PARENTS AND SCHOOLS: SYDNEY WILLIAMS
http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com
Whether the current Administration is the most corrupt in the history of our nation, I leave to those better qualified to decide. But, as we know from the influence peddling of Hunter Biden and the recent revelations of Merrick Garland’s son-in-law’s business ties to the teaching of critical race theory, there is no question as to its corruption. S.W.
Terry McAuliffe was correct in the sense that it would be impossible for a school to design individual syllabuses for each child. Nevertheless, the input of parents should be sought, not denied. As the NCPIE (quoted above) expressed, when parents do take an active interest in the education of their children they achieve higher grades, gain better social skills and more easily adapt to school.
It was once rare for any American of any political persuasion to deny the importance of parents in the education of their children. As educator and author Dorothy H. Cohen (1915-1979) once observed. “No school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children’s best interests.” Now, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s weaponization of the Justice Department has put that partnership at risk. In response to a letter to President Biden from the National School Boards Association, which likened parents’ protests to acts of domestic terror, Mr. Garland said he would use the Patriot Act against those parents who have “threatened” school boards for the teaching of critical race theory-type themes, adopting NEA New Business Item 39[1], cancelling history and tradition, distributing sexually explicit curricular materials, and allowing transgender bathrooms.
Violence against any person, including school board members, is a crime, but disallowing dissenting voices of parents is a violation of their First Amendment rights. As for the rights of public schools to teach what they choose, consider Justice Clarence Thomas’ 2011 dissent in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants: “The ‘freedom of speech’ as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors without going through the minors’ parents or guardians.” To arbitrarily ignore parents’ concerns is what one would expect of a totalitarian regime more interested in indoctrination than education, not from the world’s foremost and oldest constitutional republic.
In America, education flourished when it emphasized the basic elements or reading, writing and arithmetic, and, as students progressed, when it encouraged skepticism, inquiry and empiricism. Unfortunately, public school education today de-emphasizes education in favor of equity, to achieve graduation rates that reflect the racial composition of the student body. Standardized tests have been eliminated. The Regent Exams in New York have been watered down over the years, and in 2019 a commission was established to potentially eliminate the exams as a requirement for high school graduation. In this past year, New York’s Mayor de Blasio ordered the elimination of the city’s gifted and talented programs. In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown signed a bill ending a requirement that high school students prove they are proficient in reading, writing and math before they are granted diplomas.
This dumbing down of educational standards is being done in the name of social justice, as the claim is that standardized tests are unfair to racial minorities and people of color. The sad thing is that those are the very people who have benefitted by such programs. In a list of the top ten secondary schools around the world attended by Nobel recipients over the past one hundred and twenty years, five are in the United States, four are in France and one in England. Of the five in the United States, four are elite public high schools in New York City. Historically, these schools have accepted the brightest students, regardless of race or color. While the student bodies of these schools may not be representative of the population, they reflect a truism that progressives do not acknowledge – that while people are equal in rights and under the law, they are not and never will be equal in abilities or aspirations. If there are too few blacks admitted to these elite high schools that is the fault of their elementary and middle schools, not of the tests. To claim otherwise suggests innate racial differences, which I do not believe to be true, and neither do the parents of these children, which can be seen in their demand for more charter schools and vouchers.
Wealthy parents, which include most members of Congress and a substantial number of the Washington bureaucracy, do not have to engage in heated discussions with local school boards, as they have options. If they do not like a school’s curriculum, they can move to a different district or enter their child in a private school. Poorer parents, regardless of race and especially those in inner cities and in rural areas, do not have that option; so, if they see or hear something of which they disapprove, they can and they should express their opinions. It is their duty as a parent.
The decline of the nuclear family has adversely affected all children, as it pertains to education Aristotle wrote that the family is nature’s established association for the supply of mankind’s everyday wants. In 1995, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was asked what was the biggest change he had seen over his 40-year career. He responded: “The biggest change, in my judgment, is that the family structure has come apart all over the North Atlantic world.” In the April 24, 2012 edition of The New York Times, William Bennett, former secretary of education, wrote: “The family is the linchpin of society, both economically and socially.”
Yet traditional family formations have been in decline for over half a century. According to PEW Research, 64% of all children today – those under age 18 – live in married two-parent households. In 1960 that number was 88%. According to the CDC, four out of every ten children today are born to unwed mothers. The statistics for black children are more devastating. In 1965, 24% of black children were born to unwed mothers. By 2018, according to the National Vital Statistics Report, 69% of black children were born out of wedlock. Because of the effects such births have on poverty and education, reasons for this decline should be investigated by a bi-partisan panel. One consequence, as it affects education, is that school boards, unions and teachers have accrued power at the expense of parents.
Schools should teach history and civics with honesty and without bias, while keeping historical actions taken and words written within the context of time and place. Like a nation, schools do not have to be perfect to be good. But they should not teach discriminatory policies, treat children as other than their biological selves, or alienate parents who only want what is best for their children. Morally and ethically, this is the right path to follow.
[1] The NEA New Business Item states: “The NEA will provide an already-created, in-depth, study that critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society, and that we oppose attempts to ban critical race theory and/or the 1619 project.”
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