A part of the problem is the culture here as well. Anywhere else in the world, being a teacher is a respected profession. Intense appreciation and value are placed upon education in general. People don't respect teachers, it is no surprise that the current system reflects that. The education system here has long had issues, the pandemic proved that the conveyer-belt system we have made for students doesn't work.
I had a conversation with the GOP vice chair here in CO. Her argument to me was that nowhere does the constitution provide for public education. This is where they are going next.
I believe it might be too late to save our public schools. Addressing and meeting state standards and being accountable are hallmarks of public education. If charter and private schools begin receiving tax payer dollars through vouchers, then they need to also be held accountable to the same standards that are followed by our public school system. Fair is fair.
This is the same thing they did that resulted in SCOTUS overturning Roe v Wade. Little by little they taught people who to challenged a law here and a law there changing their tactics along the way until a case finally landed on the the docket of the Supreme Court.
As usual, all the republicans have gotten the memo. They speak in a constant loop about “school choice”, but it is code for money for Christian schools and white privileged children. They know that marginalized and immigrant families can’t afford the extra money they would have to pay for “school choice”.
I follow and support a group doing hard, courageous work. Here from the website is their “About Us.”
America’s schools are arguably more segregated than before the Civil Rights Movement…
Because school segregation is as much a story of failed public policy as it is of White &/or privileged families thwarting it, we believe that a cultural shift toward not only valuing but prioritizing integration is long overdue. We call in White &/or privileged families to consider the how the choices we make for our kids’ schools’ affects all kids in our communities.
Integrated Schools (est. 2015) supports meaningfully integrated classrooms that reflect the diversity of our districts. We champion school communities that respect ALL families and are galvanized around supporting ALL children. Through national organizing to promote local action, we support, educate, develop and mobilize families to “live our values,” disrupt segregation, and leverage our choices for the well-being and futures of our own children, of all children, and of our democracy.
As to failed public policy, it is nothing but sad when there have been good ideas not given half a chance to work. I read and look back at the work of James Moffett; below here from “The Universal Schoolhouse.” I would encourage anyone reading this to note that there is a new book, called “Toward a Re-Emergence of James Moffett’s Mindful, Spiritual, and Student-Centered Pedagogy.”
Page xvi
“Each community should organize a totally individualized, far-flung learning network giving all people of all ages access to any learning resource at any time. Nothing is required, but everything is made available. Users make the decisions but avail themselves of constant counseling by a variety of parties. The very concept of schools, classes, courses, exams, and curriculum is superseded. Subjects and methods are reorganized around individual learners forging their personal curricula in interaction with others doing the same across a whole spectrum of learning sites, situations, and technologies. This is what I am calling the universal schoolhouse.”
While I agreed with most of your well written answer I fiercely disagree with the notion that anyone who bites differently then you is a bigot or uneducated. Those people believe, wrongly, in my opinion the same about you. We as a country will NEVER come together if the majority of citizens believe that those who vote differently are the enemy not concerned citizens who have a different opinion.
It’s not “anyone” who votes differently. I’m specifically talking about the ~30% of the population and ~60% of the GOP base who would back Trump no matter what he says, who he betrays, or what he is charged with.
If a person is gullible enough to join a cult without realizing it, they are ignorant.
When the core belief of that cult is that white America is under threat from — well, you name it: minorities, immigrants, transgender people, librarians, school boards — they are bigots.
When the GOP caters to these folks by organizing them and giving them political cover to push us backwards so that they can get their deregulation and tax cuts, that core of ignorance and bigotry becomes a problem we can’t ignore and that starts with calling it out for what it is.
It’s not complicated.
The reed of hope I have lies with the ~40% of conservative voters who aren’t in the cult.
Unless they are just shopping for a new dear leader of the white resistance in DeDantis, these are people with whom I may reasonably disagree with on the relative merits of, say, publicly funded healthcare, but I don’t assume they are ignorant, bigoted, or ill-intentioned.
We must absolutely protect the public schools from vouchers, charters, right wing parents, groups who ban books and sow discord and division. Currently, well funded and well programed loquacios women are taking the lead in communities. School boards are under heavy, continuous attack. More liberal and reasonable people absolutely MUST get involved to save public schools.
As an educator myself for many years, as well as a product of public schools (followed by community colleges and state universities) this trend/movement is as grievous to me as physical pain.
It is both enraging and heartbreaking to review what I have witnessed happening to our education system during my lifetime. When I began school, the United States was the first country in the world to offer free education from 1st grade (pre-school didn't exist yet) thru college. By the time I finished high school, there weren't many Community Colleges left. I remember when Hunter Lehman began charging tuition and the distress and sadness this caused in my community. During Nixon's reign, I lost my job as a French teacher due to federal cutbacks. FlESS programs were eliminated throughout the country and in 1972 thousands of teachers were without jobs. It does seem to me that Republicans have caused the most defunding of our schools and have made the most noise about how terrible our education system is while at the same time causing the most disruption at school board meetings. Look at Florida's mess, Forgive me, but it seems to me that the Republican party is committed to stupidity and ignorance as evidenced by Trumpetts. It is discouraging, enraging and heartbreaking, and yet there are many out there who jump on the bandwagon for idiocy. Thank you Dan for continuing to highlight the important issues. You are a courageous gentleman!
We had the perfect opportunity to “reset” our image of education! Returning after the shut down starting new would have been easy. We are teaching with flannel graph in a technology world, with a flannel graph budget. Also, it is time that educators guide the education systems…. And politics stop victimizing our kids.
As a Wisconsin resident who witnessed the all out assault on public schools waged by the former governor, Walker, and how teachers became public enemy number one, None of what is happening today really surprises me. I remember attending school board meetings where parents were angry about how
Much money teachers were making as their salaries were posted by the district 😡these are the people educating your children, and you are mad about someone with a master’s degree making $65k, who had 20 years experience? It was complete insanity and this is just a new reiteration of the same voices.
As a biracial, queer, female public high school teacher, I cannot thank you enough for writing this! I became a teacher just six years ago and I have been aghast at the ways in which the already undersupported public education system is being attacked with intent to dismantle. Our history is both great as well as horrifically violent and tragic. If we are not willing to sit in the discomfort of the full truth of our past, how can we guarantee that we will never repeat those same mistakes? Anyone who says otherwise is implicitly supporting a movement that would see us return to Jim Crow laws (and probably even slavery). This is not about shaming white people and this is not about "attacking" Christianity; this is about truly being a country of freedom and justice for ALL. We were intended to be a nation where ANYONE can thrive as they practice whatever religious, cultural, or subcultural practices they choose, so long as those practices do not infringe upon someone else's human rights. Acceptance is not approval; someone does not have to approve of someone else's lifestyle in order to accept that ALL people have the same right to live, prosper, and thrive. We will never get there by turning a blind eye to everything that we find personally shameful or offensive. We have to be better. We have to teach our kids to be better. Thank you again, Mr. Rather. Your writing keeps my hope for a better future alive.
Thank you for this eloquently written and timely article. Our kids are returning to school soon. I still say "our kids" even though mine have long been out of the school system. I say "our kids" because they are a part of our communities and our future. I wish I could obtain and share this article with parents in our local school district. It is so well written and thought provoking. We must save our public education. I want to connect one on one not by social media. Again, thank you.
You write eloquently Mr. Rather so I won't even try to match you. But I take serious umbrage at the thought that if a parent goes to a meeting and gives his ir her opinion about what is being taught or what a specific book has to say about sex or some other topic that parent is is attacking the school or teacher. We are all different, don't you think parents will have opinions that are different. How dare you label anyone who does not walk in lockstep with the board of education for or the principal as parents who are attacking their authority.
I know I read many articles by you attacking President Trump, and while I agreed with most if not all of them, were we wrong to express our opinions. Please, I can't write like you but I know that you must be fair. If we can state our opinions about Trump then we'll intentioned parents can do the same at a meeting.
There is a difference between parents participating in public education and an organized, cynical effort to use that basic right to systematically attack the system itself in order to degrade a political threat.
Here, Mr. Rather is shining a light on well-funded organizations who are leveraging the ignorance and bigotry of parents to organize them to gin up outrage and ensure that the next generation of “conservative” offspring are just as easily manipulated as their parents are by eliminating the state’s ability to teach a curriculum that is in the best interest of our society.
As he sometimes does, Trump said the quiet part out loud when he said “I love the poorly educated.”
Of course he does. They are the reason the GOP needs him. Without Trump, the GOP loses his base because his base believes Trump can stick it to the man on their behalf. “The man” includes the traditional GOP, which is backed now as ever by the 1% who control the majority of wealth in the US.
If the 1% wanted to move past Trump, McConnell would have impeached him the second time. They predictably chose to continue weakening the institutions that are the only check on whatever they want to do to turn a profit. Even out of office, Trump is useful in this regard: Just look at the attacks on the legal system and the narrative that these are purely political prosecutions. This is just a continuation of the attacks on our institutions that he started in office.
The GOP know they won’t have Trump forever and they know that the changing demographics of the country are a threat if the future US population has the ability to vote in free elections that the vast majority of us believe to be fair. Trump is a gift and abate ring ram they use to attack this democracy on multiple fronts, and public education is one of the most important to them (DeSantis is the backup plan. His whole performance is FL was to prove his bonafides).
The biggest threat to a strategy that rests on dividing people into us-against-them-tribes is having too many people who can see the strategy for what it is. That kind of political literacy requires the ability to read and think critically and it requires that our kids learn empathy for their fellow citizens, which is why teaching the truth about black history is being attacked.
By systematically attacking public education across the board, the money behind the GOP is trying to ensure that red state kids don’t question their parent’s easily-manipulated “God, Guns, goddam city folks” worldview while simultaneously ensuring that urban kids of color continue to have a hard time learning about how they could use democracy to better their communities, ultimately at the expense of the 1%’s ability to do as they please while paying the absolute minimum in tax to support our government.
An educated populace is a major threat to the plan.
This is not about parents exercising their 1st amendment right to expressing their opinions the same way we express opinions about Trump. This is about whether or not there are still enough people in the right places to use our democracy to fight back to a place where we the people have more power than the 1% before it is too late.
If Trump somehow gets back in, he already has a plan to dismantle the civil service. There is a tipping point where the GOP will be in a position to impose minority, autocratic rule on the rest of us by using what is left of the machinery of our democracy against us to end it, and I fear that we are very, very close to it.
A part of the problem is the culture here as well. Anywhere else in the world, being a teacher is a respected profession. Intense appreciation and value are placed upon education in general. People don't respect teachers, it is no surprise that the current system reflects that. The education system here has long had issues, the pandemic proved that the conveyer-belt system we have made for students doesn't work.
I had a conversation with the GOP vice chair here in CO. Her argument to me was that nowhere does the constitution provide for public education. This is where they are going next.
I believe it might be too late to save our public schools. Addressing and meeting state standards and being accountable are hallmarks of public education. If charter and private schools begin receiving tax payer dollars through vouchers, then they need to also be held accountable to the same standards that are followed by our public school system. Fair is fair.
This is the same thing they did that resulted in SCOTUS overturning Roe v Wade. Little by little they taught people who to challenged a law here and a law there changing their tactics along the way until a case finally landed on the the docket of the Supreme Court.
As usual, all the republicans have gotten the memo. They speak in a constant loop about “school choice”, but it is code for money for Christian schools and white privileged children. They know that marginalized and immigrant families can’t afford the extra money they would have to pay for “school choice”.
I follow and support a group doing hard, courageous work. Here from the website is their “About Us.”
America’s schools are arguably more segregated than before the Civil Rights Movement…
Because school segregation is as much a story of failed public policy as it is of White &/or privileged families thwarting it, we believe that a cultural shift toward not only valuing but prioritizing integration is long overdue. We call in White &/or privileged families to consider the how the choices we make for our kids’ schools’ affects all kids in our communities.
Integrated Schools (est. 2015) supports meaningfully integrated classrooms that reflect the diversity of our districts. We champion school communities that respect ALL families and are galvanized around supporting ALL children. Through national organizing to promote local action, we support, educate, develop and mobilize families to “live our values,” disrupt segregation, and leverage our choices for the well-being and futures of our own children, of all children, and of our democracy.
As to failed public policy, it is nothing but sad when there have been good ideas not given half a chance to work. I read and look back at the work of James Moffett; below here from “The Universal Schoolhouse.” I would encourage anyone reading this to note that there is a new book, called “Toward a Re-Emergence of James Moffett’s Mindful, Spiritual, and Student-Centered Pedagogy.”
Page xvi
“Each community should organize a totally individualized, far-flung learning network giving all people of all ages access to any learning resource at any time. Nothing is required, but everything is made available. Users make the decisions but avail themselves of constant counseling by a variety of parties. The very concept of schools, classes, courses, exams, and curriculum is superseded. Subjects and methods are reorganized around individual learners forging their personal curricula in interaction with others doing the same across a whole spectrum of learning sites, situations, and technologies. This is what I am calling the universal schoolhouse.”
Mr. Rock
While I agreed with most of your well written answer I fiercely disagree with the notion that anyone who bites differently then you is a bigot or uneducated. Those people believe, wrongly, in my opinion the same about you. We as a country will NEVER come together if the majority of citizens believe that those who vote differently are the enemy not concerned citizens who have a different opinion.
Jack
It’s not “anyone” who votes differently. I’m specifically talking about the ~30% of the population and ~60% of the GOP base who would back Trump no matter what he says, who he betrays, or what he is charged with.
If a person is gullible enough to join a cult without realizing it, they are ignorant.
When the core belief of that cult is that white America is under threat from — well, you name it: minorities, immigrants, transgender people, librarians, school boards — they are bigots.
When the GOP caters to these folks by organizing them and giving them political cover to push us backwards so that they can get their deregulation and tax cuts, that core of ignorance and bigotry becomes a problem we can’t ignore and that starts with calling it out for what it is.
It’s not complicated.
The reed of hope I have lies with the ~40% of conservative voters who aren’t in the cult.
Unless they are just shopping for a new dear leader of the white resistance in DeDantis, these are people with whom I may reasonably disagree with on the relative merits of, say, publicly funded healthcare, but I don’t assume they are ignorant, bigoted, or ill-intentioned.
We must absolutely protect the public schools from vouchers, charters, right wing parents, groups who ban books and sow discord and division. Currently, well funded and well programed loquacios women are taking the lead in communities. School boards are under heavy, continuous attack. More liberal and reasonable people absolutely MUST get involved to save public schools.
As an educator myself for many years, as well as a product of public schools (followed by community colleges and state universities) this trend/movement is as grievous to me as physical pain.
It is both enraging and heartbreaking to review what I have witnessed happening to our education system during my lifetime. When I began school, the United States was the first country in the world to offer free education from 1st grade (pre-school didn't exist yet) thru college. By the time I finished high school, there weren't many Community Colleges left. I remember when Hunter Lehman began charging tuition and the distress and sadness this caused in my community. During Nixon's reign, I lost my job as a French teacher due to federal cutbacks. FlESS programs were eliminated throughout the country and in 1972 thousands of teachers were without jobs. It does seem to me that Republicans have caused the most defunding of our schools and have made the most noise about how terrible our education system is while at the same time causing the most disruption at school board meetings. Look at Florida's mess, Forgive me, but it seems to me that the Republican party is committed to stupidity and ignorance as evidenced by Trumpetts. It is discouraging, enraging and heartbreaking, and yet there are many out there who jump on the bandwagon for idiocy. Thank you Dan for continuing to highlight the important issues. You are a courageous gentleman!
We had the perfect opportunity to “reset” our image of education! Returning after the shut down starting new would have been easy. We are teaching with flannel graph in a technology world, with a flannel graph budget. Also, it is time that educators guide the education systems…. And politics stop victimizing our kids.
As a Wisconsin resident who witnessed the all out assault on public schools waged by the former governor, Walker, and how teachers became public enemy number one, None of what is happening today really surprises me. I remember attending school board meetings where parents were angry about how
Much money teachers were making as their salaries were posted by the district 😡these are the people educating your children, and you are mad about someone with a master’s degree making $65k, who had 20 years experience? It was complete insanity and this is just a new reiteration of the same voices.
Thank for putting our conscience in print.
As a biracial, queer, female public high school teacher, I cannot thank you enough for writing this! I became a teacher just six years ago and I have been aghast at the ways in which the already undersupported public education system is being attacked with intent to dismantle. Our history is both great as well as horrifically violent and tragic. If we are not willing to sit in the discomfort of the full truth of our past, how can we guarantee that we will never repeat those same mistakes? Anyone who says otherwise is implicitly supporting a movement that would see us return to Jim Crow laws (and probably even slavery). This is not about shaming white people and this is not about "attacking" Christianity; this is about truly being a country of freedom and justice for ALL. We were intended to be a nation where ANYONE can thrive as they practice whatever religious, cultural, or subcultural practices they choose, so long as those practices do not infringe upon someone else's human rights. Acceptance is not approval; someone does not have to approve of someone else's lifestyle in order to accept that ALL people have the same right to live, prosper, and thrive. We will never get there by turning a blind eye to everything that we find personally shameful or offensive. We have to be better. We have to teach our kids to be better. Thank you again, Mr. Rather. Your writing keeps my hope for a better future alive.
Thank you for this eloquently written and timely article. Our kids are returning to school soon. I still say "our kids" even though mine have long been out of the school system. I say "our kids" because they are a part of our communities and our future. I wish I could obtain and share this article with parents in our local school district. It is so well written and thought provoking. We must save our public education. I want to connect one on one not by social media. Again, thank you.
You write eloquently Mr. Rather so I won't even try to match you. But I take serious umbrage at the thought that if a parent goes to a meeting and gives his ir her opinion about what is being taught or what a specific book has to say about sex or some other topic that parent is is attacking the school or teacher. We are all different, don't you think parents will have opinions that are different. How dare you label anyone who does not walk in lockstep with the board of education for or the principal as parents who are attacking their authority.
I know I read many articles by you attacking President Trump, and while I agreed with most if not all of them, were we wrong to express our opinions. Please, I can't write like you but I know that you must be fair. If we can state our opinions about Trump then we'll intentioned parents can do the same at a meeting.
Jack
There is a difference between parents participating in public education and an organized, cynical effort to use that basic right to systematically attack the system itself in order to degrade a political threat.
Here, Mr. Rather is shining a light on well-funded organizations who are leveraging the ignorance and bigotry of parents to organize them to gin up outrage and ensure that the next generation of “conservative” offspring are just as easily manipulated as their parents are by eliminating the state’s ability to teach a curriculum that is in the best interest of our society.
As he sometimes does, Trump said the quiet part out loud when he said “I love the poorly educated.”
Of course he does. They are the reason the GOP needs him. Without Trump, the GOP loses his base because his base believes Trump can stick it to the man on their behalf. “The man” includes the traditional GOP, which is backed now as ever by the 1% who control the majority of wealth in the US.
If the 1% wanted to move past Trump, McConnell would have impeached him the second time. They predictably chose to continue weakening the institutions that are the only check on whatever they want to do to turn a profit. Even out of office, Trump is useful in this regard: Just look at the attacks on the legal system and the narrative that these are purely political prosecutions. This is just a continuation of the attacks on our institutions that he started in office.
The GOP know they won’t have Trump forever and they know that the changing demographics of the country are a threat if the future US population has the ability to vote in free elections that the vast majority of us believe to be fair. Trump is a gift and abate ring ram they use to attack this democracy on multiple fronts, and public education is one of the most important to them (DeSantis is the backup plan. His whole performance is FL was to prove his bonafides).
The biggest threat to a strategy that rests on dividing people into us-against-them-tribes is having too many people who can see the strategy for what it is. That kind of political literacy requires the ability to read and think critically and it requires that our kids learn empathy for their fellow citizens, which is why teaching the truth about black history is being attacked.
By systematically attacking public education across the board, the money behind the GOP is trying to ensure that red state kids don’t question their parent’s easily-manipulated “God, Guns, goddam city folks” worldview while simultaneously ensuring that urban kids of color continue to have a hard time learning about how they could use democracy to better their communities, ultimately at the expense of the 1%’s ability to do as they please while paying the absolute minimum in tax to support our government.
An educated populace is a major threat to the plan.
This is not about parents exercising their 1st amendment right to expressing their opinions the same way we express opinions about Trump. This is about whether or not there are still enough people in the right places to use our democracy to fight back to a place where we the people have more power than the 1% before it is too late.
If Trump somehow gets back in, he already has a plan to dismantle the civil service. There is a tipping point where the GOP will be in a position to impose minority, autocratic rule on the rest of us by using what is left of the machinery of our democracy against us to end it, and I fear that we are very, very close to it.
Amen!