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Quote of the Day: Waging War on our Schools
“If the state-operated schools are now waging war on the nation’s moral, historical, philosophical, and religious foundations, then they would seem to have forfeited their legitimacy as the proper vehicle to carry out the mission with which the American People have charged them.” — Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr
At first glance, we might not be willing to blame the state school administrators and unions for hijacking our schools so drastically and at so many levels. But, in fact, they have armed themselves with Leftist rhetoric, distortions of history, substituted an American philosophy with a racist ideology and regularly denigrated and undermined religion in multiple ways.
We tend to focus on the latest hot topic of school abuse: at the moment, Critical Race Theory is at the forefront. For many years this topic was taught without the parents or general public even knowing what children were being taught. Then some parents learned what was happening, most recently in Loudoun County in Virginia, and began protesting the brainwashing of their children with this propaganda. At first, the Left tried to explain what they were “actually” teaching; their explanations only inflamed parents. Then they denied they were teaching what parents insisted they were teaching. Now, they are trying to make believe that there’s nothing untoward going on; they are silent as protests continue. But their silence only validates their anti-American intentions.
Meanwhile, attacks abound on the other fronts mentioned: traditional morality is openly ridiculed in the face of moral relativism; the 1619 project continues to be part of the curriculum indoctrination, even though respected historians have pointed out its many omissions and errors; philosophy is buried in the doctrine of the Leftist ideology of equity, inclusion, and diversity; and religion is discredited as primitive myth. Essentially, school children are being flooded at every level of their education, which not only undermines the education process but creates tensions between the students and their parents, as both groups try to make sense of what is going on.
One thing is certain: public schools’ powers need to be denied or circumvented if we are to survive this assault on our beliefs and practices. It will be difficult, but we have no choice. We can no longer sit back and hope for the best. To the most ardent Leftist, this is the best way to transform America
By controlling our children.
Published in Education
I ask. And I frequently discuss what they learned in class. And I see what their homework and study guides say. Part of my earlier comment is based on the fact that my kids are in fact learning math, science, reading, writing, history, music, art and languages. The bias can creep in, but there is still a curriculum focused on the subject matter they are supposed to learn. Even in the blue county we left, that was the case. The bias was quite obviously there anyway. In Texas, there was really only incident of bias that my daughter told me about and it was pretty mild (assuming the poet at the presidential inauguration was good). Believe me, her antennae are up.
Interesting take here. You can ban CRT, but it won’t matter, because its advocates will still be running the system.
Governments Have a Right to Ban Critical Race Theory, But It Doesn’t Matter if They Do
There needs to be some type of national data base that collects concrete examples of racial bias in education. I don’ t care who does it, but it needs to include any written teaching materials, study guides, slides, recordings of spoken words, etc. Abstract gripes without corroboration are not going to get it done.
Chuck said “Didn’t this start with John Dewey back in the 19th century?”
Here’s my John Dewey story, @Chuckles. I’m in 10th grade, 1962. We have a student teacher in English period who has been reading T.S. Eliot to us, among other modern poets. This day he has a portable record player. He puts on a record, the music from “Oliver.” We’re listening to this, he says, instead of today’s lesson. He starts the record. Then he walks to the blackboard and writes in huge letters “JOHN DEWEY.” He stalks out of the room. We kids cast baffled looks to one another. Years later I came to admire the young man’s guts.
I got excited there for a minute. I thought you just meant concrete examples.
Teachers will still need supervision, and the legislators and parents will still need some sort of feedback the new laws are working . . .
Yes, Texas passed a law that is among receiving criticism from supposed conservatives or right-leaning thinkers. Here’s Christopher Rufo’s op-ed in response to those critiques. While I am glad to have the law on our side in Texas, I assume these laws will be (already are being?) challenged. I also don’t think it’s good for our country to have divisive and anti-American ideas being taught in public schools where state laws prohibiting CRT will never be passed.
I suppose we’re entitled to go and sit in the classrooms. I can’t see any other way to tell if CRT is being taught.
I think there is. There is criticalrace.org for higher education and I think I saw somewhere that there is a similar site for K-12. Pretty sure it’s this from Parents Defending Education.
Schools used to encourage parents to do that. Now they try to prevent it.
Ha. Me, too (I think). And I had a whole lot more important things on my mind back then.
Back then, they were proud of the job they were doing.
Curriculum and conduct in public K-12 is not within the power of a governor. DeSantis urged action, but it was the Florida Board of Education that met and properly passed a rule. Encouragingly, or tellingly, the Texas Democrats did not flee the state to stop the anti-CRT. Governor Abbott signed the CRT soft ban into law, effective this new school year. So, on a state-by-state basis, the state-wide action is in the legislature or the elected or appointed office governing public K-12.
This is interesting. Brian starts this issue by saying in Comment #19 that the 2020 election was the “most” corrupt election in the nation’s history, and I respond in Comment #28 and suggested that the 2020 election was one of the “least” corrupt election in our nation’s history. 5 minutes later, Drew weighs in at Comment #29 and says in Bold and Italics “Please ignore the latest attempt to hijack another thread.”
I guess that Drew is saying that if someone disagrees with him, that person is engaging in a “hijack” of a thread.
Of note, if Brian will delete his sentence “Does he [Barr] feel he must solidify his conservative bona fides in the wake of the most corrupt election in the nation’s history and his declaration that any evidence of election fraud was in his words ‘bullish*t’?”, then I will happily delete my response, as well as this Comment.
A Ricochettee just informed me that the QOTD was from May 2021; however, Barr has spoken previously about the public schools:
https://adflegal.org/william-barr-interview
Here is the official transcript of the 2019 Norte Dame law school speech, with a section of remarks on public schools:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics
Excellent! Thanks, GC!
I gave 5 examples of others who flagged the indoctrination of leftist/Marxist ideology in the school system many years before Barr had in his 2019 remarks at Notre Dame. As Susan now explains, the QOTD attributed to Barr is from May of this year. I’m not deleting anything. Have a nice day.
Go away troll.
You could also just ignore him, @hangon, rather than name-calling. Just sayin’ . . .
The problem with relying on parents is they really aren’t in charge and they are unlikely to be vigilant over an extended period of time. The left will simply disappear until it all blows over and start where they started before.
There is an entire ecosystem. Teachers go to schools of education where they are indoctrinated. School boards are elected in elections with a small turn out so the teacher’s unions that spend lots of money get to pick who is going to sit on the school board. There is the administration of the schools.
And if it isn’t CRT or the 1620 Project, the cultural Marxists will figure out something else/ They are publicly funded. That is their true weakness and a means of blowing up their system needs to be found.
I’m not arguing with this factually, but you gotta start somewhere. I live close to ground zero–Loudoun County VA, and the parents have done very well. School choice may well be the key, but, if we don’t have parents, who do we have? As you note, not the teachers and not the bureaucrats.
You seem fortunate but I’d encourage you to really check your kid’s assignments and text books regardless. The rot is deep and nationwide. It is pernicious. It may surprise you the degree which your values are undermined.
Our public school district here in Wisconsin has been rated in the top 5 for 20+ years – it’s one of the only reasons we’ve stayed here in this town as long as we have. I’ve honestly been pleasantly surprised by many of the subjects and authors my kids have been exposed to but also shocked at the nonsense they’ve also been exposed to.
I’m really at the point where I don’t want the schools teaching anything other than math, science, grammar and leave the rest to the parents.
I always think it’s funny that when people run for school board, they always highlight things like “I’ve been a teacher for 47 years! I’ve worked in the education system for 100 years! I’ve been a school superintendent for 531 years! I’ve been president of the local chapter of BIG TEACHERS UNION 381 for a kajillion years!” . . .
. . . and I wonder why they think that’s a selling point?
Unfortunately, it seems to be.
Parents DO have to be part of the solution. But they can’t be the entire solution and relying only on the parents may lead to short-term success, but is unlikely to do anything in the long-term. I don’t think we are that far apart and I wasn’t launching this as an attack. I just don’t think it went far enough.
It has to do with who the audience is. It’s not most parents. It’s other teachers and administrators who are those who are deeply invested in school board races.
Hi Brian,
I have no problem with the points of CRT and the school districts. You made great points that are valid and important.
My only problem is that you gratuitously threw in that the 2020 election was the “most” corrupt election in the nation’s history, and I called that out. You are free to leave that in. And, I will leave in my comment that the 2020 election was one of the “least” corrupt in history. I hope that also have a nice day.
Gary
The bill I’m proposing will put a lot of responsibility on parents to follow up on what’s posted on the website, since it’ll be limited to posting course material (texts, reading lists and activities) by title and author and such other identifying information as to make it easily accessible online. I think this is an issue that parents are taking enough of an interest in that they’ll be more apt to follow up on what’s posted. I don’t want to control this from the floor of the legislature, but trust that this issue is important enough that giving parents the tools they need to hold their local school boards and administrators to account will bring out the type of local control over curriculum that will have a lasting impact.
Cameras in the classrooms!
(Not just for monitoring for CRT, but to keep an eye on teachers bullying students, too.)
Thanks for making me chuckle, @drewinwisconsin. Even dark laughter counts nowadays . . .
I think this is the only solution.