Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
They’re Coming for the Kids
Seldom do I read a piece about the state of education in this country without remarking to myself and my husband how glad I am to be homeschooling. There’s a remarkable piece in The Atlantic by George Packer this month about one father’s journey through New York City’s public schools that made me do it again. What’s remarkable is how clearly the author illustrates how everyone in the public school system in New York, from teachers up to the Mayor himself, have made a conscious decision to sacrifice education on the altar of Progressivism. Here’s a sampling:
I wanted the plan to succeed, but I had serious doubts. It came festooned with all the authoritarian excess of the new progressivism. It called for the creation of a new diversity bureaucracy, and its relentless jargon squashed my hope that the authors knew how to achieve an excellent education for all. Instead of teaching civics that faced the complex truths of American democracy, “the curriculum will highlight the vast historical contributions of non-white groups & seek to dispel the many non-truths/lies related to American & World History.”
Packer’s experience mirrored my own in New York City public school. I attended a charter school on the Upper West Side my last year of high school that later became famous for illegal trips to Cuba to learn about the revolution. No, I am not kidding. Math and science took a backseat to a progressive view of English and history (where entire semesters about the prison system and Howard Zinn were taught).
Now in my early 30s, the most jarring thing as a parent has been to witness how mainstream that education has become, to see how many of my radical classmates became teachers themselves. This isn’t just a problem for New York City’s teachers; it is endemic across the education system. After college, graduate school and paying union dues, it’s the rare teacher who comes out without a heavy dose of indoctrination. Even among my classmates from the rural Upstate New York town I spent most of my childhood in, the teachers emerged speaking fluent Woke Progressive.
That might not be an issue for some parents, as long as their kids are getting a good enough education. But unfortunately, juggling indoctrination and basic instruction is proving challenging for many teachers in school districts across the country; not just in New York City. And that’s the ultimate cruelty of the breakdown of the school system: those who can afford to leave the public system will. And those without the means to flee will left will be left without a basic grasp of English, math or science. That’s the future and will be the legacy of the progressive takeover of our schools.
Published in General
Considering GLAAD is in the grievance biz I am distrustful of any study they do that indicates their numbers are growing.
It is possible too that by de-stigmatizing homosexuality, people who have had occasional homoerotic thoughts decide ‘not strictly heterosexual’ is a reasonable description.
Exactly.
Why is breeding assumed to be good? The human genome is super buggy. Why shouldn’t only successful and intelligent people breed?
Also, homosexuals don’t pop out a bunch of kids and don’t raise them. Pretty much every problem we have in the United States (with the exception of universities) is caused by irresponsible people spawning. I can’t blame gays for that.
The piece in The Atlantic that Bethany included is not to be believed – it’s appalling and disgusting. God bless those who home-school and God help us as a society since the Obama/Clinton years – where a transformation of our culture they called Hope and Change was right out of of an Orwellian nightmare. This is so far-reaching, and the damage has not even begun to surface.
The biggest culture shock going from a private Christian school to a public school was the foul language allowed by the teachers. Oh sure, the private school had its share of foul-mouthed students, but they were dealt with harshly by the teachers and administration, and when their were parents called in? They lowered the boom on their kids. In the public school, the parents mostly sided with their brats . . .
I think there was foul language (my mother, a schoolteacher from the late 1930s through the mid-1940s used a fair amount at home). However, using it in public arenas was frowned upon as poor decorum through the mid-1960s when I was in school. Perhaps it was the way to provide “safe spaces” in those days.
I think the editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, is aware of the bankruptcy of the left intelligentsia and is trying his best to highlight it. That’s why he hired Andy Ferguson and tried to hire Kevin Williamson. But he also knows his paycheck is written by the ultra-woke widow of Steve Jobs and that he has to placate the snowflakes around the office.
I am no theologian nor a linguist, but I have long suspected that the biblical command to “Be fruitful and multiply” went beyond mere procreation, but also included the responsibility to raise the children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.” This, I believe is the “be fruitful” part. The Bible, and hence Judaism and Christianity, is full of this kind of thought. When the headline says “They’re Coming for the Kids” this implies an attack at a foundational level.
It’s why I thought Betsy DeVos would be served as saying “my job is to make sure I don’t have a job in 4 years”
Get rid of the Department of Education, then try and break the NEA on a state level. Teachers unions prevent bad teachers from being fired.
Here in LAUSD, the kids are a negotiation prop, a negotiation involving the union and the people who get money from the union.
the allure of public school is it alleviates certain responsibilites, but if it were up to me, corporatize the entire industry, make certain school full on corporate training grounds for certain companies, etc. Get some competition, and maybe monetize it.
Wouldn’t it be far easier, politically, to eliminate the state-supported monopoly of the NEA in one state than to eliminate the DoEd? If so, why would I try to do the harder one first?
The Department of Education was a gift to the NEA by Carter. The department when staffed by Democrats put in all sorts of garbage regulations that the NEA footsoldiers then seek to implement. It’s a symbolic strike, but would be an effective one.
Even if one can’t break the unions in every state, it symbolizes a commitment to get out of top down oligarchical rule on education and give the responsibility to states.