Making sure Christian youth are out standing in their fields

Three men were arrested in Texas on charges of beating a 13-year-old boy at an unlicensed "boot camp" where one of the methods of discipline was to banish kids to a remote pasture for hours with no water:

The camp, about three miles north of San Angelo, came to the attention of sheriff's deputies when a county resident reported passing the facility and seeing a boy sitting in a field, Richey said. The resident drove past several hours later and saw the same boy sitting in the same field.

In other news, there's a movement among fundamentalist Christians to open religious schools so parents could withdraw their children from public schools altogether. They're finally waking up to the fact that they're never going to win those perennial battles on school prayer and evolution:

The proposal from Moran and Shortt, author of "The Harsh Truth About Public Schools," complains that curricula teaching that "the homosexual lifestyle is acceptable" are being implemented in public schools. It also criticizes a federal court ruling last year that banned the teaching of "intelligent design" -- the notion that life is so complex it must have been created by a higher intelligence -- in a Pennsylvania school system.

"Things aren't getting any better in the public schools," Moran said. "They're getting worse."