RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/will-2022-be-the-greatest-year-for-education-reform-in-a-generation/

The resistance to critical race theory, building on traditional priorities like school choice, is driving a revitalized conservative education movement.

T he conservative education-reform movement has long evaluated itself in quantitative terms. Right-leaning educrats calculate their successes and failures as one would assess a tax cut or an infrastructure bill, measuring the effects of their reforms in terms of proficiency rates in math and reading, graduation and dropout numbers, and cost efficiency. That, in turn, has shaped the way that conservative policy-makers think about education: Workforce preparation, test scores, and other utilitarian concerns are often prioritized over character formation and civic virtue, while the question of what we are teaching our children has taken a backseat to the content-neutral language of school choice and decentralization. This framework, Yuval Levin writes, has “made American education policy awfully clinical and technocratic, at times blinding some of those involved in education debates to the deepest human questions at stake — social, moral, cultural, and political questions that cannot be separated from how we think about teaching and learning.”

All of that is beginning to change. A backlash to critical race theory (CRT) at the grassroots level, with help from activists like Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo, has forced the radicalization of the American public-school curriculum to the forefront of the national political conversation. The debates over CRT have also opened up broader questions of what (and how) we teach American students about their country, initiating a serious conservative counteroffensive against the Left’s monopolistic control of American politics and history curricula, with states like Florida and Texas pairing anti-CRT laws with new programs aimed at renewing civic literacy in public education. What began with local, parent-led organizing has grown into a national movement with enormous political momentum.

The anti-CRT backlash “crystallized this feeling that we have an agenda that we can cohere around,” Rufo told National Review. “All of the various threads on conservative education reform can now unite around the framework of critical race theory to make real change and actually get bills passed through state legislatures.” To date, eleven states have enacted bans or restrictions on CRT, and Rufo thinks “we’re going to get another five to ten states passing them in the coming year.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/college-newspaper-suggests-that-abolishing-campus-police-could-improve-student-safety/

A Boston University student newspaper editorial board suggested this week that the campus’s “safety issue” could be solved by “outright abolishing” the campus police.

“From their own public statements to their racist history and present, it is clear the BUPD is not designed, nor does it seem willing, to protect all students on campus. Defunding this institution — or outright abolishing it — and creating new services in its wake that better address student and community needs may actually improve student safety,” the editorial board of the Daily Free Press wrote in an editorial on Wednesday.

The editorial, first reported by Fox News, goes on to note that “abolition requires that we create more community services that would address people’s needs and community safety.”

“To put it simply, you would always have someone to call — the number would just be different,” the editorial said. “For instance, BU could increase funding for Scarlet SafeWalk, a program in which students escort anyone feeling unsafe to their home. BU could create a mental health task force specifically designed to deal with mental health crises and expand funding and resources for BU’s Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Center.”

The editorial board argues that “racist police institutions” cannot create a safe campus, and it claims the campus police department “has an egregious history and present of violence and racism.”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/08/the-union-mandated-school-shutdowns-are-having-major-consequences/

Recently, a report compiled by Mike Antonucci for the Defense of Freedom Institute confirmed that the teachers unions had a heavy-handed role in the COVID-related shutdowns that consumed much of the country starting in March 2020. And the “never let a good crisis go to waste” unions were in prime form in the process. The California Teachers Association, for example, issued a “bargaining advisory” in May of 2020, in which it states, “When exercising a ‘get for the give’ approach to bargaining concessions, locals should consider strengthening or implementing consultation procedures language in the CBA (collective bargaining agreement).” The union added, “Now is the time to secure (contract) language improvements that we have wanted for some time.”

While the California Teachers Association was busy instructing its local teachers unions how to milk the shutdown, Antonucci notes that it was successful on a statewide basis by “winning a ban on teacher layoffs, a substantial reduction in required instructional minutes, and the elimination of public accountability data collections for 2020, including those for academics, absenteeism, graduation and suspension rates, and college readiness.”

While most schools opened full time across the country in the fall of this year, many unions are now demanding “mental health days,” thus shuttering the schools once again. This time the closures are of variable time spans, and are, in part, due to kids acting out and often becoming violent. As Burbio, the invaluable school reopening tracker, notes, by November 22, there were 3,145 school closures for “mental health” out of a total 8,692 for the school year.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/08/merit-vs-wokeness-universities-must-choose/

Note: This article appeared in Human Events; it has been republished with permission.

We graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 50 years ago. Though it was a tough place academically, MIT taught us our crafts and the essence of problem-solving and enabled us to thrive in our chosen careers. We owe much to “the ‘tute,” as it is fondly known, and have demonstrated that financially over the years.

But no more.

Today, the 160-year-old-institution, once a bedrock of science and innovation, has caved to the demands of “wokeness.” In autumn of 2020, MIT sent an email to students, including those already registered and attending, informing them that if they failed to undergo instruction in “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and “sexual assault prevention ongoing: healthy relationships,” they would be unable to register for spring classes.

“You will have a registration hold placed on your account and will be unable to register for [Independent Activities Period] and/or spring 2021 classes if you do not complete both trainings by the Nov. 2 deadline,” the email read.

Portions of the actual training materials are available here. The training turns out to be what you would expect: a bunch of compulsory videos that cannot be fast-forwarded, containing deftly worded but fatuous questions that let you know (without coming right out and saying it) that straight white males are the “intersection” of all oppressive behaviors. Everyone else is an oppressed victim of some sort, with extra victimization points for being a member of multiple minorities. (Fortunately, the passing score is zero, so most students will be allowed to resume their studies.)

This new policy is just one instance of a dangerous trend: MIT’s administration is acting in ways that we consider unfair, hypocritical, and harmful to the university, its student body, and academic freedom generally.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/12/dealing_with_the_school_staff_shortage.html

K-12 public schools throughout the U.S. are facing staff shortages so severe that school days are being canceled. Seattle, Boulder, and Portland, Oregon are just a few examples of districts without adequate staff to maintain daily operations following Veteran’s Day. Claiming exhaustion, hundreds of teachers in these cities opted to take the day off in order to have a four-day weekend. Denver Public Schools’ situation is even more dire. The district moved to remote learning for three days in mid-November, canceled school on November 19 as a mental health day, and took a full week off for Thanksgiving.

The school staff shortages and well-being crisis of both teachers and students can be traced to the left-wing priorities and policies of the teacher unions and politicians who run these cities. Most egregious was the shuttering of schools closed for more than one calendar year, which kept teachers pinned behind screens and distanced from their students. It not only took the passion out of teaching for many teachers, but it also overwhelmed many educators whose limited technical skills were insufficient for the remote learning environment.

Fearmongering by teacher unions and Democrat political leaders also caused many employees distress regarding returning to school and triggered some to quit. Despite the harm they personally experienced and witnessed in their students, many teachers supported keeping schools closed due to an exaggerated fear of COVID and loyalty to their union and political leaders. Furthermore, despite seeing their students slip behind academically (especially those of minority ethnic groups and low-income families), they played puppet to political narratives that often clashed with the data and even common sense. The unwarranted duration of public-school closures during the 2020-2021 school year — which occurred even while private schools operated fully — was detrimental to students, despite the public rhetoric of Democrat leaders and teacher unions about how much they cared.

https://realclearwire.com/articles/2021/12/07/an_education_in_the_american_idea_806633.html

The American Idea podcast looks “to restore an understanding of the history and principles that show us what it means to be an American,” says Ashbrook Center executive director Jeff Sikkenga.

Presented by Ashbrook, the podcast “explores America’s Founding principles and their effect on American history and government.” Sikkenga notes that it “elevates lively and thoughtful conversations with renowned academics and public figures based on questions rooted in the fundamental documents and debates of America.” It’s what he calls “the Ashbrook way of teaching and learning.”

This approach, he says, transcends “accidents of time, place, class, and gender to pursue the truth with others through conversation.” It is an old idea of education, stretching back at least as far as Socrates and summarized in the Jeffersonian principle that “Almighty God hath created the mind free.” It’s neither about simply amassing information nor being subjected to indoctrination – rather, it amounts to a joint effort by teachers and students to pursue truth.

Greg McBrayer, the podcast’s executive producer and associate professor of political science at Ashland University, cites evidence from “study after study” showing that students “lack a basic civic understanding.” Unfortunately, he says that “few universities are filling in the gaps.” He points to a recent ACTA study that found “only 18% of American universities require a foundational course in U.S. history or government.” The podcast aims to correct this flaw by bolstering American civic knowledge.

Hosted by Sikkenga, conversations are centered around key American documents and speeches including the Declaration of Independence, Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” Calvin Coolidge’s speech on the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration, and Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural.

The America Idea podcast’s 16 episodes have featured Ashbrook’s own Christopher Burkett, John Moser, Jason Stevens, and McBrayer, and affiliated scholars including Lucas Morel, Joseph Fornieri, and Donald Drakeman. The most popular episodes feature journalist Mollie Hemingway, and, just recently, a special conversation with former Vice President Mike Pence.

Sikkenga calls hosting Vice President Pence a “great honor and a delightful surprise.” He notes that Pence was a “history major as an undergraduate and even wrote his senior paper on ‘The Religious Expression of Abraham Lincoln.’” Pence “knew a lot about American history and principles and clearly has thought about how to bring them to bear on contemporary political issues.”

The podcast’s producer and director – himself an Ashbrook alumnus – Tyler MacQueen reflects on the unique opportunity to speak to someone “who held the same office as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George H.W. Bush.” He reports that nearly half a million people – many of whom have not heard of Ashbrook previously – have listened to or watched the Pence conversation. (Episodes are available on Ashbrook’s YouTube channel.)