There are some good teachers who are doing good things in the public school system. I know this is hard to believe, but it is true.  While many institutions have lost the core mission to simply educate students, not every person in a position of authority in front of children has some weird agenda that will end up on Libs of TikTok.  Perhaps there is even a silent majority of teachers who simply want to teach well?  

Now I understand the pessimism you might feel when living in what one might call “interesting times.”  I have personally been forced to stop academic instruction at a public high school for half of my class as all of my kids were forced to participate in an LGBTQIA2S+ Pride Parade, whatever their beliefs about such matters. I have personally listened to administrators discuss highly charged political issues over the intercom in a public school as if everyone subject to those voices from on high has experienced some “trauma du jour” in the exact same way.  I have been yelled at on a college campus for simply pointing out media bias against conservatives and called a “racist” at a faculty meeting while defending voters who might be Republican.  I have had to sit through DEI training for educators in which stressing “racial essentialism” was considered “correct practice.”  I was once proud to take a summer class in Boston until I realized the elite professors “teaching” me believed in using Herbert Marcuse’s framework for “repressive tolerance.”

Bad philosophy has caused a lot of confusion and other problems. Sometimes it’s dressed up as something else–theology, science, sociology, law, English class–but it’s still just bad philosophy. Good common sense is an adequate corrective–where available. But sometimes bad philosophy ruins common sense on a wide scale, and good philosophy is a necessary cure.

I fear that may have happened with the error that says, “No opinion is ever a fact.”  The truth is: They aren’t the same category, but opinions and facts do overlap.

For years, the censors have been trying to characterize Dennis Prager as a right-wing ideologue (and probably a white supremacist, too) and now they have proof:

Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly says he opposes indoctrination in schools. Yet his administration in early July approved materials from a conservative group that says it’s all about indoctrination and ‘changing minds.’

The Florida Department of Education determined that educational materials geared toward young children and high school students created by PragerU, a nonprofit co-founded by conservative radio host Dennis Prager, was in alignment with the state’s standards on how to teach civics and government to K-12 students.