On February 3, Duke University historian Nancy MacLean and I held a Zoom conversation called “Public Education in Chains,” about the nefarious conspiracy to undermine and privatize our public schools. The discussion was sponsored by Public Funds Public Schools and the Network for Public Education.
Dr. MacLean is the author of many books, including the brilliant Democracy in Chains: The DeepHistory of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.
We discussed the historical origins of the movement, calling out the privatizers as a combination of libertarians, anti-government ideologues, the radical right, segregationists, and rightwing evangelicals, funded by billionaires who hate taxes, public institutions, and unions. Their movement threatens not only public schools but our democracy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The marriage of the many normally disparate groups in this case is a good illustration of why conspiracies actually don’t require the knowledge of all of (or even a large number of) the participants to be effective. In fact, they can work even if they are driven by a very small number of participants.
As long as there is a common goal — in this case elimination of public schools — the vast majority of the participants can be utterly oblivious to the motives of those who started the movement, since they are actually working for quite different motives of their own.
nicely said
Never the less- there’s value in identifying the plotters and their motivations
(1) Racists- motive- segregation
(2) Conservative religious, Catholic and evangelical- motive- an end to separation of church and state
(3) Neoliberals and right wing unfettered capitalists – motive- money
Btw- Daily Beast columnist, Matthew Lewis, formerly wrote for Daily Caller. His columns tell Democrats to submit to the right wing on cultural issues.
Hello Diane: Great conversation! (Send a link to someone on The Lincoln Project?)
Here is another book that you may want to be aware of. The author will be on BookTV After Words this weekend, but it will also be archived.
The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults
“Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein argues that the lack of general civics knowledge by millennials poses a threat to America’s political and social institutions. He is interviewed by The Federalist’s culture editor Emily Jashinksy.”
Link to a YouTube SNIP of the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAbSkDU6yNI
On After Words/BookTV/10 am, 1 pm & 10 pm ET Sunday
CBK
Mark B. worked at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003-05, during the dumbing down imposed by his boss George W. Bush’s NCLB.
Hello Diane and Joe: Thank you for the information on Bauerlein.
However, some nuance here: the clip that I included in my post showed some exceptional insights into student learning and development and, in my view, reflects exactly what is wrong with the decades-long obsession with testing . . . an absence of focus on the development of the student as such. And his critique of the Googlization of education I thought was spot-on.
On the other hand, when I was able to view the whole interview on After Words (BookTV), I thought the man rather banal. But see for yourself in the clip if you have time . . . it’s very short. CBK
From wikipedia: In 2012, Bauerlein announced his conversion to Catholicism.[10] He has described himself as an “educational conservative,” while he socially and politically identifies as being “pretty … libertarian”, according to an interview conducted by Reason magazine.[11] He endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[12] Bauerlein has an identical twin brother. end quote
Oh whoopee, he’s a libertarian who endorsed Trump in 2016. And of course C-SPAN just loves these conservo-libertarians.
Code for perpetuation of the current demographic hierarchy- curriculum that stresses Christianity in the historical development of western civilization.
Bauerlein fits.
Another of these attacks, from today’s news:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/20/florida-ron-desantis-schools-mask-mandates-funding-covid
Milton Friedman did not understand that educating a child is not an act of charity; it is an obligation of responsibility in a country that relies on the social contract to exist. Education is not provided by the society for the child, but is rather applied to the child for the society. Privatization with the goal of passing the cost of education to parents is ultimately an act of mass disenfranchisement. We are becoming consumers of democracy, and billionaires consume a dangerous amount.
Many of the billionaires are recipients of corporate welfare in the form of subsidies, grants and tax avoidance laws that favor the ultra-wealthy.https://time.com/5388596/billionaires-welfare-bernie-sanders/
Here’s an even better, more succinct article that describes how the government often underwrites the profit of private companies.https://robertreich.org/post/186341148940
“consumers of democracy” — so exactly understood
“Education is not provided by the society for the child, but is rather applied to the child for the society. ”
That is the rather complex truth. The complexity arises from the relationship of the child to the parents within the framework of the body politic. But it is the truth, and well put.
It’s a provision for the child once the child graduates into the society. So, it all works out for everyone in the long run.
“Education is not provided by the society for the child, but is rather applied to the child for the society.”
No!. . .
. . . and yes!
No to the first statement, yes to the second part.
The most cited reason in the states’ constitutional rationales for the reason/purpose of public education is that we provide public education for the benefit of the individual with a secondary reason being to provide intelligent citizens to preserve the state.
After reviewing the 50 state constitutional rationales (not all of which give a rationale) I summarized those that gave the rationale as to benefit the child:
“The purpose of public education is to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
I would argue that every state makes school compulsory, and by allowing the thinking of Friedman to move education slowly into a privilege instead of a requirement, many individuals would one day not enjoy life, liberty, and industriousness. Then, society would become haves liberty and have nots liberty. Education must be applied to every child to make life, liberty, and the pursuit of property possible. The alternative is disenfranchisement.
This is an excellent discussion by two expert historians that understand the hidden agenda of the privatization of education.
Actually I can’t bear to . I agree with both of you. When traditional center right Republicans like Stewart Stevens see the assault on America for what it is and centrist Democrats do not on subjects from Education to crime and the culture wars et al . There is the problem.
On each of these subjects it is “Moderate Democrats” giving legitimacy to the right wing culture warriors. Example Cuomo lining up with the most right wing money in the country in the assault on public schools and their teachers. Or Obama declaring a National Charter Teacher appreciation week. Was there anyone here who did not see the assault for what it was even 10 years ago. All these politicians needed support from majorities of Republicans for their assaults on Public Schools and other right wing Neo Liberal policies.The TPP being the perfect example with only 26 House Democrats supporting fast track and 200+- opposed .
Make it current, instead of the message being that a well financed right wing culture warrior death cult is refusing to mask or vaccinate themselves or their children. Attacking the cult leaders and their members. Asking why “you should pay the hospital bill for your unvaccinated neighbor ” (remember Rick Santelli ) . The message received from the defeat of Terry McAuliffe is that School Boards and teachers over reached on cultural issues and were more concerned with their own health than that of their students well being .
Democratic Governors tripping over one another to lift mask mandates of course it is not coupled with the same child mandate that measles has.
Simply the right was motivated to show while the democrats were apologetic.
Or take the San Francisco School Board recall; how can anyone not attack an 89 / 1 difference in funding as an assault on American Democracy. Calling for immediate cap on political contributions. Instead again we hear about the over reach of board members. By the supposedly ” liberal “. chattering class and the “centrist “cowardly Democrats they empower.
Quisling and Vichy seem to be two of their sources of inspiration.
And how did that end for the Vichy? They don’t quite fit the mold as that the Republicans have a lock on the title. Which would make Eastern European autocrats the puppet masters. But it was refreshing to see John Nichols go after Rahm Emanuel in his book on the Pandemic. And even go after Biden for thinking of appointing the corporatist shill whose policy prescriptions left us so unprepared .
Picture Bill Barr as the Attorney General. Now reverse January 6th.
I’m with you, Joel. I think we need to prepare for a world–certainly this country–without democracy and very, very soon. And it will not be violent, although I’m sure there will be violent episodes, but one side will not have to worry about any severe consequences. It will not have concentration camps or too much censorship (just the things that can be translated into skewed policy), but people will know their place, and their children’s places. Books won’t be banned, but they will be ridiculed and marginalized. You can have the talk, we’ll take the policy will the guiding thought. It’s going to be great world if you are white, affluent, stick to your job, and don’t worry at all about politics and policy. “We’re taking care of that.”
Being racist while never mentioning anything overtly about race has become a true art form. We even see it here with a few commentators. But it’s all just practice for the real goal: Being anti-democratic while waxing selective poetry about democracy, the republic, and individual rights.
And soon after, we’ll have corporate self-censorship, because they know certain things they might do will only cause problems with laws, the authorities, and ultimately, their customers. There was an interesting essay recently in HuffPo about the experiences of a white mother having her son sit next a woman from Kansas who was a supporter of the Idiot. One section really stuck out and, I think, adds to Joel’s original comment above and demonstrates what we’re up against and why we are currently doomed:
I wanted to ask her what she thought of Trump’s consistent and clear disdain for Black people. I wanted to tell her about the damage being done to my son’s friends who have gay parents. I wanted to yell at her that a vote for Trump was a vote against finallytaking climate change seriously, even now that it’s likely too late. If you like my son, I wanted to say, you should vote for people who will try to make the world better, not worse ― because he, and his generation, will live in it a lot longer than you or I.
“I can’t get that Trump woman out of my head,” my son told me later. “She was so nice in other ways. But she acted like politics is a game, not something that affects real life.”
GregB
There will come a time when that nice lady realizes she has been screwed. Years ago a friend gave me his copy of London’s “Iron Heel” I told him the book was depressing. He said “why it had a good ending ” sure if you can wait hundreds of years.
Well-said, Joel, & saddened to acknowledge.
This is the absolute core of the problem: it’s not going away anytime soon because it’s been here for as many–if not more–years, the number of which you mentioned.
I plodded through Democracy in Chains because it was so painful to read, but it is a must.
I have much more to say, but I don’t know how to say it.
I read “Democracy in Chains” , “Dark Money ” and the “Power Worshipers” +… which is why I could not subject myself to the zoom video.
Joel, you would enjoy it.
“Was there anyone here who did not see the assault for what it was even 10 years ago.”
I’d venture to say that most here discerned that assault twenty years ago.
Some of us needed to give the”Hope and Change ” guy a year or two. We expected it from the born again privateer Shrub and his VP Darth.
“calling out the privatizers as a combination of libertarians, anti-government ideologues, the radical right, segregationists, and rightwing evangelicals, funded by billionaires who hate taxes, public institutions, and unions. Their movement threatens not only public schools but our democracy.”
But the “centrist” and “liberal” ed reform groups have done and said nothing to oppose any of it.
We should assume all of the ed reform groups support all of it, or they’re afraid to oppose it because if they do they’ll lose donors and political clout.
Public schools are designated to be the collateral damage of the ed reform “movement”- our schools and students will be sacrificed so they can reach their ideological transformational goals. They contribute nothing of positive value to public schools or public school stduents and they do substantial damage. It’s a lose/lose for public school students and no one in the huge and lavishly funded “ed reform movement” seems to care.
At some point public school students should get their own advocates in government- people who value them and their schools and intend to perform some actual work on their behalf. They’re poorly served by ed reformers, who are much more interested in creating privatized systems that delivering anything worthwhile or useful or practical for public schools.
Here’s a very influential ed reform group in Ohio:
https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio
You will not find a single positive idea or plan for any public school in the state. Cheerleading and lmarketing charters, cheerleading and mareting vouchers, bashing public schools and pushing for more tests and tracking for public school students.
They simply return no value to students who attend public schools- no useful work at all- and they utterly dominate education policy in my state.
If you’re a fan of charters and vouchers you should definitely hire ed reform echo chamber members, but if you want people who work on behalf of students who attend public schools? Look elsewhere. Hire someone else. You’ll get nothing for public school students out of these folks- they simply don’t work for our students. They don’t even pretend to- the best they can offer is their privatization schemes won’t HARM public schol students. If they’re running your state you’re paying hundreds of state employees who return no benefit to 85% of students.
All of you have done such a good job of exposing the Fordham Institute, your post reminded me that I’ve never actually looked at their website. They do at least provide one public service as far as I can figure out. I looked at the past events page and on some of them, we can identify some public school administrators–like the one in my district–who are hostile to public education.
“Students need to be prepared for the world that is barreling at them.” –Art Spiegelman
Milton Friedman was one creepy little dude.
And In Texas The RWingers Are Being “Inclusive” By Going After The Charters With Their CRT Ban.
The Texas Education Agency confirmed this week it now requires new charter schools to submit a “statement of assurance” that the school will follow so-called “critical race theory” laws before opening its doors to the public.
Texas lawmakers passed laws designed to limit how teachers could discuss issues of race in the classroom. Thx State Senate Bill 3 has been labeled by conservatives as anti-critical race theory.
In January ‘22 Chalkbeat reported how an application for a new charter school in San Antonio was approved, then put on hold because the school had a quote from author Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist” on its website and application materials.
TX SB 3, states a “teacher may not be compelled to discuss a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs.” If a teacher does discuss these topics, they must “explore that topic objectively and in a manner free from political bias.”
The law also also states that America’s history of slavery can’t be taught as contributing to the “true founding of the United States” and that slavery is nothing more than a deviation from the country’s foundations of liberty and equality.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/TEA-requires-new-charter-schools-follow-crt-law-16933909.php
Your final paragraph is so chilling and revolting. It’s actually making my eyes tear up as I write this and realize this will likely be exactly how textbooks in every state will look in ten years. Even less people will be willing to become teachers to in some way try to correct this.
CRT = Creating Racial Tension
CRT is a scam, it’s racist against white people, it should be dropped entirely for K-12. You can teach this commie liberal nonsense to ADULTS in community colleges, colleges and universities.
Mike, CRT is not taught in K-12 schools. It is taught in law schools. Don’t believe everything you see on FOX.
By John Murawski, RealClearInvestigations
December 21, 2021
A July survey by EducationWeek found that barely a year after the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota cop, 8% of K-12 teachers said they have taught or discussed CRT with students; the figure for teachers in urban schools is much higher: 20%.
Meanwhile, the Association of American Educators found in July that 4.1% of teachers were actually required to teach critical race theory, and 11% said that teaching CRT should be mandatory.
If those percentages hold true for the nation’s estimated 2 million secondary school teachers in public and private schools, that would translate to more than 150,000 middle- and high-school teachers who teach or discuss CRT.
These are meaningless statistics because the writer doesn’t define CRT. What is he talking about? How can he measure something he hasn’t defined?
I think he means talking about racism. If that the case, his numbers are far too low. Learning about the society you live in is part of schooling, and racism remains a major issue in our society.
I’m shocked and disappointed that only 150,000 of the 2 million (it’s actually more) are discussing racism. They must be social Studies teachers.
Think of it: if you don’t teach about racism, then you are teaching whiteness studies.
From “The College Fix” by Jennifer Kabbany November 8, 2021
you don’t need to see a textbook literally labeled “Critical Race Theory” to know it’s being taught in public K-12 schools.
In California, the Board of Education has approved the nation’s first statewide ethnic studies curriculum to teach public high school students about the oppression of people of color.
The Oregon Department of Education is training its K-12 teachers in “math equity” to combat “the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture with respect to math.”
An elementary school in Philadelphia “forced fifth-grade students to celebrate ‘black communism’ and simulate a Black Power rally in honor of political radical Angela Davis.”
Public schools in Louisville, Kentucky, are hosting anti-bias and pro-equity teacher trainings to “eliminate curricular violence” in mathematics education.
Last fall, one Virginia school district spent $24,000 on Ibram Kendi books pushed as “required reading” for U.S. history classes.
A high school in Minnesota now begins all of its staff meetings with a commitment to dismantling “processes that benefit whiteness.”
In September, a high school in Washington canceled a 9/11 tribute because it could be seen as “racially insensitive.”
As of July 2020, a reported 4,500 schools across the nation have embedded the controversial New York Times 1619 Project curriculum into their classrooms.
It joins Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” often used as supplementary reading material in high school history classes that frames all of the nation’s history in CRT-inspired oppressor-oppressed rhetoric.
I still recall several years ago when I casually asked my then-high school son what he learned about in school that day and he told me without skipping a beat: “American imperialism.”
And on and on it goes. When pundits say “critical race theory” is not taught in schools, it’s true that there’s not an elective or a textbook labeled as such. But the concept and pedagogy is deeply embedded in our nation’s schools.
No parent is against teaching the warts and sins of our nation’s history, and any suggesting otherwise is patently false.
But the problem with CRT is it teaches that all white people are evil oppressors, divides students based on skin color, belittles and demeans students of color as incapable, and demands that the only solution is reverse discrimination and equity of outcomes.
Can you find any specific citation to a CRT book that teaches that “all white people are evil oppressors..” etc.
CRT in reality is an analysis of the law to determine whether it promotes systemic racism in housing, medicine, law, etc.
Have you read The 1619 Project? I have. It’s very informative. I recommend it. If the book is being used in 4,500 of the nation’s 50,000+ schools, I’m glad to hear it. It should be in more.
Apparently you think that any honest teaching about racism is CRT. How can you teach US history without discussing slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the KKK, etc.? Answer: you can’t. There are many wonderful resources for learning about black history.
One of our readers, Bob Shepherd, is sn expert on resources. If he reads this note, I hope he will provide some useful guidance for you.
“The 1619 Projrct” might be a good start.
Please read it and get back to me.
From “Reason” by Robby Soave 7/6/21:
The public debate over critical race theory (CRT) is in large part a semantics argument, with the anti-CRT faction attempting to include “all of the various cultural insanities” people hear about in the media under the banner of CRT while the other side protests that it’s technically a much more limited concept confined to elite education. Progressives are essentially correct that the definition of CRT is being tortured to match conservative grievances, but conservatives are justified in feeling aggrieved by some of these things, and thus the argument is quite tedious.
That said, the National Education Association (NEA) appears to have accepted the conservative framing of CRT: namely, that it’s not merely confined to academia but is in fact also being taught in K-12 schools. And the NEA thinks this is a good thing that should be defended.
At its yearly annual meeting, conducted virtually over the past few days, the NEA adopted New Business Item 39, which essentially calls for the organization to defend the teaching of critical race theory.
“It is reasonable and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory,” says the item.
Consistent with its defense of CRT, the NEA will also provide a study “that critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.” The implication is that these critiques are aspects of critical race theory, which in a weird way makes this an example of the activist left basically accepting the activist right’s new working definition of CRT as “all of the various cultural insanities.”
ALL of this nonsense…CRT, equity, transgenderism, white heteropatriarchy, imperialist/colonialist, systemic racism, prison/industrial complex, school to prison pipeline, whiteness as the social norm, etc. can be summed up as:
“SHAKING DOWN WHITEY”
I want my taxes spent, on all races, but you have to be selective…don’t waste money on black kids who have multiple offenses in their teens, will never leave the gangs, etc. Instead, find the black kids who aren’t in a gang, who study, etc. basically the “nerds” of their community. Transfer them to a better school, help their single mother out with better housing and more cash aid. Find those black kids who can grow up to be GOOD cops in their communities, maybe even lawyers, prosecutors, or judges.
John Oliver’s new season premiered last night.
If someone can send a link, please do: he had an OUTSTANDING show segment on CRT, School Choice & School Board Meetings.
He’s definitely a public school hero.
Thanks, Bob!
What strikes me about both of these videos is that there is really nothing in them that anyone whose read Diane’s books and others she’s recommended and checks into this blog didn’t already know and understand. What bothers me is, despite whatever exposure this gets and influence it may have, is that we seem to be the only ones who really understand it.
Russel Vought’s quote follows. As background, in 2021, after working for Donald Trump as Director of OMB, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America (and, American Restoration Action) which is focused on combatting Critical Race Theory. His Center produced a “one-stop shopping” pamphlet for parents trying to hold their school board members accountable. (Wikipedia)
“Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his son and they stand condemned.”
Vought worked for the Koch’s Heritage Action prior to the OMB.
Ed reformers debate raising the cost of school lunches:
https://www.educationnext.org/expand-access-free-school-food-debating-plans-increase-federal-support-child-nutrition-forum/
Tens of ed reform groups, hundreds of employees, billions of dollars in public and private funding and their agenda for public schools and public school students is relentlessly and completely negative.
Anyone can read these ed reform sites and experts. Try it yourself. Look for a single positive plan or productive work towards any public school or public school student anywhere. You will find HUNDREDS of essays promoting charters and vouchers, all in glowing terms, but public schools? It’s negative or it’s nothing.
I think they revoke the ed reform echo chamber membership card and salary funding if they propose or do anything positive for a public school.
This was never about public school students. If it were they would have contributed something to our students and schools over the last 20 years, and they haven’t.
I don’t have kids; I don’t believe in god. But no one can deny that MANY public schools, especially those in cities, are an abysmal failure. Why not give parents a choice where to spend their property/income taxes, and send their kids to a school they prefer? If parents
PREFER to send their kids to public schools with unionized teachers, great…if parents PREFER to send their kids to privately run schools, charter schools, religious schools, alternative schools, for profit schools — why not? Let’s let CHOICE in education run its course for awhile, and see how the kids from public schools compare to the others.
Mike Pulcifer,
Parents can send their children to any school they choose, but not on the taxpayer’s dime. If you want your child in a religious school (if you had a child, which you don’t), you can make that choice. But why should the public subsidize your private choice? Why should Christians pay to send my children to Jewish schools? Why should atheists have to pay for religious indoctrination of anyine’s children? If I don’t like the police protection in my town, should the public pay for me to hire a security guard?
Just LOOK at what’s happening to the taxpayer’s dime in school systems where the unions hold sway. Chicago teachers get more lucrative contracts year after year, as academic performance plummets. It’s NOT working…I’ve read numerous articles from long time teachers around the country who are retiring early because parents no longer back up the teachers when kids misbehave, and school administrators are afraid to discipline “students of color”. Well, more often than not, it’s the students of color who are causing the problems. So the smarter kids, mostly asian and white, sometimes get to go to honors classes or “better” schools within the overall district. Then some idiot liberals say that’s not good for equity, let’s stop testing kids, let’s let ALL kids into the better schools, etc. The system is falling apart, and you damn well know it.
Hey…I have to pay for schools through my property taxes, and I don’t even have kids, so I’m subsidizing other people’s choices to have kids.
I have no problem with that really, and those parents can spend my tax money at a school of THEIR choice.
What is it with liberals and their hatred of choice?