Education $ #1

New laws passed this year mandate changes to education standards in the state of Minnesota. No, the standards are not going to improve the declining quality of our schools, except in the opinion of woke ideologues. 

As the governor says, they will produce a "miracle" with emphasis on "equity," not academics. Teaching licenses now require teachers: to affirm different sexual identities, to "understand" white supremacy, to "empower" (read: train) students to become agents of social change.

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Why these disputed, divisive ideas? Because, as the state licensure board says, "a teacher must have a foundational understanding of how race and racism are embedded in our institutions and everyday life." 

That pernicious view is pushed, not by most people, but by one segment of one of our political parties. Now, children must be formally trained in it, and they'll believe it. We know what that portends for the future.

from Thinking Minnesota, "License to Woke"

(cont'd tomorrow)

Indoctrinated 3

Follow-up to this post

Students in our academic systems are being trained to look at things in perverse ways: condemning whole races and groups of people as irredeemably bad. This wave takes over America after decades of civil rights work, reversing all progress.

Now there's evidence that the perverse wave is not driven by academics only. This anti-America, anti-Israel woke wave is an opportunity for an "influence campaign" by certain foreign countries to push their own views on American students, and they can buy their way in.

Network Contagion Research Institute released a study finding, among other things, that:

"[A]t least 200 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undisclosed contributions from foreign regimes, many of which are authoritarian."

Correlation is not causation, as this author reminds us, which means that this does not prove wrongdoing. But these colleges kept large amounts of money hidden from the government.

It would be hard to believe "that these countries give nine- and ten-figure gifts to universities expecting nothing in return." Yes, it's hard to believe that. They expect something. What?

from Free Press

Indoctrinated 1

Since Hamas invaded Israel with the accompanying barbaric atrocities on October 7, America's government has condemned the assault and promised help to Israel. 

U.S. voting citizens are solidly and massively in agreement. According to the Harvard/Harris Poll performed twelve days later, about 86% of us call it terrorism. Most of us see genocide of Jews as the purpose of Hamas behind the attack.

All of the horror we feel for what was done to innocent women, children and the elderly stands in contrast to widely reported protests of some Harvard students. A letter justifying Hamas and blaming Israel was signed by 31 student groups. Other campuses are similar.

Jewish student in her junior year at Stanford says she's not surprised at student support for the attack. Though most of those students have parents who brought them up to abhor extreme violence, their education has indoctrinated them to align themselves with a completely different mindset.

(cont'd tomorrow)

POC testifies

She's a minority voice and she deserves to be heard.

A pillar of CRT as taught in schools is that white people are all oppressors and that minority race people are all oppressed. But CRT policy and ideology are opposed by persons of color as well as white people. Why is that? It's because nobody really wants their child to feel hopeless. 

This articulate mom (and attorney) testifies that she is opposed to "ethnic studies" as defined in a proposed Minnesota bill. She says everything that sounds good is not necessarily good, that we in the U.S. got rid of the old race-based system - and it's not 1930 anymore.

She doesn't like her kids being told that there's no use in trying to succeed, that black boys would probably not even live until retirement because of racism. Of course she doesn't like that. Black kids - all kids - need a sense of agency, not hopelessness.

"I can see why you white proponents of this bill might support it. It's not your kids being told that they can't succeed, and you get to shed some of your white guilt in the process."

Race over all

Certain things happened during the course of the covid pandemic (2020-2022) that changed us as a society. Working remotely from home is now preferred by people who are able to do that. Churches that were locked down now struggle to regain attendance. And parents discovered that they hotly disagreed with some things promoted in their kids' schools.

To the surprise and shock of many of us, we learned that racism - perversely called "anti-racism" - is often central to policy in our schools. Children are taught that they are inferior because of their race, or that they are hated because of their race. We have fought against that way of thinking for many, many years.

Parents don't like it. Sometimes teachers and administrators deny it. 

Here is one bright student who has seen it in his school, and explains it to his school board in very plain language. You'll have to follow this link to the Twitter video to see it for yourself.

DEI 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) training in the work place can be a good thing for  employees, according to author Angel Eduardo, when it helps them treat all people in an equally respectful manner. It can open their eyes if they treat people of color disrespectfully.

During his own experience with DEI training at his current job, he shared the experience he observed in a previous job (yesterday's post), plus a solution he feels would prevent such a job-related misstep: a regular meet-and-greet for all staff so they could get to know each other better.

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Sadly, the rest of the DEI attendees rushed to judgment, blaming horrible racism as the motivation behind the office assistant's behavior. Mr. Eduardo thinks this "foregone conclusion" to assume racism leads to no good result. He recommends constructive patience and grace.

"It is possible to counter inhumanity with humanity; to respond to dehumanization and demonization by emphasizing the dignity and individuality of each and every human being, no matter what group they belong to."

from Fair for All

Which half

His mother was from Brazil, his father from the state of Minnesota in the U.S. He spent time in both, has relatives in both, likes both soccer and football, feels at home in both (though currently living here in the U.S.).

In an America obsessed these days with identity, he wonders who he is. He looks like a white male, “arguably the most privileged and simultaneously the most demonized group in America. As a result of this, I am considered implicitly and irredeemably racist. I am both a beneficiary and an abettor of white privilege. I am at the very top of the oppressor . . scale."

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Or maybe he's Latino or Hispanic. When he applied to medical school, should he have used  modern terms to claim membership in an "under-represented minority" to get some kind of advantage? 

It just didn't occur to him. He's always believed that "all people are of equal worth, regardless of their sex, race, gender, or other immutable characteristics." That's how he was brought up, and how he raises his own kids. 

People should not be judged on characteristics of their birth.

from his story at FAIRforall

Equity

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Oregon's governor has bought in to this wrong-headed thinking. Law was established that high school graduation must be stripped of any requirement that the graduate be able to read, write, or do math. She claims that this policy will help students who are “black, Latino, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.”  

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So now graduation from high school means essentially nothing in that state. No student will have any sense of accomplishment from completing this rite of passage. No student of color will be empowered from knowing he/she has achieved a high school education. And . . what does this do to future employers who really need workers who can read, write, do math? 

Equity as a policy is harmful to kids of every color. It's hard to believe that people of normal intelligence don't grasp this. Somehow the educational system in America has been quietly overtaken by a pernicious philosophy. 

Parents have indeed been blindsided.

from NYPost

SEL

Citizens and parents are organizing to fight the teaching of "Critical Race Theory" in schools. They don't want their children being taught that race sets all Americans against each other: the oppressed victims (all people of color) and the evil oppressor (all white people). 

School administrators replied back, "We're not teaching Critical Race Theory." Well, it's not the title but the ideas of CRT that we object to. And now those same ideas are showing up under a new program called "Social Emotional Learning" (SEL).

Nice sounding words, but a euphemism for the racism of CRT.

Whatever they call it, we still do not want our kids or grandchildren - or neighborhood children! - taught that they're doomed to despair by their color and that America is fundamentally structured for evil oppression. 

Our kids are not doomed by their color and America holds opportunity for everyone.

from Stream

Teacher quits 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Kali Fontanilla was supposed to tell students that race would define their lives. But she taught that hard work and taking personal responsibility for their lives would bring them success.

Other teachers told students that the police were out to get them, but she told them to respect the police. Other teachers told them that capitalism is cruel and that communism is not bad.

She was told by the School Board president that she is "anti-people-of-color," which surprised her. She replied, "I am people of color!"

She says that our educational system is obsessed with race and gender. She asks parents to look into what their kids are being taught, and to be vocal if it does not line up with their values.

Teacher quits

This teacher wanted to help kids get on a good path. She taught traditional values that have worked for hundreds of years. But she didn't fit in anymore at her public school because they wanted her to teach students the same things that are alarming parents all over the country.

Any color 1

When Ndona Muboyayi ran for school board, she posed questions about how and why things were taught in her kids' schools. Proudly affirming her identity as Congolese and American, she also wants to share insight she learned in cross-cultural experiences. Sometimes she hits resistance in American schools. 

A teacher was planning a unit on genocide, so Ndona urged her to to include Rwanda as a recent modern example. But the teacher still left out the Rwandan genocide. 

Ndona thinks that these African black-on-black genocidal murders had the potential to undermine the whiteness-is-evil narrative taught in her school system. So Rwanda's history had to be ignored for the sake of the narrative, the ideology.

Ndona teaches her children that evil can come in any skin color. Any. Skin. Color.

CRT myths 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Critical race theory and its principles are definitely being taught in school rooms, says Dr. Deborah DeSouza Owens, CEO of Coalition of Americans for Action and Principle. If you or your friends are confused about this, it's not surprising at all. Myths and mis-direction abound.

Myth #1 - CRT simply gives some attention to the experiences of minority races in America. But -- no, CRT goes much further to claim that American government, institutions, and economy are all "rigged" to favor whiteness and therefore must all be deconstructed and re-invented.

Myth #2 - CRT is right and just to judge all white people as inherently racist. But -- no, shaming a whole race of people based on their race is itself racism. People are responsible for their own conduct and motives, not that of everyone of their color.

Myth #3 - CRT is not in schools. But -- no, it is often an unspoken/unlabeled assumption that underlies curriculum and classroom discussion.

Parents of every race are giving schools and government a message: "don't do this to my kids."

from Stream

CRT myths 1

So parents are rising up in pretty big numbers to fight CRT in the schools of their children. (Yesterday's Bion Bartning is one of them.) With all the new attention on it, some alarmed state legislatures have banned it from schools.

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But a reaction among teachers and administrators argues against the parents' movement. They counter that it's not true that they are teaching critical race theory. 

There are at least two different things going on here:

• One is that, yes, there is usually no course called "Critical Race Theory" that is being taught in most schools. But it's not an actual course that parents object to anyway. It is the ideas that make up CRT which are being taught in various courses and policies. 
• A second factor is that there may be intentional misleading of public opinion.

Confusion about definitions can take the air out of any debate and collapse the movement, so pro-CRT parties sow as much confusion as possible. It's sophistry. And of course there are always unaware people who simply don't understand.

Is it being taught or not? We want to know the truth.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Racial divide

Bion Bartning's new Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) just started in 2020, but it's grown to almost 40,000 followers who wish to stand for pro-human fairness and against the teaching of critical race theory in schools. 

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Why do they object to the philosophy of CRT? It's this: 

"Instead of teaching our children that they are unique individuals united by our shared humanity, it insists that they identify as members of racialized identity groups locked in a zero sum battle for power."

They wish to stand for gratitude instead of grievance . . to inspire optimism instead of learned helplessness . . to encourage forgiveness instead of the poison of resentment. 

Bartning is part of the movement of parents who feel a need to push back against the CRT direction being pushed in schools. He describes what alarmed him at his own kids' school in an article published in Wall Street Journal last year.

From FAIR

(cont'd tomorrow)

Move aside 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A political campaign last fall brought the issue to national attention. A candidate for governor took his stand against parents in a similar way to the educator in Tuesday's post. Shocked parents voted "No" to his campaign, and he lost. The new governor seems to have their backs.

It came as a shock to find out that political indoctrination had replaced academic learning in their children's classes. Parents know that gender confusion, malicious new racism, declining academic standards, etc., may result in permanent harm to their kids - not the empathy/intelligence claimed by this educator.

Now we've found out that there's a sizable number of parents who are by no means ready to give away their responsibility and rights. Eventually we'll find out if enough of them will stay engaged with their children's education long term . . long enough to turn this ship around.

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Lack of agency

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

William Allen describes the time of his youth in Florida as marked by genuine racism. But somehow he did not see himself as helpless or in need of rescue. Calling it a sense of agency, he knew he could still act as an agent, could build something for himself despite the environment.

"People [his black community] were not so overcome with the spirit of oppression that they lacked agency." But that's how he sees our current time. It's the spirit of the 1619 Project, that America is and always has been defined by unredeemable racism.

Some see racism as built into the essence of America. But not Professor Allen. On the contrary, he sees the antidote to racism as built right into the essence of America: 

"[W]hat looks like a tension in the United States might just as well be thought of as the explosion of a seed planted earlier. And that seed planted earlier was planted in the Declaration of Independence . . that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator . . ." 

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Received agency

Born in the American South in 1944, William Allen saw racism up close. He remembers what it was like when a black person could be "the object of contempt, derision or hatred, or even random verbal violence, which could easily happen as you walk through the streets.”

Racism was real and open in his youth. But old age invites comparison of the decades, and he has seen change. Good change came slowly after civil rights legislation, but he sees another change in today's black people that is not so good, a sort of despair.

His mother always told him, "Boy, hold your head up!" She gave him agency (definition 2), to see himself as able to act, to do something on his own behalf, to not be a helpless victim. "We knew who we were . . and we didn’t need to be rescued." Empowered by that view of reality, he was able to create a good life for himself as a college professor.

Today it's different. Certain black voices use their public platform to send a poisonous message of hopeless anger and violence.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Exceptional 1

Chenyuan Snider grew up in China, is non-white, and now lives in the U.S. According to critical race theory, that means she must be suffering from inevitable racism. But, no.

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On the contrary. She is, she says, "overwhelmed" when she thinks of the privileges she has as an American citizen. As one who had years of personal life experience in the two cultures, she offers her perspective to Americans who can only theorize about what it's like to live in China. She's on a mission to open their eyes and tell her story.

As a fellow Christian, she's horrified that about half of us don't exercise our minimum civic responsibility to vote in elections. We have a right to engage with government policies, to organize on behalf of what we believe to be right. The Chinese don't. They are helpless to influence the direction of their government when it moves against their values.

Because ". . we have both power and opportunity to influence a political outcome, to remain silent would welcome the flourishing of evil in our society . . ."

from Stream

(cont'd tomorrow)

Curriculum 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Hillsdale College in Michigan, "pursuing truth" since 1844, can be trusted to create a worthy curriculum for the teaching of American history, civics and government in grades 7-12. Their reputation is well established for being on "top" lists for best teaching, value, innovation.

"In history and civics classes, American students should have one aim above all: to understand what they have received, i.e., their inheritance as Americans" (from their website).

“The teaching of honest history and an accurate account of civics is the key to forming good citizens. The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum has been carefully designed to do just that, providing parents, teachers, and schools not with what they should oppose, but with a solid curriculum they can wholeheartedly endorse for all of America’s children.”

Their goal of their free curriculum is to pass on to students an accurate picture of America's past . . in contrast to the goal of the 1619 Project which is to "force white people to give up whiteness," a racist social engineering project.