open for us, but we must take advantage of it.
9:29We must take advantage of it.
9:30We must respond appropriately.
9:33We must respond appropriately.
9:35I've been saying that we must live locally.
9:38I've been saying that the Get Off the Couch ministry has taken applications.
9:42We must get off the couch.
9:44We must be about our father's business.
9:47The presence of adversaries doesn't change the fact or dictate to us that there is still
9:54a wide and effective door available to us.
9:58There's an opportunity now.
10:01There's an opportunity.
10:03The door has been opened with young people.
10:07There's been such a despondence communicating.
10:10Guys, young people have tried the bankrupt ideologies of this regressive world.
10:16They've been trying these things and they're realizing, man, this is not the way.
10:20There's got to be more than this.
10:22There's got to be more than this.
10:24And there is more than this.
10:27But it's up to the people of God to respond accordingly.
10:30And look, I want to be flat out.
10:33I've said this to you before.
10:35You know, the enemy has attempted in many ways to try to upset the work of God as if
10:39that's possible.
10:40While you have institutions that are becoming kind of crusty and opposing the work of God,
10:46man, if there's not a faithful church in your area, is God moving you to be a part of founding
10:50It's time for us to engage.
10:57And I know many of you in this audience are already engaged.
11:00Continue.
11:03Don't slack in the pace.
11:05Don't let up.
11:06Don't lighten up.
11:07Actually, it's time to press in even the more.
11:09Yes, there may be people who are adversaries.
11:12Yes, there may be adversaries,
11:14but that doesn't change the fact
11:16that God still has opened a wide door for effective service.
11:22God has opened a wide door for effective service. Sometimes we can misunderstand that because we think well
11:29Well, there's some opposition here
11:30We might get some push back here and misunderstand that just because there may be a little bit of pushback that doesn't change the fact
11:37That God has opened a wide door for effective service
11:40Paul identifies. Yes, they're adversaries
11:44They're adversaries, but that doesn't change the perception that an effective wide door has been opened for effective service
11:50And so my very simple encouragement, and I've been saying this, and I will continue to say it, brothers and sisters refuse to be manipulated by national headlines, refused to be brushed back by things floating around nationally, live locally.
12:07What is God requiring of you in your neighborhood? What is God requiring of you in your community? Before you even get there? What has God required of you in your family?
12:16It's not the will of God for us to step over the people in our homes in order to be a witness
12:23and to be effective in engaging them beyond our homes while we're watching our own homes
12:29disintegrate, crumble, batten down the hatches at home and move outwardly from there.
12:36I've explained before when the Lord commissioned his apostles to be his, the bearers of his
12:40message.
12:41He said, you will be my witnesses.
12:44The word witness comes from the Greek word, Martis.
12:47The call to be a Christ follower is the call to be the living dead.
12:50Dead to a flesh-centered self-willed life, raised to the newness of life, submitted to
12:58the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
13:01As a part of being a witness, that's a state of being.
13:04It's not limited to any particular activity.
13:05The call to be a worshipper is not limited to any particular activity.
13:09Worship is a lifestyle.
13:10The pinnacle of the lifestyle of worship is obedience.
13:14What does God require of us at home?
13:15Fathers, you're listening to me.
13:17Ephesians 6-4, God gives the command I've explained before.
13:21That is a command from God, it's not a suggestion.
13:23The first half of the book of Ephesians
13:25is written in the indicative mood in Greek.
13:26The second half is written in the imperative mood.
13:28It's a command from God.
13:30Fathers, do not exist for your children.
13:32Rather rear them in the nurturing admonition of the Lord.
13:34That is a command.
13:37That is a command.
13:39Much of what is transpired in our society
13:42is that there's been a vacuum of discipleship created.
13:45And what I mean by that is,
13:46lack of affirmative, Christ-centered rearing in the nurturing admonition of the Lord has
13:51left a vacuum.
13:52And as you said, I never intended this to become a catchphrase or anything on my show, but darkness
13:56is not an affirmative force, but it reoccupies a space that is vacated by the light.
14:01And what's happened largely is that vacation of the light has left room for darkness to
14:05reoccupy because discipleship is normative.
14:08So you have many people, unfortunately, sometimes the offspring of people who are frequent church
14:12attenders who's offering of being discipled by the world.
14:16And when they get the independence and the freedom, the capacity to live out what they
14:19really believe, they live according to the discipleship they have been subjected to.
14:27God has opened for a wide door of effective service has been opened to me and there are
14:34many adversaries.
14:35As the Apostle Paul rightly put it, the presence of adversaries doesn't change the fact that
14:39God has opened the door.
14:41the central features of Christ following is courage.
14:45You cannot be a Christ follower if we are void of courage.
14:49The door has been opened.
14:51The presence of adversaries don't change the fact
14:53that the door is wide.
14:54Let's be about our Father's Christmas.
15:01A discipleship minute with Joseph Parker.
15:04We can live like civilians and just be victims
15:07of the killing, abuse, problems, and difficulties of war,
15:11or we can choose to become well equipped soldiers
15:14and warriors skilled and trained for war and spiritual warfare.
15:19Hopefully all believers would want to become warriors
15:22in God's kingdom, warriors who've learned about the realities
15:25of spiritual warfare and that have been taught and trained
15:28to be well equipped soldiers.
15:31The most powerful weapon in the world is the word of God.
15:35And here are seven ways that we can put the word of God,
15:39the sword of the spirit to work in our lives
15:42and in our world.
15:43Here are seven ways to use the Word of God every day.
15:47Daily we can read it, hear it, believe it, speak it,
15:52obey it, pray it and meditate on it.
15:55All of these uses are related,
15:57but none of them are quite the same.
16:02Shareathon is coming, October 7th through 9th.
16:04I am a senior mom and I am a believer.
16:09I just am so busy that I don't get to church.
16:13So, AFR has been my link to hearing the word.
16:18Thank you for partnering with Listener-supported
16:20American Family Radio during Shareathon, October 7th through 9th.
16:24We live in AFR for quite some time.
16:27And I do a prison.
16:30I want to tell you, these guys here, I say love AFR.
16:35By the grace of God, AFR will continue to share God's love,
16:38truth, and the gospel.
16:40With the enemy that prosper, it depends.
16:42It does the same thing.
16:43I think it's our drive-in drive down there, but be aware of this.
16:47I just think AMR or health care may be the tool of the vice-visitization of the fact being.
16:52Thank you for partnering with American Family Radio and be listening to AFR October 7th through
16:579th during Cherathon.
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17:48To learn more, give them a call, they're great to talk to.
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18:01Shiting light into the darkness.
18:08This is the Hamilton Corner, an American family radio.
18:12Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner.
18:15Abraham Hamilton III here broadcasting live from Denton, Texas, where we are where we are attending the
18:22home school legal defense associations national leaders conference. And I have the privilege to
18:26have on the program with me a man who I have admired and respected and appreciated and actually
18:31gleaned from his work from a distance now I've had the opportunity I've met him before today.
18:36But this is the first time I've had the opportunity to have him on the program. I'm speaking of none
18:41other than Dr. Brian Ray, who is the founder and president of NHERI, and I want to make
18:48sure I describe it properly, it is National Home Education, the National Home Education
18:53Research Institute, the National Home Education Research Institute, which is a nonprofit organization
18:59and he holds a PhD in science education from Oregon State University, his MS in Zoology
19:05from Ohio University, and a bachelor's in biology from the University of Puget Sound.
19:10Dr. Ray has been a middle school and high school classroom teacher in both public and private schools,
19:15an undergraduate college professor, and a university professor at the graduate level.
19:18He is a leading international expert with regard to homeschool research,
19:22and he executes and publishes research, speaks to the public,
19:26testifies before legislators and serves as an expert witness in court proceedings.
19:31Dr. Ray, thank you for joining me here on the Hamilton Court.
19:32Welcome. Thank you Abraham. Have me on.
19:35Oh man, it is absolutely my privilege.
19:37our audience knows I'm a homeschool dad myself in addition to being an attorney
19:43our oldest we have two teenagers now to make my life that I have six children
19:47six children and the Lord really gripped us concerning some of the things I was
19:51just talking about in the first segment and discipling our own children but would
19:55you just share just as a beginning notion because there's some in our audience who
19:59are familiar with you some who may not be familiar with you share a little bit
20:02about yourself, how you came to know Christ and how you came to find found near.
20:07Wooh, all in 20 minutes.
20:09Wooh!
20:10Oh, so I was raised a Catholic.
20:13I saw I was a Catholic of Catholics.
20:15I, Paul was a Jew of Jews, you know.
20:17And I was living.
20:19I love studying.
20:20I like animals.
20:21My mom said I was taking notes from encyclopedias and when I was five years old in kindergarten
20:25all that, it's just how God wired me.
20:28So I grew up, I grew up, but I was living like a good, nice pagan.
20:35That's it.
20:36And a senior in college, I don't really know why.
20:39Now I know why, but I mean I started reading the Bible.
20:42Like Bible.
20:43And you know, the background I came from, we didn't read the Bible much.
20:48But I started reading the Bible and then I thought, I'm not that religion anymore, you
20:52know.
20:53And traveled around and finished college bachelor's degree and I'll fast forward because it's kind
20:58of a fun story, you know, when you get to tell your story.
21:01But then I was in Ohio at Ohio University studying pack rats.
21:06I'm a zoology master's degree.
21:09And you know, Abraham, I was just visiting churches.
21:12I had already met my wife.
21:13God protected her from me.
21:15She was a Christian.
21:16She was a Christian.
21:17God protected her from me.
21:19And I was visiting churches and I'd go to a Lutheran church.
21:22I'd go to that church.
21:23And one Sunday I went to a church, a little church.
21:25You know, I was reading things and studying and, you know, looking back, I know the spirit was working on me.
21:30And I was in an old church where those sloped, you know, sloped floors, I wooden floors, and I heard,
21:36moo, coming down this aisle and the robes half the choir, coming down that aisle over there's half the choir.
21:42And then I looked around and everybody in there had dark skin.
21:46Everybody's black except me. I never told you this. I'm just there.
21:50and I come, oh okay, whatever, you know, I'm here to go to church. And the guy, pastor, gave
21:57a gospel sermon about Jesus and repentance and sin, and then he gave an altar call. I didn't
22:04grow up with altar calls, but the Spirit moved upon me and I went forward and repented, crying,
22:11sin. Wow. Right after that, I think the Lord just, you know, regenerated me. I just dug in
22:19Like, okay, he's my savior.
22:21I'm a sinner, I'm saved.
22:23The Word of God, the Word of God, and go to church.
22:26That's it, just boom.
22:28It's been like that ever since, about one year later,
22:31my wife and I got married.
22:34We start having babies, you know what happens?
22:36We start having babies, you know?
22:37And we were in Oregon, we went back to Oregon,
22:40and she was finishing a degree in teaching,
22:43and then I taught for a few years, and at high school,
22:46and then getting back to kind of here,
22:48this research institute thing, this is back in the early 80s.
22:52So our first child was getting to be what you might call
22:55compulsory school age, right?
22:58And you're wondering what do we do now, you know?
23:00And we just like being with her, and I met some people
23:03in Corvallis, Oregon.
23:05They were kind of like hippies.
23:07And they were looking for somebody helping teach her children.
23:09They were like the first home schoolers in the modern world.
23:14You know, the modern homeskin movement.
23:15And I didn't take the job, but they weren't putting their kids
23:18in school. And I thought, well, that's interesting. I like
23:20alternatives. So I was looking for research. There wasn't hardly
23:24anything on homeschooling. So I started putting it together. We
23:27got the homeschool researcher journal. I started 40 years ago.
23:30And then right after I finished my PhD, I did a big study on
23:35homeschooling, HSLDA was a main sponsor, big nationwide study.
23:41And boom, you know, it's kind of like, you know, Mike Ferris said,
23:44what we need is homeschoolers to visit their legislators with
23:47their children and we need good solid research. So 1990, the National Home
23:52Education Research Institute was just called NERI now. NERI was founded five
23:56years after I started that journal and it's just been rolling ever since I
23:59taught at university, I taught science and statistics and research methods and
24:04then I taught half-time at a Christian college in the last roughly 30 years I'd
24:10only been doing the research and running NERI. So that's the quick snippet. Oh man. Oh
24:16I left out children.
24:18Well, and I mean, so Daniel, my son, has seven sisters.
24:22Really?
24:23And now just this week, our 25th grandchild was born.
24:28Wow.
24:29And none of our children went to school,
24:31institutional school, until some of them finished,
24:34compulsory age and went to college, that kind of thing.
24:38Wow.
24:38So an immediate question that comes to mind,
24:40and you mentioned how Mike Fares talked about the need
24:42for research, why was research empirical data necessary for what was
24:51occurring at the time? Would you help us understand the time frame?
24:55Yes. Yes. So you and I can sit here and I've heard you before. We can have
25:02our theology, we can have our philosophy, we can know what God says, we can know
25:07what He says. However, we also live in the world. Yes. So we've got the main
25:12stream. By God's design. By God's design. Under his sovereign design. That's right. We've got the role
25:16of the family, jurisdiction. You know this stuff. The church and the civil government. Civil government's
25:21only supposed to punish the evil doer and commend the doer of good. But the civil government has got
25:26way beyond its borders and we live in that and we try to deal with it. So we had, back in those days,
25:32we had people in like in the Midwest, dads getting handcuffed for not putting their children's school,
25:38put them in private school or homeschool.
25:41And by that time, we have to realize Abraham,
25:45for about six generations now,
25:47we have been institutionalized.
25:49All right, and I wanna remind everybody,
25:51for thousands of years, the norm was parent controlled,
25:55home based education for thousands of years.
25:59That's a point worth underscoring,
26:00because people tend to think because of our current paradigm
26:03that homeschooling is the aberration when the truth is,
26:05throughout the bulk of human history, the norm was parents.
26:10That's right, training.
26:11That's right, their children.
26:12That's right.
26:12Flip it around.
26:13I mean, look, you're going to get me on tangents.
26:15I love talking with people today.
26:17And they'll say, well, why did you home school?
26:20And I flip it.
26:21I just say, why would you stop homeschooling?
26:24Yeah.
26:24Because when the child's born, some of us
26:26think in the womb, actually, the child's learning.
26:28But the child's born, he's homeschooled.
26:30Why did you quit?
26:31I've been asking all kinds of people that.
26:33business men, business women, people at the out of the station
26:36that I don't know.
26:37Yeah.
26:38Because everybody else did.
26:39And especially that's a pertinent question for believers
26:41because Roman 12 tells the believer to not be conformed
26:44to the ways that we'll be transformed by the renewing of
26:46our minds.
26:47Absolutely.
26:47That's a pertinent question.
26:49A very important point.
26:50Very important point.
26:50So we've been normalized.
26:53We've been the institution had become the place for schooling
26:58and supposedly learning.
27:01So at that time, in some places, I don't know the statistics
27:04on how many states, but homeschooling,
27:06what we call homeschooling now, was either illegal
27:09or they didn't know what to do with it.
27:11And we had people saying homeschooling,
27:14how could a mom and a dad, just a mom and a dad,
27:17can they actually teach their children to read, right?
27:19And do arithmetic?
27:20I mean, doesn't it take a four year degree in education
27:23to teach a child a letter A has three sounds, a-a-a-a?
27:27Doesn't it take four years to know that?
27:29No, I mean, we know from thousands of years of history,
27:33it doesn't take a four-year degree to teach that.
27:35But people want to know and policymakers were wanting to
27:39control people and legislators are trying to figure out,
27:43is this okay?
27:44Can we break out of the norm as legislators and quote,
27:48allow homeschooling so data were very important.
27:52One of the first questions was just who homeschools?
27:55How much formal education did the parents have?
27:58what's the color of their skin?
28:00Are they rich or poor?
28:01Are they Christians or pagans or Jews?
28:04Or what are the people wanna know?
28:06And then they wanna,
28:07but what about academic achievement?
28:10What about test scores?
28:12So I did a lot of that on the test scores
28:14of homeschooled children.
28:15And we kept finding others, I did a lot.
28:18I mean, I'm the best known for it,
28:20but on average homeschooled children score above average.
28:24And that has actually gotten into the culture.
28:27It's in the kind of the vibe now.
28:30Now the really heavy duty researchers say,
28:32yeah, but you don't know all the variables.
28:35You can't control all the, you can't say for sure
28:38whether homeschooling causes higher achievement.
28:41So I don't say causes, there's correlated.
28:44Maybe we'll get to cause someday, okay?
28:46So that was very important.
28:47And then, you know, some then were saying,
28:50well, okay, maybe they can teach a child how to read cat.
28:54You know, dad jumps on trainfully, whatever.
28:57But what about socialization?
29:00The S word.
29:01So then we had a lot of research coming out
29:04on social skills, self-esteem, interacting with others.
29:07Do they fight too much, punch each other too much?
29:10Do they go hide in a corner?
29:11You know, I didn't do a lot of that
29:13because that's a different field than I'm into.
29:16But I follow it and keep track of it.
29:19And the majority of studies, 64% of peer reviewed studies
29:23I'll say homeschooled children have stronger social and emotional development.
29:29So I follow that, I do a little bit of that kind of research.
29:32And then they go, well, okay, okay.
29:34Maybe they can do okay on tests in reading, writing, arithmetic, and maybe they can socialize.
29:40But what about adulthood?
29:42How are they going to do an adulthood?
29:43How are they going to get along in the world if they never got beat up in school, you know?
29:47And bullied and all that.
29:49So now we have more research on that.
29:51And I have done some of that on adults.
29:53How are they doing in terms of their belief system?
29:55How are they doing in college?
29:58All these things, and again, about now in that field, at least 50% of studies say they
30:04do statistically significantly better.
30:06The other 50% doesn't say they do worse.
30:09It's a lot of positive.
30:11Then we have now these specialized alleged concerns, but what about abuse and neglect?
30:19So a colleague of mine and I did a really wonderful study.
30:23We're going to talk about it here at the HSLD conference in detail.
30:27So all this research is important for policymakers, arguments, debates, legislators in courts too.
30:35They want empirical evidence.
30:37They don't just want you and me teaching what the Bible says.
30:40So where will we live in?
30:41Yeah, unfortunately.
30:42Yeah.
30:43And there's room, not even just room.
30:46Like I said earlier, God has ordained for us to live in this world as it is.
30:50And so in order to be effective, I often reflect to First Corinthians 12 that there are many
30:55members of the body.
30:56We need every member in order for the body to function properly.
31:00So we need that.
31:02I am overwhelmingly interested.
31:05When you say over 64% of the studies indicate that homeschoolers perform exceedingly well,
31:14is you evaluating other people's studies. That's not a lot of
31:18state. So when you get to the academic achievement realm, I'm
31:22the majority scholar there. And when you do a little search
31:26thing on the internet, remember that thing, the internet,
31:28your little AI search.
31:30And Al Gore created.
31:31That's right.
31:32Invented?
31:33I've been doing a little AI stuff myself, but you know, I'll pop up a
31:36lot in the academic achievement world. And then when you get into
31:39the social development, self esteem and self concept and, you
31:42you know, suicidal ideation or depression and anxiety.
31:48A lot of scholars have done that.
31:50So that's not just Brian Ray.
31:51That's a lot of different scholars.
31:53And by the way, working on a special issue,
31:55a journal right now, it's gonna be cool.
31:57A lot of these articles in there.
31:58But they're looking at all these stuff and they say,
32:01wow, wow, look at that.
32:03Home schoolers, it's the opposite
32:05of what the negative stereotype was for years.
32:08Like, you know, little Billy Bob's gonna be tied
32:10mommies and dad is apron strings until he's 39 years old.
32:14And when he goes to his high school reunion, it'll be him,
32:16alone.
32:18That's slowly disappearing.
32:21With now over 3 million children homeschooled,
32:23and so many people knowing homeschoolers,
32:25that stereotype is disappearing.
32:27But the research really helps, because research
32:30is supposed to be about truth.
32:33So when I'm a researcher, I'm a philosopher of research, too.
32:36I think I try to be.
32:38We're looking for truth.
32:39And if truth finds something a little negative about homeschooling, let's talk about it.
32:44If research on homeschooling finds some positive stuff, let's talk about it.
32:48And that's just where we are right now.
32:50The majority of research overall, whether you want to say it's only correlational or there
32:55might be a smidgen of causation, it's very positive on homeschooling.
33:00I mean, it's hard to ignore.
33:03It's really hard to ignore how positive it is, which is good.
33:08And I think, this is what I think, this comes from theology, if it's true that God wants
33:13parents to be the main educators and disciples of their children, and I think biblically that
33:18is true, then it's going to have good results.
33:21Yeah.
33:22We shouldn't be shocked.
33:23Amen.
33:24Amen.
33:25We shouldn't be shocked.
33:26You mentioned a couple times just now a specific issue, a special issue of the journal that you
33:29work on that's coming out soon, how can people get access to that journal and how can they
33:34access the research you've done through Nairi?
33:36All right, we might mix a couple of things here.
33:38So I mentioned a journal that I started 40 years ago.
33:41That's always online, for free at nheri.org.
33:45That's right.
33:46Home, school, researcher.
33:47So the web addresses in as in nanny, h-e-r-i.org.
33:54Yes, folks, document that, go and check out the research
33:57that's available to you at that website.
33:58So that's always there.
34:00Now I mentioned something else.
34:01In the academic world, there are these journals out there,
34:05peer review journals.
34:06Let me break in because the disrespectful music just came on which means we're about to hit a break
34:10So I want to start our next segment with that with the academic peer review journals that you mentioned
34:16Because one of the major things that I like to do we have lots of people in our audience here who are home schoolers
34:22We have some who are not we have some who are questioning some who are concerned of we run the full gamut
34:27And one of the things I like to do is to place resources into the hands of our audience for those
34:32Especially who are considering and wondering go to nary.org and get some research
34:36get some data to kind of aid you in your discernment of what God's will maybe for you and your family.
34:42Some of you may be grandparents right now who would like to have a God honoring influence in your grandchildren's life.
34:49Lives arm yourself with the data so that you can provide a reasonably informed perspective to go along with the truth of Scripture.
34:56If we lose this cultural war, we're going to have a hedonistic humanistic society.
35:06Discover the story of the culture warrior Don Wildman
35:10and how he went head to head with Hollywood,
35:12playboy, the homosexual agenda, and a Disney empire.
35:17The movement Don started paved the way for Christians
35:20to boldly stand for truth and righteousness in a hostile culture.
35:24Watch Culture Warrior today for free.
35:27Visit culturewarrior.movie.
35:30Joe Biden was told, I think, basically
35:33that donors aren't going to give you money
35:35if you stay in the race. And hunger Biden thinks it was that betrayal that kept his father out of the
35:42White House for re-election rather than Joe Biden's performance. And he wanted to get back.
35:48Well, when this is fellows, when you got a juggernaut like Kamala Harris, who's sitting on the bench.
35:54Today's issues weekday mornings of 11 Eastern, 10 Central, on American Family Radio.
35:59Hate leads to murder. This is David Wheaton, host of The Christian
36:04Broil View. The heinous murder of Charlie Kirk has caused people all across our
36:09country to hold vigils for this extraordinary young man. Many in the
36:13left, however, are revealing their unmerciful hearts, expressing their glee
36:17that Charlie Kirk was shot dead. How to explain the celebration of evil? First
36:22John 3 says, for what reason did Cain slay Abel? Because his deeds were evil and
36:28and his brothers were righteous.
36:30Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.
36:33The murderer and those who praise him hate what is good.
36:36And unrestrained hatred leads to violence and murder.
36:40They are lost and need Christ to save them.
36:43Here are most recent program with five observations
36:45on the murder of Trelli Kirk at theChristianworldview.org
36:49and then tune in this weekend for another topic
36:51that will sharpen your worldview.
36:53Listen to the Christian worldview with David Wheaton,
36:56Saturday mornings at 8 central
36:57on American Family Radio.
37:00Hey, my name is Wesu Wellman, and I'm Walker Wellman.
37:03And we're brothers, and our family
37:05have been leading tours to the land of the Bible
37:07for more than 30 years.
37:09Coming up in March of 2026, we would love for you
37:12to join us for something very special,
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37:18We'll walk exactly where the Apostle Paul walked
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37:31And we'll eat well, laugh a lot, and yes, eat well again.
37:36And most importantly, we will grow in our faith as the Bible comes alive before your eyes.
37:41You'll get to see the very things that we read about or that your pastor talks about in
37:45church.
37:46The footsteps of Paul Tour is marked 17th to the 24th, 2026.
37:51Register today at wildmangroup.com.
37:54That's wildmangroup.com.
37:55We can't wait to see you there.
38:00Can you hear this?
38:34The Hamilton Quarter podcast and One-Minute Commentaries are available at
38:39aFR.net back to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio.
38:44Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton the third here with
38:49Dr. Brian Ray, founder and president of the National Home Education Research
38:53Institute, also known as NERI. And before we went to the break in the
38:56disrespectful music cut-in, which will cause me to interrupt you,
38:59you were starting your explanation of the journals and the peer review process and things of that
39:07nature because I asked how could our audience keep up with the publication that you make available
39:12and then you were going to explain further that latter part of that question.
39:15Yeah so the second thing I was going to say is that these journals are out there,
39:19these academic journals and some of them do what they call special issues and so with
39:24with one of these journals I said, hey, I got a proposal.
39:28It's time for another special issue all in homeschooling.
39:31And they said, ah, we accept that proposal.
39:33Now a little background, do you see how God works
39:35in all this?
39:362000, 2000, that's 25 years ago Abraham.
39:41Oh my, I was a special issue co-editor
39:46with a friend named Dr. McDowell, Susan McDowell.
39:49And then 2013, I'm having a hard time doing my math.
39:52What's that, like, to it for 12?
39:54I don't know.
39:55Years ago, I proposed another one to that same journal.
39:59And then this pastor said, hey, what about another one?
40:02It's been 12, 13 years, and they accepted it again.
40:05So this is cool.
40:06This is God at work.
40:07And then I invited about eight articles,
40:10and then I got a review of them, and it's a whole process.
40:13Whole process, but it's going to be really good.
40:15So if people want to make a little note,
40:18this should be early in 2026,
40:20is called a Peabody Journal of Education.
40:23Okay.
40:24Now, I know you're not gonna make a note and keep track,
40:26but you can go to nary.org and heri,
40:30and you can sign up for free research news,
40:33and we don't send a bunch of junk email,
40:35and we'll tell you when it comes out.
40:37Guys, I wholeheartedly recommend you do that,
40:39so that you can stay up to date
40:41on cutting edge research in this area
40:43to help yourselves remain equipped
40:45and your friends, families, and loved ones
40:47to remain sharper than these areas as well.
40:48Now, I wanna ask you, Dr. Ray,
40:49because you mentioned the correlation causation dichotomy
40:53a couple times in our conversation.
40:55Would you explain that for our audience?
40:56What is that the distinction there between causation
40:59and correlation, how is it relevant to the research
41:02that you do?
41:02It's very important for just logic in general.
41:04People need to know this.
41:06And it's important in research.
41:08If you see a pattern, say for example,
41:10hey, I put more fertilizer on my lawn this year,
41:15I think I did.
41:16And then in the fall, it's greener than it was last year.
41:19and you say, well, that's it caused it.
41:21But you don't really know what happened.
41:23Like maybe it rained more this summer.
41:25Maybe you had a disease last year.
41:28So maybe that was actual cause of a greener
41:32or less green lawn.
41:33You didn't really control all the variables out there,
41:35the possible confounding variables.
41:38So it's like this in research on something like homeschooling
41:41because it's in some ways it's called a hard-to-reach
41:45population.
41:46A lot of homeschoolers don't want researchers to study them.
41:49Some are nervous about researchers studying them.
41:52Another thing is, and we're glad for this
41:54from a biblical perspective that the government
41:57does not have control over everybody in America on schooling.
42:01So there's no giant list of all homeschoolers
42:04and a researcher like me can go up to the list and say,
42:06I'm gonna randomly pick 20% of those
42:09and then I'm going to study them
42:10and I'm going to compare them.
42:12Now, you know, out there.
42:13So most of these are patterns, you say, well, if they homeschooled, they do better on tests.
42:18If they're homeschooled, they have fewer suicidal ideations.
42:22If they're homeschooled, they do a little better in college.
42:26It's a mathematical pattern.
42:28That's called a correlation.
42:30All of us hopefully were taught even if we went to government school, who knows, about
42:34what a true experiment you take your 100 acres of land and you randomly pick 50 acres, again,
42:43to get extra fertilizer and the other 50 acres is going to get normal amount of
42:47fertilizing. You see you get more corn at the end. So it's a random assignment, it's
42:50a representative sample of the acreage. And then when it's all done, if the only
42:55thing you change was fertilizer, you could say see more fertilizer caused
43:00better output growth of corn. That's because you're able to control all the
43:05variable variables. All variables are being controlled. Now think about that at home
43:08school. What are we going to do? Go into Dallas Fort Worth and I got a list of
43:12hundred thousand students and then they're going to let me randomly pick names out of
43:16hats saying you 300, you know this half thousand make it easier on my mind. You use
43:20333 are going to go to public school, you use 333 are going to go to private
43:24schools and you 334 are going to go be homeschooled. Then we let it rip for
43:2912 years. Yeah. You have it all controlled for ethnicity and
43:35and income and parent education level and whether you live in the hood or the suburbs and the mansions and it's all
43:41controlled out and then it's all done. You say, oh look, homeschool kids do better academically and socially.
43:47It's a little easier to say it was a cause and effect. The homeschooling was the cause.
43:52So where that comes out in the research is I've done a lot of studies and people say, yeah, you've got the limitations,
43:59you know, that you don't know for sure you had a representative sample.
44:02You don't know for sure all of these confounding variables and that's called a limitation.
44:07Some people want to call it a flaw of the research.
44:09It's called a limitation.
44:10In social science research, it's hard to get the perfect study.
44:16But if you don't have the perfect study, then you don't get to so much talk about causation.
44:22So as a researcher, you've got to be really careful.
44:25Yeah.
44:26Because you want to be as accurate as possible.
44:28Exactly.
44:29But homeschoolers might know in their heart of hearts that there's something about homes
44:33going to cause as better results.
44:36They might know.
44:37And we could say, hey, theologically, if you're obeying God, you probably that will cause better
44:42results.
44:43But that's a little different argument.
44:46Yeah.
44:47You've testified before courts.
44:48You've been an expert internationally.
44:51You've testified to legislators.
44:52What has been some of the would have been the results that you've experienced after these
44:56These various contexts have been apprised of your research and the data that you accumulated.
45:03Like I said earlier, most of these legislators, policymakers, courts, they want something empirical,
45:10but they want something tangible.
45:11They want numbers.
45:12They want facts and figures.
45:13Now I'm not saying they listen to them and honour them, but they do want them.
45:20So for example, in court, they're supposed to use evidence, rules of evidence.
45:25know all about that. And so if they have evidence that this child's doing better
45:31than maybe he was in public school or if you go back some years and it's more of
45:36the constitutional issues of state versus the parental rights, you know some empirical
45:40evidence that homeschooled children do just fine, at least do fine. Or a little
45:45better. Now a policymaker, if he had been already kind of pro homeschool freedom,
45:51now he has a little more ammunition to make the argument. If he'd been
45:54and against homeschool freedom,
45:57it's a little harder for him to argue against it.
45:59You see what I'm saying?
46:00That's how it goes.
46:02Same thing in these court cases
46:04when it's like a family matter, which is really sad.
46:07I don't really want to get into that.
46:08But if the child's been homeschooled for a while,
46:12and this hasn't been homeschooled through fourth grade,
46:15and he's got test scores that are at least average
46:17compared to the national norm,
46:20well that's gonna go a lot better for homeschooling
46:22than if he has test scores that are below average.
46:24even though even though we know in public schools,
46:28a huge portion of children have below average scores, right?
46:32Yeah, I've shared on this show
46:34how you have entire school districts
46:35that fail to have children that are reading at grade level
46:38and that are proficient.
46:40Not master, but proficient at basic skills.
46:43Exactly, but the challenge in a court is that,
46:47now this is my opinion, just an opinion,
46:51the majority of the courts are still biased
46:54in favor of institutionalized government schooling.
46:57They haven't broken out of the mold,
46:59they're not having caught up with the year 2025.
47:03So empirical evidence is very important in court.
47:06And with the policy makers, like I said,
47:09if you have some evidence,
47:09it makes it easier for them to make the argument for,
47:12if they were already for homeschool liberties,
47:14and it makes it harder for them to make an argument against,
47:17if they were a little bit against homeschool liberties.
47:19Same thing when it comes to the claims about,
47:22Well homeschooling and child abuse or neglect or what.
47:26Evidence helps a lot.
47:28Evidence helps a lot.
47:29Empirical evidence.
47:30Numbers, figures, that's, I know stories are powerful
47:33and people can get legislators to cry or laugh with stories.
47:37But something that's done well-designed methodologically
47:43and you're honest about your limitations,
47:44that is very compelling to many legislators.
47:48Yeah.
47:48You mentioned how when you got started,
47:50there were literal fathers being placed in handcuffs
47:53in the Midwest and frankly some of that stuff
47:55is coming back.
47:56I hope to get to later this week to share a case
47:59where HSLD8 I follow lawsuit just recently in Pennsylvania.
48:03I'm concerned with some of that.
48:04We'll get to that later on, not in this show.
48:07But I wanted to get into a little bit as much as we can,
48:11the methodology that you employ when you're doing
48:14your research, considering the limitations
48:19in terms of access and options.
48:21It's a challenge, just let me tell you that.
48:23So in many of the studies that I've done,
48:27we have to simply go with the best variety
48:32of homeschoolers we can get.
48:33So we'll start promoting a study through organizations
48:38like HSLDA or the state-wide organizations,
48:41Ocean and Oregon or check in Colorado.
48:44And then we'll go, nowadays we can go to social media
48:47and we can find a big social media influencer
48:49then she can put out a blast that we want anybody and everybody,
48:55even if your child's test scores are low,
48:57we want you to participate in this particular study.
49:00And then we use what's called snowballing.
49:01So you say now, and go tell a friend about the study
49:04and get the friend in the study.
49:06So we use whatever means we can to get the people
49:09and we try to let them know we want nobody,
49:12we want to include anybody and everybody,
49:15even if, you know, and that's what we do.
49:17Now, if you go to sometimes there are already databases
49:22out there, usually by the government, believe it or not,
49:25and they've done some big survey,
49:27let's say they've surveyed 10,000 households,
49:30and out of the 10,000 households, maybe they got,
49:34500 households that maybe had a homeschool child in it.
49:37So then researchers, we can go to those databases
49:39and use it, we can do that.
49:41Another one, another one, not method is,
49:44we might not have time for it,
49:45but what I did is study of adults,
49:47we wanted to look at their education background, like how many years home
49:51schooled, how many years public schooled, how many years private schooled, and was a
49:53private school, you know, non-Christian Christian, you can, we researchers can go
50:00to a service and pay them to find subjects for us, and it's expensive, like the one
50:09that I did with somebody on the abuse and neglect, just getting the data was over
50:13$40,000 just to get the data.
50:16But then that company guarantees you have a representative
50:20sample.
50:21That pushes the methodological rigor up another notch.
50:26So like I said, they all have limitations,
50:28but then that has fewer limitations.
50:30Because you have a more representative sample
50:33when you're comparing groups.
50:35So those are a lot of ways.
50:36And then we do online surveys in the olden days, way back.
50:40with that first study image in 1890,
50:42we mailed out surveys with the paper
50:46and the staple in the corner,
50:47and thousands came back,
50:48we had to enter it all by hand
50:50in Excel spreadsheet.
50:52Oh, and now we have survey monkey
50:55or whatever that does that for us.
50:58It's just amazing the changes.
51:01Well, I'll tell you, I asked that question,
51:02give you your appearance in my brain,
51:04whenever I read any study, any study,
51:06the first thing I do when I get the study,
51:08The first thing I do is I go look at the sample.
51:11The sample size, the sample of the time.
51:13That's literally the first thing I do every time.
51:15You know something.
51:16So that's what that question came from.
51:18You know something, yeah.
51:20Because the sample size and the sample methodology
51:22tells you how seriously the study should be taken.
51:26Because you can use it.
51:27Then if you look at the methods, you say, well,
51:29it's a tiny sample size and they said it was a nationwide.
51:32You kind of wonder.
51:33Now if they say it's a matched pair design,
51:35very careful, very controlled.
51:38And it's a smaller sample size.
51:39You say, OK, I understand what's a smaller sample size.
51:42So there's a lot that goes into it.
51:44Now, you mentioned you're working on something now,
51:47even concerning adults.
51:49Was that accurate or was that the abuse in the black?
51:51I have done a couple of studies that included adults right now.
51:58I'm not doing one.
51:59OK.
51:59But I think I might have mentioned later this week,
52:04another colleague and I will be here at your conference,
52:07three-hour session on research, I'll be doing the one on a abuse and neglect, which did include
52:13adults. That was with adults. Can you give us a little sneak peek? I don't know how many
52:17people watching are going to be at the conference. Yeah, yeah, right. I got a sneak peek in Dr.
52:22Ray's presentation. Yeah, and then, okay, so I'll give you a sneak peek. That study was,
52:27okay, so for, that study was a years incoming. Okay, so some of us know that over the years
52:32There have been news stories about either an actual or alleged home school family in which
52:38a parent did something evil to their children.
52:41And maybe about a minute to get this in.
52:44I'm sorry.
52:45I was thinking about that for a decade, how to get this study done.
52:50So we rolled, we rolled, we rolled.
52:51I got a colleague.
52:53We got some money to get that represented with sample.
52:57We sampled adults all over the United States.
53:01We found out their whole 13 year of schooling, public school, private school, home school.
53:05And then I'm going to try to shorten this.
53:07So we make it.
53:08And we said, okay, we asked them all kinds of questions about abuse and neglect.
53:12And that's a sad thing.
53:13That makes you cry when you read that.
53:15Now here's the drum roll of the finding.
53:18So comparing those who were home schooled to those who were not home schooled, they were
53:23public schooled, private schooled, we found after controlling for all the demographics
53:29like family income level, parent education level,
53:34ethnicity, race, years in foster care,
53:37all these things we controlled statistically,
53:39very sophisticated,
53:41colleague I had no significant difference
53:43in abuse and neglect.
53:45Now some homeschools didn't like that,
53:47but other homeschools were just saying,
53:49hallelujah, thank you Lord, it's not worse or better.
53:51Okay, second bullet point, get in here before we end,
53:56of the, get this carefully, I'm gonna say this carefully.
53:58of the not significantly more abuse and neglect for the homeschooled.
54:03That's abuse and neglect was not happening at home.
54:06It was happening outside the home.
54:10The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American
54:15Family Association or American Family Radio.

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