RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/26/the-great-education-escape/

Late last month, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) published the enrollment count for the 2023-24 school year. The report showed that 9 of the top 10 and 38 of the 50 largest districts have lost students since 2019-20, while 31 of the 50 largest districts lost students between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years.

All in all, the loss amounts to a 2.5% drop between fall 2019 and fall 2023. Schools at the pre-K-8 grade level showed the greatest declines, where enrollment dropped by 4.5% over the four-year period.

And the exodus is ongoing. According to the latest federal estimates, public schools are projected to lose 2.7 million students, for a 5.5% decline, from 2022 to 2031. That includes a loss of 1.8 million students in pre-K-8, a 5.4% loss, and 883,000 students in grades 9-12, a 5.7% decline.

On a similar note, the Fordham Institute recently reported that nearly 1 in 12 public schools nationwide saw student enrollment declines of about 20% since the year before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Chronically low-performing schools were hit particularly hard. According to the study, they were more than twice as likely to have sizable enrollment drops compared to other public schools.

It follows that the loss of students in the pre-K-12 sector is a harbinger of what’s to come in higher education. In early January, the Hechinger Report disclosed that the public university system is struggling to reduce a deep deficit that threatens to “permanently shutter several campuses after dramatic drop-offs in enrollment and revenue. While much attention has been focused on how enrollment declines are putting private, nonprofit colleges out of business at an accelerating rate—at least 17 of them in 2024—public universities and colleges face their own existential crises.

“State institutions nationwide are being merged, and campuses shut down, many of them in areas where there is already little access to higher education.”

The question then becomes, “Why are people shunning public schools?”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/freedom-center-targets-pro-terror-professors-on-social-media/

A paid social media ad campaign launched this week by the David Horowitz Freedom Center is targeting pro-terror “Hamas Loyalist” professors at ten prestigious American universities who choose to promote the ideology of the genocidal terrorist cult, often in direct violation of university policy.

The professors targeted in the campaign not only defend Hamas’s brutality—the slaughter of over a thousand Jews, the rape and mutilation of women, the beheading of children—but outright celebrate it as a form of liberation that should be emulated across the globe.

Consider San Francisco State University professor Rabab Abdulhadi. On October 7th 2023, following Hamas’s massacre, mutilation, and rape of over 1200 innocent Israelis, and the taking of hundreds more as hostages, Professor Abdulhadi quote-tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar—who has her own long record of anti-Semitism—not to agree with the Congresswoman’s remarks but to chastise her for condemning Hamas’s actions. Abdulhadi tweeted: “Seriously @IlhanMN? ‘Senseless’ #PalestineUnderAttack are merely defending themselves. Are you saying that #Palestinians should be exceptionalized from the right to defend themselves against colonial & racist violence? Check your facts! #FreePalestine #IsraeliCrimes.”

Cornell Professor Russell Rickford spoke at a pro-Hamas rally to extoll the virtues of the terrorist group. “Hamas has challenged the monopoly of violence,” Rickford said, adding that the Palestinians “were able to breathe for the first time in years” thanks to the bloody October 7th massacre.

“[I]t was exhilarating! It was exhilarating! It was energizing! And if they [Palestinians] weren’t exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated!” Rickford concluded, expressing sheer joy at the extent of Hamas’s slaughter.

https://quillette.com/2025/01/07/keeping-bds-out-of-academia-a-canadian-case-study-2/

A Canadian professor once complained to me that academia is nowhere near as radically leftist as conservative culture critics tend to imagine. Yes, there’s plenty of “wokeness” on display. But almost all of these woke controversies, he argued, originate with a tiny minority of dedicated extremists. Most of his colleagues—well over 90 percent, by his estimation—would prefer to stay out of the public eye, avoid political fights, and focus on their areas of specialised research.

He may well be right. But as numerous examples reported by Quillette have shown, even small groups of highly motivated ideologues can exert an outsized influence on the intellectual climate at their schools—especially if they succeed in co-opting ostensibly neutral bodies such as hiring committees, DEI oversight teams, and academic unions.

Intersectionality’s Cosmic Inquisitor
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein has made a name for herself as one of STEM’s most implacable activists. Now the targets of her online attacks are fighting back

A recent case study concerns the Brock University Faculty Association (BUFA), the labour union that represents about 600 full-time faculty members and professional librarians at Brock, a large public research university located about two hours west of Toronto. At BUFA’s general meetings, quorum requirements may be satisfied by just 5 percent of the membership—or about 30 people.

According to one Brock professor who monitors BUFA’s activities closely, most meetings attract just a few dozen people. Few workaday profs can even spare the time required to scrutinize the agendas, which are sent out five days before each meeting.

And so it apparently wasn’t difficult for an assistant professor of sociology named Gökbörü Sarp Tanyildiz to get his “Motion on Scholasticide in Palestine” onto the agenda of BUFA’s December 16, 2024 meet-up—where it was duly seconded by his old master’s-degree supervisor, Nancy Cook (an expert on, among other things, “critical mobilities studies, and feminist, postcolonial and poststructural theory”).

Consistent with other campaigns inspired by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, Tanyildiz accuses the Jewish state of not only “scholasticide,” but also apartheid, genocide, and war crimes. He calls for Brock’s administration (and its pension planners) to execute a “complete divestment” from any organization that’s even indirectly “complicit” in this regard—including multinational corporations and Israeli universities—and demands that Brock enact a long laundry list of pro-Palestinian policies.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/08/new-years-jeers/

Now that the holiday season hoopla is behind us, a look at the latest doings in education is in order. To begin with, the sex cultists are still alive and well. In fact, according to The Heritage Foundation, 16 states force transgender lessons on children.

Heritage’s “Gender Ideology as State Education Policy” report highlights the education standards and frameworks of states that encourage gender ideology, which is defined as “the subordination or displacement of factual, ideologically neutral lessons about biological sex with tell-tale notions such as ‘gender identity,’ ‘sex assigned at birth,’ and ‘cisgender.’”

Not surprisingly, only one of the states—Wyoming—is of the red persuasion. In deep blue Oregon, the state’s health standards include “heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, asexual, two-spirit, and pansexual.” in their definitions of sexual and romantic orientations.

In a similar vein, New Jersey’s learning standards state, “Gender assigned at birth means the gender that someone was thought to be at birth, typically recorded on their (sic) original birth certificate. The gender someone was assigned at birth may or may not match their (sic) gender identity.”

Hence, with the onslaught of misinformation and proselytizing, it becomes understandable that 5.1% of adults younger than 30 claim to be transgender or nonbinary, per a Pew Research poll, and this social contagion is being used as a political cudgel by many with a perverse agenda.

In reality, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, an LGBTQ advocacy group, a staggering 99.4% of the population does not have the physical traits that cause someone to become transgender.

Also, Brown University physician and researcher Lisa Littman released a study in 2018 that showed “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” in young people may be driven by “social and peer contagion.” She stresses that nearly 70% of the teenagers were involved with a peer group in which at least one friend had identified as transgender.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/31/brazen-taxation/

hen I think about government-run schools, I am reminded of Margaret Thatcher’s famous quote, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

While taxes are not necessarily socialist, they can be overbearing, nowhere more so than in education. In fact, the government excels at spending other people’s money on schooling. The U.S. (i.e., taxpayers) spent $1.2 trillion on K-16 in 2022.

Of that astronomical amount, spending on higher education amounted to $226 billion, which often goes to schools that don’t need it. Researcher Jay Greene examined payments to Ivy League schools and found that the federal government provides enormous subsidies to these elite institutions, which are the wealthiest universities in the country. “The eight universities in the Ivy League receive $1.8 billion each year from taxpayers, despite the fact that these universities are sitting on $192 billion in endowment funds. If they need money for buildings and electricity, donors have already given them plenty. There is no need for taxpayers to give the richest universities $1.8 billion each year to cover the costs of buildings that their donors have already enabled them to maintain and update.”

There are about 4,000 for-profit colleges in the U.S., and they receive the great majority of federal tax dollars for higher education, with just 22 colleges in the country refusing any public funds.

But the swindle doesn’t stop there. The American Enterprise Institute’s Nat Malkus runs the think tank’s Student Debt Forgiveness Tracker, which identifies all student loan revenue from the U.S. Treasury that has been “forgone or forgiven during the Trump and Biden presidencies.” The tracker’s total now sits at about $415 billion.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/12/civic-education-is-making-a-much-needed-comeback/

Over 300 JMC-supported programs enrich the academic lives of students, providing guest speakers, fellowships, courses, and a chance to interact with dedicated faculty who are outside of the stale progressive academic mainstream.

The Center for American Studies at Christopher Newport University is an example of this transformational work. Begun in 2007 with JMC’s assistance, it has grown to be a major force on campus. Co-directed by professors Elizabeth and Nathan Busch, it has a full-time faculty of six who mentor many undergraduate students. The center has brought to campus distinguished scholars and public officials, including the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, Jonathan Turley, John Yoo, and William J. Perry, for presentations to the university community.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) works alongside JMC to promote the formation of new independent institutes. ACTA has redoubled its efforts to ensure that all undergraduates pass a required course that covers core American founding principles.

For 30 years, ACTA has warned of the cost of higher education’s malfeasance. In 2000, its extensive survey of students at the 50 most elite colleges and universities revealed a shocking level of historical and civic ignorance. ACTA’s survey report, “Losing America’s Memory,” led to a joint, unanimous resolution passed by Congress that called for improving the civic knowledge of college students.

ACTA’s 2024 survey that polled 3,000 college students shows that we must redouble our efforts.

Our work so far has helped South Carolina adopt the REACH Act. Since 2021, all of the state’s public universities require a course in which students study the key documents and moments in our nation’s story.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/university-of-michigans-student-government-removes-two-anti-israel-activists-from-leadership/

The student government at the University of Michigan has removed its top two leaders, who vowed to block funding for campus groups unless the university agreed to divest from companies accused of profiting from the Israel–Hamas war.

The student assembly’s president and vice president, Alifa Chowdhury and Elias Atkinson, were officially ousted late on Monday after they were impeached last month, the New York Times reported. Each received a guilty count of dereliction of duty for either missing council meetings or failing to organize them.

Chowdhury and Atkinson were elected last spring after running under the Shut It Down party. Given its name, the candidates’ intentions were apparent.

The two student leaders withheld $1.3 million in annual funding designated for 400 campus groups until their demand for total divestment could be met. The university was unwilling to agree to this demand and instead opted to lend money to the groups itself.

On October 8, the student government voted to reinstate the funding during a fraught meeting attended by anti-Israel protesters. Chowdhury and Atkinson reportedly encouraged protesters to shout at the assembly speaker, spit on an intern, and follow assembly members to their cars and insult them, according to the Michigan Review. They were accused of doing nothing to stop the unrest.