Archives for the month of: April, 2024
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Houston: Democratic Legislators Demand an Investigation of Mike Miles’ Tactics

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2024 //
2

The Texas Education Agency, under Republican control, took over the entire Houston Independent School district last year because one high school—with disproportionate numbers of at-risk students—had low test scores for several years in a row. Even though that school, Wheatley High School, was showing marked signs of progress, State Commissioner Mike Morath, fired the elected school board and hired Mike Miles as superintendent with expansive powers and selected a hand-picked “board of managers.”

Morath, a software executive, was appointed by Governor Gregg Abbott, who surely enjoys punishing a mostly Black and Hispanic district that did not vote for him. Of course, Morath must know that state takeovers seldom lead to improvement. This is especially the case in a hostile takeover, like this one.

Houston Democrats are waking up and taking action. At last. How can they allow Gregg Abbott to do a hostile takeover of HISD and install a man with a grandiose sense of his own importance, a man who previously failed in Dallas? Given the Republican super-majority in the state and Abbott’s vengeful nature, there’s probably not much that can change his stranglehold over Houston’s public school students and teachers. But it’s always good to protest and make noise.

Several Houston-area Democratic legislators are calling for a formal hearing to address “potential violations of state law” in Houston ISD in the aftermath of the Texas Education Agency stripping elected leaders from the school district.

The lawmakers asked in a letter sent Friday that the House Committee on Public Education host a hearing to address reports of “unqualified, non-degree holding teachers” working in classrooms and a lack of accommodations for students with disabilities. They also requested independent research proving the benefits of state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles’ New Education System. 

The request comes after the state takeover of HISD in March 2023 and the Texas Education Agency’s appointment of the Superintendent and nine members of the Board of Managers. Due to the takeover, the nine lawmakers who signed the letter said it is “imperative that the state assume full responsibility for HISD students and hold the board of managers accountable”

“As their duly elected State Representatives, we must hold a hearing to learn more about these concerning reports and efforts to subvert state laws and requirements,” the letter states.

Reps. Christina Morales, Ann Johnson, Jarvis Johnson, Penny Morales Shaw, Mary Ann Perez, Jon Rosentahl, Shawn Thierry, Hubert Vo and Gene Wu all signed the letter, which was addressed to Speaker of the Texas House Dade Phelan and the House education committee. Phelan and TEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. 

“Teacher reports and parent concerns are uncovering troubling developments at our schools,” Morales wrote in a statement. “The community can no longer vote on who represents us on the school board, so we as the state representatives must hold the appointed board accountable.”

In a response to the letter, HISD said it was going to stay focused on “the critical work of serving students and families,” and it had already seen positive impacts for kids after implementing reforms.

“HISD has invited dozens of elected and community leaders into our schools to see the work happening first-hand,” the district wrote. “We are pleased to share our progress with any other leaders who want to better understand what’s happening in the schools.”

Miles has implemented the New Education System program, a controversial model that includes standardized curriculum, the conversion of libraries to Team Centers and courses focused on critical thinking and the “Science of Reading,” at 85 schools this year. The campuses also have longer hours, timed lessons, higher pay for educators and additional staff who support teachers.

“Teachers have expressed that some of our most at-risk students are not receiving the services and support that they legally have the right to receive,” lawmakers wrote. “They have also shared with us that their students feel discouraged and constantly berated by the continuous assessments and instructional method prescribed in the New Education System.”

According to the letter, the district has circumvented the law requiring teachers to obtain a bachelor’s degree, a certification and other requirements to work in a classroom by assigning certified teachers as the teacher of record for more than one classroom.

“These efforts are not only detrimental to the continued learning and development of our students, but also a violation of state law,” lawmakers said.

The Democratic lawmakers also said the district has shared plans with teachers and administrators to address a teacher shortage by hiring community college students as teacher apprentices and learning coaches. 

Under the NES model, teacher apprentices work with teachers to plan and implement lesson plans, provide instruction and support classroom management, and they can serve as the teacher when the primary instructor is absent. Learning coaches provide support to teachers by supervising students, making copies, grading papers and completing paperwork.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Democrats, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Houston, State Takeover, Texas

North Carolina: Michelle Morrow Is Not Qualified to Be Superintendent of Public Instruction

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2024 //
2

Gwen Frisbie-Fulton is a columnist for the News & Observer in North Carolina. She explains in this column why extremist Michelle Morrow is unqualified to be elected as state superintendent of public instruction. What the public knows about her is that she homeschools her children, she has called the public execution of Obama, Biden, Clinton, and other leading Democrats. But there’s more.

Frisbie-Fulton writes:

After years of being a science nerd, devouring books about space and astrophysics, my son recently became very athletic. This came as a surprise — he comes from a long line of artists and wanderers.

I embraced this new development wholeheartedly and cheered enthusiastically for his team from the sidelines. Next to me, always, was his coach, yelling support until his throat was raw.

A book-smart high school logic teacher, his coach was also learning the sport. He threw himself all in, researching and bringing different hill sprints and threshold runs into their practices. He read, researched and frequently solicited advice from others. The team never became top- tier, but every single runner improved their times and they made it to the regionals. Measured by wins, he might not have been the greatest coach — but he was a very solid leader.

This year, North Carolinians will head to the polls. While elections are inherently about politics, we will also be tasked to determine which candidates are equipped to lead.

To lead, someone must of course be experienced, but he or she also must be curious and open to about the world around them. And that is why I think that my son’s coach — whose politics I disagree with substantially —would be a better, more qualified candidate for superintendent of public instruction than GOP nominee Michelle Morrow.

Experience matters in leadership and Michele Morrow’s experience is extremely limited. While my son’s coach spends nine hours a day at the school, plus another two hours outside it on practice days, Morrow has homeschooled her children. Nonetheless, she has formed rigid opinions about North Carolina’s public schools, calling them “socialism centers” and “indoctrination centers” (WRAL).

Morrow not only lacks experience with public education, but she also lives a life very distant from what most students who rely on our schools know. While my son’s coach lives in an apartment complex where, no doubt, many of his students also live, Morrow lives in a wealthy suburb of Raleigh in a house valued at more than twice the average North Carolina home. In contrast to the Morrows, nearly half of all students in North Carolina are considered economically disadvantaged (with family incomes less than 185% of the federal poverty line). Morrow might believe that “the whole plan of the education system from day one has actually been to kind of control the thinking of our young people” (WRAL), but she fails to understand the supportive, stabilizing impact of public schools in children’s lives.

Good leaders are curious. While my son’s coach has a lot of experience with kids and schools, he didn’t have a much experience coaching — which is why he read, researched and sought advice from others. Morrow appears curiously uncurious. Active on the internet, she puts herself in an echo chamber of views, falling victim to conspiracy theories. During the pandemic, she used the QAnon hashtag #WWG1WGA multiple times and she spread disinformation about vaccinations (Fox 8).

Offline, Morrow further surrounds herself with people who will reinforce, not challenge or grow, her understanding of the world. She was photographed at a far-right candidate training session alongside John Fisher, a Proud Boy, and Sloan Rachmuth, an extremist provocateur who famously trolls and harasses her opponents on social media. Morrow served on the board of one of Sloan’s anti-public education projects (Libertas Prep, which appears to have never launched) alongside extremist Emily Rainey, who at one point claimed to have information about the attack on Moore County’s electrical grid. This insular clique mimics one anothers’ anti-diversity, anti-LGBTQIA+, and anti-education stances, just as Morrow parroted insurrectionist talking points while filming herself on her way to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6: “If you’re going to commit treason, if you’re going to participate in fraud in a United States election, we’re coming after you,” she said into her livestream.

If you don’t have experience, and you don’t surround yourself with different ideas and opinions, you must at least have a deep, principled commitment to fight for everyone to be a leader. My son and his coach spar regularly about politics and culture, but he makes sure my kid is always included, respected and heard. On the contrary, Michele Morrow prides herself on her intolerance, calling repeatedly for the “execution” of people she disagrees with (CNN).

She supports banning Islam (HuffPost), though our state has the 10th-largest Muslim population in the country. She has made anti-inclusivity a cornerstone of her campaign, railing against the LGBTQIA+ community, saying “There is no pride in perversion” (Media Matters). Morrow’s ability to lead schools that include many Muslim and LGBTQIA children is, in a word, impossible.

Having opinions doesn’t make you a leader: Experience, curiosity and the desire to work for everyone does.

When fully funded and at their best, North Carolina’s schools are creating our state’s future leaders — and our students need to see what good leadership looks like. The many teachers and coaches who model good leadership to our children day in and day out are not running for office this year; unfortunately Michele Morrow is.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Freedom to Read, Home Schooling, North Carolina, Privatization

Frank G. Splitt Reviews Liz Cheney’s “Oath and Honor”

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2024 //
5

Frank G. Splitt is a regular reader of the blog and a retired engineer of great distinction. He sent me his Amazon review of Liz Cheney’s best-selling book about the Congressional hearings conducted by the January 6 Select Committee. I have been meaning to review the book myself but put it off and am glad to print Frank’s review, as I agree with him.

I found the book to be absorbing, revealing what Congressional leaders said to one another on the day of the insurrection, as well as the inner workings of the January 6 Committee. Cheney doesn’t pull her punches. She was appalled by Trump’s disrespect for the Constitution and his egregious lying. She is contemptuous of Congressionals leaders like Kevin McCarthy who first condemned the violent attack, then turned on a dime to bend his knee to Trump.

Liz Cheney gave up her leadership role because of strong principles. Chief among these was her oath to the Constitution. She refused to betray it, and by doing so, she gave up the likelihood that she would one day be Speaker of the House. Very few Republicans were willing to follow her lead. I have immense respect for her.

Frank G. Splitt writes:

Liz Cheney wrote the book with purpose in mind: to assure that the January 6 Select Committee’s work that revealed the culpability of former president Donald Trump in the January 6.2021, attack on the U.S. Capital would not only be thoroughly documented for posterity, but would also illuminate in detail his criminal behavior backed by solid evidence via trustworthy testimony, mostly from members of his own administration.


The book is fact-based and well organized—providing the author’s first-hand beginning-to-end account of the January 6th, 2021, insurrection from outside and inside the halls of the Capital. She tells in consummate detail how, in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump ignored the rulings of dozens of courts, plotted to overturn a lawful election, and provoked a violently egregious attack on our Capitol. Cheney goes on to tell how Trump and his congressional enablers broke their oaths of office— betraying the American people and the Constitution in their attempt to prevent the counting of electoral votes and so keep Trump in office.


Liz Cheney helped organize and lead the Congressional Select Committee investigation into how it happened. In her book she tells the story of this perilous moment in our history—exposing those who helped Trump spread his stolen-election lie while forsaking her promising political career in the process.


In the end, I am disappointed not only with the gullibility of so many American citizens who buy into Trump‘s lies, but even more so with craven politicians who keep silent for fear of losing their positions in Congress. No doubt, Cheney would have been near the top of the list of courageous U. S, Senators in John Kennedy’s 1956 book Profiles in Courage.


I am also somewhat disappointed that Trump did not respond to the Select Committee’s subpoena to testify before the committee. By not appearing, Cheney was denied the opportunity to emulate Senate lawyer Joseph Welch’s admonition of lying Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy at the 1953 Army-McCarthy hearing by saying: Mr. Former President, you’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?


This should be a must-read book for every American voter as Cheney’s warning concerning the likely consequences of Trump’s return to office is indeed chilling.

Categories Accountability, Character, Cheating, Corruption, Courage, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, History, Lies, Republicans, Shame, Trump

New York Will Move Away from Teacher Evaluation Tied to Test Scores

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2024 //
48

Back in 2010, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan rolled out his Race to the Top program to reform American education. The U.S. Department of Education offered a total of $5 billion to states. To be eligible to compete for a part of the huge prize money, states had to agree to authorize charter schools, to adopt the Common Core (not yet finished), and to evaluate teachers based on the test scores of their students.

The requirement to change teacher evaluation was heated. Duncan scoffed at critics, saying they were trying to protect bad teachers and didn’t want to know the truth.

Debate over this methodology was heated.

I was part of a group of education scholars who denounced this method of evaluating teachers in 2010.

In 2012, three noted scholars claimed that teachers who raised test scores raised students’ lifetime incomes; President Obama cited this study, led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty, in his State of the Union address. It seemed to be settled wisdom that teachers who raised test scores were great, and teachers who did not should be ousted.

In 2014, the American Statistical Association warned about the danger of evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students. The ASA statement said that most studies of this method find that teachers account for 1-14% of the variation in test scores. The greatest opportunity for improvement, they said, was to be found in system-level changes.

The Gates Foundation poured hundreds of millions of dollars into districts willing to test value-added methodology, and eventually gave up. Teachers were demoralized, teachers avoided teaching in low-income districts. Overall improvements were hard to find.

Arne Duncan was a true believer, as was his successor, John King, and they never were willing to admit failure.

Teachers never liked VAM. They knew that it encouraged teaching to the test. They knew that teachers in affluent districts would get higher scores than those in less fortunate districts. Sometimes they sued and won. But in most states, teachers continued to be evaluated in part by their students’ scores.

But in New York state, the era of VAM is finished. Dr. Betty Rosa, the chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, reached an agreement with Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers, to draft a new way of evaluating teachers that moves away from students’ standardized test scores.

New York state education leaders and the teachers’ union have announced an agreement to change how New York school teachers and principals are evaluated, and move away from the mandated reliance on standardized test scores.

State Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa and New York State United Teachers President Melinda Person hand-delivered their drafted legislation Wednesday to lawmakers to create a new system that doesn’t use students’ test performance to penalize educators. The state teacher evaluation system, known as the Annual Professional Performance Review, or APPR, was modified in the 2015 budget to place a greater importance on scores.

“It’s connecting research to practice and developing strategies to ensure that teachers have the best tools and principals to make sure our young people are getting the best quality education,” Rosa told reporters Wednesday in the Legislative Office Building.

When NYSUT elected president Person last year, she said her first task was to change the teacher evaluation system, and state lawmakers said with confidence Wednesday it will happen this session.

The proposed law, which has not officially been introduced in the Legislature, would remove the requirement to base evaluations on high-stakes tests. School districts would have eight years to transition, but could make the changes faster than the required deadline.

Person argued it will support new teachers who are often burdened by the required paperwork under the current model.

“This would be a fair and a just system that would support them in becoming better educators, which is ultimately what they want to do anyway,” Person said.

The proposal was negotiated in agreement with state superintendents, principals, school boards, the PTA, Conference of Big 5 School Districts and other stakeholders. The issue has been contentious for union and education leaders for years, and both state Education Committee chairs in the Legislature said they’re thrilled with the agreement. 

“That’s such a nice thing in Albany,” said Senate Education chair Shelley Mayer, a Democrat from Yonkers. “Who can do that? Who gets agreement? It’s very hard around here.

“It takes a woman to do it,” Assembly Education chair Michael Benedetto replied with a smile.

Benedetto, a Bronx Democrat, was a classroom teacher for decades and recalled how feedback helps educators develop when done in the proper way.

“It’s like anything else — we want stability in our lives, we want to know where we’re going, how we’re going to be rated and what we’re going to be rated on, as a teacher, as a professional,” the assemblyman said.

Lawmakers will review the proposal and draft legislation in the coming weeks.

Remembering how strident were the supporters of VAM, it’s kind of wonderful to hear the collective sigh of relief in Albany as it fades away.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Disruption, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

Fundraising for the Presidency: A Report from the Status Kuo

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2024 //
11

President Biden managed to raise $25 million in one night by holding a panel discussion with former Presidents Clinton and Obama at Rockefeller Center Music Hall.

Jay Kuo of “The Status Kuo” reports on the festivities:

Trump was determined to outdo Biden, so he held a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, with a fee of $814,600 required to be named as a co-chairman and a fee of $250,000 to be a member of the Host Committee. Trump claimed he raised $50 million in one night, but let’s wait and see what he reports to the Federal Elections Commission.

Step back from the festivities and ask yourself, why is it so expensive to run for office? Why should the person who raises the most money have a better chance of winning?

This is a time when we lament the loss of Senator John McCain, who really wanted campaign finance reform. No othrr Republican does.

The dependence on big donors creates obligations that are at odds with the common good.

The Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision of 2010 removed limits on corporate contributions to political campaigns. Since then, all electoral races have become dependent on fundraising.

This is a shameful state of affairs. It erodes democracy. Elections are decided by money, not policy.

Categories Billionaires, Elections, Funding, Trump

Maurice Cunningham: Reporters Should Raise These Questions With the “National Parents Union”

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2024 //
3

Maurice Cunningham is a retired professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. He became expert on the subject of Dark Money in education while covering a state referendum on charter school expansion in Massachusetts in 2016. He noted at the time that the funding on behalf of authorizing more charter schools came from billionaires, many of them out of state. He noticed that while the charter expansion was overwhelmingly opposed by PTAs and local school boards, one parent organization, the “National Parents Union,” supported it. He checked into the NPU’s financials and discovered it had received large grants from the Walton Foundation. Walton is one of the biggest funders of charters in the nation. The referendum went down to a decisive defeat. But NPU carries on, advancing the cause of privatization.

Cunningham is the author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.

NPU will hold its national conference starting April 9 in D.C. Maurice hopes that reporters will ask the following questions:

National Parents Union’s “#ParentPower2024.”

Some Questions for Journalists.

National Parents Union (NPU), a Koch and Walton funded phony “parents” groups, will hold its #ParentPower2024 meeting this week. For any journalists covering the meeting, here are some questions you should ask. 

1. A “union?” Can National Parents Union (NPU) name another “union” that accepts millions of dollars in donations from such notorious anti-union billionaires as the Walton family ($4,466,000 to affiliated Massachusetts Parents United (MPU) and NPU), John Arnold (his City Fund gave $1,028,500 in 2021-2022), and Charles Koch ($350,000 through a joint venture with the Waltons called the Vela Education Fund)?

2. All in the Family. Across NPU and the allied Massachusetts Parents United, Rodrigues and her husband Tim Langan compensated themselves $661,775 in 2022. What justifies paying them 22 percent of 2022 total revenues?

3. Organizing? NPU’s 2022 tax return lists $31,616 in expenditures for “community Organizing EV.” Why is so little spent on community organizing?

4. Sinking Financials. NPU and MPU went from $5,307,190 combined contributions in 2021 to $3,015,449 in 2022. What explains the steep decline in donations?

5. Rising Salaries. At NPU, despite contributions dropping in 2022 from 2021 levels, salaries rose from $1,729,503 to $2,035,201. Why?

6. Gravy Train Leaving the Station. NPU’s financial position is deteriorating while leadership compensation remains high. Why? 

7. Dueling Boards of Directors? NPU lists one set of board of directors on its website and an almost entirely different board as part of its annual report to the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s Corporations division. Which is the real board? 

8. I Came to Say I Cannot Stay, I Really Must Be Going. Since NPU was founded in 2020 at least twenty-twodifferent individuals have been listed as board members, some with tenures as short as a few months. Why does the board turn over so much? 

9. Three Card Monte. In 2020, MPU made a grant to NPU of $170,000 for “contributions held for National Parents Union, Inc.” In 2021, MPU made a grant to NPU of $959,837 for “contributions held for National Parents Union, Inc.” In 2022, MPU made a grant to NPU of $167,622 for “contributions held for National Parents Union, Inc.” Why are such large sums being funneled through MPU? Is MPU concealing NPU’s donors?

10. Ghost members. Recently Rodrigues tweeted that NPU has “1600 affiliated organizations” but there is no proof of that and NPU has never provided a public accounting of affiliates. The only independent study of NPU’s claims in 2020 showed members were in the charter school industry. Why has NPU never released a list of its “affiliated organizations?

11. Bonus Round. Rodrigues and co-founder Alma Marquez were “elected” as president and treasurer in January 2020 for three year terms. Those terms have ended, why has there been no election of new officers? Marquez disappeared in just a few months and was replaced with Rodrigues’s husband, Tim Langan. What happened to Marquez?

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Dark Money, Education Industry, Elections, Massachusetts, Privatization, Walton Foundation

Ohio: Journalist Explains: “There Aren’t Two Sides to Facts

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2024 //
10

Chris Quinn, editor of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, explained why the newspaper’s coverage annoys Trump supporters:

Categories Extremism, Freedom of the Press, Lies, Media, Ohio, Trump

Justin Parmenter: North Carolina Is Funding Indoctrination in Christian Nationalist Schools

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2024 //
17

The one type of school where you are sure to encounter indoctrination is a religious school. That is their purpose, their mission. Religious groups open schools to indoctrinate the young into the precepts of their religion.

Public schools do not indoctrinate. They enroll children of many religions, from many different ethnic heritages. They teach students the basics of democracy and citizenship. They teach them about the importance of voting. They teach them about the justice system.

Justin Parmenter, award-winning high school teacher in North Carolina, wrote on his blog that his state is funding schools that indoctrinate their students into the bigotry and ideology of white Christian nationalism.

He writes:

Shortly after he took over as North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor in 2021, current Republican candidate for governor Mark Robinson launched a task force to root out indoctrination in our public schools.

Robinson claimed indoctrination was a widespread problem and set up an online portal to solicit complaints about educators from the public.  The majority of the submissions Robinson received were from people who took issue with his politically-motivated witch hunt and saw an opportunity to roast him over it.

As for the actual complaints about educators, Robinson published those online without substantiating a single one and didn’t bother to redact names of educators or worksites.  Those complaints were dominated by white racial resentment (remember, this was at the height of the fake outrage over critical race theory) and included suggestions such as canceling Black History Month and not talking so much about slavery because it’s “getting old.”

In terms of actual indoctrination unearthed, Robinson’s witch hunt was a complete nothing burger.

Fast forward a couple of years to North Carolina’s Republican-controlled General Assembly flipping a legislator, stealing a supermajority, then tripling funding for school vouchers.

With billions of dollars now on tap for North Carolina’s private schools, and 88.2% of those dollars going to religious schools, scrutiny is rising over exactly what our taxes are supporting.

Private schools are legally able to discriminate against children, and many of North Carolina’s Christian schools deny admissions to students based on religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or learning disabilities.

For example, Fayetteville Christian School, which pocketed nearly $2 million in voucher dollars this school year, expressly bans students who practice specific religions like Islam and Buddhism, and they also bar LGBTQ+ students–whom they brand “perverted”–from attending.

North Raleigh Christian Academy won’t accept children with IQs below 90 and will not serve students who require IEPs (a document which outlines how a school will provide support to children with disabilities).

If this public funding of widespread discriminatory school practices rubs you the wrong way, I have bad news for you.

It gets worse.

That harmful indoctrination Mark Robinson was howling about a couple years ago in his disingenuous attempt to generate political momentum?  Turns out it’s real.  It just isn’t happening in the traditional public schools Robinson was targeting.

The Daniel Christian Academy is a private school in Concord, NC.  This school has received public dollars through school vouchers every year since Republicans launched the controversial Opportunity Scholarship voucher program in 2014-15 for a grand total of $585,776.

Daniel Academy’s mission is to “raise the next generation of leaders who will transform the heart of our nation” by equipping students “to enter the Seven Mountains of Influence.”

The Seven Mountains of Influence (also referred to as the Seven Mountains of Dominion or the Seven Mountains Mandate) refers to seven areas of society:  religion, family, education, government, media, arts & entertainment, and business.  Dominionists who follow this doctrine believe that they are mandated by God to control all seven of society’s “mountains,” and that doing so will trigger the end times.

The Seven Mountains philosophy has been around since the 70s, but it came to prominence about ten years ago with the publication of Lance Wallnau’s book Invading Babylon:  The Seven Mountains Mandate.  Wallnau touts himself as a consultant who “inspires visions of tomorrow with the clarity of today—connecting ideas to action,” and his book teaches that dominionists must “understand [their] role in society” and “release God’s will in [their] sphere of influence.”

Wallnau does caution his followers that messaging about taking control over all seven areas of society on behalf of God might freak out non dominionists, saying in 2011 that “If you’re talking to a secular audience, you don’t talk about having dominion over them. This … language of takeover, it doesn’t actually help.”

Daniel Academy doesn’t use that kind of inflammatory rhetoric about dominionism in public, although it’s clear the Seven Mountains are behind their stated goal of raising “the next generation of leaders who will transform the heart of our nation.”

Nicole Barnes, Daniel Academy’s Dean of Administration & Spiritual Development, confirmed by email that Wallnau’s doctrine is at the center of its approach to the Seven Mountains, telling me “As a school we have taken the 7 Mountains of Influence, teaching by Lance Wallnau, and have broken it down for the students to comprehend.”

So why should North Carolinians care that their tax dollars are subsidizing this sort of indoctrination of children through private school vouchers?

I posed that question to Frederick Clarkson, a research analyst who has studied the confluence of politics and religion for more than three decades and lately has been focusing on the violent underbelly of Christian nationalists who want to achieve Christian dominion of the United States at all costs.  Here’s what Clarkson said:

North Carolina taxpayers should be concerned that they are helping to underwrite an academy for training children to become  warriors against not only the rights of others, but against democracy and its institutions.  The idea of the Seven Mountain Mandate is for Christians of the right sort to take dominion — which is to say power and influence — over the most important sectors of society. It is theocratic in orientation and its vision is forever. 

This is not something that is about liberals and conservatives . Most Christians including most evangelicals, Catholics, and mainline Protestants are deemed not just insufficiently Christian, but may be viewed as infested with demons, and standing in the way of the advancement of the Kingdom of God on Earth. And they will need to be dealt with.

Back in 2021, when Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson released his nothing burger of a report on indoctrination in public schools, he said it was his “attempt to stop the abuse of the teaching profession by a few who are using that profession to put undue pressure on young minds,” adding that students don’t come to school to be indoctrinated and “this is about ending that.”

Robinson recently won his primary race for governor and stands a decent chance of taking over North Carolina’s office next year.  Since North Carolina voters deserve a clear understanding of what our candidates stand for, now would be a great time for Robinson to reiterate that he believes the use of public dollars to support indoctrination is wrong, and that if schools want to influence students to be warriors for God fighting to control every facet of society–possibly taking out some demon-infested folks along the way–they need to do so on their own dime.

We’re waiting, Lieutenant Governor Robinson.

Categories Education Reform

What Conservative Justices Said about Roe v. Wade Under Oath at Their Hearings

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2024 //
11

Six conservative Supreme Court justices overruled Roe v. Wade, discrediting a decision that had been in force for half a century. Before the Dobbs decision, American women were able to get an abortion. Today one of every three American women lives in states where abortion has been banned.

Here is what the six Justices said about Roe v.Wade at their Senate confirmation hearings.

Categories Education Reform, Ethics, Extremism, Gender, Justice, Lies

The Big Business of Denying Health Care

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2024 //
33

Insurance companies have figured out that they can make big profits by denying surgeries and other care that doctors recommend for their patients. This happens under Medicare Advantage, programs where private insurance companies offer care that replaces Medicare. The CEOs of this industry are paid multiple millions.

The New York Times produced a video about this.

Should your insurance company be allowed to stop you from getting a treatment — even if your doctor says it’s necessary?

Doctors are often required to get insurance permission before providing medical care. This process is called prior authorization and it can be used by profit-seeking insurance companies to create intentional barriers between patients and the health care they need.

At best, it’s just a minor bureaucratic headache. At worst, people have died.

Prior authorization has been around for decades, but doctors say its use has increased in recent years and now rank it as one of the top issues in health care.

To produce the Opinion Video above, we spoke to more than 50 doctors and patients. They shared horror stories about a seemingly trivial process that inflicts enormous pain, on a daily basis. The video also explains how a process that is supposed to save money actually inflates U.S. health care costs while enriching insurance companies.

Categories Accountability, For-Profit, Health
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