OCT 2014

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05/2014

Public Education Under Assault

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The attacks on the Common Core are, in many ways, simply a proxy for a broader assault on public education itself, one of America’s greatest achievements and a cornerstone of its democracy.

As the standards are hotly debated, schools and teachers are being dragged through the mud by Christian Right culture warriors whose cause has been joined not only by Tea Party factions and radical antigovernment activists but by powerful right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups with an even more expansive agenda to privatize education. Indeed, the Koch brothers-affiliated group FreedomWorks, which helped birth the Tea Party movement, is scheming to use the Common Core debate to build support for the private school vouchers and other “school choice” measures, and to abolish the U.S. Department of Education.

It would be easy for many Americans to dismiss the most incendiary claims about public education as the rantings of extremists who have no real influence. That would be a mistake. These allegations are being absorbed by millions of Americans and are entering the mainstream public discourse.

The documentary IndoctriNation: Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America, promoted on the website above, contends that public schools are unconstitutional, were created to instill communist ideas, and “are not an option” for Christians.

For decades, education debates often revolved around ways to improve education. Today, many of the critics offer no suggestions for reform. Instead, they contend that our secular neighborhood schools are rotten to the core, and the only hope is to turn back the clock to church-affiliated education and “every family for itself” homeschooling. That is the mantra of IndoctriNation: Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America, the movement’s rallying-cry documentary, released in 2011 and funded, according to Mother Jones, by companies that produce homeschooling materials.

The 90-minute documentary features Scottish-born producer Colin Gunn traveling the United States in a school bus with his wife and children. He interviews so-called education authorities who are really evangelical preachers; extremist libertarians; politicians who don’t believe in publicly supported education or modern science; and ex-teachers who left schools because they weren’t allowed to bring Jesus into the curriculum. Viewers learn that U.S. public schools were created to instill communist ideas; that since they’re “not an option for Christians,” parents who place their children there are incurring the wrath of Jesus; and that our schools are unconstitutional.   

Alex Jones (YOUTUBE)

The film has generated a blitz of publicity and interest. It’s sold as a DVD by dozens of retailers as well as online at Amazon and the IndoctriNation website. A companion book to the DVD is sold on the website of the rabid conspiracist Alex Jones, whose show is streamed online, archived at his website and carried by more than 60 radio stations. The film is being screened at church gatherings and homeschool conventions. The IndoctriNation website also provides a manifesto for readers to sign and share with their pastors, urging religious leaders to preach removal of congregants’ children from public schools.    

The film won the “best documentary” prize in 2012 at the San Antonio Independent Film Festival, a Christian-oriented movie showcase. It was pushed hard by Jones, who devoted a show to it and recommended it “for anyone who has kids in the government training camps.” Warning of rampant pedophilia at public schools, Jones told parents, “You’re handing your kids over to a bunch of globalist scumbags.” To Jones, public schools are “part of a wicked plan” by “sick deviants” to enslave humanity under a satanic New World Order. “The top New World Order people do worship Lucifer,” Jones said. “They think Lucifer’s actually God and that Jesus is the devil. And that’s why, at the end of the day, we are actually dealing with Luciferians.”

Conservative columnist Cal Thomas also has praised IndoctriNation. “Every Christian parent with a child in a government school should see this and be forced to confront their unwillingness to do what Scripture requires for the children on loan to them by God,” he said in an official endorsement. “A mass exodus from government schools is the only way to preserve the souls and minds of children.” Thomas’ platform is vast. He’s among the most widely syndicated columnists in America, appearing in more than 500 newspapers, including circulation-leading USA Today. He’s heard on more than 300 radio stations and as a political commentator on Fox News.

“We cannot stick our head in the sand while our nation’s children are held hostage in government indoctrination camps,” wrote Anita Staver, president of the Liberty Counsel, in a September 2013 newsletter in which she pleaded with parents to homeschool their children. Public schools are “dangerous anti-God indoctrination camps” that “threaten our nation’s very survival.”

‘Soviet Union style of education’Alex Jones isn’t the only Patriot media figure to attack public schools. Radio host Dave Hodges of Arizona has also drawn schools into his circle of antigovernment conspiracy theories. He hosts a program called “The Common Sense Show,” broadcast on more than 50 stations and live-streamed online, that seethes with anger against the “New World Order” that he claims has turned the U.S. into a police state. “Move your children out of the government schools,” urges Hodges. “[They] are increasingly propagandizing our children. For example, the new unproven religion being worshipped in the public schools is environmentalism and global warning. … The government schools are conditioning our children to accept a lower standard of living and to pay tribute to the global elite through carbon taxes.”

Indeed, neighborhood schools may be committing treason by rewriting history, Hodges contends. “The anti-American point of view put forth by these public schools is both treasonous and also represents a Soviet Union style of education.” 

Extremist libertarians also are firing away. Some are articulate, highly educated ideological warriors whose credentials confer legitimacy. For example, C. Bradley Thompson is a political science professor at Clemson University and executive director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He’s been a visiting fellow at Harvard and Princeton universities. He’s also written, “The ‘public’ school system is the most immoral and corrupt institution in the United States of America today, and it should be abolished. It should be abolished for the same reason that chattel slavery was ended in the 19th century: … [It] is a form of involuntary servitude. … [P]ublic schools force children to serve the interests of the state.” Thompson penned this diatribe as a cover story in the winter 2012 issue of The Objective Standard, a quarterly libertarian journal. His words, such as “the abolition of public schools is an idea whose time has come,” were widely linked and touted on Internet sites.

‘Satan is after them’  Buffalo attorney and libertarian blogger James Ostrowski strongly agrees. Author of the 2009 book Government Schools are Bad for Your Kids: What You Need to Know, sold on Amazon and available on Kindle, Ostrowski also thinks public education deserves to die. “It is time to pull the plug on this failed 150-year-old experiment and move on,” he writes. As do many anti-public school activists, Ostrowski idealizes a distant, rural-centric era when children were taught privately. “Many government schools are turning into fornicatoriums featuring more and more sex, and less and less education.” They’re destructive hives of violence and drug abuse, his book claims. There’s only one solution: Get your children out. 

This isn’t innocuous rhetoric. It’s a stab that points disproportionately at children of color and the poor. As a result of white flight to private academies and homeschooling, and the nation’s changing demographics, minorities now comprise nearly half of public school students—nearly double the percentage of three decades ago. They are on track to become the majority of students in public schools in five years. In many locales today, public schools are already populated overwhelmingly by African-American and Latino students. Plus, 48 percent of public school students today live in or near poverty.

Rod Parsley AP IMAGES/ KIICHIRO SATO

Perhaps then, it is no surprise that these attacks are becoming more fierce as millions of evangelicals, the vast majority of them white, join the homeschooling movement, just as white students fled public schools in the Deep South following the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing racial segregation in schools.

In some corners of the evangelical world, it is becoming conventional wisdom that public schools are harmful to children. 

Rod Parsley, the flamboyant televangelist and pastor of World Harvest Church, a Pentecostal megachurch in Columbus, Ohio, has woven ardent derision of public schools into promotional marketing for his book, The Cross: One Man. One Tree. One Friday, released in October 2013. Parsley is a leading advocate of dominionist theology, which preaches that the U.S. should be governed by Christian biblical law.

The pastor says Satan now lives in local schools. “Our children are our righteous seed, and Satan is after them,” he wrote in the October issue of Charisma magazine, which circulates to Pentecostal churchgoers. “He has turned our public schools into cesspools of godless propaganda where God is publicly mocked and reviled. It is time to take a stand against the devil.”



à cause de    because of, due to
ah bon (?)    oh really? I see
à la fois    at the same time
à la française    in the French style or manner
à la limite    at most, in a pinch
à la rigueur    or even, if need be
à la une    front page news
à la vôtre !    cheers!
allons-y !    let's go!
à mon avis    in my opinion

!à peine    hardly à peu près    about, approximately, nearly a priori    at first glance, in principle à tes souhaits    bless you au cas où    just in case au contraire    on the contrary au fait    by the way au fur et à mesure    as, while au lieu de    instead of, rather than avoir l'air (de)    to look (like) bien dans sa peau    content, comfortable, at ease with oneself bien entendu    of course, obviously bien sûr    of course blague à part    seriously, all kidding aside

Bon anniversaire !    Happy birthday!
Bon appétit !    Enjoy your meal!
Bon débarras !    Good riddance!
bon marché    inexpensive, cheap
un bon rapport qualité-prix    good value
ça alors    how about that, my goodness
ça marche    ok, that works
ça m'est égal    it's all the same to me
ça ne fait rien    never mind, it doesn't matter
ça va (?)    how's it going?, I'm fine
ça vaut le coup    it's worth it
c'est    it is
c'est-à-dire    that is, i.e., I mean
c'est parti    here we go, and we're off
c'est pas vrai !    no way!
ce n'est pas grave    it doesn't matter, no problem ce n'est pas terrible    it's not that great
comme d'habitude, comme d'hab    as usual
un coup de fil    phone call
un coup d'œil    glance, quick look
d'ailleurs    moreover, might I add
déjà vu    already seen
de rien    you're welcome
de trop    too much / many
dis donc / dites donc    wow, by the way
du coup    as a result
du jour au lendemain    overnight
du tout    not/none at all
en effet    indeed, that's right
en fait    in fact
enfin    well, I mean
en retard    late
entendre dire que    to hear (it said) that
entendre parler de    to hear (someone talk) about
entre chien et loup    at dusk, twilight
est-ce que    (turns statement into question)
et j'en passe    and that's not all
et patati et patata    and so on and so forth
être en train de    to be ___ing   
faire cadeau    to give (something), to let off easily   
faire le pont    to make it a long weekend   
fais gaffe    watch out, be careful
fais voir    let me see
figure-toi    guess what, get this
'fin    well, I mean
grâce à    thanks to
ll est    it is
il faut    it's necessary
il y a    there is, there are
il y a quelque chose qui cloche    something's amiss
J'arrive !    I'm on my way!
j'en passe et des meilleures    and that's not all
J'en peux plus    I can't take (it) any more
Je n'en reviens pas    I can't believe it
Je n'y peux rien    There's nothing I can do about it.
Je n'y suis pour rien    It's got nothing to do with me
je t'aime    I love you
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité    France's motto
ma foi    frankly, well, indeed
métro, boulot, dodo    the rat race
n'est-ce pas ?    right? isn't that so?
n'importe quoi    whatever
oh là là    oh dear, oh no
on ne sait jamais    you never know
on peut se tutoyer ?    can we use tu ?
On y va ?    Shall we go? Ready?
par contre    whereas, on the other hand
par exemple    for example, such as; oh my, well really!
pas de problème    no problem
pas du tout    not at all
pas mal    not bad, quite a bit
pas terrible    not that great, nothing special
plus ça change...    the more things change...
prendre une décision    to make a decision
quand même    anyway, really, finally
quand on parle du loup    speak of the devil
revenons à nos moutons    let's get back to the subject at hand
rien à voir    nothing to do with
sans blague    seriously, all kidding aside
si ce n'est pas indiscret    if it's not too personal a question
si tu veux    if you will
tant mieux    it's just as well, even better
tant pis    oh well, too bad, tough
tel quel    as is, just like that; mediocre
tiens    here you go, there you are
tout à coup    all of a sudden
tout à fait    absolutely, exactly
tout à l'heure    in a moment, a moment ago
tout de suite    right away, immediately
tout d'un coup    all at once
tu connais la musique    you know the routine
tu m'étonnes    tell me something I don't know
tu te rends compte ?    can you imagine?
valoir le coup    to be worth it
vis-à-vis (de)    facing, in relation to
Vive la France !    Long live France!
voilà    there is, that's it