Peter Greene tells the story caught on tape when Larry Arnn, president of rightwing Christian Hillsdale College, tells Tennessee Governor Bill Lee that teachers are the dumbest, trained by the dumbest, and you don’t need to know anything to be a teacher.
Governor Lee listens abjectly. He invited Hillsdale to open 100 charter schools across Tennessee. Hillsdale agreed to open 50.
Greene writes about Arnn’s tirade, which was taped:
“The teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”
“They are taught that they are going to go and do something to those kids…. Do they ever talk about anything except what they are going to do to these kids?”
“In colleges, what you hire now is administrators…. Now, because they are appointing all these diversity officers, what are their degrees in? Education. It’s easy. You don’t have to know anything.”
“The philosophic understanding at the heart of modern education is enslavement…. They’re messing with people’s children, and they feel entitled to do anything to them.”
“You will see how education destroys generations of people. It’s devastating. It’s like the plague.”
“Here’s a key thing that we’re going to try to do. We are going to try to demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it.”
Someone should have told Arnn that America was built by people who attended public schools, not by graduates of Hillsdale.
Governor Lee didn’t have the guts to stand up for the teachers of Tennessee. Probably he thinks the people who voted for him are the dumbest of the dumb.
Anne Thomas-Abbott, a teacher in Knoxville, did respond to Larry Arnn, whose contempt for teachers is abhorrent and ignorant.
Greene adds:
If you are shaking your head at Tennessee, I suggest you look around your own state first, because these public education-hating faux Christian right wingers are all over the country, and when he’s selling his product in public, Arnn is rarely as blunt as he was before the Tennessee crowd. Make sure everyone gets to hear what he really thinks.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
He may be right about the insane number of administrators at colleges.
and the same in lower educational institutions: if he was at all interested in labeling the massive number of non-qualified test-demanded “manager” personnel, he would be pretty close to truth
If this isn’t a clear case of projection…. I don’t know what is.
Yep–I was just about to say the same thing–at the risk of sounding too Freudian. Thanks Beachteach.
Aarne and his ilk imagine a world in which U.S. schools churn out nationalist heterosexual white Christian soldiers and baby-making machines.
Dear Mr. Aarne: I would tell you what I think of your mythological system, but Diane Ravitch does not allow such language on her blog.
And there is no way, Mr. Aarne, that we are going to go back, as a nation, to your imagined Golden Age. We are way, way past that. You have no clue, none at all, how far behind the nation’s young people you are.
OMG, Mr. Aarne is totally NUTS and I would add, “way STUPID, too.”
Actually, I learned a great amount when I decided to become a High School teacher. I learned (in the Graduate School) about linguistics, analytic philosophy, even had a good course on matrix analysis. I’ll bet Aarnne doesn’t know squat about any of that.
Dianne, I do not have a PhD because I chose not to have one. I was offered the option in three different areas (Astronomy, Physics and Education). I probably should have taken the Astronomy option. The guy who wanted me was my idol and had a remarkable influence on my life. Hard to thank him now. The ‘Physics’ option was a bit easier because I spent my summers working in a ‘group’ at a place where they make detonators for nuclear bombs. My ‘group’, however, only appeared to be working on the esoteric problem of ‘molecular transport’. There, I learned that you don’t have to get a PhD in order to do scientific research. In fact, the guy in charge of the most expensive experiment (a molecular collider) only had a masters.
The ‘transport’ thing got me a job at the Med School, where I not only engaged in teaching (and medical research) but discover my true calling.
You see, I had taught ‘pre-med’ students as a condition of my ‘teaching assistantship’, and now I taught part of a biochemistry course to medical (graduate) students. What I learned (and I ALWAYS learned from my students) was that my pre-med students were eager, but not all that open to new ideas. My med students were far more closed and focused on the ‘paper’. And, so, I decided to teach at the High School level.
So, Dianne, have you ever taught High School? I decided that getting a PhD would, in fact, hinder my goal. I’m so glad I took those Education courses (free because I was a University Employee and, of course, filled the bubbles to be ‘accepted’ into the Graduate School of Education).
No, Dianne, I don’t have a PhD to hang on my wall. However, using that fact to refute my arguments is dishonest, isn’t it? It’s been known for a long time that an ‘ad-hominem’ attack is an attempt to divert attention from the logic of the argument.
Sorry to post this here, however (thanks to the platform) I was unable to post it under your comment in the appropriate space.
I love these idiots who know everything that goes on in what teachers need to do and endure without ever been in a classroom. He exemplifies the definition of a moron.
Even in our extremely polarized political environment, these ignorant comments by a college president are stunning. It’s good to see strong pushback.
We must show them what we are made of. NOT by doing the same thing over and over again. The standardized test drives everything. What does a school look like without the test? We must give a vision for the future.
Without the tests and without Gates and Coleman’s bullet list of puerile “standards”
“Education destroys generations of people” is a jaw dropping quote. Like being unable to turn away from a car wreck, I looked up some more Larry Arnn quotes. This guy is amazing! Check these out:
“It is important for all of us to understand that free people are not governed by rules.”
“Forget for a moment that we know Hitler to be a monster. Remember that he was for years one of the most exciting forces to arise in modern European history.”
Astounding.
Well, Arnn is not far from Aryan which is not far from Ayn Rand.
Arnn doesn’t believe in rules.
He’s is an Arnnarchist
Where did you see the Hitler comment, LCT?
Re question on where the comment on Hitler by Arnn was published: It’s from Arnn’s book Churchill’s Trial:Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government.(2015) Rest of sentence is “and that he appeared to millions as a figure of hope.” Arnn also writes of Hitler, “Following the First World War his country was in the throes of steep decline, and he was returning it to good order and health.” He goes on to discuss how Hitler insisted on having one man rule, rejecting law and constitutionalism. Context is contrasting this with Churchill’s constitutionalism and respect for law. I don’t think Arnn’s intent was to express admiration for Hitler (at least I hope not) but I’m pretty sure the man for whom he was a research assistant, Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s official biographer and historian of the Holocaust, who died in 2015, used more critical adjectives to describe Hitler and would note that for millions he was a “figure of fear” not a “figure of hope.” This is reflective of Arnn’s approach to history, which from what I’ve read is superficial at best and often distorted- not an approach we should be using taxpayer $ to bring into our schools and with which we should replace university teaching training or continuing education programs.
Is Arnn related to Arne Dumbcan?
Or is just the “Arn” that makes them dumb?
Free people are not governed by rules
Because as everyone knows, freedom is the same as anarchy.
Or is it spelled Arnnarchy?
“Tennessee is invested in providing all of our students with a high-quality civics education,” Lee said in a statement. “We are raising a generation of young people who are knowledgeable in American history and confident in navigating their civic responsibilities. In Tennessee, our students will be taught unapologetic American exceptionalism.”
https://eu.tennessean.com/story/news/2021/08/12/tennessee-governor-bill-lee-civic-seal-teaching-unapologetic-american-exceptionalism-draws-backlash/8105457002/