I was happy to discover this post on the Network for Public Education, which is curated by teacher-blogger Peter Greene. It was written by South Carolina teacher Steve Nuzum.
A South Carolina think tank has issued a “report” that connects every organization in sight to an indoctrination conspiracy in the state. It would be easier to dismiss if the head of the think tank weren’t the state’s newly elected superintendent of education. Teacher Steve Nuzum looks into the work.
This week, incoming Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver’s “think tank” dropped a crazy “dossier”. Or sometimes it’s “a report”— one without citations for most of its central and most outrageous claims. And sometimes it’s a “handbook”— one without much in the way of advice, except some version of support us and be mad at those teacher unions in NC and VA).
The document, and especially its accompanying graphics, are breathtakingly stupid. Aligning yourself with Aristotle on education policy— a philosopher who, on the one hand, explicitly called for public funding of education1 and, on the other hand, believed some human beings are physically and mentally designed to be slaves2— is quite a look for a pro-voucher think tank that doesn’t want people to think about “segregation academies” every time they hear “school choice”. Openly labeling “progressives” as “villains” is another. This thing was clearly cobbled together hastily by political hacks masquerading as scholars, in the vein of the 1776 Commission Report from the Trump Administration, and they clearly thought lots of colors and graphics would keep us dumb South Carolinians from thinking too hard about any of it.
Even a quick gloss over the “dossier” reveals claims that are unfounded and contrary to the general argument (privatization is good; Leftist woke indoctrinator teachers are “villains”). For example, the report claims that grassroots teacher advocacy group SC for Ed (I’m a board member) was primarily founded to oppose “schools of innovation” legislation. This seems to be a garbled reference to SC for Ed’s opposition to the education omnibus bill H. 3759, a legislative beast with a few good ideas glued to a lot of bad, often ALEC-drafted ideas. There is no citation provided, of course, because it isn’t true— I was there at the rally the “dossier” mentions, which was centered around many educational issues, and I was also there as a member of the group when the bill was just a twinkle in Jay Lucas’ eye. The omnibus bill, thankfully, did not pass, and the “schools of innovation” legislation that did pass, although not supported by SC for Ed, was certainly not some kind of major motivating factor for starting the group. The “dossier” goes on to use the “public-private partnership” Meeting Street Schools as its sole example of why the “schools of innovation” legislation was a good move. This is a weird rhetorical move during a week when, on “almost every criterion, Meeting Street Schools fell below both district and state performance,” according to Nick Reagan of WCSC.
But the thing is, it doesn’t need to make sense.
Read the full post here for more details.
You can view the post at this link : https://networkforpubliceducation.org/blog-content/steve-nuzum-palmetto-promises-conspiracy-corkboard/
The Palmetto Promise Institute is another tentacle of the Kochtopus.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Palmetto_Promise_Institute
Eleanor, that says it all.
Absolutely. Ms. Weaver has a huge amount of support from that sector. She also got an incredible financial boost from Jeff Yass, the pro-voucher, anti-tax Pennsylvania billionaire, who ran a smear ad against her primary opponent.
If so many people are easily misled by conspiracy theories and misinformation, the road may lead to totalitarianism. Right wing extremists tend to scapegoat the intended target. It is, in fact, the DeSantis playbook, the GOP’s new golden boy. People need to stop believing in ideologues and start paying attention to evidence and facts. A mind that questions is less likely to be misled.
Which is exactly why the GOP wants to control education to the point that we will wind up without an educated population, but rather one that won’t know enough to question anything.
Simply put, people need to stop believing liars.
Of Liars and Fires”
The thing about a liar
Is truth is not their way
They light and fan the fires
And tout a “sunny day”
Of Liars and Fires”
The thing about the liars
Is truth is not their way
They light and fan the fires
And tout a “sunny day”
From Wikipedia page of Ellen Weaver
In contrast to her runoff and general election opponents, who have received mostly small single-donor contributions, Weaver has received large contributions, including from out-of-state pro-school choice supporters. Her campaign received support in the form of $750,000 in attack ads paid for by Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass’ Super PAC, School Freedom Fund.
Great point. I wrote more about her finances here: https://otherduties.substack.com/p/campaign-finance
the thing is, it doesn’t need to make sense.”
Exactly.
None of the stuff people like the SD Superintendent or Ron DeSantis do needs to make sense.
In other words, it need not be true.
The people behind it understand this better than anyone.
It’s all highly dishonest and long last time this was pointed out.
The main mistake educators and others made in trying to challenge all the
reformat nonsense was that they have the people behind it the benefit of the doubt and did not question their motives when many of the primary movers and shakers behind the policies (testing out the wazu and using VAM to evaluate individual teachers) knew that what they were doing “didn’t make sense” (they were explicitly told as much about VAM by the American Statistical Association, among others) and that their claims that it did were simply not true. In other words, their claims were LIES.
Never assume honest “mistakes” when dishonest ulterior motives are far more plausible.
Correction: SC Superintendent