Republicans will then begin lobbying to “reduce spending” by cutting the amount allocated for the vouchers, locking the emerging two-tier status of publicly funded education into place...
Thank you for the history lesson. I didn’t remember that some schools actually closed rather than integrate. Georgia didn’t close our schools but it took years to follow the law. My brother was a senior in 1970 and there were three black students in his class. Republicans are going to destroy our way of life unless we get out and vote to stop them!
Virginia shut down its public schools for a time after the decision in “Brown v. Board of Education,” and a movement began among Black students to reopen and integrate the public schools. The school segregation issue is one of the many negative outgrowths of residential segregation. Public schools in some Southern states like Alabama and Mississippi have largely been left to become schools primarily for Black students, while white parents who can afford it send their kids to private academies. Pat Conroy covered the topic in his novel “The Prince of Tides,” and I think President Biden has realized that his earlier positions on the topic were untenable.
This is correct, and my intention isn’t to imply segregation was a problem in the south only. I addressed the southern states school issues as this is where the whole concept of massive resistance started. The north had some significant educational desegregation cases, including the South Boston cases, as well as Milliken v. Bradley in Michigan, which put a limit on how far courts were willing to go to desegregate.
I understand that segregation was a movement in the south, but in Chicago it was a movement too. Call it parochial education. In terms of desegregation actions like in Boston, the courts decided a while ago that Deseg is over, and statistically we are now no better off than we were before desegregation. So, my mom has a point about the USA. Not integrating people into a community in all of its institutions is a problem, and not what makes America great! https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1111060299/school-segregation-report
My colleague and I used the book, The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson to teach about school segregation and segregation in general to our fourth grade students.
Our private school, predominantly White and Asian students loved the story, which we discussed in book clubs, along with reading aloud, The Promise of Change by Jo Anne Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy, a novel in verse about Jo Anne's experiences integrating a high school in Tennessee. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40046144
Ms. Boyce even zoomed into our classes to discuss her book and experiences. The children appreciated the story, which deals with a lot of issues and is a mystery. They also liked its intersectionality as per comments in their discussion preparation. This tied into social studies on the question of The Meaning of Race, and a year long study of children's novels with characters from different backgrounds and time periods. Teaching these books has made me very aware of segregation in housing and schools. When my mother came to this country from Nazi Germany, she was shocked at the self-righteousness of Americans when she saw so much racism. She told me that it is the reason that we do not have the good social supports that European countries have, because racist White Americans would rather have no one have these social supports than allow Blacks to have them. Given over 100 years after slavery has ended we still have a two tiered society, dominated by White Supremacy, it does not look good. The current supreme court does not help.
I vividly remember the 82nd Airborne being deployed to integrate Little Rock High School, and later went to university with a Captain who had been an enlisted member of the 82nd, he mentioned how scary it was.
What I remember most is the Irish (well mostly Irish) of Boston, during the anti busing boycott
In addition to the neosegregation taking place in our public schools, child labor laws are being rewritten. Teenagers across red state America are becoming the replacements for the brown-skinned workforce. The plan to roundup and deport immigrants, legal as well as illegal, will require young, strong children to take their places.
The benefit to corporate America is huge. Many states will not require employers to pay a livable wage to those under age 18, nor will they be required to provide them any benefits. Some states will disallow any lawsuits against corporations for resulting injuries or deaths that take place on the job sites.
The past forty years of dumbing-down our nation’s youth has been tied to the current state of education. And when the GOP (Governors of Persecution) gains full control of our federal government, indentured servitude will begin in earnest.
We have to wake up and vote these Republicans out of office. They are taking our country back years with the draconian laws they are passing to benefit them all financially!
Om'gosh: "indentured servitude!" I nominate you Cassandra of the (hour?) I am old enough to hear in my mind: Tennessee Ernie Ford: "I Owe My Soul to the Company Store." Even before "Dodd," I talked to my cat about how it wouldn't be long before a husband would be jailed for transporting his wife across state lines for "illicit" purposes; namely, abortion. Well, that happened, almost! I and my cat hope you are wrong, but not optimistically.
Our family understands this history because our grandfather, the Supt. of schools in Round Rock, Texas was forced to resign or be fired in 1957 because he proposed the integration of the schools. He refused to resign, was fired. There were death threats, the loved family cat was hung from a front yard tree lynch style. The NEA sent attorneys and won the case to have his contract paid by the Round Rock schools for lack of valid reason of termination. It was another 10 years before students were allowed to attend the White School and given a chance to take college preparatory classes. It was heart breaking for my grandfather, Floyd Perry. I have spoken with some of the people who were turned away when they legally should have been allowed to be integrated into the better school.
The sad thing about this story today is that in the information about O. F. ( Floyd) Perry in the History of the Round Rock public schools, the article mentions nothing about integration. It only mentions that Mr. Perry had proposed building more classrooms and a bond had been passed for the money causing an increase in taxes for landowners!
Thom, every day I learn from you as you connect the dots to problems that have been hiding in the background. The organization and the funding of these issues has been a remarkable process. There are so many people that would be astounded by this information but may never hear about it.
Republicans almost universally want to eliminate the Department of Education. Jimmy Carter and Congress created the new Department of Education in 1979. In 1980, candidate Ronald Reagan pledged to dissolve it, and the Republican platform adopted it. Trump talked about dissolving it when he was in the White House with a Republican Congress.
In 1965, LBJ, a former teacher, promoted the Higher Education Act 1965 which enabled many to attend college who would not otherwise have had the chance. It covered many bases, including the provision of federal resources for continuing education, community service programs, and stronger library programs and library instruction. Republicans and Dixiecrats said it was an attempt to take over local control of school.
Thom mentioned desegregation. The entire south was in "massive resistance" to the federal government. I joke that I was in the the Army of the occupation of the south before I went to Vietnam and after I returned in 1967. By 1968, the whole country was on fire.
Our district had special programs. One of them, "humanizing education" let top objections, primarily from Evangelicals but others who accused us of "removing God" and replacing it with Communism.
In some states taxpayers refuse to fully fund public education. I don't think there is any magic to local control, local school boards, as politics at the retail level is more corrupt than at the wholesale level, i.e. state boards. I can testify to that fact.
I have some experience. I represented some school districts and local AFT, American Federation of Teachers local unions. I relocated and took a job with the federal government, but my brother was involved in school law from 1970 until his retirement in 2018.
We had experiences with representing school districts state wide in major busing initiatives, the first teacher strike in Pa, before such strikes were legal, involved in the sale of schools to the Amish community after Wisconsin v Yoder, etc. My brother represented some districts where the AFT was not the bargaining units. We were involved in implementing due process rights and our districts had some novel programs.
In most Amish schools, 13 year old girls are the teachers. The state does not care whether they are certified.
Down here in Baghdad By the Sea, our governor wants veterans without degrees or certification to teach his favored mandated subjects. Florida ranks 46th in the nation in per-pupil funding, which means that schools have less money to spend on things like teacher salaries, classroom materials, and extracurricular activities. He mandates the content of required lesson plans. A former governor, JEB Bush, created charter schools, which are an educational disaster. During the 2022-23 school year, over 382,367 students were enrolled in 726 charter schools in 46 Florida districts.
Florida has the third-highest percentage of adults lacking basic prose literacy skills of 19.7%, equaling a literacy rate of 80.3%. Florida has the lowest number of public libraries per 100,000 residents of 2.6. Although DeSantis says Florida has the best education, A large majority of Florida eighth graders do not read proficiently and struggle with 8th grade-level math skills, according to a nationwide assessment of students in 2022 — an uncomfortable reality for teens unprepared for a rigorous high school schedule.
A large portion of Florida’s fourth graders also struggled with math and reading skills — though they performed higher than the national average. Still, they were unable to reach proficiency in those key subjects, according to 2022 data.
The Republicans accuse the Democrats of indoctrination, but it’s the Republicans who don’t want their kids learning things like actual biological science, the more unsavory and racist aspects of our history, and who have come out for censorship of school textbooks and literature. If a parent wants their own child not to read certain books, fine, but they have no right to tell other children and parents their kids can’t read these books either. I have a rather firm line on separation of religion and state even though I’m Catholic and spent 10 years of my primary education in Catholic school. The only censorship hint I remember hearing was when a parent was bitching about having their kid read John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” As I recall the parental protest didn’t go anywhere.
I don't believe I've ever seen a country suffering from so much insanity that we're about to shat our britches. Much of the problem comes from Republicans and Republican families who have had their children educated through advice from morons like Friedman, DeVos the Koch brothers and Mussolini and Trump.
But NOT the real "New Testament," mostly. The Foursquare Gospel dunked me after I read the Book of John 5 times through. I couldn't stay in their church, but darn, there's good stuff in the "Babble." I remember a pastor of some kind trying to recruit me, asking me about Jesus, and I said something enthusiastic and he harrumphed and went away! God forbid we hear Jesus!
The old and new testament are all things to all people, it was written, re written, edited, excised, edited again over and over, not to mention the many translations by men with their own agendas and opinions.
And this IHSus, Yahooshua as it sounds, Joshua (means savior in Hebrew), was known to the Greeks as IHS, the signet of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine, who could turn water into wine. IHS is Iota Eta Sigma. In Greek the eta is both a consonant and a vowel, depending on i'ts placement, at the begginng of a word it is consonant with a harsh sound, in after the beginning it has a soft sound like the English or Latin 'E, the Romans added the male ending of "US" hence IHSus, .
The Letter I in Latin also has two sounds, at the beginning of a name or word it has a sound similar to the French and subsequently English letter J, in the middle of a word it has the sound of our "E" hence Iulius was pronounced something like Dzuleeus, or French Julius and IHSus, Iesus as Dzesus or Jesus.
Dionysos or Dionysus, means literally Son of God, and god to the Greeks was Zeus, the Latin for God is Dios.
The Greeks celebrated Dec 25, the day that the sun "arose from it's grave, after laying three days, after the Winter solstice, as the Dionysia, Romans adopted the Dionysia as the Bacchanalia, named for their version of Dionysos - Bacchus.
In my opinion, Jesus and his pacifist religion was cooked up by a diaspora Rabbi, after the Romans raped Jerusalem, and stole it's wealth from the Temple.
They couldn't defeat Rome from without, with force, so they went at it from within, by preaching a pacifistic messiah.,with the hero, the savior being cobbled together from the various savior's of the various religions of the time. None of the so called apostles, those displayed in Leonardo DaVinci's Last Supper, or in the books of the "Gospel" lived at the time of this hero savior. I doubt that they existed at all, the chapters were documents cobbled together, scrubbed, edited, interpolated, re edited over and over again, starting during the reign of Constantine.
As a consequnce you can find many Jesus's, each with their own characteristic, a man of action, of violence, who would have his own opponents slain like Trump in Luke 19:17, or a man of peace like the Jesus in Matthew.
There certainly was no man named Saul or Paul, a tax collector. He was modeled on Appolonius of Tyana whom some scholars think is the model for Jesus.
The travelogue of Appolonius is the same as that for Paul, but in reverse.
And the Greeks had no word for Messiah, but since the Hebrews annointed their messiahs (plural intended) with oil, the Romans used the Greek word for rub with oil Christos for messiah,also see Crisco.
The Papal Chi Rho was the signet of the warrior goddess Ishtar (aka Venus) and its use on the shields of the legion of Constantine at the Battle of the Milivian Bridge, was psychological warfare, for Ishtar was feared for never having lost a battle by the superstitious people of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia.
The Latin Equivalent of the Greek Chi is the letter X, the Latin Equivalent of the Greek letter Rho is the letter P, thus the X superimposed over the P is the Chi Rho of the Papal seal, used throughout Christendom., the very symbol that Constantine painted on the shields of his Legion at the battle of the Milivian bridge.
These fundamental myths of the conservative ideology has infected Christianity to the point that they people in them no longer believe in the lefty Jesus values of helping the poor and needy. Selfishness is the racist value that has infected these fundamental churches which the Pope has now had to confront by a massive change in the numerous new cardinals he has promoted.
I will try to pay attention more to this Pope. He recently did remove a Cardinal: Arizona??? He is also not in good health. Wouldn't it be tragic, if the Church is just as vulnerable to factionalism as any mundane institution, and the next Pope decides God's hatred of all females forever for the sake of Eve is the rule?
There is more than one Jesus. There is the Jesus of Matthew and the Jesus of Luke
The Jesus of turn the other cheek and the tale of the good Samaritan and Sermon on the Mount
And the Jesus of Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me
The Jesus of Luke 22:36 - Sell Your Cloak to Buy a Sword
Those who would use their god as a sock puppet have excuses and rationalizations as if they could read the mind of their god. Charlatans all, but the simple mind fall in line
For their Jesus said: Be like little children. And of course children are vulnerable, credulous, gullible and ripe prey for mental predators.
We are finally coming to a Time of America dissolution or Civil War. We no longer have one country? We have two? We have split apart. We not only don't have the most perfect union but we have is two groups of Americans with totally different ideals and totally different political and social as well as economic ideas and ideals. One group prefers a dictatorship that can tell everyone where to go and what to do. Naturally much of this is based on either religion or false religion such as evangelicalism. The other group, the democracy wants that continue and to expand that democracy. We can't seem to do that anymore. It seems that the alternate reality that has entered our universe since yes Reagan certainly through Bush and without any doubt whatsoever from Trump/ Putin with our anti-democratic inferior Supreme Court. I'm not sure we can do anything about it anymore politically unless, unless we can act the Republicans out at the polls in 2024. I encourage anyone of any political persuasion, of any race, of any nationality to stop this insanity in its tracks. It can be done. What needs to happen is for everyone who loves freedom to get out there and vote, even if we have to close your eyes to vote, for a Democrat for every political position from dog catcher to president.
Do not say oh I'm not happy with democracy so I'm not going to vote. Get out there and vote and vote for a Democrat if you value your freedom. I don't want to hear I'm too sick or too tired to go out there to the polls. Vote by mail if you have to. Have someone carry you to the voting booth if you have to. Then vote for democracy. Vote for Democrat. If you are black or you were Asian or you are Cuban or you are Muslim think about what you want for the future for yourselves and your children. If the end goal is freedom, or the end goal is education, or the end goal is life in a society that's not run by a dictator get out there and vote for a Democrat.
Any one of you who goes out there and votes for Republican is a traitor to your country, a traitor to your family I traitor to your children and a Traitor to yourselves.
I know that's a lot to take in but our democracy depends on you. It depends on what you consider important right now in the election of 2024. This is no time for intellectual dilly dally. This is no time to talk about things. The Republicans, that is the Republican Party, that is the Republican dictators, want to take away your freedoms. Is that what you would like for your countrymen? Do you want your freedoms, your children's freedoms, your grandchildren's freedom taken away. Do you want them all to become puppets of some dictator like in Russia ? if you do then you should vote for a republican of course. Vote for your friendly fascist.
For the other 70% of us we need to have an election where 70% of the population kick out these liars from public office. Okay I apologize I shouldn't call them morons. These crazy "con artists" might be a better term. Whatever. Get out there vote for Democrat for every position there. Take away the every position from the Republicans. Take away the House of Representatives from the Republicans. Take away the presidency from the Republicans and let's start kicking ass.
Of course there's another alternative here but these crazy extremists with their crazy extremist Supreme Court win and send you to the gulag for being such a dumbass that you let them take your country away. It's your choice!
I think we can get past this. Always darkest before the dawn.
I thought we were closer to a real shoot 'em up in '68. Like I said yesterday, most of the MAGAT confederates have been exposed to arrests, trials, convictions that are object lessons.
I so hope you are right Daniel, the situation between 1968 and 1975 was tense, I remember it well. But the situation today is quite different there are a lot of parallels between 1933 and 2023. And it all fits too eerily with Thom's 80 year cycle between generations, where the lessons learned in one generation are forgotten by the time of the grandson generation.
The lyrics of the song that go "When will they ever learn". The answer is never.
The age of Aquarius arrives in 2150, by that time, considering the rate at which we are befouling the very house we live in, there will be peace on earth, as there won't be any mammals, or at least very few.
Thank you for writing and sharing this. We have so much work to do to turn around alarmist rhetoric that will have a very real impact on our educational system. I am repeatedly struck by the cognitive dissonance that is so prevalent around us, especially around public education. Citizens are being taught that the American public education system is in crisis but are not experiencing that "crisis" themselves. I wrote about this in a recent op-ed.
"Despite the angry, fearful headlines and memes, parents of K-12 kids remain largely content with their oldest child’s education. In her recent analysis of Gallup’s August 2022 study, Lydia Saad reports that: “The 80% who are completely or somewhat satisfied [with their own child’s educational experience] is slightly improved from the 73% measured a year ago and exceeds the average of 76% that Gallup has recorded since 2001.” This result comes in despite the chaos in education brought on by response to the pandemic and is consistent across party lines, demographics, and geographic representation."
... "Our public education system isn’t failing. If it was, we as parents would be screaming from the rooftops about our own child’s educational experience, not just parroting vague, salacious talking points and rhetoric that is being slung around about the “theys” and “thems” that we’re being encouraged to vilify in the name of “protecting the children.” We need to recognize the dissonance between personal experience and headlines and act accordingly. We should follow up on our concerns about funding and teacher shortages by directing more investment into the institution that we know and privately admit, is working for our kids and foundational to our country and democracy."
Hi Dani. I hesitate typing this, because your comment is one that I agree with wholeheartedly, but I seek an understanding of how you use the phrase "cognitive dissonance" I understand and have personal experience with it, and how to overcome it.
Cognitive dissonance is a state in which on what one says and does is in direct conflict with that which one thinks or knows. Cognitive dissonance is manifest in a physical state of discomfort,in fact the lie detector depends on cognitive dissonance..
As an example. I "converted" to Catholicism to please a woman who was Catholic and wanted to marry in church. In my mind's eye, I knew better, but to please her I attended confession and mass, even sang in the choir.
The uncomfortable feeling of cognitive dissonance was overwhelming and to convince myself, and others, I joined a group of radical trad Catholics I eventually recovered my senses.
Here is how cognitive dissonance manifests itself. nervousness, sweating, trembling, elevated blood pressure and all around discomfort,
The result of saying and behaving one way, while inwardly knowing and thinking the opposite.
It is overcome by consistent behavior,over a 30 day period, without any regression, not even for one minute into old behavior or thought patterns.
I suspect that is the secret of actors and impersonators.For thirty days it is a forced and conscious effort, then it is second nature.
I've heard actors who have, say a southern drawl, affected for a role, found themselves unconsciously and comfortable with a southern drawl as their preferred communication style, though they were raised in the likes of NYC or California
Thank you for your response! I really appreciate the feedback and the time you took to write this. I have to admit, I did hesitate a bit in using the term "cognitive dissonance" but decided in the end, that it best described what I was trying to say. Please know that I am always open to other ideas.
I was working from Frantz Fanon's description from Black Skin, White Masks: “Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.”
And with this, probably an assumption of dissonance amongst those who believe that the public schools in America are in crisis while still feeling that their own child's public education was positive. It's an interesting exploration to consider that there are many who feel that they cannot let go of their own personal beliefs *because* they support the ideology that they have accepted. Is that a *reverse* cognitive dissonance?
But I very much see your point. There is a huge swath of Americans (obviously) who wouldn't be personally disturbed (or even thoughtful) of the difference between their own experience and that which they perceive to be the collective experience. They seem fine to accept that *despite* their own experience, they believe strongly that based on what they've been told, the collective whole is experiencing something different.
That extends to the economy, "my rights" are important but collectively 'their' rights are not, my child 'deserves student loan forgiveness but others don't because they're ____", etc..
But again, thank you for making me really think about this and explore other thoughts and verbiage. Such crazy times we live in.
Thanks Dani. I totally understand what you are saying.
I will restate what I have said elsewheres. The problem in communication is language. English in particular is a language of commerce, finance, science and technology and as such is wanting in many aspects.
In other words, we just don't have words for what we are trying to describe, or concepts we wish to explore or expound upon.
I use the English words love and play as quick and easy examples. play for instance is a noun, a verb and adjective.
The word love is meaningless. I love spring nights, I love my cat, I love to be alone, I love my children I love my spouse, love is a point in tennis.
At least in Spanish there is romantic love "te quiero" or I want you, and familial love, te amo.
A "player" tells a gal he has been trying to lay, after an orgasmic night or in the midst of an organism "I love you", i the morning he puts on his pants and walks a way, forgetting about her, the gal hears "I love you and want to marry you and live with you forever"
As Simon and Garfunkel sing in The Boxer" "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"
Tell your spouse "te amo" and you have just told them that the relationship is that of a broken in pair of shoes. Tell your child te quiero and you are incestuous.
Cognitive dissonance fits in that category of words with many meanings.
Here is how I explain what you describe.
There are beliefs and there are opinions.
Beliefs from an essential part of SOME peoples sense of self, their ego and id. Without them they are a fish out of water, if a belief is effectively refuted (like a MAGAts, a Muslims, a true believer in any religion or ideology and I consider religion to be an ideology.
It is quite simply an idea, around which we form a picture of the world or universe in which we live, and within it our relationship to it. Man, Woman, child, teen, white, black, Christian, Muslim Jew, Hindu, American, French, and so on.
There is not one of those features that we can't change with effort (even gender and race), although the effort is monumental in the case of Michael Jackson and gender, what is harder to change is the intangibles of our self image, how we perceive ourselves in relation to the world around us. Hard for many of us to understand is people like those that are for instance non binary.
Another thing that is hard to understand, especially for the ideologically hampered (and religion is an ideology) is a person who has none. per the mindset of a believer everyone HAS to have a belief, they can't imagine existence without one,and of course their belief (ideology) is the one true belief, and you see that even here on substack.
Unfortunately beliefs, for those that have them, form an essential part of their identity strip them of beliefs and they are like a shipwrecked person floating on flotsam, at the mercy of winds and currents, searching for a least something to use as a paddle, better yet a sail, something to cling to.
Second to beliefs are opinions. Opinions can be modified, or even abandoned without even damage or unsettling consequence to one's sense of self.
But they come in two versions. Opinions can be acquired. (ex: read a book, that then becomes gospel, like RFK jr's book, or Zecharia Sitchin, Freud, and on and on.
Opinions can be arrived at, formed by a person, based on their access to various inputs. Where they are weighed, analyzed, compared to other sources, ideas and even facts. This requires not only critical reasoning skills, but the exercise of those skills, and most people are just too lazy, they are all too willing to let others do their thinking for them, especially when they tug at emotions.
Facts too are problematic, are they real unassailable facts, or are they sourced by people with agenda's, who distort the facts, to influence the outcome or to bend peoples and events to their agenda.
A current example is the HAMAS-Israel conflict. HAMAS publicizes one set of facts, and those predisposed towards HAMAS and/or antipathy towards the Jews believes that set of acts, and vice versa for Israel. And of course the war for minds is won by those who are the most effective at visual presentations.
Before the 1936 Olympics the world, per se, was ambivalent towards the NAZI regime, after the 1936 Olympics, America and many an English including Edward VIII, Charles Lindberg and even some American Senators and Captains of Industry and finance,like Prescott Bush, and who could forget the gushing admiration for Mussolini who made the trains run on time.
Nixon was only partly right, grab them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow, of course, But just as important, more maybe, is flood the zone with visuals, the ears with sounds and you have captured the mind and emotions.
Apologies I just covered a lot of what might appear to be extraneous territory.
I have many times allowed myself to fall into the well of belief, but I always have myself tied o a rope and a safety catch less I fall so far in that I can't climb out,however none have ever formed a part of my sense of being, my identity.
Of cognitive dissonance, I am sure of one thing, 30 days consistent behavior, with no set backs or slips, and one can change and become a new person. Voltaire said basically that people can't change their character, like a leopard can't change their spots.
I don't want to believe that, but fear that is true about certain aspects of our character.
One of the great responses! I will look up Fanon. I grew up in a thick stew of "cognitive dissonance," related to a mother who, thanks to John Dean, ("Conservatives Without Conscience.") I have come to identify as high authoritarian leader as well as follower. It certainly "disturbed" me! I have one reflection: that political divergence is driving a perverse impulse toward SELECTIVE education, as in indoctrination. (In my day, "Civics" in high school was all about bad commie Kruschev) It is interesting that Mr. Farrar describes physical symptoms. My Mom never broke a sweat! By golly, she was right about both conflicting ideas! So Farrar's acquaintance weren't really die-hard. Many MAGAs now seem more like my Mom, frighteningly....
"Here is how cognitive dissonance manifests itself. nervousness, sweating, trembling, elevated blood pressure and all around discomfort, ..."
One of my teachers, A Darwin expert at UCSB, thought that Darwin's dyspepsia was due to his being raised in the Church of England and then finding how wrong their teaching. So add dyspepsia to your CD symptoms.
I am sharing this everywhere, including to my school board rep and to the head of the local teachers union here and to public education activists I know. We’ve been working, but we’re up against a behemoth with a very hungry belly.
We pay property taxes. In West Barnum Denver, that amounts to approximately 50% of the tax. I thank my parents (dead long ago) and West Barnum taxpayers for providing me with my K-12 education from 1962-1975 through property taxes. By the time preparation and opportunity came to us to have a kid, circumstances had it we were out of the West Barnum but, as property owners, were still required to pay property taxes. We paid and are still paying for property taxes, including education, despite our kid never attending a DPS school. Our thoughts to the millions of Americans who feel that public education is a waste of time and have used personal choice to manipulate educational voucher exemptions for their children to attend whatever school they have decided their children to attend is their choice. However, it is an afront to us that (love it or hate it) have faithfully paid our property tax including the educational portion of the tax, to have to put up with those property owners that want public education at the expense of attending public education. To those who think that diverting public education funding is a choice for themselves and their kids, go ahead, keep them ignorant. It’s your choice. American public education is one of the greatest achievements in education globally. Niche public schools using diverted public taxes to fund them is absurd. Public schooling is a necessity, not a choice for us who live in large urban cities. Diverting public education funds for non-state-run schools denotes excluding one’s kids from the opportunity to contribute to society on an equal footing. Why would anyone want to deny their kids an equal footing in American society?
As I have written, espoused, stated (and will continue to state) Anti-Blackism is the sexiest thing in U.S. politics. Whether it be "crime" (a la Willie Horton), education, health care or so-called "voting rights" the United States is an apartheid nation built upon same. It will never change, fundamentally speaking, for if it were to do so, it would be a place no one recognizes. It would be, literally, a different country.
“If you wanted to reduce crime,” Bennett said on the radio, “you could, if that were your sole purpose; you could abort every Black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” This statement by Bennett does not say Asian, Latino, Original American, etc. "babies." He, quite specifically, says "Black babies." And, though there are those that make the feeble, intellectually dishonest, false equivalency attempt to infer that the societal maladies that have plagued the only people forced to come to North America, work for free and were/are legally less than humans are a shared experience among other so-called "people of color" they are, utterly, full of shit. Those who might dare take exception to this stark reality need look no further than Jim Crow. There were no Asian facilities; Asians were not relegated to the proverbial "back of the bus," nor were any other people. The "Negro" bathrooms and facilities were for "niggers," whereas the Asians, Latino's, original Americans and whatever else used the whitey facilities.
Facts, is facts, and it is not lost upon me, at all, that the same nation that refuses to fund education for its 'citizens" also refuses to fund healthcare for those same "citizens." There is no way anyone can tell me that they believe that a nation of infirmed, sick and poorly educated people is a recipe for global competitiveness.
An outstanding article by one of the greatest thinkers this country has ever produced; albeit a sad and disturbing portent. This is only going to get "progressively" worse.
And your point, if it exists, is...what? Man-up and make it.
The thirty-sixth U.S. President, Lyndon B. Johnson, loftily referenced for his signing of the Civil Rights Bill loved the word nigger. I am not allowed to write his exact quotes because white editorial sensibilities (sanctimony, if you will) preclude these truths though they are matters of historical record. How weird is that? It is a term invented by the very people that claim to be so offended by it and, furthermore, regularly use it towards a group that I am part of. I suppose some folks do not like the smell of their own excrement.
Most unfortunate.
President Johnson once said to a black chauffeur who requested that the president not refer to him as “boy”, “nigger” or “chief” the following: “As long as you are black, and you’re gonna be black till the day you die, no one’s gonna call you by your goddamn name. So no matter what you are called, nigger, you just let it roll off your back like water, and you’ll make it. Just pretend you’re a goddamn piece of furniture.”
President Johnson was known to, in an irony of ironies, when discussing civil rights legislation with men like Mississippi Democrat James Eastland, who committed most of his life to defending white supremacy, call the Civil Rights Bill “the Nigger Bill.” Johnson, in reference to his appointment of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme court stated: “Son, when I appoint a nigger to the court, I want everyone to know he’s a nigger.” Most notoriously, Johnson said: “I’ll have those Niggers voting Democratic for 200 years.” Frighteningly prescient. Though there are some Democrats that say this particular statement is a Republican propaganda plant, they do not dispute the others. Very, very, odd.
It is typical of many European-Americans, to refuse acknowledgement of their apartheid system, which perpetuates it; and, thusly, where white supremacy comes into play. The "Blackwell School" was just that, a school. The only people, in the history of planet Earth, that it was a crime, punishable by death, to teach to read and write ( a foreign language) were Black People in the United States. And, it could be saliently argued, that is still the de facto case. Furthermore, "Texas" was part of Mexico (as was California, Arizona and NEW Mexico) and, as far as I am concerned, still is. Mexicans have their ancestral names, Black People in the United States do not. Mexicans were not kidnapped and forced to come to North America as they were already here; they are at home. That is not the case for Black People in the United States. A huge and monumental difference. In fact, a Mexican, Latino, Hispanic, Jew, Arab Asian, or whatever, will call a Black Person in the United States a "nigger" in a heartbeat (oddly enough, I have found that my Original American ancestors rarely do so). A people so damaged, lost and devalued, that even some of them call each other that because, unlike the other "people of color"... they don't know their names.
I am aware of your inference regarding Uncle Thomas. However, what I am most interested in, again, is what is your point (if you have one)?
Here is my sad anecdote about names. My mother made a "grand tour" of the US 1940. She was born in San Francisco, her father from Winston Salem, NC, with interesting roots in the Moravian colony, plantation whites. She asked a local about looking up possible relatives named S............. The guy looked at her kind of funny, and in a warning tone, said anybody of that name was likely "colored."
Republicans can't get their own bias and ideology straight.
First they are for vouchers, well at least that was the cause of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School.
Now they want to cut funding for vouchers and the deplorable boobs jump on that bandwagon. Idiocy, mediocracy and misery crave company. Like crabs in a boiling pot.
They want to cut welfare, even though many of them, and their states are welfare queens.
It just occurred to me that the reason the Republicans are dumbing down public education is for the same reason that it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write.
These Republicans are veritable thieves, stealing educational programs from the less moneyed, people of color and parents that don’t want their kids to be given ‘lies ‘ in lieu of real History. They are certainly trying to feed this fake Christian pablum and pass it off as education in Red States across the country.
Besides not giving quality educational resources to Public Schools, they really want to destroy education for everyone.
The kids whose parents can afford to pay their way are doing their children a real disservice. Shielding them from reality past, present and future.
Our job as parents is to teach our children how to live in Reality with some degree of accountability and peace.
Learning how to cope with bigots shouldn’t have to be part of their studies but it’s necessary because the Republicans insist on living in fantasy. Donald Trump should not have any say , ever , in education because he chooses ignorance with ‘cover stories ‘as his lifestyle . He insists his cult members play it back to him.
Essentially a cult without integrity of any stripe.
We need to overrun the minority’s standards and replace them with inclusive reality.
That is the majority’s responsibility . Vote Republicans out at every level they are rotting our children’s futures.
If our school are failing, screw vouchers - fix public education.
That US public education is failing merely requires a look at national test scores to see a steady decline. Whenever I see MAGA rally attendees on TV being asked to justify support this or that Trumpolicy, few can even offer a terse example much less a rationale. They seem incapable of critical reasoning. If they were capable of critical reasoning, the MAGAs would probably be attending rallies for Cheney or Newsom.
Research has shown that voucher school performance is not superior to public schools. DeVos's voucher schools promotion is all ga$light. The Right's goal seems to be to turn public education into trade schools (Corporate socialism again). They do not want a workforce of critical thinkers. They want employees who just do what they are told.
Consider all the news stories where legislators complain that colleges are wasting resources by teaching courses like social studies, history, English, philosophy, etc. Those courses are not preparation for a succe$$ful career. Those courses should be eliminated as a waste of the taxpayers' money and replaced with more computer and other STEM courses. When I hear that, I cringe.
Great cognitive leaps often end with awful crashes. Assumptions and presumptions are likewise fraught with danger. One can be 100% right about certain facts but if one makes false connections or attributions, one does not end up in a good place.
Public schools have phenomenal potential and have benefitted certain segments of the population significantly. They should be open to all and fully funded by government and their funding should not be shorted or reduced to fund private ventures designed to discriminate or benefit one group, one religion, or one ideology.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to question the accuracy of the following statements from the article:
“Public schools were the great social and economic leveler for the last century of American history;
“Public schools (and free college) made it possible for America to produce an explosion of invention and innovation throughout the mid-20th century;
“… public schools gave many students their first experience of interacting with people who look different from them…awakening many young people to the discrimination and unfairness inherent in how America has historically treated minorities.”
If public schools were “great levelers”, why does the “school-to-prison pipeline affect almost exclusively minority and poor students? If they leveled society to any appreciable degree, why are racists coming out of the woodwork and having a field day in the second decade of the 21st century? If some great number of young people have been truly awakened, why has it been so easy to kill elements of the Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action programs, and to make CRT into a major political issue across much of the country? What proportion of minority students are suspended, expelled, and harshly disciplined in comparison to white students? Why do we hear so much about the “achievement gap” and lingering discrimination in college admittance and in employment after more than a century of public schooling? Am I just not patient enough?
And, where is the proof of any meaningful connection between public schools and the “explosion of invention and innovation throughout the mid-20th century”? (Public colleges, yes, to a large extent). Where do such claims relative to traditional K-12 schools originate and how are they validated or substantiated? I call BS.
Obviously, being exposed to inspirational and charismatic adults cannot help but benefit certain capable and motivated students. Yet, what about students who are less capable in terms of academics or who are less motivated, and what about all those teachers who are hard-assed authoritarians and those who are only there for a paycheck?
The term, “public education system” gives us our first clue about why the myths about public schools persist, even in a space where people are supposed to know better, Thom. There can be no public education “system”. Adam Smith and Horace Mann were both wrong if they used those terms to describe public schools. Public schools may socialize and train students and they may accidentally or coincidentally contribute greatly to the education of select students who have certain predispositions and proclivities. However, it is a grievous error to pretend that they can educate and that we do not need to figure out better ways to provide authentic and meaningful educational opportunities to ordinary citizens, none of which involve privatization, vouchers, or charter schools.
Why is it so difficult to be honest about these facts? If you want to save public schools, you first have to make them into truly equalizing and hospitable environments for ALL students. As long as they are authoritarian bureaucracies and monopolies for indoctrination under state laws requiring attendance, the privatizers and bigots will be able to promote their malignant enterprises.
Racial biases are not a part of your argument, Robert. This country began with slavery being totally acceptable. There were no white slaves. An internal war was fought between those who devalued slaves,recognizing them to be only partially human, and those who sought to free them, recognizing their humanity.
That racial tension has never fully subsided. When you completely disrespect a class of people you look for ways to punish them for the irritation they cause you. Since Obama was elected and a Black family moved into the White House (the “White” house),racist fervor has escalated dramatically.
This has everything to do with public education and the growth of private and Christian schools. Many evangelical families are homeschooled, completely eliminating social interaction with the “others.”
The goal of the New Republican Party is to eliminate color. In their quest for white purity they will not stop the crusade to dominate all other skin-colors, and the complete defunding of public education is paramount to the cause.
Ms. Connor, I’m a little confused by your statement that racial biases are not a part of my argument. My argument is that correlation is not causation. More exactly, weak correlation is no basis for jumping to wild claims of causation. Public schools have not been a solution to problems, including racial bias and discrimination. That bias and discrimination have persisted by virtue of using tainted and culturally biased values and testing which utilize arbitrary measures and selective morality. They most certainly did not produce the scientific, economic, and other wonders of the past century or two, despite the subjective and anecdotal "evidence" and their propaganda and cheerleading by their own and by sentimental graduates . Racial injustice has been exacerbated in many ways by schools which sort, evaluate, discriminate, and judge students according to repugnant behavioral indices for rating and grading students.
My argument is that people, such as Thom and you continue to erroneously call public schooling “public education”. I refuse to call what they do education and even were I to go along with that misidentification for the purposes of the discussion, it is reprehensible that the damage done to a phenomenal number of students over many generations is wiped from memory and disregarded as merely the cost of teaching the majority or the lucky few some barebones skills and information. In what universe is it okay to write off a sizeable proportion of the child citizens of a country as a loss or as disposable, while the winners go on to hit the jackpot?
Lastly, defunding public schools is a travesty. Why do so many people, including thought leaders such as Thom think that the privatizers will stop and go away if they keep repeating the mantra that our schools are great and defensible, incessantly? If you want to keep public schooling, stop pretending that the schools are not bastions of conservative ideation and belief and havens for right-wing authoritarian conditioning where obedience is the primary lesson and abstraction is the primary methodology. If you want to defeat the enemies of public schooling, do what must be done to remove the justifications that reveal abject failure and egregious harm to millions of students, including the children of the white supremacist snowflakes.
Cynics label the schools as nothing more than babysitters.
Not "grievous error to pretend that they can educate."
From my perspective as someone once familiar with the juvenile justice system, school discipline cases, hearing childhood disability cases, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA,) formerly the Handicap Act of 1973 cases, I'm big on the IEP, individualized educational prescription and think that all students, not just "exceptional"" students benefit from a plan based on a kid's aptitude and potential.
You got that right. High School bored the hell out of me. I spent most of my time day dreaming or being sent to the counselors office, finally just stopped attending. Boring, so boring, I could pass the tests just listening and regurgitating the drone of the teacher,to no avail. I refused to take notes, I got writers cramp. I learned more at the public library than I did in class. I learned about the Holocaust in 1954 from Five Chimney's, The story of an Auschwitz Survivor.. published in 1946.
In the 1950's all students were treated the same, whether they had an IQ of 90 or an IQ of 160.
We did some "illegal" things. We had "tracking," and the 4th track were s-l-o-w. Before we knew about learning disabilities. Some of those slow learners became business owners, hired people who were in the 1st track. We had a huge dropout rate.
When I was in school we had "football study hall" which imparted relatively high test scores. We had 11 assistant football coaches, most taught math and science, some taught at the college level. Some later went on to become college coaches.
some of our teachers were nationally recognized. Several wrote masters theses about it, proselytized it.
We had a terrific grants writer, and one of our principals when I was a kid developed an experimental reading program. The draft had something to do with it but a huge proportion of male students went into education.
Today, despite what Elliott says, minority students thrive in that system. Small town. Poor. Crime ridden. Kids win national competitions in stuff like science, robotics.
Thank you for the history lesson. I didn’t remember that some schools actually closed rather than integrate. Georgia didn’t close our schools but it took years to follow the law. My brother was a senior in 1970 and there were three black students in his class. Republicans are going to destroy our way of life unless we get out and vote to stop them!
Virginia shut down its public schools for a time after the decision in “Brown v. Board of Education,” and a movement began among Black students to reopen and integrate the public schools. The school segregation issue is one of the many negative outgrowths of residential segregation. Public schools in some Southern states like Alabama and Mississippi have largely been left to become schools primarily for Black students, while white parents who can afford it send their kids to private academies. Pat Conroy covered the topic in his novel “The Prince of Tides,” and I think President Biden has realized that his earlier positions on the topic were untenable.
The irony is that the integrated schools in Fairfax County are the best in the state of Virginia.
Chicago does not look any better than a city in a southern state when it comes to housing and school integration.
This is correct, and my intention isn’t to imply segregation was a problem in the south only. I addressed the southern states school issues as this is where the whole concept of massive resistance started. The north had some significant educational desegregation cases, including the South Boston cases, as well as Milliken v. Bradley in Michigan, which put a limit on how far courts were willing to go to desegregate.
I understand that segregation was a movement in the south, but in Chicago it was a movement too. Call it parochial education. In terms of desegregation actions like in Boston, the courts decided a while ago that Deseg is over, and statistically we are now no better off than we were before desegregation. So, my mom has a point about the USA. Not integrating people into a community in all of its institutions is a problem, and not what makes America great! https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1111060299/school-segregation-report
My colleague and I used the book, The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson to teach about school segregation and segregation in general to our fourth grade students.
https://varianjohnson.com/books/the-parker-inheritance/story-behind-parker-inheritance/
Our private school, predominantly White and Asian students loved the story, which we discussed in book clubs, along with reading aloud, The Promise of Change by Jo Anne Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy, a novel in verse about Jo Anne's experiences integrating a high school in Tennessee. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40046144
Ms. Boyce even zoomed into our classes to discuss her book and experiences. The children appreciated the story, which deals with a lot of issues and is a mystery. They also liked its intersectionality as per comments in their discussion preparation. This tied into social studies on the question of The Meaning of Race, and a year long study of children's novels with characters from different backgrounds and time periods. Teaching these books has made me very aware of segregation in housing and schools. When my mother came to this country from Nazi Germany, she was shocked at the self-righteousness of Americans when she saw so much racism. She told me that it is the reason that we do not have the good social supports that European countries have, because racist White Americans would rather have no one have these social supports than allow Blacks to have them. Given over 100 years after slavery has ended we still have a two tiered society, dominated by White Supremacy, it does not look good. The current supreme court does not help.
I vividly remember the 82nd Airborne being deployed to integrate Little Rock High School, and later went to university with a Captain who had been an enlisted member of the 82nd, he mentioned how scary it was.
What I remember most is the Irish (well mostly Irish) of Boston, during the anti busing boycott
In addition to the neosegregation taking place in our public schools, child labor laws are being rewritten. Teenagers across red state America are becoming the replacements for the brown-skinned workforce. The plan to roundup and deport immigrants, legal as well as illegal, will require young, strong children to take their places.
The benefit to corporate America is huge. Many states will not require employers to pay a livable wage to those under age 18, nor will they be required to provide them any benefits. Some states will disallow any lawsuits against corporations for resulting injuries or deaths that take place on the job sites.
The past forty years of dumbing-down our nation’s youth has been tied to the current state of education. And when the GOP (Governors of Persecution) gains full control of our federal government, indentured servitude will begin in earnest.
We have to wake up and vote these Republicans out of office. They are taking our country back years with the draconian laws they are passing to benefit them all financially!
Om'gosh: "indentured servitude!" I nominate you Cassandra of the (hour?) I am old enough to hear in my mind: Tennessee Ernie Ford: "I Owe My Soul to the Company Store." Even before "Dodd," I talked to my cat about how it wouldn't be long before a husband would be jailed for transporting his wife across state lines for "illicit" purposes; namely, abortion. Well, that happened, almost! I and my cat hope you are wrong, but not optimistically.
Our family understands this history because our grandfather, the Supt. of schools in Round Rock, Texas was forced to resign or be fired in 1957 because he proposed the integration of the schools. He refused to resign, was fired. There were death threats, the loved family cat was hung from a front yard tree lynch style. The NEA sent attorneys and won the case to have his contract paid by the Round Rock schools for lack of valid reason of termination. It was another 10 years before students were allowed to attend the White School and given a chance to take college preparatory classes. It was heart breaking for my grandfather, Floyd Perry. I have spoken with some of the people who were turned away when they legally should have been allowed to be integrated into the better school.
The sad thing about this story today is that in the information about O. F. ( Floyd) Perry in the History of the Round Rock public schools, the article mentions nothing about integration. It only mentions that Mr. Perry had proposed building more classrooms and a bond had been passed for the money causing an increase in taxes for landowners!
Thom, every day I learn from you as you connect the dots to problems that have been hiding in the background. The organization and the funding of these issues has been a remarkable process. There are so many people that would be astounded by this information but may never hear about it.
Republicans almost universally want to eliminate the Department of Education. Jimmy Carter and Congress created the new Department of Education in 1979. In 1980, candidate Ronald Reagan pledged to dissolve it, and the Republican platform adopted it. Trump talked about dissolving it when he was in the White House with a Republican Congress.
In 1965, LBJ, a former teacher, promoted the Higher Education Act 1965 which enabled many to attend college who would not otherwise have had the chance. It covered many bases, including the provision of federal resources for continuing education, community service programs, and stronger library programs and library instruction. Republicans and Dixiecrats said it was an attempt to take over local control of school.
Thom mentioned desegregation. The entire south was in "massive resistance" to the federal government. I joke that I was in the the Army of the occupation of the south before I went to Vietnam and after I returned in 1967. By 1968, the whole country was on fire.
Our district had special programs. One of them, "humanizing education" let top objections, primarily from Evangelicals but others who accused us of "removing God" and replacing it with Communism.
In some states taxpayers refuse to fully fund public education. I don't think there is any magic to local control, local school boards, as politics at the retail level is more corrupt than at the wholesale level, i.e. state boards. I can testify to that fact.
I have some experience. I represented some school districts and local AFT, American Federation of Teachers local unions. I relocated and took a job with the federal government, but my brother was involved in school law from 1970 until his retirement in 2018.
We had experiences with representing school districts state wide in major busing initiatives, the first teacher strike in Pa, before such strikes were legal, involved in the sale of schools to the Amish community after Wisconsin v Yoder, etc. My brother represented some districts where the AFT was not the bargaining units. We were involved in implementing due process rights and our districts had some novel programs.
In most Amish schools, 13 year old girls are the teachers. The state does not care whether they are certified.
Down here in Baghdad By the Sea, our governor wants veterans without degrees or certification to teach his favored mandated subjects. Florida ranks 46th in the nation in per-pupil funding, which means that schools have less money to spend on things like teacher salaries, classroom materials, and extracurricular activities. He mandates the content of required lesson plans. A former governor, JEB Bush, created charter schools, which are an educational disaster. During the 2022-23 school year, over 382,367 students were enrolled in 726 charter schools in 46 Florida districts.
Florida has the third-highest percentage of adults lacking basic prose literacy skills of 19.7%, equaling a literacy rate of 80.3%. Florida has the lowest number of public libraries per 100,000 residents of 2.6. Although DeSantis says Florida has the best education, A large majority of Florida eighth graders do not read proficiently and struggle with 8th grade-level math skills, according to a nationwide assessment of students in 2022 — an uncomfortable reality for teens unprepared for a rigorous high school schedule.
A large portion of Florida’s fourth graders also struggled with math and reading skills — though they performed higher than the national average. Still, they were unable to reach proficiency in those key subjects, according to 2022 data.
The Republicans accuse the Democrats of indoctrination, but it’s the Republicans who don’t want their kids learning things like actual biological science, the more unsavory and racist aspects of our history, and who have come out for censorship of school textbooks and literature. If a parent wants their own child not to read certain books, fine, but they have no right to tell other children and parents their kids can’t read these books either. I have a rather firm line on separation of religion and state even though I’m Catholic and spent 10 years of my primary education in Catholic school. The only censorship hint I remember hearing was when a parent was bitching about having their kid read John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” As I recall the parental protest didn’t go anywhere.
I don't believe I've ever seen a country suffering from so much insanity that we're about to shat our britches. Much of the problem comes from Republicans and Republican families who have had their children educated through advice from morons like Friedman, DeVos the Koch brothers and Mussolini and Trump.
They prefer miseducation.
No, this is the Mike Johnson generation. If it ain't in the Bable it ain't the truth. All they need to know is what is in the Babble.
This is exactly how biblical literalists think.
But NOT the real "New Testament," mostly. The Foursquare Gospel dunked me after I read the Book of John 5 times through. I couldn't stay in their church, but darn, there's good stuff in the "Babble." I remember a pastor of some kind trying to recruit me, asking me about Jesus, and I said something enthusiastic and he harrumphed and went away! God forbid we hear Jesus!
The old and new testament are all things to all people, it was written, re written, edited, excised, edited again over and over, not to mention the many translations by men with their own agendas and opinions.
And this IHSus, Yahooshua as it sounds, Joshua (means savior in Hebrew), was known to the Greeks as IHS, the signet of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine, who could turn water into wine. IHS is Iota Eta Sigma. In Greek the eta is both a consonant and a vowel, depending on i'ts placement, at the begginng of a word it is consonant with a harsh sound, in after the beginning it has a soft sound like the English or Latin 'E, the Romans added the male ending of "US" hence IHSus, .
The Letter I in Latin also has two sounds, at the beginning of a name or word it has a sound similar to the French and subsequently English letter J, in the middle of a word it has the sound of our "E" hence Iulius was pronounced something like Dzuleeus, or French Julius and IHSus, Iesus as Dzesus or Jesus.
Dionysos or Dionysus, means literally Son of God, and god to the Greeks was Zeus, the Latin for God is Dios.
The Greeks celebrated Dec 25, the day that the sun "arose from it's grave, after laying three days, after the Winter solstice, as the Dionysia, Romans adopted the Dionysia as the Bacchanalia, named for their version of Dionysos - Bacchus.
In my opinion, Jesus and his pacifist religion was cooked up by a diaspora Rabbi, after the Romans raped Jerusalem, and stole it's wealth from the Temple.
They couldn't defeat Rome from without, with force, so they went at it from within, by preaching a pacifistic messiah.,with the hero, the savior being cobbled together from the various savior's of the various religions of the time. None of the so called apostles, those displayed in Leonardo DaVinci's Last Supper, or in the books of the "Gospel" lived at the time of this hero savior. I doubt that they existed at all, the chapters were documents cobbled together, scrubbed, edited, interpolated, re edited over and over again, starting during the reign of Constantine.
As a consequnce you can find many Jesus's, each with their own characteristic, a man of action, of violence, who would have his own opponents slain like Trump in Luke 19:17, or a man of peace like the Jesus in Matthew.
There certainly was no man named Saul or Paul, a tax collector. He was modeled on Appolonius of Tyana whom some scholars think is the model for Jesus.
The travelogue of Appolonius is the same as that for Paul, but in reverse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana
And the Greeks had no word for Messiah, but since the Hebrews annointed their messiahs (plural intended) with oil, the Romans used the Greek word for rub with oil Christos for messiah,also see Crisco.
The Papal Chi Rho was the signet of the warrior goddess Ishtar (aka Venus) and its use on the shields of the legion of Constantine at the Battle of the Milivian Bridge, was psychological warfare, for Ishtar was feared for never having lost a battle by the superstitious people of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia.
The Latin Equivalent of the Greek Chi is the letter X, the Latin Equivalent of the Greek letter Rho is the letter P, thus the X superimposed over the P is the Chi Rho of the Papal seal, used throughout Christendom., the very symbol that Constantine painted on the shields of his Legion at the battle of the Milivian bridge.
These fundamental myths of the conservative ideology has infected Christianity to the point that they people in them no longer believe in the lefty Jesus values of helping the poor and needy. Selfishness is the racist value that has infected these fundamental churches which the Pope has now had to confront by a massive change in the numerous new cardinals he has promoted.
I will try to pay attention more to this Pope. He recently did remove a Cardinal: Arizona??? He is also not in good health. Wouldn't it be tragic, if the Church is just as vulnerable to factionalism as any mundane institution, and the next Pope decides God's hatred of all females forever for the sake of Eve is the rule?
Look to Pope Pious IX to see where the conservative church stands. It is not a pretty picture.
There is more than one Jesus. There is the Jesus of Matthew and the Jesus of Luke
The Jesus of turn the other cheek and the tale of the good Samaritan and Sermon on the Mount
And the Jesus of Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me
The Jesus of Luke 22:36 - Sell Your Cloak to Buy a Sword
Those who would use their god as a sock puppet have excuses and rationalizations as if they could read the mind of their god. Charlatans all, but the simple mind fall in line
For their Jesus said: Be like little children. And of course children are vulnerable, credulous, gullible and ripe prey for mental predators.
We are finally coming to a Time of America dissolution or Civil War. We no longer have one country? We have two? We have split apart. We not only don't have the most perfect union but we have is two groups of Americans with totally different ideals and totally different political and social as well as economic ideas and ideals. One group prefers a dictatorship that can tell everyone where to go and what to do. Naturally much of this is based on either religion or false religion such as evangelicalism. The other group, the democracy wants that continue and to expand that democracy. We can't seem to do that anymore. It seems that the alternate reality that has entered our universe since yes Reagan certainly through Bush and without any doubt whatsoever from Trump/ Putin with our anti-democratic inferior Supreme Court. I'm not sure we can do anything about it anymore politically unless, unless we can act the Republicans out at the polls in 2024. I encourage anyone of any political persuasion, of any race, of any nationality to stop this insanity in its tracks. It can be done. What needs to happen is for everyone who loves freedom to get out there and vote, even if we have to close your eyes to vote, for a Democrat for every political position from dog catcher to president.
Do not say oh I'm not happy with democracy so I'm not going to vote. Get out there and vote and vote for a Democrat if you value your freedom. I don't want to hear I'm too sick or too tired to go out there to the polls. Vote by mail if you have to. Have someone carry you to the voting booth if you have to. Then vote for democracy. Vote for Democrat. If you are black or you were Asian or you are Cuban or you are Muslim think about what you want for the future for yourselves and your children. If the end goal is freedom, or the end goal is education, or the end goal is life in a society that's not run by a dictator get out there and vote for a Democrat.
Any one of you who goes out there and votes for Republican is a traitor to your country, a traitor to your family I traitor to your children and a Traitor to yourselves.
I know that's a lot to take in but our democracy depends on you. It depends on what you consider important right now in the election of 2024. This is no time for intellectual dilly dally. This is no time to talk about things. The Republicans, that is the Republican Party, that is the Republican dictators, want to take away your freedoms. Is that what you would like for your countrymen? Do you want your freedoms, your children's freedoms, your grandchildren's freedom taken away. Do you want them all to become puppets of some dictator like in Russia ? if you do then you should vote for a republican of course. Vote for your friendly fascist.
For the other 70% of us we need to have an election where 70% of the population kick out these liars from public office. Okay I apologize I shouldn't call them morons. These crazy "con artists" might be a better term. Whatever. Get out there vote for Democrat for every position there. Take away the every position from the Republicans. Take away the House of Representatives from the Republicans. Take away the presidency from the Republicans and let's start kicking ass.
Of course there's another alternative here but these crazy extremists with their crazy extremist Supreme Court win and send you to the gulag for being such a dumbass that you let them take your country away. It's your choice!
I think we can get past this. Always darkest before the dawn.
I thought we were closer to a real shoot 'em up in '68. Like I said yesterday, most of the MAGAT confederates have been exposed to arrests, trials, convictions that are object lessons.
Like their leader, they are full of it.
I so hope you are right Daniel, the situation between 1968 and 1975 was tense, I remember it well. But the situation today is quite different there are a lot of parallels between 1933 and 2023. And it all fits too eerily with Thom's 80 year cycle between generations, where the lessons learned in one generation are forgotten by the time of the grandson generation.
The lyrics of the song that go "When will they ever learn". The answer is never.
The age of Aquarius arrives in 2150, by that time, considering the rate at which we are befouling the very house we live in, there will be peace on earth, as there won't be any mammals, or at least very few.
Thank you for writing and sharing this. We have so much work to do to turn around alarmist rhetoric that will have a very real impact on our educational system. I am repeatedly struck by the cognitive dissonance that is so prevalent around us, especially around public education. Citizens are being taught that the American public education system is in crisis but are not experiencing that "crisis" themselves. I wrote about this in a recent op-ed.
"Despite the angry, fearful headlines and memes, parents of K-12 kids remain largely content with their oldest child’s education. In her recent analysis of Gallup’s August 2022 study, Lydia Saad reports that: “The 80% who are completely or somewhat satisfied [with their own child’s educational experience] is slightly improved from the 73% measured a year ago and exceeds the average of 76% that Gallup has recorded since 2001.” This result comes in despite the chaos in education brought on by response to the pandemic and is consistent across party lines, demographics, and geographic representation."
... "Our public education system isn’t failing. If it was, we as parents would be screaming from the rooftops about our own child’s educational experience, not just parroting vague, salacious talking points and rhetoric that is being slung around about the “theys” and “thems” that we’re being encouraged to vilify in the name of “protecting the children.” We need to recognize the dissonance between personal experience and headlines and act accordingly. We should follow up on our concerns about funding and teacher shortages by directing more investment into the institution that we know and privately admit, is working for our kids and foundational to our country and democracy."
https://danismart.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=1c5095
Hi Dani. I hesitate typing this, because your comment is one that I agree with wholeheartedly, but I seek an understanding of how you use the phrase "cognitive dissonance" I understand and have personal experience with it, and how to overcome it.
Cognitive dissonance is a state in which on what one says and does is in direct conflict with that which one thinks or knows. Cognitive dissonance is manifest in a physical state of discomfort,in fact the lie detector depends on cognitive dissonance..
As an example. I "converted" to Catholicism to please a woman who was Catholic and wanted to marry in church. In my mind's eye, I knew better, but to please her I attended confession and mass, even sang in the choir.
The uncomfortable feeling of cognitive dissonance was overwhelming and to convince myself, and others, I joined a group of radical trad Catholics I eventually recovered my senses.
Here is how cognitive dissonance manifests itself. nervousness, sweating, trembling, elevated blood pressure and all around discomfort,
The result of saying and behaving one way, while inwardly knowing and thinking the opposite.
It is overcome by consistent behavior,over a 30 day period, without any regression, not even for one minute into old behavior or thought patterns.
I suspect that is the secret of actors and impersonators.For thirty days it is a forced and conscious effort, then it is second nature.
I've heard actors who have, say a southern drawl, affected for a role, found themselves unconsciously and comfortable with a southern drawl as their preferred communication style, though they were raised in the likes of NYC or California
Thank you for your response! I really appreciate the feedback and the time you took to write this. I have to admit, I did hesitate a bit in using the term "cognitive dissonance" but decided in the end, that it best described what I was trying to say. Please know that I am always open to other ideas.
I was working from Frantz Fanon's description from Black Skin, White Masks: “Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.”
And with this, probably an assumption of dissonance amongst those who believe that the public schools in America are in crisis while still feeling that their own child's public education was positive. It's an interesting exploration to consider that there are many who feel that they cannot let go of their own personal beliefs *because* they support the ideology that they have accepted. Is that a *reverse* cognitive dissonance?
But I very much see your point. There is a huge swath of Americans (obviously) who wouldn't be personally disturbed (or even thoughtful) of the difference between their own experience and that which they perceive to be the collective experience. They seem fine to accept that *despite* their own experience, they believe strongly that based on what they've been told, the collective whole is experiencing something different.
That extends to the economy, "my rights" are important but collectively 'their' rights are not, my child 'deserves student loan forgiveness but others don't because they're ____", etc..
But again, thank you for making me really think about this and explore other thoughts and verbiage. Such crazy times we live in.
Thanks Dani. I totally understand what you are saying.
I will restate what I have said elsewheres. The problem in communication is language. English in particular is a language of commerce, finance, science and technology and as such is wanting in many aspects.
In other words, we just don't have words for what we are trying to describe, or concepts we wish to explore or expound upon.
I use the English words love and play as quick and easy examples. play for instance is a noun, a verb and adjective.
The word love is meaningless. I love spring nights, I love my cat, I love to be alone, I love my children I love my spouse, love is a point in tennis.
At least in Spanish there is romantic love "te quiero" or I want you, and familial love, te amo.
A "player" tells a gal he has been trying to lay, after an orgasmic night or in the midst of an organism "I love you", i the morning he puts on his pants and walks a way, forgetting about her, the gal hears "I love you and want to marry you and live with you forever"
As Simon and Garfunkel sing in The Boxer" "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"
Tell your spouse "te amo" and you have just told them that the relationship is that of a broken in pair of shoes. Tell your child te quiero and you are incestuous.
Cognitive dissonance fits in that category of words with many meanings.
Here is how I explain what you describe.
There are beliefs and there are opinions.
Beliefs from an essential part of SOME peoples sense of self, their ego and id. Without them they are a fish out of water, if a belief is effectively refuted (like a MAGAts, a Muslims, a true believer in any religion or ideology and I consider religion to be an ideology.
It is quite simply an idea, around which we form a picture of the world or universe in which we live, and within it our relationship to it. Man, Woman, child, teen, white, black, Christian, Muslim Jew, Hindu, American, French, and so on.
There is not one of those features that we can't change with effort (even gender and race), although the effort is monumental in the case of Michael Jackson and gender, what is harder to change is the intangibles of our self image, how we perceive ourselves in relation to the world around us. Hard for many of us to understand is people like those that are for instance non binary.
Another thing that is hard to understand, especially for the ideologically hampered (and religion is an ideology) is a person who has none. per the mindset of a believer everyone HAS to have a belief, they can't imagine existence without one,and of course their belief (ideology) is the one true belief, and you see that even here on substack.
Unfortunately beliefs, for those that have them, form an essential part of their identity strip them of beliefs and they are like a shipwrecked person floating on flotsam, at the mercy of winds and currents, searching for a least something to use as a paddle, better yet a sail, something to cling to.
Second to beliefs are opinions. Opinions can be modified, or even abandoned without even damage or unsettling consequence to one's sense of self.
But they come in two versions. Opinions can be acquired. (ex: read a book, that then becomes gospel, like RFK jr's book, or Zecharia Sitchin, Freud, and on and on.
Opinions can be arrived at, formed by a person, based on their access to various inputs. Where they are weighed, analyzed, compared to other sources, ideas and even facts. This requires not only critical reasoning skills, but the exercise of those skills, and most people are just too lazy, they are all too willing to let others do their thinking for them, especially when they tug at emotions.
Facts too are problematic, are they real unassailable facts, or are they sourced by people with agenda's, who distort the facts, to influence the outcome or to bend peoples and events to their agenda.
A current example is the HAMAS-Israel conflict. HAMAS publicizes one set of facts, and those predisposed towards HAMAS and/or antipathy towards the Jews believes that set of acts, and vice versa for Israel. And of course the war for minds is won by those who are the most effective at visual presentations.
Before the 1936 Olympics the world, per se, was ambivalent towards the NAZI regime, after the 1936 Olympics, America and many an English including Edward VIII, Charles Lindberg and even some American Senators and Captains of Industry and finance,like Prescott Bush, and who could forget the gushing admiration for Mussolini who made the trains run on time.
Nixon was only partly right, grab them by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow, of course, But just as important, more maybe, is flood the zone with visuals, the ears with sounds and you have captured the mind and emotions.
Apologies I just covered a lot of what might appear to be extraneous territory.
I have many times allowed myself to fall into the well of belief, but I always have myself tied o a rope and a safety catch less I fall so far in that I can't climb out,however none have ever formed a part of my sense of being, my identity.
Of cognitive dissonance, I am sure of one thing, 30 days consistent behavior, with no set backs or slips, and one can change and become a new person. Voltaire said basically that people can't change their character, like a leopard can't change their spots.
I don't want to believe that, but fear that is true about certain aspects of our character.
One of the great responses! I will look up Fanon. I grew up in a thick stew of "cognitive dissonance," related to a mother who, thanks to John Dean, ("Conservatives Without Conscience.") I have come to identify as high authoritarian leader as well as follower. It certainly "disturbed" me! I have one reflection: that political divergence is driving a perverse impulse toward SELECTIVE education, as in indoctrination. (In my day, "Civics" in high school was all about bad commie Kruschev) It is interesting that Mr. Farrar describes physical symptoms. My Mom never broke a sweat! By golly, she was right about both conflicting ideas! So Farrar's acquaintance weren't really die-hard. Many MAGAs now seem more like my Mom, frighteningly....
"Here is how cognitive dissonance manifests itself. nervousness, sweating, trembling, elevated blood pressure and all around discomfort, ..."
One of my teachers, A Darwin expert at UCSB, thought that Darwin's dyspepsia was due to his being raised in the Church of England and then finding how wrong their teaching. So add dyspepsia to your CD symptoms.
bc
Thanks Bernard. One learns he damnedest things on Thom's reports. Will do, dyspepsia added.
I am sharing this everywhere, including to my school board rep and to the head of the local teachers union here and to public education activists I know. We’ve been working, but we’re up against a behemoth with a very hungry belly.
We pay property taxes. In West Barnum Denver, that amounts to approximately 50% of the tax. I thank my parents (dead long ago) and West Barnum taxpayers for providing me with my K-12 education from 1962-1975 through property taxes. By the time preparation and opportunity came to us to have a kid, circumstances had it we were out of the West Barnum but, as property owners, were still required to pay property taxes. We paid and are still paying for property taxes, including education, despite our kid never attending a DPS school. Our thoughts to the millions of Americans who feel that public education is a waste of time and have used personal choice to manipulate educational voucher exemptions for their children to attend whatever school they have decided their children to attend is their choice. However, it is an afront to us that (love it or hate it) have faithfully paid our property tax including the educational portion of the tax, to have to put up with those property owners that want public education at the expense of attending public education. To those who think that diverting public education funding is a choice for themselves and their kids, go ahead, keep them ignorant. It’s your choice. American public education is one of the greatest achievements in education globally. Niche public schools using diverted public taxes to fund them is absurd. Public schooling is a necessity, not a choice for us who live in large urban cities. Diverting public education funds for non-state-run schools denotes excluding one’s kids from the opportunity to contribute to society on an equal footing. Why would anyone want to deny their kids an equal footing in American society?
As I have written, espoused, stated (and will continue to state) Anti-Blackism is the sexiest thing in U.S. politics. Whether it be "crime" (a la Willie Horton), education, health care or so-called "voting rights" the United States is an apartheid nation built upon same. It will never change, fundamentally speaking, for if it were to do so, it would be a place no one recognizes. It would be, literally, a different country.
“If you wanted to reduce crime,” Bennett said on the radio, “you could, if that were your sole purpose; you could abort every Black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” This statement by Bennett does not say Asian, Latino, Original American, etc. "babies." He, quite specifically, says "Black babies." And, though there are those that make the feeble, intellectually dishonest, false equivalency attempt to infer that the societal maladies that have plagued the only people forced to come to North America, work for free and were/are legally less than humans are a shared experience among other so-called "people of color" they are, utterly, full of shit. Those who might dare take exception to this stark reality need look no further than Jim Crow. There were no Asian facilities; Asians were not relegated to the proverbial "back of the bus," nor were any other people. The "Negro" bathrooms and facilities were for "niggers," whereas the Asians, Latino's, original Americans and whatever else used the whitey facilities.
Facts, is facts, and it is not lost upon me, at all, that the same nation that refuses to fund education for its 'citizens" also refuses to fund healthcare for those same "citizens." There is no way anyone can tell me that they believe that a nation of infirmed, sick and poorly educated people is a recipe for global competitiveness.
An outstanding article by one of the greatest thinkers this country has ever produced; albeit a sad and disturbing portent. This is only going to get "progressively" worse.
You are referring to Bill Bennett? Appointed by Reagan to kill the Department of Education? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bennett
His henchman was Ginny Thomas' husband.
One of LBJ's life experiences was as a teacher in a Texas "Mexican school." https://texastimetravel.com/blog/the-undertold-histories-of-texas-mexican-schools-part-1/
https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/president-biden-designates-blackwell-school-national-historic-site-americas-newest
And your point, if it exists, is...what? Man-up and make it.
The thirty-sixth U.S. President, Lyndon B. Johnson, loftily referenced for his signing of the Civil Rights Bill loved the word nigger. I am not allowed to write his exact quotes because white editorial sensibilities (sanctimony, if you will) preclude these truths though they are matters of historical record. How weird is that? It is a term invented by the very people that claim to be so offended by it and, furthermore, regularly use it towards a group that I am part of. I suppose some folks do not like the smell of their own excrement.
Most unfortunate.
President Johnson once said to a black chauffeur who requested that the president not refer to him as “boy”, “nigger” or “chief” the following: “As long as you are black, and you’re gonna be black till the day you die, no one’s gonna call you by your goddamn name. So no matter what you are called, nigger, you just let it roll off your back like water, and you’ll make it. Just pretend you’re a goddamn piece of furniture.”
President Johnson was known to, in an irony of ironies, when discussing civil rights legislation with men like Mississippi Democrat James Eastland, who committed most of his life to defending white supremacy, call the Civil Rights Bill “the Nigger Bill.” Johnson, in reference to his appointment of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme court stated: “Son, when I appoint a nigger to the court, I want everyone to know he’s a nigger.” Most notoriously, Johnson said: “I’ll have those Niggers voting Democratic for 200 years.” Frighteningly prescient. Though there are some Democrats that say this particular statement is a Republican propaganda plant, they do not dispute the others. Very, very, odd.
It is typical of many European-Americans, to refuse acknowledgement of their apartheid system, which perpetuates it; and, thusly, where white supremacy comes into play. The "Blackwell School" was just that, a school. The only people, in the history of planet Earth, that it was a crime, punishable by death, to teach to read and write ( a foreign language) were Black People in the United States. And, it could be saliently argued, that is still the de facto case. Furthermore, "Texas" was part of Mexico (as was California, Arizona and NEW Mexico) and, as far as I am concerned, still is. Mexicans have their ancestral names, Black People in the United States do not. Mexicans were not kidnapped and forced to come to North America as they were already here; they are at home. That is not the case for Black People in the United States. A huge and monumental difference. In fact, a Mexican, Latino, Hispanic, Jew, Arab Asian, or whatever, will call a Black Person in the United States a "nigger" in a heartbeat (oddly enough, I have found that my Original American ancestors rarely do so). A people so damaged, lost and devalued, that even some of them call each other that because, unlike the other "people of color"... they don't know their names.
I am aware of your inference regarding Uncle Thomas. However, what I am most interested in, again, is what is your point (if you have one)?
Ironically, on a scale from 1 to 46, it's a toss up whether LBJ or Lincoln did more for civil rights than any other president.
Here is my sad anecdote about names. My mother made a "grand tour" of the US 1940. She was born in San Francisco, her father from Winston Salem, NC, with interesting roots in the Moravian colony, plantation whites. She asked a local about looking up possible relatives named S............. The guy looked at her kind of funny, and in a warning tone, said anybody of that name was likely "colored."
Republicans can't get their own bias and ideology straight.
First they are for vouchers, well at least that was the cause of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School.
Now they want to cut funding for vouchers and the deplorable boobs jump on that bandwagon. Idiocy, mediocracy and misery crave company. Like crabs in a boiling pot.
They want to cut welfare, even though many of them, and their states are welfare queens.
It just occurred to me that the reason the Republicans are dumbing down public education is for the same reason that it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write.
These Republicans are veritable thieves, stealing educational programs from the less moneyed, people of color and parents that don’t want their kids to be given ‘lies ‘ in lieu of real History. They are certainly trying to feed this fake Christian pablum and pass it off as education in Red States across the country.
Besides not giving quality educational resources to Public Schools, they really want to destroy education for everyone.
The kids whose parents can afford to pay their way are doing their children a real disservice. Shielding them from reality past, present and future.
Our job as parents is to teach our children how to live in Reality with some degree of accountability and peace.
Learning how to cope with bigots shouldn’t have to be part of their studies but it’s necessary because the Republicans insist on living in fantasy. Donald Trump should not have any say , ever , in education because he chooses ignorance with ‘cover stories ‘as his lifestyle . He insists his cult members play it back to him.
Essentially a cult without integrity of any stripe.
We need to overrun the minority’s standards and replace them with inclusive reality.
That is the majority’s responsibility . Vote Republicans out at every level they are rotting our children’s futures.
If our school are failing, screw vouchers - fix public education.
That US public education is failing merely requires a look at national test scores to see a steady decline. Whenever I see MAGA rally attendees on TV being asked to justify support this or that Trumpolicy, few can even offer a terse example much less a rationale. They seem incapable of critical reasoning. If they were capable of critical reasoning, the MAGAs would probably be attending rallies for Cheney or Newsom.
Research has shown that voucher school performance is not superior to public schools. DeVos's voucher schools promotion is all ga$light. The Right's goal seems to be to turn public education into trade schools (Corporate socialism again). They do not want a workforce of critical thinkers. They want employees who just do what they are told.
Consider all the news stories where legislators complain that colleges are wasting resources by teaching courses like social studies, history, English, philosophy, etc. Those courses are not preparation for a succe$$ful career. Those courses should be eliminated as a waste of the taxpayers' money and replaced with more computer and other STEM courses. When I hear that, I cringe.
Great cognitive leaps often end with awful crashes. Assumptions and presumptions are likewise fraught with danger. One can be 100% right about certain facts but if one makes false connections or attributions, one does not end up in a good place.
Public schools have phenomenal potential and have benefitted certain segments of the population significantly. They should be open to all and fully funded by government and their funding should not be shorted or reduced to fund private ventures designed to discriminate or benefit one group, one religion, or one ideology.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to question the accuracy of the following statements from the article:
“Public schools were the great social and economic leveler for the last century of American history;
“Public schools (and free college) made it possible for America to produce an explosion of invention and innovation throughout the mid-20th century;
“… public schools gave many students their first experience of interacting with people who look different from them…awakening many young people to the discrimination and unfairness inherent in how America has historically treated minorities.”
If public schools were “great levelers”, why does the “school-to-prison pipeline affect almost exclusively minority and poor students? If they leveled society to any appreciable degree, why are racists coming out of the woodwork and having a field day in the second decade of the 21st century? If some great number of young people have been truly awakened, why has it been so easy to kill elements of the Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action programs, and to make CRT into a major political issue across much of the country? What proportion of minority students are suspended, expelled, and harshly disciplined in comparison to white students? Why do we hear so much about the “achievement gap” and lingering discrimination in college admittance and in employment after more than a century of public schooling? Am I just not patient enough?
And, where is the proof of any meaningful connection between public schools and the “explosion of invention and innovation throughout the mid-20th century”? (Public colleges, yes, to a large extent). Where do such claims relative to traditional K-12 schools originate and how are they validated or substantiated? I call BS.
Obviously, being exposed to inspirational and charismatic adults cannot help but benefit certain capable and motivated students. Yet, what about students who are less capable in terms of academics or who are less motivated, and what about all those teachers who are hard-assed authoritarians and those who are only there for a paycheck?
The term, “public education system” gives us our first clue about why the myths about public schools persist, even in a space where people are supposed to know better, Thom. There can be no public education “system”. Adam Smith and Horace Mann were both wrong if they used those terms to describe public schools. Public schools may socialize and train students and they may accidentally or coincidentally contribute greatly to the education of select students who have certain predispositions and proclivities. However, it is a grievous error to pretend that they can educate and that we do not need to figure out better ways to provide authentic and meaningful educational opportunities to ordinary citizens, none of which involve privatization, vouchers, or charter schools.
Why is it so difficult to be honest about these facts? If you want to save public schools, you first have to make them into truly equalizing and hospitable environments for ALL students. As long as they are authoritarian bureaucracies and monopolies for indoctrination under state laws requiring attendance, the privatizers and bigots will be able to promote their malignant enterprises.
Racial biases are not a part of your argument, Robert. This country began with slavery being totally acceptable. There were no white slaves. An internal war was fought between those who devalued slaves,recognizing them to be only partially human, and those who sought to free them, recognizing their humanity.
That racial tension has never fully subsided. When you completely disrespect a class of people you look for ways to punish them for the irritation they cause you. Since Obama was elected and a Black family moved into the White House (the “White” house),racist fervor has escalated dramatically.
This has everything to do with public education and the growth of private and Christian schools. Many evangelical families are homeschooled, completely eliminating social interaction with the “others.”
The goal of the New Republican Party is to eliminate color. In their quest for white purity they will not stop the crusade to dominate all other skin-colors, and the complete defunding of public education is paramount to the cause.
Ms. Connor, I’m a little confused by your statement that racial biases are not a part of my argument. My argument is that correlation is not causation. More exactly, weak correlation is no basis for jumping to wild claims of causation. Public schools have not been a solution to problems, including racial bias and discrimination. That bias and discrimination have persisted by virtue of using tainted and culturally biased values and testing which utilize arbitrary measures and selective morality. They most certainly did not produce the scientific, economic, and other wonders of the past century or two, despite the subjective and anecdotal "evidence" and their propaganda and cheerleading by their own and by sentimental graduates . Racial injustice has been exacerbated in many ways by schools which sort, evaluate, discriminate, and judge students according to repugnant behavioral indices for rating and grading students.
My argument is that people, such as Thom and you continue to erroneously call public schooling “public education”. I refuse to call what they do education and even were I to go along with that misidentification for the purposes of the discussion, it is reprehensible that the damage done to a phenomenal number of students over many generations is wiped from memory and disregarded as merely the cost of teaching the majority or the lucky few some barebones skills and information. In what universe is it okay to write off a sizeable proportion of the child citizens of a country as a loss or as disposable, while the winners go on to hit the jackpot?
Lastly, defunding public schools is a travesty. Why do so many people, including thought leaders such as Thom think that the privatizers will stop and go away if they keep repeating the mantra that our schools are great and defensible, incessantly? If you want to keep public schooling, stop pretending that the schools are not bastions of conservative ideation and belief and havens for right-wing authoritarian conditioning where obedience is the primary lesson and abstraction is the primary methodology. If you want to defeat the enemies of public schooling, do what must be done to remove the justifications that reveal abject failure and egregious harm to millions of students, including the children of the white supremacist snowflakes.
Cynics label the schools as nothing more than babysitters.
Not "grievous error to pretend that they can educate."
From my perspective as someone once familiar with the juvenile justice system, school discipline cases, hearing childhood disability cases, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA,) formerly the Handicap Act of 1973 cases, I'm big on the IEP, individualized educational prescription and think that all students, not just "exceptional"" students benefit from a plan based on a kid's aptitude and potential.
You got that right. High School bored the hell out of me. I spent most of my time day dreaming or being sent to the counselors office, finally just stopped attending. Boring, so boring, I could pass the tests just listening and regurgitating the drone of the teacher,to no avail. I refused to take notes, I got writers cramp. I learned more at the public library than I did in class. I learned about the Holocaust in 1954 from Five Chimney's, The story of an Auschwitz Survivor.. published in 1946.
In the 1950's all students were treated the same, whether they had an IQ of 90 or an IQ of 160.
Some districts use an IEP for all students.
We did some "illegal" things. We had "tracking," and the 4th track were s-l-o-w. Before we knew about learning disabilities. Some of those slow learners became business owners, hired people who were in the 1st track. We had a huge dropout rate.
When I was in school we had "football study hall" which imparted relatively high test scores. We had 11 assistant football coaches, most taught math and science, some taught at the college level. Some later went on to become college coaches.
Later, through Title I, Chapter 1, we had a "schools without failure" program. https://www.amazon.com/Schools-Without-Failure-William-Glasser/dp/0060904216
some of our teachers were nationally recognized. Several wrote masters theses about it, proselytized it.
We had a terrific grants writer, and one of our principals when I was a kid developed an experimental reading program. The draft had something to do with it but a huge proportion of male students went into education.
Today, despite what Elliott says, minority students thrive in that system. Small town. Poor. Crime ridden. Kids win national competitions in stuff like science, robotics.