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Portland Public Schools Bans Any Dissent from Climate Dogma
The Portland Public Schools Board.
The Portland Public Schools board this week voted unanimously to institute a ban on allowing any materials or discussion that express doubts that human activity is causing a catastrophic climate crisis. They might as well have just put out a resolution promoting homeschooling.
The story outlining this in the Portland Tribune is absolutely incredible. It is filled with so many layers of nonsense, ignorance, petty tyranny, and moral preening that it seems a bit much, even for hopelessly lefty Portland. I do wonder, however, if they will host a book-burning ceremony at the football stadium. It’s the logical next step, right? Because, apparently, their text books are infected with terms like “might,” “may,” and “could” in some passages that address climate change. We must make sure those doubts don’t accidentally infect the minds of the children they are charged with educating indoctrinating. So why not purge all the sin from the books by fire?
Have these lefties not even an inkling of self-awareness? Do they not see how they have created a climate alarmist parallel to the Scopes Monkey Trial? They are demanding that their unshakable faith in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming be the only thing taught in school. Because, “science.” But even today, proponents for Intelligent Design don’t demand that’s all that’s taught in school, only that it be included in the discussion. Right or wrong, it’s a more open-minded approach than the Climate Cultists — especially considering there are volumes of peer-reviewed evidence that “might,” “may,” and “could” are conservative hedges.
Some of my favorite/most-outrageous parts of this story:
“It is unacceptable that we have textbooks in our schools that spread doubt about the human causes and urgency of the crisis,” said Lincoln High School student Gaby Lemieux in board testimony. “Climate education is not a niche or a specialization, it is the minimum requirement for my generation to be successful in our changing world.”
That’s right. The first quote in the story to bolster this idea, in the second graph, is from a high school senior, everyone’s go-to expert for identifying credible and effective curriculum. Gaby also sees her generation as already uniquely informed and wise enough to save the world previous generations have ruined. Of course she does. She’s gone to Portland public schools her whole life. Here’s a shocker: This drive to purge doubt about the dogma is being driven by a radical environmentalist group.
Bill Bigelow, a former PPS teacher and current curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools, a magazine devoted to education issues, worked with 350PDX and other environmental groups to present the resolution.
“A lot of the text materials are kind of thick with the language of doubt, and obviously the science says otherwise,” Bigelow says, accusing the publishing industry to bowing to pressure from fossil fuels companies. “We don’t want kids in Portland learning material courtesy of the fossil fuel industry.”
So, a former teacher has apparently long entertained the fantastical and paranoid idea that just having the words “may,” “might,” and “could” in any discussion about the causes and consequences of climate change was slipped in there “courtesy of the fossil fuel industry.” Big Oil — what can’t it do?!
Another shocker: That former teacher and radical environmentalist just so happens to produce a textbook for children titled A People’s Curriculum for the Earth. That sure sounds like science to me, with not a hint of radical politics. Asked if his interest in producing climate science books for schools might be a conflict of interest, he says it doesn’t because his organization is “a nonprofit, not a money-maker.” Okay, then.
Oh, I almost forgot: The school board member who introduced the resolution — which, again, passed unanimously — has a pretty large conflict of interest, too:
School board member Mike Rosen … leads NW Ecoliteracy Collaborative, a project focused on environmental curriculum standards. However, he says that work has been on hold.
“I have become concerned about its ability to make progress and not have a conflict with being a school board member,” Rosen said, noting that he is now instead working part-time for the Audubon Society of Portland. “I don’t want there to be a conflict between my school board work and this nonprofit.”
No worries, Mike. You’ve made progress.
Published in General
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases-all?ID=d4b5fd23-802a-23ad-4565-3dce4095c360
No doubt many of us reading this horror story just shook our heads and thought – there they go again. But as we shake our heads, they’re winning the argument, notwithstanding the thinness of their position. The data just don’t support their arguments.
And this is bad in that we’re letting them get away with it and in the process letting them brainwash young students. Unless we take a strong stand, soon we’ll be unable to get the truth out there at all. Magazine articles, op-ed pieces, TV shows, etc., are crowding out any semblance of scientific fact – which has now been labeled Un-PC. When a study shows that AGW is not on the public’s radar, or articles published that provide the facts, the anti-science crowd doubles down in their effort to convince the public to move along, there’s nothing to see.
We have some excellent writers here at R who could perhaps beat down the doors of those publications read by the masses and get some well-written articles published – maybe even with a bit of humor – that will attract the attention of the general public. (We could have some fun with ‘climate justice…’) The articles can’t be merely a recitation of facts, but done in a way to insert some common sense into the overall discussion. This needs to be planned and on-going.
Anyone interested? Contact me and we’ll get something started.
This brings to mind the following from noted historian Richard Brookhiser about political freedom: Adopted as the motto for our new system of government and the hopes of our country, the committee responsible for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of America’s independence chose the words of Richard Rumbold, an English Puritan executed for a Restoration plot. On the scaffold he said he could “never believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world ready, booted, and spurred to ride, and millions already saddled and bridled to be ridden.”
We had a chance to take a strong stand when Ted Cruz was fighting his budget battles. We lost. It’s over. Professional conservatives said it was the wrong time and place to fight. There are no other places to fight what is happening to the educational system, though.
Vote for Trump.
Stop Corrupt Hillary.
Trump likes to deal. I bet we could make a deal that includes putting Rick Santorum in charge of Education. The rats would start bailing out of there long before we could get a budget that provided real cuts to Big Education. Just putting a homeschool dad at the top would be a great start.
This is a decision made by the local school board. Surely you don’t want the federal government telling local school boards what their cirriculum must include, do you?
That depends on the prepuce of the cirriculum.
Oh I have no interest in federal meddling with the idiocy of the Portland school board. But what I expect is that this climate alarmist text will end up in the hands of Big Education in Washington, and we will see it promoted all across the land.
Why do we have a federal Dep’t of Ed anyhow? It seems to me that I missed the Education Amendment to the Constitution that enabled widespread meddling in our schools. Why send our tax dollars to Washington, only to see it come back after getting trimmed and with new strings attached?
Let Portland be Portland; but this sort of thing is likely to be spread by Team Obama.
And Robert Heinlein(from “Sayings from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long” in “Time Enough for Love”): “One man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh”.
I’ll ask it again. Do we need the current public school system?
One silver lining here. Throughout history, efforts to suppress truth and free thought have always failed. Always. The Soviets couldn’t do it, even with total control of the press backed by gulags and torture. The Chi-Coms are failing, despite their dictatorial powers. The Inquisition could not stop the Reformation.
The best argument against climate change hysteria is how hysterical it is, and I’m betting that there are some kids in the Portland School District who have internet access and who will realize that they are being told the big lie.
In the age of the Internet & great homeschooling options (plus all the great private schools out), the only place for public schools is as charter schools. Otherwise, it’s the rubble strewn around after the supports to the edifice were pulled out.
Many thanks!
Kill the heretics!!