The Race To The Bottom Continues Unabated

 

I was expecting this to happen. I just didn’t know where it would originate. This weekend, in Evanston, Illinois (home to “elite” Northwestern University) a group of “leaders in education, politics, and other areas” called for a halt to the teaching of history in all the schools in the state. That is until more “suitable” methods of teaching history can be found.

No one should be surprised. The armies of darkness keep pushing and elected to high office keep surrendering. In Evanston the Democratic mayor Steve Hagerty, in true ankle-grabbing fashion, issued his weaselly statement,

“As Mayor, I am not comfortable speaking on education, curriculum, and whether history lessons should be suspended. This is not my area. Personally, I support House Bill 4954…”

Spoken like a true bottom feeder, in the tradition of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, or any of the other big city Democratic mayors. They have become the rubber stamps for the mob; all they have is their titles and armed guards. Forget them; everything they do and say is completely irrelevant.

For us, we’re way past references to Howard Zinn and, even, George Orwell’s prescient warnings concerning the rewriting of history (both of which I’ve posted about myself). We’ve gone much further.

Instead, we need to be asking, “What comes next?” Now, it’s history. What other subjects will be deemed “unsuitable” for young people? Will such subjects as Algebra and Chemistry need to be shelved while “suitable alternatives” are developed? Don’t scoff. Did you think there would come a time when we had elected representatives and other “leaders” demanding that history be rewritten?

I believe that, sooner or later, we will have to admit that our public education system is irretrievably lost. It has become such a morass of leftist groupthink that it will never be able to fulfill its primary mission. The idiocy that once was the domain of our colleges and universities has been pushed down to our high schools and, even, our primary schools. To pretend otherwise is folly.

My own feeling is that we need to make the difficult choice to shift more and more of our education dollars to private and charter schools. Yes, this will serve to further damage public schools, but, given the fact that they have become completely unresponsive to both students and parents, I do not see any alternatives.

Here at Ricochet, I continue to see the same arguments for, and against, Trump. To me, all these arguments have become immaterial. The meaning of this election goes far beyond Trump and Biden; it means the difference between an educated citizenry and a “confederacy of dunces”. Today, Betsy DeVos is one of the most important people in the Federal government. We need to keep her there.

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  1. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    I am afraid that many history teachers already don’t teach history.  In Texas, most secondary school history teachers are football coaches, which I guess is benign because their primary focus is not teaching history, so no one knows much, whether or not something else that’s “suitable” becomes part of the curriculum….  My son said he learned all of his history from me, not his teachers, and he was a history major in college.  Public education is a mess.  

    • #1
  2. Hoyacon Member
    Hoyacon
    @Hoyacon

    Teaching what is considered “acceptable” to these individuals is worse than teaching no history at all.

    • #2
  3. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Northwestern University is a private university. Mid 1990’s, they received a major donation, I’m thinking it was from Anheuser Busch, to the tune of fifty million dollars.

    The problem with our higher education system is that the system is already funded by Big Corporations, who in the main are now all about Black Lives Matter, etc.

    Perhaps in lower levels, like grammar and high school institutions, the tax monies count. For higher education, not sure it matters.

    • #3
  4. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    Northwestern University is a private university. Mid 1990’s, they received a major donation, I’m thinking it was from Anheuser Busch, to the tune of fifty million dollars.

    The problem with our higher education system is that the system is already funded by Big Corporations, who in the main are now all about Black Lives Matter, etc.

    Perhaps in lower levels, like grammar and high school institutions, the tax monies count. For higher education, not sure it matters.

     

    Colleges like their tax dollars, too, @caroljoy, even though you are absolutely right that they have lots of other funding streams.  Why?  They’re greedy.  

    • #4
  5. 9thDistrictNeighbor Member
    9thDistrictNeighbor
    @9thDistrictNeighbor

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    I am afraid that many history teachers already don’t teach history. In Texas, most secondary school history teachers are football coaches, which I guess is benign because their primary focus is not teaching history, so no one knows much, whether or not something else that’s “suitable” becomes part of the curriculum…. My son said he learned all of his history from me, not his teachers, and he was a history major in college. Public education is a mess.

    Anecdotal, but this has been going on for 30 years. In my few years of teaching history in both public and private schools,  I was able to get a job teaching actual history only twice.  The rest of the jobs were as a classroom aide, study hall teacher for freshmen, teaching homebound students mostly math and science, or teaching middle schoolers science.  I have history degrees from Kenyon and Columbia.  I once had a bizarre group interview for a history teaching position at a New Jersey high school.  They really wanted a football coach.  Five interviewees on one side of the table and a phalanx of teachers, coaches and administrators on the other.  When we were asked why they should hire us, the men all talked about the gridiron, a woman in her sixties said she would be a mother figure, and I said I would actually teach history.  I did not get the job.  Thankfully.

    • #5
  6. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    This weekend, in Evanston, Illinois (home to “elite” Northwestern University) a group of “leaders in education, politics, and other areas” called for a halt to the teaching of history in all the schools in the state.

    Damn it!  These people have gone too dog-gone far. Our “history” classes over the fast few decades have  joyously been perfect petri dishes to inculcate and germinate woke ideas – so now what are we to do? How to we further the woke revolution without our politically corrected Howard Zinn approved history classes? This is a damn shame!

    • #6
  7. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    And, should any alternative history curriculum be developed it will, of course, have to be approved by BLM, Inc. before it can be published and taught.

    • #7
  8. tigerlily Member
    tigerlily
    @tigerlily

    CACrabtree:

    My own feeling is that we need to make the difficult choice to shift more and more of our education dollars to private and charter schools. Yes, this will serve to further damage public schools, but, given the fact that they have become completely unresponsive to both students and parents, I do not see any alternatives.

    Agree. Although, most important I think is that the tax dollars for education need to go to the parents of students, not the school, who can then use them as they see fit at either public schools, charter schools, for- profit schools, parochial schools, home schooling, or what is being called micro-schooling or pods. 

    • #8
  9. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    9thDistrictNeighbor (View Comment):

    Lois Lane (View Comment):

    I am afraid that many history teachers already don’t teach history. In Texas, most secondary school history teachers are football coaches, which I guess is benign because their primary focus is not teaching history, so no one knows much, whether or not something else that’s “suitable” becomes part of the curriculum…. My son said he learned all of his history from me, not his teachers, and he was a history major in college. Public education is a mess.

    Anecdotal, but this has been going on for 30 years. In my few years of teaching history in both public and private schools, I was able to get a job teaching actual history only twice. The rest of the jobs were as a classroom aide, study hall teacher for freshmen, teaching homebound students mostly math and science, or teaching middle schoolers science. I have history degrees from Kenyon and Columbia. I once had a bizarre group interview for a history teaching position at a New Jersey high school. They really wanted a football coach. Five interviewees on one side of the table and a phalanx of teachers, coaches and administrators on the other. When we were asked why they should hire us, the men all talked about the gridiron, a woman in her sixties said she would be a mother figure, and I said I would actually teach history. I did not get the job. Thankfully.

    I don’t completely understand when the March of the coaches began, though I can’t say my US History teacher in high school was very good either.  She wasn’t an objectionable person, but I can remember a sum total of nothing from the time I spent in her tutelage.  (She had that motherly, Catharine Beecher thing from your interview!)

    At least a coach would have taught me something about fitness?

    My father taught me most of what I knew until I went to graduate school.

    • #9
  10. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    Northwestern University is a private university. Mid 1990’s, they received a major donation, I’m thinking it was from Anheuser Busch, to the tune of fifty million dollars.

    The problem with our higher education system is that the system is already funded by Big Corporations, who in the main are now all about Black Lives Matter, etc.

    Perhaps in lower levels, like grammar and high school institutions, the tax monies count. For higher education, not sure it matters.

    I saw a video of people on the street being asked how they were dealing with the riots.  And two people interviewed were teachers.  One teacher taught fourth graders or younger, and she said that she is teaching the class about why people are protesting and what the protesters are going through.

    • #10
  11. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Flicker (View Comment):

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    Northwestern University is a private university. Mid 1990’s, they received a major donation, I’m thinking it was from Anheuser Busch, to the tune of fifty million dollars.

    The problem with our higher education system is that the system is already funded by Big Corporations, who in the main are now all about Black Lives Matter, etc.

    Perhaps in lower levels, like grammar and high school institutions, the tax monies count. For higher education, not sure it matters.

    I saw a video of people on the street being asked how they were dealing with the riots. And two people interviewed were teachers. One teacher taught fourth graders or younger, and she said that she is teaching the class about why people are protesting and what the protesters are going through.

    I am sure she is completely fair and balanced.  Blech!

    • #11
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