Category Archives: Education

The Anti-CRT Revolt: Banning a Racist Curriculum

16 Wednesday Jun 2021

Posted by in Critical Race Theory, Education, racism, Uncategorized

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Suddenly it’s dawned on many people of good faith that our educational, business, and other institutions have been commandeered by adherents to critical race theory (CRT), which teaches that all social interactions and outcomes must be viewed through the lens of racial identity and exploitation. In fact, it teaches that racism is endemic, whether conscious or unconscious, among people deemed to have privilege. They are labeled as oppressors, especially anyone with white skin. Furthermore, CRT holds that racism is systemic, and therefore the “system”, meaning all of our institutions and social arrangements, must be radically transformed. Some or all of these tenets are taught to our children in public and private schools, and they are embedded in anti-bias and diversity training delivered to employees of government, non-profits, and private companies.

Standing Up To It

It’s easy to see why many have come to view CRT as a racist philosophy in its own right. Teaching children that they are either “oppressors” or “victims” based on the color of their skin, is a deeply flawed and dangerous practice. The revelation of CRT’s cultural inroads has prompted an angry counter-revolution by parents who hope to purge CRT from the curricula in their children’s schools… schools that they PAY FOR as taxpayers. Many other fair-minded people are offended by the sweeping racism and identity politics inherent in CRT. And yet its proponents continue in attempts to gaslight the public. More on that below.

The groundswell of opposition to CRT is evident in explosive meetings of school boards across the country, as well as recent school board elections in which slates of candidates opposed to the teaching of CRT have been victorious (see here, here, and here).

In addition, we’ve seen a number of recent legislative or administrative initiatives at the state level. There are now, or recently have been, efforts in 22 states to ban or restrict the instruction of CRT. In some cases, institutions found to be in violation of the new laws are subject to deadlines to remedy the situation. Otherwise, funding dispersed by their state’s Department of Education may be cut by ten percent, for example.

But It’s Speech

As happy as I am to witness the pushback, it’s fair to ask whether the most severe restrictions are reasonable from an educational point of view. For example, as a social philosophy, and as wrong-headed as I believe it to be, there is no reason CRT can’t be discussed alongside other social philosophies, failed and otherwise, without endorsement. For that matter, we should not insist that schools shield children from the fact that racism exists, and CRT certainly has its place along the spectrum of racism.

For my own part, I believe elective classes covering CRT as one philosophical position among others should be defended, as should instruction in the history of American slavery and Jim Crow laws, for example. However, mandatory training in CRT is unacceptable and, to the extent that students or employees are required to accept its tenets, it constitutes compelled speech. To the extent that certain groups of students are identified as inherently biased, it is a form of defamation and a personal attack. 

Legislation

Some states are attempting to ban CRT outright. Others have imposed strictures on certain messages arising from the CRT curriculum. The Florida Department of Education just passed an extremely brief rule stating: 

“Instruction on the required topics must be factual and objective, and may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based largely on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.”

The Florida rule prohibits teaching the 1619 Project as part of the history curriculum. This revised “history” of our nation’s founding was sponsored by the New York Times. It insists that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve American slavery, an assertion that has been condemned as false by many historians (see here and here), though the Left still desperately clings to it. I have no problem with a prohibition on false histories, though again, it’s important for students to learn that slavery was the subject of much debate at the nation’s founding and that it persisted beyond that time. No one kept those facts from us when I was a child. And they didn’t brand white students as oppressors.

While a rulemaking by a state Department of Education is better than nothing, it’s a far cry from an actual piece of legislation. A bill signed into law in Idaho in late March contained substantially the same provisions as the rule promulgated in Florida, but it didn’t proscribe the 1619 Project. The same is true of the bill signed into law in Oklahoma in early May. 

In Texas, the state senate passed a bill in May that would ban instruction in any public school or state agency of any of the following:

“… one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex

an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously;

an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex;

meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by … members of a particular race to oppress members of another race.”

A new law in Iowa and abill signed by the governor of Tennessee in late May contained similar provisions, essentially banning instruction of some highly objectionable tenets of CRT. However, the Iowa and Tennessee laws are careful to spell out what the law should not be construed to do. For example, these laws do not:

“—Inhibit or violate the first amendment rights of students or faculty, or undermine a school district’s duty to protect to the fullest degree intellectual freedom and free expression.
—Prohibit discussing specific defined concepts as part of a larger course of academic instruction.
—Prohibit the use of curriculum that teaches the topics of sexism, slavery, racial oppression, racial segregation, or racial discrimination, including topics relating to the enactment and enforcement of laws resulting in sexism, racial oppression, segregation, and discrimination.“

A bill in the Missouri House mentions a few such protections. However, the Missouri bill is general in the sense that it explicitly bans the instruction of CRT by name, rather than simply blocking a few unsavory messages of CRT, as detailed by Texas and a few other states. Utah’s legislation, which is awaiting the governor’s signature, is also quite brief and explicit in its prohibition of CRT. I greatly prefer the Texas approach, however, as it makes clear that discussions of CRT in the classroom are not precluded, as might be inferred from the language of the Missouri bill. 

But, But… You Just Don’t Get It!

PProtests against these legislative actions have shown a certain tone-deaf belligerence. According to an organization called Black Lives Matter at School and the Zinn Education Project, all the protesters want is a curriculum that illuminates:

“… full and accurate U.S. history and current events … rais[ing] awareness of the dangers of lying to students about systemic racism and other forms of oppression.”

One advocate says they must be free to teach the “truth” of our nation’s foundational and ongoing structural racism. The Missouri bill, they say, “fails to note ‘a single lesson’ which is ‘inaccurate’ or ‘misleads’ students.” It’s not as if it’s necessary for legislation to provide a series of examples, but be that as it may, these CRT advocates know exactly what many find objectionable. Essentially, their response is, “You don’t understand CRT! WE are the experts on systemic, institutional racism.” What they believe is somehow, every negative outcome is actuated by racism of one kind or another, past or present.

Divining the “Fault” Line

Are you below the poverty line? Earning less than a “living wage”? Are you unemployed? Is your credit score lousy? Do you live in a high crime area? In a “food desert”? Are you a single parent? Did you receive a failing grade? Is your rent going up? Did someone fail to defer to you? Did they “disrespect” you, whatever your definition? Were you scolded for being late? 

Of course, none of those “outcomes” is exclusive to people of color or minorities. But wait! Someone else is earning a decent income. They got good grades. They have a high credit score. They drive a nice car. They have skills. 

Does any of that make them guilty of oppression? Does this have something to do with YOU?

Well, you see, CRT teaches us that every unequal outcome must be the consequence of unjust, “disparate impacts” inherent to the social and economic order. To be clear, outcomes are a legitimate subject of policy debate, and we should aim for improved well-being across the board. The point that defenders of CRT miss is that unequal outcomes are seldom diabolic in and of themselves. Real indications of injustice, past or present, do not imply that any one class of individuals is inherently racist or behaves in a discriminatory manner.

Critical Theory Is a Fraud

Critical race “theory” is nothing but blame in fraudulent “search” of perpetrators. It is fraudulent because the perps are already identified in advance. It is “critical” because someone or something deserves blame. The real exercise is to spin a tale of misused privilege and biased conduct by the privileged perps against a set of oppressed victims.

CRT is not just one theory, but a whole slew of theories of blame. The very attitudes of the purveyors of CRT show they do not believe their “theories” are falsifiable. And indeed, allegations of unconscious bias are impossible to falsify. Thus, CRT is not a theory, as such. It amounts to a polemic, and it should only be discussed as such. It certainly shouldn’t be taught as “truth” to children, university students, or employees. More states should jump on-board to restrict the CRT putsch to propagandize.

Note: This post also appears at The American Reveille.

Education Now vs. Teachers Unions

05 Friday Mar 2021

Posted by in Education, Teachers Unions

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If you’re not sure why schools should be reopened immediately, read this thread by Rory Cooper. He begins:

“Public health and pediatric health experts overwhelmingly are advocating for children to return to schools full-time. They recognize that the risks are far outweighed by the damage currently being done. Here are just some examples:”

Cooper links to 14 articles and op-eds by (or quoting) pediatricians, pediatric disease experts, psychologists, and others in favor of reopening schools. Literally thousands of experts in pediatric medicine are represented at these links, as well as professional associations. Also in the thread, Cooper provides direct quotes from eminent pediatric infectious disease experts on the wisdom of reopening schools, both because the risk is low and the harm from failing to do so is massive.

If you remain unconvinced and believe that in-person instruction represents a mortal threat to teachers, perhaps you’re under the sway of specious arguments made by politically powerful teachers unions. Most teachers (including my middle school teaching daughter) know know it’s safe to return to school, but union leaders are intent on holding public education hostage. As I wrote last month, the hoped-for ransom consists of massive commitments for increased public funding and prioritized vaccination ahead of those at substantially greater risk. The naked politics of this putsch is revealed by instances such as accusations of racism against proponents of reopening, when in fact minority students are suffering the most from school closures. This shameful episode must end now, but too many politicians are beholden to the teachers unions and dare not cross them.

Teachers Unions and Educational Hostage-Taking

14 Sunday Feb 2021

Posted by in Education, Pandemic, Unions

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Intelligent public policy is all too often undermined by policy makers incapable of properly assessing risks. The Biden Administration is setting new standards in this regard with its so-called “return to school” effort. It’s difficult to know how much of it is sheer stupidity and how much is pandering to teachers unions. Equal parts is probably a reasonable approximation.

The public teachers unions have consistently opposed reopening since remote learning began last spring, despite reams of data showing the safety of school environments. Even the CDC agrees! Oh, but wait: the CDC just issued new guidelines for reopening, which among other things require six feet of distancing rather than the three feet Director Rochelle Walensky claimed was adequate just a few months ago. Obviously, this reduces the number of students many existing school buildings can accommodate.

COVID transmission in schools is “extremely rare”. And in addition, remote education is sorely lacking in effectiveness. Teachers who truly care about educating their students should be giving the unions an earful. Not only has learning been compromised, but remote learning has increased the achievement gap between the best students and those in the lower part of the distribution.

Private schools have been open and as the map above shows, public schools in a number of states are largely open to in-person learning. Where that’s not the case, public school buildings are often still being used by children. They’re under the supervision of adults, but not teachers! As Matt Welch says:

“… many of the empty school buildings in largely closed districts are not in fact empty—they are filled with kids, being supervised by adults, just not adults who belong to teachers unions.”

Incidentally, many adults with children now at home, rather than in school, have been forced to leave the labor force, and many of them are women. As Michael Watson asks, why are advocates of working women so silent on this point? And this is to say nothing of the health care workers diverted, during a pandemic, from patient care by the need to manage children at home.

In December, Joe Biden promised to reopen “most” K – 12 schools within his first one-hundred days in office. Shortly after his inauguration, that promise became “most” K – 8 schools. As Welch notes, now the goal has been made a bit more precise, and it’s a complete sham: the Administration wants at least half of schools to be “open” for in-person learning at least one day a week! But we’re already well ahead of that! (And see here.)

On top of that, the federal government is playing the interloper here: reopening is not a federal decision. Ah, but Biden wants $130 billion in federal money earmarked to aid schools in their reopening efforts. Anthony Fauci has decided the stimulus is necessary for schools to reopen, his latest in a series of embarrassing policy flip-flops. The funds targeted at schools would be spent in a variety of ways, including PPE, COVID tests, new ventilation systems, and enhancement of remote learning to accommodate smaller (and distanced) in-person class sizes. Some of the funds are likely to make their way into teacher pay and to shore up pensions. One thing is certain: the unions want that money, and they will come back for more!

The unions also argue that teachers should be prioritized for vaccines, which would place them ahead of groups facing drastically higher risks. This is flat-out callous, insane, and evil. Again, the risk of COVID to teachers and children is low, while the elderly population faces staggeringly higher risks. Vaccinating teachers ahead of the elderly would cost many thousands of lives on balance.

This article from Education Next by Darrell Bradford describes the conditions for reopening demanded by teachers unions as the culmination of several years of activism. The unions contributed mightily to Joe Biden’s election campaign, of course. Their overwrought posture on teacher safety aside, the unions’ obstinance on the question of reopening is intended as leverage in the legislative push for Biden’s school aid package. Here’s Bradford:

“In other words, if you’ve wondered what a national teacher strike might look like and what might cause teachers across the country to arrest local economies and subject millions of students to instruction that may lock in deep learning losses, it’s just like this.”

The schools are safe, remote learning is substandard, and isolation is damaging to children’s’ emotional well being. Union demands for continuing limitations on in-person learning and requirements for reopening are not just unreasonable, but dastardly. That the Biden Administration is crafting its reopening policy and spending initiatives to appease the unions is motivated more by politics than the interests of children and their families. It’s time for parents and other true advocates to let their school administrators, elected representatives, and government officials know that the unions do not have their children’s interests at heart. And well-informed teachers should demand that their union representatives stop playing politics with the educational goals to which they’ve devoted their careers.

Union Control, Shuttered Schools, COVID Risk

07 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by in Coronavirus, Education, Unions

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Public schools are closed in favor of virtual classrooms in some areas. Elsewhere, however, schools have physically reopened to the children of willing parents. It should be no surprise that the varying strength of teachers’ unions has a lot to do with these decisions. One cannot claim that the pattern of closures is a response to varying levels of COVID risk, as there is no geographic association between the closures and COVID cases or deaths. The shame of it is that closures compromise learning and also have destructive effects on local labor markets and the ability of parents to earn incomes.

That unions play this role, often decisively, is shown in a new paper entitled “Are School Reopening Decisions Related to Union Influence?“, by Corey DeAngelis and Christos Makridis (HT: Tyler Cowen). The authors examine the fall reopening decisions of 835 school districts and find that “… districts in locations with stronger teachers’ unions are less likely to reopen in person…“. The authors test four different measures of union strength with similar findings. They also rule out potential confounding influences like voting patterns.

Shall we defend the unions for protecting their members from excessive risk? Well, another important finding reported by the authors won’t surprise anyone having the least familiarity with data on C19 risks:

“We also do not find evidence to suggest that measures of COVID-19 risk are correlated with school reopening decisions.”

Few children catch the virus and children are not effective at transmitting C19 to their peers, teachers, and parents. Furthermore, schools closed to in-person learning are not located in areas at elevated risk relative to those remaining open.

The role of teachers’ unions in school reopening decisions is a textbook case of the inadvisability of unionized public employees. Most obviously, it is in their interests to encourage greater funding and taxes. This is but one of many dimensions of the political agendas that teachers’ unions may advance, and to which member dues are put. These are not always representative of members’ views, which is especially problematic in states without right-to-work laws.

The very nature of public service means that the work of public employees (or its absence) has profound external influences on the community at large. The unions are not shy about using this power as leverage in negotiations. Thus, teachers’ unions often act as adversaries not only to taxpayers, but to parents, children, and the business community.

Do public school administrators and elected school board members belong on the list of union adversaries as well? Perhaps: the unions have bullied school districts and have made them less attractive as educational institutions in a cost-benefit sense. In the present case, the unions have successfully lobbied for ongoing payments of income and benefits to their members despite the degraded effectiveness of on-line instruction for many K-12 students. Meanwhile, many parents are learning to exercise choice in the matter by abandoning public schools in favor of private alternatives.

Teachers Face Low-to-Moderate COVID Risk

29 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by in Education, Pandemic, School Choice, Uncategorized

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A quick follow-up to my recent post “COVID Hysteria and School Reform“: the graphic above is from an occupational risk study recently conducted by Swedish health authorities. The horizontal axis is obscured by the lower banner from Twitter (my fault), but the average risk of infection across all occupations was slightly less than 1%, and the highest-risk occupations were in the 4 – 5% range. Keep in mind, the data was collected while the virus was still raging in Sweden, while schools remained open. The virus hasn’t completely vanished in Sweden since then, but it has largely abated.

The study found that teachers had roughly average or below average risk, especially for pre-school and upper secondary (so-called “gymnasium”) teachers. The results demonstrate the lack of merit to claims by teachers unions that their members are somehow at greater risk of contracting coronavirus than other “essential” workers. We already know that children have extremely low susceptibility to COVID-19 and that they do not readily transmit the virus.

The health benefits of closing schools or taking them on-line do not compensate for the loss of educational effectiveness and detrimental health effects of preventing children from attending schools. The digital divide between children from disadvantaged households and their peers is likely to grow more severe if online learning is their only option. They should have choices, including functioning public schools.

To the last point, however, read this link for the sort of thing one teachers union supports. If the members are okay with that insanity then they shouldn’t be teaching your kids.

COVID Hysteria and School Reform

24 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by in Education, Pandemic, School Choice

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Many haven’t quite gathered it in, but our public education system is an ongoing disaster for many low-income and minority students and families. The pandemic, however, is creating a major upheaval in K-12 education that might well benefit those students in the end. But before I get into that, a quick word about National Public Radio (NPR): it doesn’t make its political leanings a secret, which is why it should not be supported by taxpayers. Yes, like many other mainstream media outlets, NPR serves as a political front organization for Democrats (and worse).

Last week, NPR did a segment on “learning pods”, which I’d describe as private adaptations to the failure of many public schools (and teachers’ unions) to do their job during the pandemic. Glenn Reynolds passed along an interpretation of that NPR segment from a friend on Facebook, which I quote in its entirety below (bold emphasis mine). It was either this segment or else NPR has taken it down … but that link more or less matches the description. The post is somewhat satiric, but it captures much of what was actually said:

“Hilarious NPR, last week’s edition. They had an hour-long segment on learning pods. Participants: Host (white woman), Black Woman Activist, Asian Woman Parent, School-System Man.

Slightly editorialized (but true!) recollections below.

Host: In wealthy areas, parents get together and organize learning pods. What do we make of it?

School-System Man: Inequitable! Inappropriate! Bad! We do not support it!

Asian Woman Parent: Equity requires that we form these pods to educate our own children! Otherwise, only the rich can get education! Rich bad!

Host: Rich bad.

School-System Man: Rich horrible! They withdraw kids from public schools during the pandemic, so schools have less money!

Asian Woman Parent: We have no choice. You are not teaching.

Host: But what are you doing for the equity?

Asian Woman Parent: Why are the parents supposed to be doing something for the equity? That’s why we pay taxes, so professionals do something!

School-System Man: We cannot fix equity if you are clandestinely educating your own children, but not everyone else’s children!

Asian Woman Parent: The proper solution would have been to end the pandemic. But Trump did not end the pandemic. So, we must do learning pods. As soon as the pandemic is over, we’ll get back to normal, and everyone will catch up.

Everyone [with great relief]: Trump bad. Bad.

Black Woman Activist: No, wait a minute. This sounds as though in a regular school year, black children get good education. And they are getting terrible education! Unacceptable!

Host: Bad Trump!

Black Woman Activist: Foggeraboutit! It’s not Trump! It’s always been terrible! Black children are dumped into horrible public schools, where nobody is teaching them! So, my organization is now helping organize these learning pods for minority kids everywhere.

School-System Man [cautiously]: This is only helping Trump…

Black Woman Activist: Forget Trump! Don’t tell me black kids get no education because things are not normal now. When things were normal, their education was just as bad!

School-System Man: Whut??? How dare you! Our public schools are the best thing that ever happened to black children.

Asian Woman Parent: I’ll second that. Public schools in my neighborhood are just svelte.

Black Woman Activist: That’s the point! You live in a rich suburb, and your kids get a great public school! Black kids don’t!

Asian Woman Parent: If Trump managed the pandemic properly, we would not be having this conversation.

Host: Bad Trump!

Everyone: Bad Trump!

The end.”

Ah yes, so we’re back to blaming Donald Trump for following the advice of his medical experts, most prominently Dr. Anthony Fauci. And, while we’re at it, let’s blame Mr. Trump for following federalist principles by deferring to state and local governments to deal flexibly with the varying regional conditions of the pandemic, rather than ruling by federal executive edict. Of course, some of those state and local officials botched it, such as Andrew Cuomo. That’s tragic, but had Trump followed a more prescriptive tack, the howling from the Left would have been even more deafening.

We know that children are at little risk from the coronavirus. Nor do they seem to transmit the virus like older individuals, but teachers unions are adamant that the risks their members face at school would far exceed those shouldered by other “essential” workers. And the unions, not shy about partisanship even while representing public employees, want nothing more than to see Trump lose the election. So the unions and the schools districts they seem to control hold parents hostage. They collect their tax revenue and salaries while delivering virtual service at lower standards than usual, or no service at all. (Of course, public schools in some parts of the country are in session.) 

The teachers’ unions and public schools might get their comeuppance. The situation represents a tremendous opportunity for private schools, home schooling, and innovative schooling paradigms. Many private schools are holding classes in-person, more parents are homeschooling, and alternative arrangements like learning pods have formed, many of which are quite cost-effective.

Pressure is building to allow education dollars to follow individual students, not simply to flow to specific government schools. You can buy a decent K-12 education for $12,000 a year or so, and it’s likely to be a better education than you’ll get in many public schools. (One of the panelists on the NPR segment smugly called this an “insidious temptation”). At long last, parents would be allowed real choice in educating their children, and at long last schools would be incentivized to compete for those students. That might be one of the best things to come out of the pandemic.

Single-Provider Education, Ideology, and Lunch

16 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by in Education, School Choice

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Advocates of public education sometimes can’t help themselves from demanding that parents abandon their own informed judgments and principles for the good of the collective. A friend sent me the links below along with his misgivings about the motives at play. These are his words:

“Here are two examples of something that drives me crazy and amounts to little more than treating my child (and me) as a [resource] to be spent for the improvement of others. The first calls for parents who pack lunches (because they are healthier and cheaper than school lunches) to stop packing and use the school hot lunch so the added scale of moths could improve foods for everybody.

The second is the same, but about attending public school instead of private – again, so that the parental force added to the public schools will help improve public schools. Never mind if public schools are actually good for you.” 

The links are from the New York Times and Slate, respectively:

Why Are You Still Packing Lunch for Your Kids?

If You Send Your Kid To Private School, You Are a Bad Person

In terms of the simple economics, I’d boil these motives down to two things: a desire to achieve scale economies, which is forgivable as far as it goes; and a desire to strengthen the public education monopoly. Of course the latter brings perks for all those who participate in the management and operation of public schools, which have absorbed an ever-increasing volume of resources with little or no improvement in academic results. But the motives involve politics as well as economics. The apparent mission of the public school monopoly encompasses more than the mere provision of education. As I have discussed in more detail in an earlier post, it fosters the inculcation of collectivist values in our children. Public schools, and a few private schools catering to wealthy progressives who would say public schools are good for your kids, are hotbeds of social justice doctrine and identity politics.

Here are my friend’s closing thoughts:

“I’ve always been resistant to private school because we already pay for public [schools] and public [schools] are good enough. But lately I’ve been thinking about private school, in large part to keep [my son] away from these sorts of folks who want to use him for their own purposes…”

Those purposes can be kept in check only through school competition and parental choice. Like any creditable provider of services, schools should cater to their customers, not the other way around.

 

 

Ideology and the Public School Monopoly

15 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by in Education

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I toured our local public high school not long ago after some renovations. It’s my old school and my kids attended there as well, though it’s been largely stripped of its old character. Our sweet tour guide, when asked about school security and whether any staff are armed, said no, and then proudly informed us that the temperament of the school was “pretty progressive”, and that sort of thing would not go over well. Later, as I stepped into the new library, I happened to notice a table right up-front intended to showcase several books. The first title I laid eyes on was “Social Justice”, a topic emphasizing all manner of grievances, current and historical, the identification of culpable parties (and their unworthy descendants), and presumed correctives. The latter include reparations, redistribution, control of speech, criminalization, and often shaming. At best, these correctives deliver palliatives to the aggrieved that must be forcibly extracted by the state from others, with little consideration for the predictably disastrous second-order effects they engender.

The prominent display of the social justice book and our tour guide’s attitude regarding security were unsurprising manifestations of the educational emphasis our kids get today: the public schools have become indoctrination camps. Of course, a good class in American history will leave no doubt about the injustices that have occurred in our nation over 250 years. There were many individual victims and many groups were victimized. We could say the same about a good class in European history, or the history of events in any region of the world. However, the social justice doctrine being peddled to our children today assigns blame for victimhood to anyone deemed not to be a victim, as well as the growth and very success of western civilization, including capitalism, this despite the unprecedented comforts available today across the socioeconomic spectrum. It’s as if the SJWs wish to convince our children that all economic gains are of the zero-sum variety.

The politicization of the curriculum in our schools is an extremely dangerous phenomenon. Many schools are banning literature, distorting history, subverting science in favor of politicized orthodoxy, and teaching “social justice math“, which I’m sure is heavy on zero-sum word problems. And how about this “Run from the cop” worksheet given to first graders in a Pittsburgh school! Federal and state education authorities are taking an active hand in much of this. For example, a new ethnic studies curriculum for California high schools proposed by the state Department of Education takes a notably anti-Israel perspective. At the federal level, there is the Common Core initiative (and see here) which, in addition to educational inefficacy, is a source of many of the same concerns cited above. President Obama’s school discipline policy, heavy in its emphasis on “disparate impact”, was perhaps even more disastrous (and see here).

Social studies textbooks today are increasingly written by leftist authors who distort U.S. history, present anti-science viewpoints on environmental topics, and promote the divisive tenets of multiculturalism. The U.S. history covered in this prominent textbook is subject to a variety of left-wing biases, but it is not unique in that regard. And it’s not only a matter of bias in favor of collectivist philosophy and leftist interpretations of historical events. For example, it’s way over the top to teach public school children that Christians are bigots.

But God bless the teachers, many of whom are indeed wonderful people, and many of whom are very good at what they do (my daughter being a prime example!). There is little doubt, however, that leftism dominates the faculty in most public schools. John Hinderaker writes of the political activism practiced by the faculty at a high school in Edina, Minnesota, where lessons about “white privilege” are part of the curriculum even in the feeder schools. It’s a travesty that many of our nation’s public school teachers are products of university schools of education with extremely low academic standards relative to other academic divisions within those universities. And these schools of education have been thoroughly politicized. Needless to say, a good many of their graduates are easily cowed by the typical “feel-good”, free-lunch, social justice arguments made by the Left.

In a sense, these civil servants are a local counterpart to the army of federal bureaucrats sometimes known as the “deep state”. They are funded by taxpayers and are often represented by powerful unions. Under-performing teachers are difficult to dismiss, and they are able to exercise great discretion in the messages they deliver to students. As Darleen Click writes, “The ‘woke’ want your children“.

The leftist thrust of public education today descends from a long evolution shaped by “progressive” education reforms, and most reforms receiving attention within today’s education establishment fail to address the single biggest problem: the public school monopoly. That inattention is reinforced by attempts to maintain ideological purity among participants in the debate over school reform. Social studies teachers Mike Margeson and Justin Spears, writing for the Foundation for Economic Education on the motives for establishing public education, say the following about historical reforms:

“The objective was to nationalize the youth in a particular mold. … From Luther to Fichte, the idea to use the coercive power of the state to force kids into schools and indoctrinate them was clear. Horace Mann became instrumental in importing this system and helping it spread throughout the United States.”

Breaking the public education monopoly is imperative to improving both the quality and cost of education. That means choice, in all it’s liberating glory. J.D. Tuccille has a great take on this issue: choice is the only way we can assure that our children are taught from a perspective that parents most prefer. Many parents know that they must take an active part in educating their children. That includes their role in selecting the school they believe will be best for their kids, as well as ongoing scrutiny of the school’s performance. A simple by-product of choice is that schools and their faculties might be more circumspect about shading their instruction with their own political agendas.

 

 

The Special Olympics and Tax-Funded Philanthropy

30 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by in Big Government, Education, Federal Budget

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The federal government’s contribution to funding the Special Olympics (SO) illustrates the widespread view of government as a limitless font of subsidies for appealing causes. People were up in arms over the elimination of $17.6 million dollars in federal grants for the SO in President Trump’s budget proposal. Granted, that’s a pittance as budget items go. Later, Trump promised to restore the funding. That is, of course, in addition to the millions in federal tax subsidies already granted on private gifts to the SO.  As Nick Gillespie explains, SO funding is like so many other things people want from government that government has no business doing. Why, exactly, should the federal government, or any level of government, fund the SO? It is a wonderful program, but it simply does not have the character of a public good, nor is it a safety net issue.

The SO certainly benefits the athletes and families that take part, but those benefits are strictly private. Perhaps the larger population of disabled individuals takes inspiration from watching the SO, along with good-hearted people everywhere. Most everyone is happy to know that the SO happen, but those are no more public benefits than the good vibes you get from viewing an inspirational film or theatrical production. For that matter, sports fans and patriots are inspired by great efforts on the part of the U.S. Olympic team, but the federal government does not fund the U.S. Olympic Committee. It’s therefore absurd to assert that the public bears an obligation to pay for the most athletic of disabled individuals to have opportunities to compete and win medals just like Olympic athletes.

Gillespie explains a little about the history and funding of the SO:

“Founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the Special Olympics is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, meaning that deductions to it are tax deductible. According to its 2017 financials (the most-recent available on the web), the organization had total revenues of about $149 million, including $15.5 million in federal grants. It’s not a stretch to assume that if federal funding disappears, the resulting outcry would lead to record donations.”

And again, let’s not forget that corporate gifts to the SO are tax deductible up to certain limits. Gillespie also quotes Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos:

“There are dozens of worthy nonprofits that support students and adults with disabilities that don’t get a dime of federal grant money. But given our current budget realities, the federal government cannot fund every worthy program, particularly ones that enjoy robust support from private donations.”

Families with disabled children have extraordinary needs. It’s probably better to think of federal support for those needs as a safety net issue, a form of social insurance. There are several federal programs that provide funds to support low-income families with disabled kids. And while the cut to SO funding was in the budget originally submitted by Secretary DeVos, Gillespie notes that the DOE’s budget “allocates over $32 billion for ‘high-need students,’ which includes intellectually disabled students.” 

DeVos was widely criticized for her budget, but as Gillespie says, she sets a fine example for anyone in a position to help rein in the growth of federal spending and ultimately the federal budget deficit. Given the DOE’s track record of poor programmatic guidance (Common Core), counter-productive school disciplinary mandates, and it’s complete lack of impact on educational outcomes after 40 years of existence and many billions of dollars spent, the continued existence of the DOE is difficult to rationalize.

Once a program appears in the federal budget, no matter how inappropriate as a public priority, and no matter how ineffective, its constituency will always defend its funding with rabid enthusiasm. That defense is multiplied by a chorus of statists in the media and elsewhere who, in their benevolent intentions for the taxes paid by others, can be counted upon to call out the “cruelty” of any proposed cuts, or even mere cuts in a program’s projected growth. The Special Olympics episode, and the DOE, are cases in point.