The Balkanization of Education.

[RANT]

Parental Rights… we hear this mantra coming from the right over what schools can teach, what does it mean?

Right now the biggest flap that the far-right is pushing what they claim is being taught in schools, all around the country there is a cultural war going to bring our educations systems to its knees.

Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was trying to destroy public education and was shifting funding from public schools to private schools during her term in office. Most of the funding under her administration according to US News & World Reports…

A Path to Destruction
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos #39 budget cuts would harm vulnerable kids and families.
By Randi Weingarten
April 18, 2017


Education Secretary Betsy DeVos spent two decades defunding and destabilizing public schools in Michigan, and now she wants to spread that same agenda to every town and city in America. How else do you explain the cruel and craven cuts she and President Donald Trump have proposed to funding for after-school and summer programs, child nutrition programs, class-size reduction, community schools and the supports kids need and parents rely on? How else can you rationalize the White House budget director claiming that there's no evidence that feeding hungry children helps them do better in school? These are programs essential to meeting the social, emotional and academic needs of children. We can't go back and undo what DeVos did in Michigan, but we can and must stand up and stop her from pushing this anti-public school agenda across the country.

Now we see another attack by the right to fracture public education by the catchphrase Parental Rights to bring education down to its lowest denominator. We see vague words used like “critical race theory,” “grooming,” pornographic books” and “sex education.”

Here’s the Long List of Topics Republicans Want Banned From the Classroom
Education Week
By Sarah Schwartz & Eesha Pendharkar
February 2, 2022


Republicans this year have drastically broadened their legislative efforts to censor what’s taught in the classroom, according to an Education Week analysis of active state bills.

What started in early 2021 as a conservative effort to prohibit teachers from talking about diversity and inequality in so-called “divisive” ways or taking sides on “controversial” issues has now expanded to include proposed restrictions on teaching that the United States is a racist country, that certain economic or political systems are racist, or that multiple gender identities exist, according to an Education Week analysis of 61 new bills and other state-level actions.

In Florida, a bill would ban teachers from saying “racial colorblindness” is racist. In South Carolina, a bill would ban teaching that “equity is a concept that is superior to or supplants the concept of equality.” In New Hampshire, “promoting a negative account or representation of the founding and history of the United States of America” could become illegal, if a bill were to pass.

In at least 10 states, legislators have proposed bills that would require administrators to list every book, reading, and activity that teachers use in their lessons, a process that educators argue would be cumbersome and expensive. Some of these bills also require districts to give parents prior right of review for new curriculum adoptions or library additions.

Is this the future of education going to look like?

I want my child to attend the following classes:

__ Reading & writing classes
__ Reading (but only the classic) & writing classes
__ Reading (but only the Bible) & writing classes
__ English classes
__ Math classes
__ Math (but not algebra) classes
__ Math (but not algebra or calculus) classes
__ Science classes
__ Sciences (but only evolution and that we are not related to monkeys) classes
__ Earth science classes
__ Earth science (but only a flat earth) classes
__ Earth science (but only that the earth is only 3000 years old) classes
__ Human sexuality classes
__ Human sexuality (but only if they do not cover; homosexuals, transsexuals, intersex, and sex) classes

Is this what the future of public education going to look like?

To me it seems like that the Republicans want to get back to public education that only taught the 3R’s,  reading, writing and arithmetic. They don’t want to teach critical thinking, critical thinking makes children question authority,  critical thinking makes children ask questions,  critical thinking makes children think. Critical thinking makes gives conservatives a headache.

You have to ask yourself, why are the Republicans creating a cultural war over education? Besides votes what are their ultimate goals? But then asking those questions is critical thinking.

Education is needed for a democracy, while a lack of education is needed for authoritarian form of governments.

[/RANT]