As I noted a couple of weeks ago, the largest national teachers’ unions—the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers—have essentially declared war on parents and students, doubling down on Critical Race Theory and the “LGBTQ+” agenda while continuing to advocate for forced masking and vaccination of children.
In that column, I called on teachers of good will, true allies of students and parents, to abandon the unions and stop paying dues, which is tantamount to supporting their agenda. The battle lines have been drawn. They are either with us or against us.
So much for teachers. But what about parents? How can they fight the unions?
Perhaps, as a parent, you can’t directly “defund” them, the way teachers can just by leaving, but there certainly are steps you can take that will have a long-term positive impact.
The most obvious, for those in a position to do so, is simply to take your kids out of the public schools. Fewer students equal fewer teachers, shrinking the pool of potential union members and lessening the groups’ power. Plus, your kids won’t have to deal with unionized teachers because they will no longer be in their classrooms.
Unfortunately, this solution presents problems of its own. As I’ve observed elsewhere, not everyone can afford private schools, which in some cases aren’t much better than the public schools anyway. And not all families are able to home school. Another possibility that I’ve been advocating involves creating affordable, community-funded private schools, but that hasn’t caught on yet.
The upshot is that many kids, at least for now, are stuck in the public schools. If you’re in that situation as a parent, what can you do to fend off the assault on your children from unionized (or union-affiliated) teachers?
First, you can get involved. Attend school board meetings and speak out against injustice and bad educational practice—as many parents are already doing all over the country. If you’re not part of this movement, join. Make your voice heard, in public meetings, emails to elected officials, letters-to-the-editor, and social media posts. If you’re not sure what to do or how to go about it, search Facebook for a group of like-minded parents in your area.
Second, it is absolutely imperative that you teach your values at home. Refuse to cede one iota of your parental authority and responsibility to the schools. Do not let teachers raise your children or teach them morality. That’s your job.
As much as possible, spend time daily with your kids. (The evening meal provides an excellent opportunity.) Ask them about their day and what they’re learning at school. If they’re being taught things that aren’t true—such as that all white people are racist or that some girls have penises—calmly explain why that’s wrong. (If possible, try not to completely undermine the teacher, whom you still need to teach math and reading).
Also, be sure to keep close tabs on your child’s curriculum. Spend time weekly on the class’s website. Look carefully at anything that’s sent home. Review their reading assignments. Once again, if you find something questionable, you will have the opportunity to counter it. And if something is truly objectionable, you can email or schedule a conference with the teacher to politely express your disagreement and displeasure. (Getting angry with these people rarely works. It just reinforces their prejudices. That said, there are times to get very angry indeed.)
Speaking of your child’s teachers, be sure to hold their feet to the fire. Both the NEA and the AFT have vowed that their members will continue teaching Critical Race Theory even in districts where it’s banned. They do not have that right. If you live in one of those areas, and you find your child’s teacher is flouting the rules, it’s time to involve the school’s administration—or even local politicians.
You can even be proactive. Before the school year starts, find out if your child’s teacher(s) is/are union members. (In right-to-work states like Georgia, where I live, the unions are often called “associations.” People will say, when I bring this up, “We don’t have teachers unions in Georgia.” That’s not entirely true. Teachers in Georgia and other RTW states might not be represented by unions in contract negotiations, but they can still join and pay dues—the NEA, for instance, boasts over 30,000 members in the Peach State—and in doing so, support the union’s agenda.)
If your child’s teacher belongs to the NEA or AFT, you could simply file that information away for future reference. Or you could go a step further and write to the teacher, at the beginning of the school year, to let him or her know that you know, that you will be keeping a close eye on what happens in the classroom, and that you object to your child being taught racism or sexual perversion.
You could even request that your child be transferred out of that class, although most principals would probably not accede to such a request, and the alternatives might not be any better. Still, it fires a shot across their bow, letting them know you will not be a passive by-stander in your child’s education.
Just understand that those last two suggestions could be considered preemptive attacks. There might be repercussions for your child, who could face discrimination from the teacher or even the administration. You’ll have to decide how far you’re willing to go—or how far you believe you need to go to protect your child.
But the bottom line is that, as a parent, you are not powerless. You can fight back. You can make your voice heard. You’re still the most influential person in your child’s life, and both individually and collectively, parents can, and should, have a great deal of control over what goes on in their local schools.
As adopted by the Florida State Board of Education, the amendment banning the teaching of critical race theory states in part:
Examples of theories that distort historical events and are inconsistent with State Board approved standards include the denial or minimization of the Holocaust, and the teaching of Critical Race Theory, meaning the theory that racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons.
One reason this is such a controversial issue is that if you ask twenty professors, politicians, and pundits to define critical race theory, you will get twenty different answers.
According to the unapologetically left-leaning CNN:
Critical race theory recognizes that systemic racism is part of American society and challenges the beliefs that allow it to flourish.
Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most people of color, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits White elites.
“Critical race theory is a practice. It’s an approach to grappling with a history of White supremacy that rejects the belief that what’s in the past is in the past, and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it,” said Kimberlé Crenshaw, a founding critical race theorist and a law professor who teaches at UCLA and Columbia University.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which maintains that “the realities of systemic racism are still alive and well,” characterized the bans on teaching critical race theory as an attempt to teach a version of American history “that erases the legacy of discrimination and lived experiences of Black and Brown people.”
Conservatives see things differently.
“Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed,” said former president Donald Trump. “Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors and families.”
Back in May, several Republican members of Congress introduced a bill banning the teaching of critical race theory in federal institutions and a resolution highlighting “the dangers” of teaching the theory in schools.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, who spoke before the Board of Education meeting, said that critical race theory would teach children “the country is rotten and that our institutions are illegitimate.” “That is not worth any taxpayer dollars,” he said. In a statement on Twitter, DeSantis said the amendment protects students from being “indoctrinated to think a certain way.” “Critical Race Theory teaches kids to hate our country and to hate each other. It is state-sanctioned racism and has no place in Florida schools,” he wrote.
The leftist National Education Association (NEA) acknowledges that critical race theory is being taught in public schools and defends it as “reasonable and appropriate.”
Some conservatives and libertarians have posited school choice as the answer to the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. This is nothing new, as these same conservatives and libertarians generally present school choice as the answer to nearly every problem with public schools.
Whether it is low test scores, violence in schools, Common Core, high schools graduating functional illiterates, the decline in discipline and standards, the power of the teachers’ unions, restrictions on free speech, biased textbooks, school shootings, sex education, or the promotion of Islam, environmentalism, socialism, political correctness, evolution, homosexuality, or transgenderism—the answer always seems to be school choice.
Many religious conservatives are still lamenting the elimination of prayer and Bible reading from schools. The solution to them, of course, is school choice, so their children can go to a school that does have prayer and Bible reading.
There are five things that can be said about all of this that are not being said.
First of all, although public schools should not exist, as long as they do, there is nothing wrong with parents objecting to what they teach and trying to improve them. This is no different than wanting cities and counties to keep their parks and recreational facilities clean and free from homeless encampments even though these things should be privatized.
Second, just because a school is a private school does not mean that it won’t also teach critical race theory. Just recently, for example, a private school in Ohio sent a letter to parents of two students informing them that their children will not be reenrolled at the school because the parents launched a public campaign against the school’s woke curriculum and promotion of critical race theory.
Third, all parents have school choice right now. They don’t have to wait for a voucher from the government to remove their children from public schools that are pushing critical race theory. They can homeschool their children or enroll them in a parochial school, a Montessori school, or an independent private school. That most parents don’t have the money to send their children to the private school of their choice doesn’t negate the fact that they have school choice right now that doesn’t involve choosing where to spend other Americans’ money
Fourth, the answer to a failed government program is never another government program. The answer is always the free market. The reason why private schools are expensive and not available in every community is because “free” and ubiquitous public schools have distorted the market. Government vouchers distort the market even more by establishing a floor below which tuition will not go because they remove incentives for schools to compete on cost.
Fifth, all arguments about school choice ignore the real issue: government involvement in education. Education is a service that parents can provide their children with just like health care, recreation, organized sports, music lessons, cultural activities, religious instruction, and haircuts. If they can’t provide these things on their own, or can’t fully provide them, then it is up to them to seek providers, with assistance from family, friends, organizations, associations, and like-minded other parents, but never from the government. As the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out in his book Liberalism: “There is, in fact, only one solution: the state, the government, the laws must not in any way concern themselves with schooling or education. Public funds must not be used for such purposes. The rearing and instruction of youth must be left entirely to parents and to private associations and institutions.”
School choice is not the answer to the teaching of critical race theory in public schools or the answer to anything else that is wrong with public education.
“In my day” (I am 58), most people rebelled against brainwashing. Whatever we were taught about sex, contemporary music, contemporary entertainment — we generally questioned it. Kids taught by Catholic nuns in the 1950s and 60s almost always questioned them; today’s leftist school officials and college professors are met with blind acceptance. Often we were right and sometimes we were wrong, but we questioned, back in the day. I see NONE of that today. The great majority of young people, if raised by woke and leftist parents, adopt these woke attitudes themselves. If raised by more conservative and rational parents, then they rebel — against their parents, not against the authorities in schools and culture who taught them to be woke. Back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, brainwashing almost never worked. Today, it almost always does. What is going on?
Here are some of the reader replies (from Facebook):
Parents have stopped teaching their children HOW to think, HOW to reason, HOW to think for themselves! For some reason parents nowadays feel like teaching their children HOW to reason is “overstepping” their boundaries as parents!!! IN OTHER WORDS: STUPID thinking by parents has enabled communists and liberals to seize our children’s minds.
AKA: CRITICAL THINKING … Essentially parents have set their children up for the ripe picking from communists.
It’s made for a generation of Americans that all disagree with each other!
Social Media, through fear and intimidation, drives many young people to conform or be socially mocked and shunned…which they feel is a fate worse than death. Same goes for adults in the workplace, whether it’s a corporation or academia.
Adults today are themselves often self indulgent , obsessed with eternal youth” , their outward appearance and status in the community , with friends and family while independent and free thinking goes extinct. A shallow existence and narcissism has crept in in our society leaving children ripe for brainwashing by the state. with little parental input . Parents have been unaware and unwilling themselves to take charge. Many are waking up to this nightmare and many have seen it coming like a speeding train. The shift away from family values centered on the children they brought into this world is profound and adults are often more like their children seeking out a “ friendship “ from them rather than being the mature adults they are called on to be as a responsible parents. The foundation is falling out from beneath the family and slowly a new world of separation, intercession and disruption is being built in it’s place destroying and replacing the bedrock of a solid family and faith oriented society into a faithless, state authority.
In the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s it was the left challenging the mostly conservative establishment.
Socialism and Marxism were already ideologically imbedded in the culture, in music, literature, movies and art.
To be ‘critical’ in those times meant, being a leftist. They wanted total control of the institution’s, especially in all levels of education.
Now they have it and they do not plan to let it go. So now our children are being indoctrinated to be good leftist and not challenge the leftist establishment.
Concepts like ‘criticism’, ‘opposition’, ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘critical or independent thought’ have always been of instrumental value to the left. They are to be used as instruments to get the left in power. Once they are in power, those concepts are no use to them anymore.
The left is only concerned about one thing; to get in power by any means necessary so that it can implement they nihilist and destructive program.
Michael, I said the same thing and asked the same question 30+ years ago as an immigrant with two kids going to school (private and public). It was the parents who hated me the most for fighting the system for the benefit of their kids.
Helicopter parents not allowing their children to make mistakes and free range and social media addiction I believe are two factors in a majority of young adults unaware of the reality of (to use their term) “adulting” and believing in something.
I always had the freedom to read anything, and I chose my own books. And my mom was a socialist. I had the intellectual curiosity to find answers. Barry Goldwater woke me up. 😉
My thought is when we grew up we read books and went outside interacted with other kids explored which led to an experience that forced our brain to develop in a different way than kids force fed so much from thousands of tv shows social media and biased media/ schools. Think about the difference between reading a book and having to flood that image into your brain vs being fed that image into your brain. Think about interacting with other kids with no adult supervision at an early age learning to problem solve and resolve conflicts vs no interacting.
There is no attempt to provide guidance on critical thinking. There are no consequences for making mistakes. They are taught from an early age to blindly accept authority and never question ANYTHING. Peer pressure, social media, and lots of other things enter the equation as well.
I think they are browbeaten into it in order to “belong”. Belittled & called names… not the tactics normal, compassionate people use…. not tactics used by those who believe you have the right to your own opinions & beliefs.
Most of the last two generations of parents failed. Raised the current stupidity. Some of us are now trying to save our own kids. How many over 50 caved to masks and vaccines knowing more than anyone the past? They created most of the “parents” of today and only have themselves to blame.
The public education system and other government funded entitlements have achieved their goals through systemic indoctrination for decades. Most parents gladly deposit their children on the doorstep of indoctrination because they have been programmed to believe the government will be a better parent and is truly concerned about all children. Parents are merely vessels to produce obedient voters and voices. Questioning the authority leads to being ostracized by the group. Being ostracized by the group leads to probably losing the entitlements you’ve come to depend on. And if you have never learned critical thinking skills it is too overwhelming to venture too far from your comfort zone. Frightening scenario we are in.
Our Education Establishment brags about its wonderful doctrines and the many advances seen in our public schools. The real story is quite the opposite, and chronicles a steady and unnecessary decline.
Notre Dame Professor Patrick Deneen says that many students at even the best schools are know-nothings and cannot state who won the Civil War. Deneen concludes that such dismal ignorance could not possibly be accidental. Ergo, it’s what our schools are designed to do—i.e., stupefy young brains with cultural amnesia.
Students emerging from high school, after 12 or 13 years in classrooms, remain shockingly ignorant. That’s nearly 10,000 hours of class time. Think how much children could learn if schools were designed to teach.
Once upon a time, children went to school to learn essential knowledge. No more. They learned the satisfaction that comes from mastering complex information and dealing with more difficult challenges. No longer.
When children are young, we often hear, they think like children. Traditionally they moved on to thinking like adults. In many societies the age of reason was a mere seven years old. Think about that. Clearly, children matured fast. No more. Now they are encouraged to remain children. Deliberate stagnation fosters infantilization, and in time adults who are less independent and less resilient than in years past.
Imagine for a moment what it feels like for so many millions of wretched young people trapped in our public schools. Most are not learning much, not doing anything interesting or important, certainly not having any fun. What is the point of all this empty activity? Where is the meaning?
Two psychologists recently published an article about “existential health.” They argued that “a large and growing body of research shows that meaning in life is critical to human flourishing. Individuals who view their lives as lacking meaning, compared to those who have a strong sense of meaning, are more likely to be depressed, anxious, and suicidal.”
Who allowed our schools to become meaningless? Here is the central mechanism. Progressives view school as a way to create new kinds of children. Once schools become highly invested in social engineering, they place proportionally less value on academic advancement. Infantilization begins.
Problem was, the professors had to justify their new approaches so John Dewey and William Kilpatrick, our two most famous “educators,” raved about the educational benefits of Activities, Experience, and Projects. This hype signaled no love for knowledge, quite the opposite. Think of children building sand castles. The children may be passionate; they may spend many hours pleasantly. But they’re not learning anything new. Trouble is, the Education Establishment pretends that building sand castles is education. Pretty soon, that’s all the children do, build another sandcastle. Hardly aware of it, the children are dumbed down and ground down.
Progressives created classrooms where familiar wheels appear to spin. But nothing important is taking place. That’s why students never can reach the age of reason. They’re trying to fulfill a socialist template that does not value cognitive content. The children remain perpetually children, as dumb at 16 as at six. There is the tragic accomplishment of our socialist educators.
The common pattern is, with great fanfare, to create a steady dose of meaningless activity, starting in kindergarten and lasting through graduation from high school. Here’s what the school system loses in the process: pride, confidence, enthusiasm, optimism, a can-do spirit, and a continuous immersion in intellectual activity. Meaningful intellectual work is aborted. Children are kept soft, formless, and amorphous. More jellyfish than vertebrate.
Public schools are not easy to fix because John Dewey and his gang built social engineering into the fabric of the school. If they stop doing this for a second, the entire Education Establishment might have a nervous breakdown. What’s the point, the professors would want to know. You would answer them patiently: The point is learning about the world so students can become adults. The professors would scream, Stand back, we are creating a New World.
So the wheels turn, the sun comes up and goes down, the months pass, and nothing substantive happens. Nothing essential is learned. There is no deeper understanding of anything.
How can I say this so confidently? Because so many reach the end of high school without knowing the names of the oceans. They cannot find Spain on a map of the world. They can’t multiply 23×19 without a calculator. There is a vast Sahara of emptiness; a dry and pointless wind mocks all human endeavor.
What, throughout all those thousands of hours, is learned? Something academic, or something practical? Not too likely.
Imagine Sherman marching to Georgia. He wanted to destroy the South thoroughly; he wanted to burn down everything standing. He wanted to twist every piece of train track. Sherman’s march through Georgia was all about leaving nothing and this is what Progressive educators seem compelled to do when they march through the traditional curriculum.
The whole gimmick for 100 years is simply stated. Teach as little as possible. Don’t ask children to memorize anything. Okay, starting now, let’s do the opposite. Present as much academic content as each teacher can manage. Encourage children to memorize when helpful or appropriate. By all means, let’s sing songs, dance, and have fun. But at the end of the week, children should know more than on Monday.
Here’s the disgraceful victory our Progressives pulled off. Many students are as ignorant on Friday as the week before. That’s what is killing us.
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Bruce Deitrick Price’s new book is: Saving K-12 — What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?
The State is teaching second graders “restorative justice.”. High schoolers are instructed that their families “reinforce racist/homophobic prejudices.” Government officials – teachers and school board members – are targeting parents for their opposition to the teachings of critical race theory.
And we grovel to the State, begging them to make it stop.
This is not the profile of a free people.
The fight against the government’s efforts to teach and promote evil will always exist as long as there are public schools. The evil may be different in degree – it won’t always be critical race theory or the like – but it’ll still be present. The struggle to control curriculum will take place not in the classroom but in the courts, the legislature, the school board, and the agencies.
And this struggle, this fight against the State, will continue until we address the greater problem. Until we excise the cancer. Until we end State control over families.
What I mean is this: The State has no authority to compel a child attend public school. It is time to end compulsory education.
A Brief History
Mandated education is a relatively new idea in the West. In America, it grew from colonial-era laws requiring towns to appoint teachers or create schools once they got to a certain size. Around that same time in Europe and England, schools emerged within the community and from the churches to provide religious training and practical instruction.
Public education in America proliferated in the early 1800’s.1 By 1890, “the majority of states and territories had passed mandatory attendance laws,” providing penalties (usually unenforced) for truancy and offering exemptions for equivalent education.2
By the early 1900’s, compulsory education laws were even more common in the United States. The Supreme Court had endorsed State power to “compel [school] attendance.”3 Save for a few publicly dissenting voices, the authority of the State to “impose reasonable regulations for the control and duration of basic education”4 has gone unopposed.
One would have to think that this has to do with public opinion. It’s tough to find parents that disagree with K-12 education generally. Every parent wants their child to be educated. Instead, they differ on the specifics: private or public school, the subjects emphasized, secular vs. religious instruction, etc.
Similarly, the Supreme Court has no appetite for considering laws compelling public schooling. (One of the failures of originalism has been their silence on this issue.) Instead, it takes up cases involving the rights of students. They’ll decide on matters involving the violation of a 13 year-old student’s Fourth Amendment rights after a strip search. They’ll consider whether, under the First Amendment, a school may ban student speech that promotes illegal drug use.
A young person may be forced to go to a government school – a restraint of their movement and freedom – but at least the Court lets them speak. Their freedom of association might be violated, but at least they can’t be subject to unreasonable strip searches. Even prisoners have rights.
This gets us to the question of authority.
By what authority does a State have to compel attendance at a government school?
The Supreme Court has held that students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.5 What of the right to not attend school?
Is the right to not be forced to attend a government school lesser than the freedom of speech?
To this you might respond that society needs to have an educated populace, for kids to stay off the street. A more discerning mind might say that public education is a babysitter so the parents can work. A true cynic would agree with all of that and add that the public school system is a jobs program. Anyway, those are all State interests; they have nothing to do with State authority.
A Christian might observe that God created three institutions: the family, the church, and the civil government. Each has a separate jurisdiction. The government enforces civil and criminal laws; the family is governed from within, with parents providing discipline and educating their children as they see fit; and the church has jurisdiction over matters of religion and its members. Under Christian philosophy, then, the State exceeds its jurisdiction when it involves itself in matters reserved for the family. Something to think about.
But I digress.
And I’ll rephrase the attendance question in a way that’s more accurate:
“By what authority does a State have to force a child attend a government school, where they are taught poisonous and evil doctrines?”
I disagree that this is a power inherent to a State. This wasn’t a power accepted at the formation of this country or when the Constitution was drafted. Even where there were laws mandating schooling, they didn’t mandate public education. There’s a big difference there.
To that you might say it’s the consent of the governed: “The voters gave the State the authority to compel public education.”
My parents never gave the State that authority. Did yours?
Oh, you might answer that democracy allows for such laws. The majority – by way of votes – determines the education of the country’s youth.
Ah, the cliché of democracy. Voters that don’t know your child can control how your child is education?
Which one of you would give a stranger that power? Do you not see the problem?
Here is the truth: the consent of the governed is a myth.
And even if there were consent – and there certainly is not – consent of the governed isn’t good enough. It is the consent of the parents that matters.
And what is the parental consent? There is none. Even the concept of “Parental Oversight” of public schools and teachers is a legend promoted by those interested in retaining their power.
Let’s say your child goes to a public school.6 If you disagree with their curriculum, that means you’re in the minority. Too bad. The majority – through their elected officials, not yours – have already picked what’s being taught.
And if you fight their curriculum in court, they have the law on their side. The Supreme Court has held that educators have broad discretion to set curriculum so long as it is “reasonably related to a legitimate pedagogical concern.”7 This would include curriculum and viewpoints against which the parent or child disagrees. Their values, not yours.
With little chance for relief in the courts, you’re going to need to change the decision-makers to exercise your God-given parental right to oversee the education of your child.
Good luck. Your plan of action would be: (1) establish an agenda; (2) recruit candidates; (3) rally voters; (4) get your people elected; and (5) have the elected officials carry out your wishes.
Not one parent can change the agenda of the educational “elite.” And even if you are successful (a near impossibility), it would be too late. Your child has already been brainwashed, and thus victimized, by the nonsense they’re peddling.
Where do you re-educate the child who has been taught he is an oppressor?
How do you heal the psychological damage to a 9-year old who feels guilty for being white?
And even if there is change at the local level, how much will it really matter?
The Biden Department of Education plans to promote racial equity in schooling, brainwash students on “their own biases,” and endorses the inaccurate (and terrible) “1619 project.” Their plan to revolutionize American schools includes quotes from radicals Ibram X. Kendi (who alleges “Trumpism is the violent defense of white male supremacy”) and Becki Cohn-Vargas (who wants to educate young children on anti-racism and has endorsed garbage articles that claim “objectivity” or “neutrality” are parts of white supremacy culture).
All the while, mere disagreement with the insane educational priorities of the racially obsessed will make you a target. They’ll fight you every step of the way. If not in court then on the streets. If not at the school board then on the internet. Exercise your First Amendment rights and these government officials will put you on their list.
It’s happening in Loudon County, Virginia. Teachers, school staff, elected officials, and even the county prosecutor were part of a Facebook group that:
compiled a lengthy list of parents suspected of disagreeing with school system actions, including its teaching of controversial racial concepts — with a stated purpose in part to “infiltrate,” use “hackers” to silence parents’ communications, and “expose these people publicly.” (Source: Luke Rosiak of The Daily Wire.)
After some parents objected to the teaching of critical race theory, one teacher promised to shut down their “hateful garbage” while another teacher called a parent a “douche.” They fight with the support of the NAACP, which had e-mailed school officials to inform them that a teacher’s husband had criticized critical race theory. According to Rosiak, the e-mail stated the NAACP was hopeful the teacher “does not share the same ideologies as her husband.”
Loudon County is the exception, not the rule. These brawls typically aren’t so public. (Though Loudon County shows just how audacious these people have become.) Likewise, the change in policies aren’t done out in the open. Instead, they’re done in the bureaucratic back rooms, within the school boards, at the school districts. Most parents don’t know what’s going on until it’s too late.
One final point.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that the government does have authority to compel a child attend a public school. What happens when “education” transforms from reading, writing, and arithmetic to critical race theory and the LGBTQ agenda?
Does the State have the power to compel such education?
Under current law, yes.
If you accept the State’s authority to compel education, don’t you accept the State’s authority to define “education”?
You can think about that answer.
Conclusion.
It’s hard to overstate what this fight is about, because it’s about nearly everything. It’s not just about what gets taught in the schools. It’s about the power of the State over the rights of the parents. It’s about indoctrination starting in elementary school. It’s about retaliation at the local level, fights in the courts, and forced compliance with their twisted worldview.
To break this down in its simplest form: this is good vs. evil fighting over the mind of a child.
I like to verify things myself and you can do so as well by reading the California Department of Education Mathematics Framework.
In its framework, the Department of Education seeks “Culturally responsive mathematics education.”
Introduction Highlights
Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities. Mathematics pathways must open mathematics to all students, eliminating option-limiting tracking. [i.e. no advance classes].
implementation of this framework and the standards, teachers must be mindful of other considerations that are a high priority for California’s education system including the Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs) which allow students to examine issues of environmental and social justice.
Teaching for Equity Highlights
The evolution of mathematics in educational settings has resulted in dramatic inequities for students of color, girls, and students from low income homes.
Teachers are encouraged to align instruction with the outcomes of the California ELD Standards, which state that linguistically and culturally diverse English learners receive instruction that values their home cultures.
Need to Broaden Perceptions of Mathematics
I did not go through all the chapters. Reason uncovered these gems.
The inequity of mathematics tracking in California can be undone through a coordinated approach in grades 6–12.
Middle-school students are best served in heterogeneous classes.
The push to calculus in grade twelve is itself misguided.
To encourage truly equitable and engaging mathematics classrooms we need to broaden perceptions of mathematics beyond methods and answers so that students come to view mathematics as a connected, multi-dimensional subject that is about sense making and reasoning, to which they can contribute and belong.
Sabotage the Best
Reason concludes, and I agree “If California adopts this framework, which is currently under public review, the state will end up sabotaging its brightest students. The government should let kids opt out of math if it’s not for them. Don’t let the false idea that there’s no such thing as a gifted student herald the end of advanced math entirely.”
Instead, and in the name of “equity”, the proposed framework aims to keep everyone learning at the same dumbed down level for as long as possible.
The intention is clear. The California Board of Education intends to sabotage the best and brightest, hoping to make everyone equal.
The public does not support these polices. Indeed, it is precisely this kind of talk that nearly got Trump reelected.
Biden should speak out against such nonsense, but he won’t. He is beholden to Teachers’ Unions and Boards of Education.
Care to complain? If so the California Department of Education posted these ways.
Phone Number and Address
Phone: 916-319-0598
Instructional Quality Commission 1430 N Street, Room 3207 Sacramento, CA 95814 Fax: 916-319-0172
Social and Mathematical Justice Q&A
Q: Who is the arbiter of environmental, mathematic, and social justice?
A: The California board of Education. They intend to cram it down your child’s throat and dumb down gifted kids no matter what their parents believe or how vigorous the objections.
If you wish to protest these absurd policies, phone or write the board of education as posted above.
California’s Department of Education is working on a new framework for K-12 mathematics that discourages gifted students from enrolling in accelerated classes that study advanced concepts like calculus.
The draft of the framework is hundreds of pages long and covers a wide range of topics. But its overriding concern is inequity. The department is worried that too many students are sorted into different math tracks based on their natural abilities, which leads some to take calculus by their senior year of high school while others don’t make it past basic algebra. The department’s solution is to prohibit any sorting until high school, keeping gifted kids in the same classrooms as their less mathematically inclined peers until at least grade nine.
“The inequity of mathematics tracking in California can be undone through a coordinated approach in grades 6–12,” reads a January 2021 draft of the framework. “In summary, middle-school students are best served in heterogeneous classes.”
In fact, the framework concludes that calculus is overvalued, even for gifted students.
“The push to calculus in grade twelve is itself misguided,” says the framework.
As evidence for this claim, the framework cites the fact that many students who take calculus end up having to retake it in college anyway. Of course, de-prioritizing instruction in high school calculus would not really solve this problem—and in fact would likely make it worse—but the department does not seem overly worried. The framework’s overriding perspective is that teaching the tough stuff is college’s problem: The K-12 system should concern itself with making every kid fall in love with math.
Broadly speaking, this entails making math as easy and un-math-like as possible. Math is really about language and culture and social justice, and no one is naturally better at it than anyone else, according to the framework.
“All students deserve powerful mathematics; we reject ideas of natural gifts and talents,” reads a bulletpoint in chapter one of the framework. “The belief that ‘I treat everyone the same’ is insufficient: Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities.”
The entire second chapter of the framework is about connecting math to social justice concepts like bias and racism: “Teachers can support discussions that center mathematical reasoning rather than issues of status and bias by intentionally defining what it means to do and learn mathematics together in ways that include and highlight the languages, identities, and practices of historically marginalized communities.” Teachers should also think creatively about what math even entails: “To encourage truly equitable and engaging mathematics classrooms we need to broaden perceptions of mathematics beyond methods and answers so that students come to view mathematics as a connected, multi-dimensional subject that is about sense making and reasoning, to which they can contribute and belong.”
This approach is very bad. Contrary to what this guidance seems to suggest, math is not the end-all and be-all—and it’s certainly not something that all kids are equally capable of learning and enjoying. Some young people clearly excel at math, even at very early ages. Many schools offer advanced mathematics to a select group of students well before the high school level so that they can take calculus by their junior or senior year. It’s done this way for a reason: The students who like math (usually a minority) should have the opportunity to move on as rapidly as possible.
For everyone else… well, advanced math just isn’t that important. It would be preferable for schools to offer students more choices, and offer them as early as possible. Teens who are eager readers should be able to study literature instead of math; young people who aren’t particularly adept at any academic discipline might pick up art, music, computers, or even trade skills. (Coding doesn’t need to be mandatory, but it could be an option.)
The essence of good schooling is choice. Individual kids benefit from a wide range of possible educational options. Permitting them to diversify, specialize, and chart their own paths—with helpful input from the adults in their lives—is the course of action that recognizes vast differences in interest and ability. Holding back kids who are gifted at math isn’t equitable: On the contrary, it’s extremely unfair to everyone.
Yet the framework seems to reject the notion that some kids are more gifted than others. “An important goal of this framework is to replace ideas of innate mathematics ‘talent’ and ‘giftedness’ with the recognition that every student is on a growth pathway,” it states. “There is no cutoff determining when one child is ‘gifted’ and another is not.” But cutoffs are exactly what testing and grading systems produce, and it’s absurdly naive to think there’s nothing innate about such outcomes, given that intelligence is at least partly an inherited trait.
If California adopts this framework, which is currently under public review, the state will end up sabotaging its brightest students. The government should let kids opt out of math if it’s not for them. Don’t let the false idea that there’s no such thing as a gifted student herald the end of advanced math entirely.
Have the wokesters finally reached a tipping point?
Leftists of multiple stripes have been making public schools horrible places, and now students are bolting.
In California, that’s making news. According to the Associated Press:
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California public schools have experienced a sharp decline in enrollment this year as the pandemic forced millions into online school, according to data made public Thursday.
The drop came as the state’s school districts dawdled in bringing children back to the classroom, making California one of the slowest in the country to reopen schools.
The California Department of Education data shows that the number of students at K-12 schools dropped by more than 160,000 this academic year, most of them at the K-6 level, to a total of 6 million.
The drop is by far the biggest decline in years and represents the clearest picture yet of the pandemic’s devastating toll on California public schools.
“The annual snapshot of fall enrollment shows a sharp one-year decline as the state and nation grappled with a deadly pandemic that disrupted all aspects of public education,” the education department said in a statement.
In California, it’s white students who are bolting most. The AP reports that they constitute 22% of school enrollment but account for half of the exits. They’re moving on to private schools, whose enrollments are up, or to homeschooling, which is available to anyone with a literate and motivated parent. Or else just moving to a better state. It suggests that poor black and Latino kids, who form far larger demographic groups within the California districts, might just be not bolting because economically, they can’t. They may have a parent who has to work in a low-salary service industry job or else live in a household with no literacy skills to facilitate homeschooling from the adults. Based on other factors, to be cited below, they’d get out if they could, too.
And that’s, according to press reports, all because of the pandemic — which is bee ess right there.
Far from this being the pandemic, which, scientifically speaking, affected children very little, it’s the ruling elites’ barbaric response to the pandemic. That was visible enough in the state-imposed lockdowns on the public schools, and in the outrageous behavior of the rabidly left-wing teachers’ unions and the campaign cash-fattened politicians who love them.
[H]is handpicked director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, said last week that “schools can safely reopen” and “vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for the safe reopening of schools,” the Biden White House slapped her down, with press secretary Jen Psaki insisting that Walensky was speaking in her “personal capacity.”
No, she wasn’t. Walensky was speaking in her capacity as a government scientist during an official briefing of the White House covid response team. And her comments came just days after a team of CDC scientists published a review in the Journal of the American Medical Association of numerous studies which show “there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.”
…they were also terrible for kids. Kids’ grades plummeted, and many never showed up for the online Zoom sessions at all. Worse still, mental health problems rose, and children became depressed, unable to perform the vital task for them of making friends. For kids, that’s a positively critical need, as children are biologically wired at that age with an openness to making friends, quite unlike older people. Child depression rose; child suicides soared. The lockdowns were also exceptionally hard on parents.
The highest declines in enrollments, across all states, and certainly in California, were among the youngest children. Very young children are unusually unsuited to online learning, and anyone who’s ever taught them (and I have) knows they need to physically interact: to touch, to see, to pass around, to feel, to hear, to sing, to smell, to speak, to raise hands, to dance, to participate, to mush clay, to paint, to move — it’s how they naturally are. They don’t do virtual, and they don’t like concept stuff. (It’s why they’re so wonderful.)
That’s just the lockdowns alone. Parents tried to complain, parents tried to say something, but they always got ignored.
To add insult to injury, there were also the teachers’ unions and the school boards in their pocket, which had to be the last straw for a lot of parents.
What’s more, they not only made strange hostage demands, as well as called for more money, but extended and extended, and extended the lockdowns, as they drew higher pay and worked fewer hours, and Zoomed the bunny-slipper commute, as AT’s Andrea Widburg put it. They’ve made some final blackmail payout demands as the governor of California is facing a political recall over the closures of public schools. Reason magazine has them here.
And they had slimey Joe Biden behind them, touting teachers’ unions and proudly holding out his low-achieving wife Jill as a public school teacher now living in the White House. That had to make parents feel powerless.
For Joe, it was more than shilling for this blackmailing bunch; it was moving the goalposts as their puppet. As I noted here:
To the extent that Joe Biden drew votes, a very big reason was the expectation from parents and students that he would re-open the public schools, currently on extended shutdown over COVID concerns. That was his promise, that was a signature issue, with many pixels spilled in multiplespots on Biden’s campaign website supporting the claim that he was serious about re-opening schools.
Now that he’s in office, too bad for those who actually believed him.
Instead of re-opening the schools, Biden’s re-drawn himself a goal line for school re-opening so pathetic, so wretched, so insignificant that it’s actually lower than what’s already going on now in school reopenings.
School re-openings, it seems, no longer mean school re-openings the way normal people see them. In Bidenland, school re-openings mean lots and lots more Zoom school, with just lip service, a little grope maybe, to the idea of re-opening.
Now he’s busy imposing Critical Race Theory on all public schools nationally — that’s the stuff that tells whitey he’s the bad guy, or needs to “try to act less white,” even if he’s just four years old. That likely accounts for at least some of the white exodus from public schools. (Remember: much of California still votes Republican even if Republicans don’t win). It’s a phony education that wrecks some kids’ self-esteem, makes other kids hate their neighbors or think they’re victims, and amounts to propaganda at the expense of education. Who’d want that?
Nice going, Joe. Now that you’ve elevated teachers’ unions, you’ve got declining enrollment. Heckuva Job, Bidie.
But let’s get back to California:
Besides lockdowns and teachers’ union blackmail, California’s schools are turning into outrageous dumps of junk thought, and hellish conditions quite independently of Biden’s White House.
California is the one that introduced Aztec worship chants for the little ones to pledge fealty to, in a naked violation of the separation of church and state.
California is also a big-time supporter of males engaging on equal footing in women’s sports, pretty well telling the female athletes that they can play sports, but they aren’t going to win.
Participation in competitive athletics, intramural sports, athletic teams, competitions and contact sports shall be facilitated in a manner consistent with the student’s gender identity and in accordance with the California Interscholastic Federation constitution and bylaws. Students who identify as nonbinary should be granted the opportunity to participate in athletic activities they find best align with their gender identity.
A third big one, and it’s been boiling for a while, is the leftist bid to shut down charter schools, which are particularly prized by minority students who would otherwise be stuck in failing public schools.
Who’d Joe Biden appoint to his Department of Education? A creature from the San Diego public school bureaucracy named Cindy Marten, whose signature issue is crushing charter schools. Her nomination was opposed by the San Diego–area NAACP, which broke with its national organization on this ground, because, well, they were hearing from people. According to EdWeek, a trade publication:
The San Diego NAACP, which criticized Marten, notably broke from the national NAACP in 2019 when it opposed a national call for a moratorium on charter schools. Several 2020 Democratic presidential candidates cited that national NAACP position when they called for new limits on charter schools.
The national NAACP has also split with its San Diego branch on Marten’s nomination.
That might explain why, as I argued earlier, a lot of minority kids would also like out and simply can’t get out at this point.
Bottom line here is that parents and kids are bailing. Public schools are getting fewer takers despite being “free.”
Leftists have been so “high on their own supply” for so long in this age of the pandemic, which benefits them amazingly, that they’ve failed to realize that people are voting with their feet. They are scrapping for other alternatives, given the public schools’ failures to reflect their values and to care for the mental health of their children and to actually educate. That’s another thing: the failing public schools’ failure to teach is an ongoing problem. Who needs this?
Parents and students bailing out on them is an appropriate ending for this selfish, self-absorbed, child-hating bunch. California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom is attempting to keep school funding at the current levels, despite the drop in enrollment, to shield these perpetrators from any consequences for their atrocious actions, but he’s up for recall now for this awfulness. He knows it. For him, the writing’s on the wall.
It’s also on the wall for these public schools, whether they know it or not.
A group of parents alarmed by what they see as left-wing indoctrination sweeping through K-12 schools on Tuesday announced a new online clearinghouse of information designed to help families navigate what’s happening in their children’s classrooms.
Nicole Neily, president of the group, Parents Defending Education, said parents are hungry for information to fight back against a curriculum that increasingly promotes racial and social justice ideology.
“There’s this feeling among some that this is just a New York and California thing, but it’s not; it’s everywhere,” she said. “It’s in private schools and parochial schools
Schools across the country have adopted classwork and instructional models based on critical race theory, which teaches that the U.S. legal and governance systems are inherently racist and retain economic and political power for Whites by oppressing people of color.
In some classes, students are divided into groups according to their status as “oppressors” and “victims,” “privileged” or “resistors,” based on immutable characteristics such as the color of their skin.
The lessons have sparked a series of legal challenges in state and federal courts by parents and students.
Supporters contend the curriculum is a necessary rejoinder to decades of White supremacist thinking that has permeated society. They say the goal must be “anti-racist” rather than not racist and that their approach will educate children about advantages they have been given or handicaps they have been burdened with by systemic racism.
Parents Defending Education describes itself on its website this way: “Parents Defending Education is a national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas. Through network and coalition building, investigative reporting, litigation, and engagement on local, state, and national policies, we are fighting indoctrination in the classroom — and promoting the restoration of a healthy, non-political education for our kids.”
Ms.Neilysaid thousands of parents are unaware of what’s going on or are deeply disturbed by it but unsure how to fight back, leaving them feeling alone and helpless. She envisions DefendingEd.org as a network of concerned parents who can swap horror stories and seek political or legal solutions.
Consequently, the website’s stated mission is to “empower, expose and engage” parents. The site provides a forum for sharing anecdotes and resources to take action including primers on how to start social media campaigns, attending public hearings and making public information act requests of school boards and school officials.
The website features an “IndoctriNation Map” map, where parents can look up scores of school districts and “learn about parents organizations, incidents and FOIAs.” As more information is gathered, new flags will be posted on the map, the group says.
The “Deep Dive” section of the site provides links to news accounts of lawsuits and other issues that arise in response to the critical race theory wave.
Much of the information targets public schools, Ms.Neilysaid, though critical race theory has spread far and wide.
Some of the tiniest schools in the U.S., from the Dalton School in New York City to Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, where America’s richest families send their children, have made headlines recently for lumping their students into sinister or sympathetic groups based on their race.
“If you want to send your kid to Social Justice Country Day, you’re free to do so, but we must do what we can to not allow the imposition of these top-down solutions,” Ms.Neilysaid.
Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who serves as Defending Education’s vice president of strategy and investigations, said she believes a tipping point is approaching in education.
“Our country is in a crisis today because of ideologues pumping divisive, polarizing ideas into our classrooms, teaching them to our children,” she said. “Educators have a moral duty to teach our kids how to read, write and think — not dictate what they must think,” she said. “As parents, we must stand together to defend education, challenge radicalization and inspire our children with positive values.”
Many parents feel at sea when they discover what is happening and need a tool to navigate waters that critical race theorists leave deliberately murky, said Christopher Rufo, a national advocate against critical race theory who advises Parents Defending Education.
“Parents across the country are mobilizing against critical race theory in schools,” he told The Washington Times. “All Americans should stand against the principles of race essentialism, collective guilt and neo-segregation.”
The group has filed motions to intervene in court cases, such as one in New York brought by Integrate NYC Inc., which advocates for more critical race theory. The lawsuit charges that New York City’s magnet schools and gifted programs are racist because they do not include enough Black and minority students.
It is one of several lawsuits in the courts pushing for more critical race theory or objecting to its implementation. Some state legislators are looking at laws that would ban education materials and practices based on critical race theory.
It is telling, Ms.Neilysaid, that critical race theory materials are often slipped into curricula with a minimum of discussion or parental involvement, which creates another reason for a kind of one-stop shopping site for opponents.
“Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and we need to encourage people to show up and demand answers to what in a lot of cases amounts to emotional abuse of children,” she said. “It’s actually a small group of people who want this, and we need to shine a light on what is happening.”
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 