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Yes, Elise Stefanik Is a Shape-Shifter

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2022 //
18

Peter Wehner worked in the George W. Bush administration. He knew Elise Stefanik when she was a moderate. Like others who knew her then, he is confounded by her transformation into a Trump lapdog/bulldog.

The lust for power does strange things to people. Compare Stefanik and Liz Cheney: Stefanik abandoned all principle to curry favor with Trump. Cheney gave up her powerful position and her political future by refusing to tolerate Trump’s assault on the Constitution and Trump’s lies. Cheney was the #3 House Republican before the failed coup; she was ousted by her colleagues and replaced by Stefanik.

Wehner writes:

There was a time in 2016 when Elise Stefanik, now the third-ranking Republican in the House, was so disgusted by Donald Trump, she would barely mention his name. Today he proudly refers to her as “one of my killers.”

She proved that again last month. In an effort to undermine confidence in the select committee investigating the violent assault on the Capitol, Ms. Stefanik said, “This is not a serious investigation. This is a partisan political witch hunt.” The committee, she said, is “illegitimate.” The hearings did not change her mind. In mid-July, before the final session planned for the summer, she referred to the committee as a “sham” and declared that “it is way worse than the impeachment witch hunt parts one and two.”

Maybe Ms. Stefanik was continuing to discredit the House committee because the evidence it has produced from Trump insiders — and the compelling way the evidence has been presented — has inflicted staggering damage on Mr. Trump, even though it might not prevent him from winning the Republican presidential nomination for a third straight time. Ms. Stefanik has failed in her efforts to sabotage the committee, but it’s not for lack of trying.

Ms. Stefanik’s fealty to Mr. Trump is so great that some of his advisers are mentioning her as a potential vice-presidential candidate if he runs in 2024, which he and his advisers are strongly hinting he will do.

The transformation of Ms. Stefanik, who is 38, is among the most dramatic and significant in American politics. Her political conversion is a source of sadness and anger for several people I spoke to who were colleagues of hers — as I was in the White House of George W. Bush although I did not work with her directly — and who were, unlike me, once close to her. To them, Ms. Stefanik’s story is of a person who betrayed her principles and her country in a manic quest for power.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Trump

Alan Singer: Is Elise Stefanik a Witch?

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2022 //
62

When the cowardly House Republicans decided to grovel before Trump despite his failed coup attempt, Liz Cheney was ousted as the #3 Republican in the House and replaced by Elise Stefanik of upstate New York. Stefanik was elected as a moderate but decided that her future would be secured by joining the Trumpists. She did and got into the mainstream, which was now subservient to the disgraced 45.

Alan Singer of Hofstra University shows that Stefanik has gone full-MAGA. She recently accused the New York State Department of Education of promoting critical race theory. What she meant was that the state expects schools to teach honest and accurate history. To a true MAGA sycophant, that is intolerable. To challenge her means you are engaged in a “witch hunt.” Is she a witch?

Singer writes:

Top House Republican leader, Trump sycophant, and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, Representative Elise Stefanik of upstate New York, is busy attacking the New York State Department of Education claiming it is using federal funds to promote the dreaded Critical Race Theory or CRT in state public schools. Stefanik is also pressing New York education officials on how they are using money provided through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) on “social emotional learning” and “culturally responsive and sustaining education.”

State Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa tried to explain to Stefanik that “the state Education Department does not provide critical race theory. It does, however, provide critical thinking. This allows our children to distinguish fact from opinion, achieve deeper understanding.” Rosa added, “Your accusation — whether intentional or negligent — is disappointing. What lesson are we teaching our children when a U.S. Representative traffics in conspiracies — and conflates opinions with fact.”

Stefanik replied “Instead of addressing my questions into the blatant misuse of federal taxpayer dollars, Commissioner Rosa shamefully attacked me. The facts in my letter were clear, and the implementation of CRT by any other name in New York classrooms is wrong. It is no surprise the Far-Left department would fail to fully comply with my request for the truth and revert to petty name-calling, because they know how outraged parents would be if they knew their hard-earned taxpayer dollars were used to peddle this radical ideology.”

Unfortunately, Stefanik, who graduated from Harvard University, seems unable to understand the distinction between Critical Race Theory and critical thinking or the difference between Critical Race Theory and respect for diversity and inclusion.

There must be something wrong with education at Harvard. Senate Republicans with Harvard degrees include rightwing Presidential hopefuls Tom Cotton (Arkansas) and “Ted” Cruz (Texas). Other Senate Republicans who are Harvard alums are Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Michael Braun (Indiana), Michael Crapo (Idaho), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Nebraska), and Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania). Beside Stefanik, there are five other Harvard alum serving as Republican members in the House of Representatives. Harvard can also boast rightwing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Virginia Governor Glen Youngkin as alums. Youngkin recently appointed a Civil War apologist to the Virginia historic resources board who insist that the he Civil War was fought to defend the “sovereignty of each state and constitutional law” and that statues celebrating Confederate leaders who made war against the United States “were built to tell the true story of the American South.”

Categories Accountability, Lies, New York, Racism

Jon Stewart Blasts Senate Republicans for Abandoning Veterans

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2022 //
26

Jon Stewart, the long-time star of “The Daily Show,” devotes his time to lobbying on behalf of veterans who suffered grievous harm while defending our country. He raged yesterday against Senate Republicans who suddenly withdrew their support for legislation to provide long-term care for veterans who suffered from exposure to burn pits.

(CNN)House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democrats and comedian and activist Jon Stewart railed against Senate Republicans who voted against legislation to help veterans suffering from ailments related to toxic burn pits, calling it a “gut punch” to the veterans who had come to Capitol Hill to celebrate the legislation.

“So ain’t this a bitch?” Stewart said Thursday at a news conference on Capitol Hill. “America’s heroes, who fought our wars, outside sweating their asses off, with oxygen battling all kinds of ailments, while these motherf**kers sit in the air conditioning walled off from any of it? They don’t have to hear it. They don’t have to see it. They don’t have to understand that these are human beings. Did you get it yet?”

“And if this is America First, then America is f**ked,” he said.

Stewart, speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead,” said later of lawmakers, “I’m used to lies. I’m used to hypocrisy. I’m used to their cowardice. I’m not used to the cruelty, the casual cruelty … a bill they had fought for, for more than a decade.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Stewart said earlier during the news conference, lied to veterans by saying “we’ll get it done” and then voting against the bill. Stewart also criticized Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican retiring at the end of his term.

“Pat Toomey didn’t lose his job. He’s walking away,” Stewart said. “God knows what kind of pot of gold he’s stepping into to lobby this government to shit on more people. I’m used to all of it, but I’m not used to the cruelty.”

Stewart apologized for his foul language, but then outlined what the senators were voting against, with a veteran saying the bill “gives them health care, gives them benefits, lets them live from become an addict, keeps veterans from committing suicide.”

Historian Heather Cox Richardson explained that Senate Republicans were acting out of spite because they were angry that Democrats had reached agreement with Senator Manchin to pass a bill to boost technology and oppose climate change.

Blogger Robert Hubbell explains that Senate Republicans are voting against popular bills solely to punish Democrats for reaching agreement on the climate/energy bill. Republicans want to go into the midterm elections running against a Democratic Party that failed to accomplish anything.

Hubbell writes:

Just how good is the surprise agreement between Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin? It is so good it has caused a Republican nuclear meltdown resulting in an uncontrolled release of anger and irrationality. Under orders from Mitch McConnell, Republicans are seeking revenge by voting against legislation they previously supported—thereby voting against the interests of their constituents and American business.

So, too, with the Respect for Marriage Act. Susan Collins was attempting to convince her Senate colleagues to support a bill granting federal recognition to same-sex and “inter-racial” marriages. After Schumer and Manchin announced a deal on the Inflation Reduction Act, Susan Collins said that it would be “much harder” to pass the Respect for Marriage Act because Manchin and Schumer kept their negotiations “under wraps” until after Senate Republicans voted in favor of the CHIPS Act.

For example, Republicans supported the $52 billion investment in the US semiconductor industry (the so-called CHIPS and Science Act). The CHIPS Act was widely popular among Republicans because it challenged Chinese dominance in semiconductor manufacturing. After Manchin and Schumer resurrected the Inflation Reduction Act, House Republicans voted against the CHIPS Act en masse—thereby voting against American jobs, technology, and cybersecurity. Despite the Republican tantrum, the CHIPS Act passed and is headed to Biden’s desk for signature—a BIG win for Democrats.

Hmm . . . because Democrats kept negotiations among Democrats under wraps regarding the Inflation Reduction Act, that is cause for Republicans to vote against federal recognition of same-sex marriage? That makes sense only if the GOP’s animating principle is to frustrate Democratic efforts to do anything.

Another example is the GOP’s cruel flip-flop on support for a bill providing compensation to military veterans injured and sickened by toxic “burn pits.” The PACT Act had previously passed in the Senate with support from 42 Republican Senators. On Thursday, the PACT Act came back for another vote in the Senate (to approve technical changes). To “punish” Democrats, Senate Republicans voted against the bill they previously supported. The only people Republicans “punished” by voting against the bill were veterans suffering from cancer and emphysema from toxic fumes generated by “burn pits” used to dispose of ammunition.

Former Daily Show host John Stewart (now veterans advocate) was furious at the GOP’s betrayal of veterans. See Newsweek, Jon Stewart Calls Out GOP ‘Cruelty’ After Vote Against Veterans’ PACT Act. Republicans will regret their cruel vote, especially Ted Cruz, who was caught celebrating the defeat of the bill by “fist bumping” GOP Whip Senator John Thune on the Senate floor—a gesture that will rank with Josh Hawley’s “white power salute” to the insurrectionists on January 6th.

The GOP’s votes against American competitiveness, jobs, veterans, and same-sex marriage are irrational and destructive. Republicans are providing free advertising copy for Democrats in the midterms. While it remains too early to attach reliance on polls, the trends are moving in favor of Democrats (but by no means assure Democratic victory).

With each cruel vote—including upcoming votes to safeguard contraception and abortion at the national level—Republicans will distance themselves from persuadable independents. Indeed, as the three votes today demonstrate, Republicans have no interest in governing but are concerned only about obstructing the Democratic agenda—even if that agenda benefits Republican constituents.

The Republicans have become the party of “rule or ruin.”

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Republicans

Miami-Dade School Board Flips, Endorses Sex-Ed Textbook

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2022 //
15

The Miami-Dade School Board met today and reversed its decision on the adoption of a sex-education textbook for middle school and high school.

The Miami-Dade School Board last week rejected a recommendation to adopt a comprehensive health and sexual health education textbook for middle and high school students. On Thursday, the board reversed that decision — again.

The decision came about four hours into a special meeting Thursday that the chairwoman called to discuss the implications of the board’s decision last week, which left the district without a comprehensive health education curriculum and out of compliance with state statute. Chairwoman Perla Tabares Hantman flipped her vote from last week, this time voting in favor of adopting the textbook, attributing the change to her realization that the district could be penalized for not following state statute and requirements. (The Department of Education did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment regarding possible ramifications of violating state requirements.)

The majority of people attending the meeting favored adoption of the text. The sex-ed course also covers health and nutrition.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article263901142.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Florida, Health, Miami

Miami-Dade School Board Rejects Sex Education Textbook

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2022 //
33

The Miami-Dade School Board voted to reject a sex-education textbook for middle- and high school students. The district will have no textbook for this subject for several months—until a new one is located or until the current one is stripped of all offending content.

In a narrowly divided vote, the Miami-Dade School Board Wednesday reversed its decision to adopt a new sex education textbook for the 2022-23 school year — a move that leaves the district with no sexual education curriculum for at least four to eight months.

The 5-4 vote followed an emotionally charged public comment period that included community members being escorted out of the building and a multi-hour board discussion that strongly paralleled the discussion it previously had in April, when members initially adopted the material in a 5-3 vote….

The book, “Comprehensive Health Skills,” which comes with a version for middle school and one for high school classes and offers research-based health education with topics such as nutrition, physical activity and sexually transmitted diseases, would have addressed the district’s units of study for Human Reproduction and Disease Education for grades six through 12.

But the materials soon came under fire from some parents and community members who argued the lessons were not age appropriate and violated the state’s parental rights law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in March and which critics have dubbed the ‘Don’t say gay’ bill. They also argued the district’s process lacked transparency.

The pushback included the filing of 278 petitions objecting to the materials and resulted in Miami-Dade Superintendent José Dotres selecting a hearing officer to conduct a public hearing to review the concerns and the materials in question…

That hearing, which was conducted on June 8, resulted in the hearing officer recommending the board “deny the petitions and proceed with the adoption process,” according to the district.

This is not the first time school textbooks have been questioned. Earlier this year, the Florida Department of Education announced it was rejecting 54 math textbooks in the state’s public schools, claiming the books contained “prohibited topics,’’ including critical race theory.

“I’m deeply disappointed by today’s decision. I hoped that Miami’s School Board would step up to protect youth in times of crisis,” said Kat Duesterhaus, a board member of Florida NOW and Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity. Not only does providing comprehensive sexual education help prevent sexually transmitted diseases, sexually transmitted infections and unwanted teen pregnancy, it’s also important to “building bodily autonomy,” which is important for teens to prevent and identify instances of sexual assault, Duesterhaus said. “We need to equip youth with the ability to navigate their own bodies and consensual situations,” Duesterhaus added. “We’re leaving them ill equipped to have agency of their sexuality and bodies.”

For those who opposed the adoption, the content under question was either inappropriate or “not scientifically factual,” such as vaccinations being the only proven method from viral disease, a notion they would challenge, Alex Serrano, the county director for County Citizens Defending Freedom, told reporters before the meeting Wednesday. Serrano has no children in the district and sends his children to Centner Academy, the Miami private school that last year said teachers and students who got vaccinated for COVID-19 could not interact with students and would risk losing their job.

“We are not against sexual education or human reproduction and sexual education books,” Serrano said. “We are for statutory compliance and age appropriateness in the content … and compliance with parental rights law.” Discussions regarding gender ideology “do not belong” in the books. “That is ideology,” he said. Others who spoke against the adoption also cited their contempt with the books’ discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation as reasons to oppose the materials. But in the board’s decision in April, members agreed to remove the chapter called “Understanding Sexuality” from both middle and high school textbooks, which would have discussed those topics.

More than 40 people — parents, students and community members — signed up to speak on Wednesday. Of those, 38 asked the board to adopt the recommendation given by the hearing officer, according to Vice Chair Steve Gallon III’s count. Just four urged against doing so. “That’s 90% of the speakers that spoke today. You do the math,” he said on the dais. “That data for me provides a greater opportunity to debunk and denounce this narrative that there’s this broad opposition to the board’s adoption of these materials.”

Most people in favor of the textbooks cited the urgent need to provide this information to students. Some pointed to research that found students who receive quality sexual health education choose abstinence longer and have fewer rates of unplanned pregnancies. Others said the materials provide a safe environment for students to learn factual, scientific information and give them the understanding to prevent instances of sexual violence.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/article263649763.html#storylink=cpy

The school board will meet again to reconsider the issue because the district is now out of compliance with state requirements.

The Miami-Dade County School Board is meeting on Thursday to “assess the potential impact” of its decision to reject the adoption of a comprehensive health and sex-education textbook for middle and high school students. The 5-4 vote effectively removed sexual education curriculum for middle and high school students for at least four to eight months and left the school district out of compliance with curriculum requirements and standards set by the Florida Department of Education….

“The issue at hand, as reflected in the item, is compliance with the Florida Department of Education,” Chairwoman Perla Tabares Hantman said in a statement. The requirements are different for each grade level and everything must be “grade-appropriate.”

Still, she added, “above everything, we must respect parental rights. Parents play an essential role in the education of their children. Parental rights are the bedrock of our school district. Rest assured that this School Board is committed to respecting the rights of parents to make decisions regarding the education of their children.”

The special meeting — scheduled for Thursday at noon — is expected to draw many more parents and community members than last week, said Gina Vinueza, a district parent and one of the organizers behind a petition, Save Sex-Ed in Miami-Dade.

Last week, more than 40 parents, community members and organization representatives flocked to the meeting to speak on the curriculum adoption. Of those who spoke, 38 urged the board to adopt the recommendation given by the hearing officer, according to Vice Chair Steve Gallon III’s count; just four spoke against doing so.

Here is the puzzle: which parent voices count? The board listened to parents opposed to the textbook. The board did not listen to the parents who support the textbook.

Why does the board decide to side with some parents while ignoring others?

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article263887237.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Censorship, Education Reform, Florida, Miami

Steven Singer: Why Is a Gates-Funded, Anti-Union Group Part of PA’s Plan to Retain Teachers?

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2022 //
18

Steven Singer asks a reasonable question: Why is a Gates-Funded, anti-union, pro-charter advocacy group part of Pennsylvania’s effort to end the teacher shortage?

That would be TeachPlus.

Singer begins:

So Pennsylvania has unveiled a new plan to stop the exodus with the help of an organization pushing the same policies that made teaching undesirable in the first place.

The state’s Department of Education (PDE) announced its plan to stop the state’s teacher exodus today.

One of the four people introducing the plan at the Harrisburg press conference was Laura Boyce, Pennsylvania executive director of Teach Plus.

Why is this surprising?

Teach Plus is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works to select and train teachers to push its political agenda.

What is that agenda?

Teach Plus has embraced the practice of widespread staff firings as a strategy for school improvement.

Teach Plus mandates that test scores be a significant part of teacher evaluation.

Teach Plus advocates against seniority and claims that unions stifle innovation.

Teach Plus has received more than $27 million from the Gates Foundation and substantial donations from the Walton Family Foundation.

How can an organization dedicated to the same ideas that prompted the exodus turn around and stop the evacuation!?

That’s like hiring a pyromaniac as a fire fighter!

Read on.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Pennsylvania, Teachers, Unions

Jan Resseger: The Child Tax Credit Is Not Dead Yet

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2022 //
5

Count on Jan Resseger to follow the news that matters most for the well-being of America’s children. West Virginia Senator killed President Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better plan, an effort to reverse climate change, invest in education, reduce child poverty, and much more. But the child tax credit, which directly helps children, is not dead yet, she writes.

It would appear that Senator Joe Manchin’s sabotage of the expanded Child Tax Credit as part of Build Back Better has killed the restoration of last year’s extraordinary but temporary improvement of this federal program as part of the American Rescue Plan COVID relief bill. But America’s child poverty advocacy coalition has not yet given up and neither have the experts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Democratic leaders in Congress—Senators Sherrod Brown, Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Ron Wyden and Raphael Warnock—and Representatives led by Rosa de Lauro are still in conversation with Republican Senators Mitt Romney, Richard Burr and Steve Daines, who have offered two versions of their own Republican Child Tax Credit proposal.

It is urgently important for America’s public school educators and child advocates to keep on pushing for expanding the Child Tax Credit and making it fully refundable. The educational damage of child poverty cannot be solved through school reform. While teachers can support children whose lives are ravaged by our society’s alarming economic inequality, public schools alone cannot undo the stresses and privations that poverty imposes on America’s poorest children.

Much of the ongoing conversation this month has been about the Family Security Act, proposed by Senator Romney and other Republicans, which would replace the Build Back Better Better version of the Child Tax Credit that was rejected by Senator Joe Manchin. Last week a coalition of national child advocacy organizations, the First Focus Campaign for Children, wrote a letter to Senators Mitt Romney, Steve Daines and Richard Burr to explain why their recent version of the Family Security Act isn’t good enough: this most recent version will leave America’s very poorest children in worse straits than a version Romney proposed in 2021.

Here is the First Focus Campaign for Children: “The good news is that we know what works to reduce child poverty.” A 2019 landmark National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) “study finds that a child allowance, operating as an extension of the Child Tax Credit, is the most powerful tool we have to combat child poverty and narrow the racial poverty gap. Extensive research shows when households with children receive cash transfers, they spend it on resources that support their children’s healthy development—improving their physical and behavioral health and educational outcomes and leading them to earn more as adults… The first version (2021) of the original Family Security Act proposed by Senator Romney would have cut child poverty by an estimated 32.6%… Households with the least resources would have been eligible to receive the full (newly increased) Child Tax Credit… Unfortunately, as the Family Security Act morphed into version 2.0, changes focused on adults were made to the Child Tax Credit and significantly reduced the positive impact it would have on millions of children. The ‘best interests of children’ became an afterthought as the focus shifted to some sort of ‘deservedness’ standards for adults that has the effect of punishing children. As a result, the Niskanen Center’s updated analysis shows that the Family Security Act 2.0 would only reduce child poverty by just 12.6%.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities details the primary reason why the latest version of the Family Security Act would punish children in families with the lowest income: “To qualify for the maximum credit for each child in the family, families would need to have earned at least $10,000 in the prior year… Families with earnings below $10,000 would receive a proportional credit. For example, a family earning $5,000 would receive 50 percent of the maximum credit for each child.” Families with no income would no longer qualify, but couples earning up to $400,000 per year would qualify as would single parents making up to $200,000 annually.

But, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities further explains: “The $10,000 earnings requirement to receive the full credit would apply to all families, including parents with babies and young children, retired grandparents caring for their grandchildren, and parents with disabilities that may limit their ability to work. It would also newly require caregivers not only to live with the child but also to have legal custody of the child, which is stricter than current law and may disqualify many grandparents or other relatives who care for children from claiming the credit. And it would impose a new restriction for families that include immigrants: under current law, children must have a Social Security number (SSN) to qualify for the Child Tax Credit, but the proposal would impose an additional requirement that a parent also have an SSN, denying the credit to children who are U.S. citizens if their parents lack an SSN.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains another serious problem when several of the provisions of the newest version of the Family Security Act, are computed together: “The Romney proposal… (would require) families with low and moderate incomes to pay for more than half the cost of expanding the credit… The Romney plan would dramatically cut the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) a credit that provides an income boost for workers with low and moderate incomes, and eliminate the ‘head of household’ tax filing status, which millions of single parents who work at low-paying jobs use when they file their income tax returns… For example, consider a single mother who has a toddler and a daughter in second grade and works as a home health aide, making $25,000 a year. Her family’s Child Tax Credit would grow by $3,640 under the Romney plan, but they would lose $4,105 from the EITC cuts and the elimination of the head of household filing status, for a net income loss of $465. If both children were age 6 or older, the net income loss would be even larger: $1,665.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities summarizes what would be the primary effects of the latest Family Security Act provisions: “Denying the full credit to children based on their parents’ earnings would do virtually nothing to boost parental employment and would withhold help from the children who most need it….

Open the link and read the rest of her important analysis.

Categories Accountability, Childhood, Poverty

CNN Will Rerun Special About Two Evangelical Billionaires Trying to Destroy Public Schools on Friday Night

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2022 //
19

In case you missed it, asi did, CNN will rerun its special about the two billionaires who are trying to buy control of Texas—this Friday night.

Ed Lavandera, one of the producers, tweeted:

So many of you have asked how to re-watch #DeepInThePocketsofTexas on @CNN, the program will re-air this Friday night July 29th, 11pmET/10pmCT.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Democracy, Extremism, Privatization, Racism, Religion, Scandals, Separation of church and state, Texas

Arthur Camins: Democrats Should Not Parrot Republicans. It’s a Losing Strategy.

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2022 //
56

Arthur Camins is a lifelong educator and social justice activist. In this post, he explains why Democrats are wrong to pursue Republican voters with Republican themes instead of promoting policies that uplift the common good. Centrism has not helped the Democratic Party.

He writes:

Republicans lead. Democrats follow. And that makes all the difference. Libertarian and wealth-protecting Republican ideologues invest to influence and change most people’s normative ideas and values, whereas Democrats seek to discern and appeal to what voters already think. That has been the case for decades. It has been a triumph for conservatism and the protection of privilege. For Democrats, it remains a losing strategy to win elections, a disaster for a more equitable nation, or any hope of avoiding the worst effects of climate change.

The Republican’s route to power has been to shift public thinking toward several big ideas and implied values: Resources are scarce and therefore competition and inequity are natural and inevitable. Therefore, the pursuit of personal advancement is the only reasonable course of action. In that context, the advance of underrepresented minorities has been understood as coming at the expense of White people. The values message has been, “Look out for yourself because no one else will.” That dystopian message is designed to enable Republicans’ core idea: Financial regulation and taxes on wealth are a counterproductive limitation.

Responding to Republican inroads with white working class and lower-middle class voters in the Nixon and Reagan years, Democratic leadership, led in particular by Bill Clinton, pursued a different approach. They attempted to gain or retain political office by discerning how people already think and crafting appeals and policies to meet them. In pursuit of votes of the elusive undecided voters, Democrats picked up on conservative themes, ceding the war of ideas to Republicans.

For example, upon signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and in an exchange with reporters on August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton said, “The new bill restores America’s basic bargain of providing opportunity and demanding, in return, responsibility.”

Clinton was responding to Ronald Reagan’s characterization of minority welfare recipients as con artists eating steak and driving Cadillacs living off the tax contributions of hardworking, law-abiding white workers.

The theme was still very much in play in 2013 when in an economics speech at Knox College, President Obama declared:

“Here in America, we’ve never guaranteed success — that’s not what we do. More than in some other countries, we expect people to be self-reliant. Nobody is going to do something for you. We’ve tolerated a little more inequality for the sake of a more dynamic, more adaptable economy. That’s all for the good. But that idea has always been combined with a commitment to equality of opportunity to upward mobility — the idea that no matter how poor you started, if you’re willing to work hard and discipline yourself and defer gratification, you can make it, too. That’s the American idea.”

So, we have Democrats at the highest level parroting the conservative shibboleth that poverty is a problem of the failure of personal responsibility and self-discipline rather than racism and inequity built into the structure of our socio-economic system.

Mainstream Democratic response to the push for charter schools is yet another example of their acceptance of deeply conservative language and with it, its underlying ideology. Publicly supported alternatives to democratically governed public education have several roots: getting tax dollars for religiously based schools; support for schools to skirt the Supreme Court rulings against the segregationist separate-but-equal doctrine; acceptance of the idea that government-led bureaucracies cannot be reformed democratically; attempts to squeeze profit from K-12 schools at taxpayers’ expense; and last but not least, undermining the influence of strong public-sector unions. The tagline du-jour for all of this is the right to parental choice, the core of which is the idea that education is a personal consumer good rather than a shared society necessity.

The bipartisan education policy of the last forty years has been a response to insecurity. American schools predictably fail to live up to the absurd disingenuous or naïve promise that education can provide equity in a systemically inequitable society. For Republicans, such insecurity is an opportunity to sew fear and division while promoting their everyone-out-for-yourself dogma. Unfortunately, Democrats rather than challenge that core ideology, have settled for, “You can’t save everyone, so let’s save a few.”

Keep reading.

Categories Charter Schools, Clinton, Courage, Democrats, Elections, Obama, Racism, Republicans, Supporting public schools

William J. Mathis: The Insurrection: Will the Center Hold?

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2022 //
20

William J. Mathis, Ph.D., has served as a school superintendent and vice-president of the Vermont state school board. He also served as Managing Director of the National Education Policy Center and is the president-elect of the Horace Mann League of America.

 

In the beginning, Kansas irregulars attacked Missouri. Missouri replied in kind. It was an unneighborly kind of war. Little mercy was asked and little was given. The Osceola raid, it was said,counted but one survivor. But with the rush of hot-blood, truth is often the victim. The partisans vowed righteous vengeance on each other, heated their rhetoric and twisted their courage for the oncoming civil war. It left 215,000 laying on the ground.

We fumble through our historical rolodex for comprehensible parallels to the insurrection ofJanuary 6; looking for something that explains, something that restores, something that fills the emptiness.

Such conflicts are not innocent unexpected surprises by play-pretend soldiers. Aggressive words lead to aggressive actions. People die.

Then, as now, crises were foreshadowed. Jayhawkers and Harper’s Ferry were not accidents. Our Constitution neglected the humanity of 4 million enslaved African Americans. Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision, concluded that Blacks could not be citizens because they were not. Ranked the worst Supreme Court decision in history, this judicial miscarriage was influenced by President Buchanan who, until our times, was widely criticized as the nation’s worst president.Alienating both North and South, he could have prevented the Civil War – but he didn’t.

We have great accomplishments but we also have great fiascos. Benedict Arnold sold out when his ego was not stroked. Vice President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and launched a “filibuster” or invasion of Mexico. Acerbic Andrew Johnson got impeached and U. S. Grant’s administration is known for corruption. But Grant’sreal sin was the wink and nod he gave to the oppression of native Americans. After teaming up with red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy, PresidentRichard Nixon resigned in disgrace.

These shames pale in comparison to Donald Trump’s behavior. What the former president has in common with this rogue’s gallery is a selfish disregard of people and an enormous regard for himself. His minions flatter their Emperor and compliment his new clothes while ignoring his buck nakedness. It took a 26 year-old woman’scourage to say the Emperor was dressed a little light for the weather.

Meanwhile, black-robed justices summoned older spirits, “’tis time! ‘tis time! Double, double toil and trouble.” In one infamous week of opinions they overturned laws on women’s health, religion in the schools, scuttled environmental protections and approved carrying a gun in a society suffering thesickness of repeated mass murders.

Compounding these benighted events, the worst inflation in forty years placed the greatest burdenon people of limited means. The more affluent saw their investment portfolios crash faster than their travel plans. Hit with covid, a cautious population isolated itself while Russia weaponizedoil. The blockade of Ukrainian food threatens the world food supply.

Will the Center hold? – We have survived many crises and in turn, been strengthened by them. But the past is not always the predictor of the future. Rather, the turn of the tale lies in our ability to cohere as a nation and as a society.

We speak of the “United States.” Is it? The East and West coasts are solidly blue while the South and the mid-West are red. The economic and migration patterns increase and sharpen the inflection points. Will we see “Bloody Kansas” again? What is this beast that slaughters people claiming protection of a Constitutional right?

The “greatest generation,” those who came of age in World War II, and gave us the baby boom are coming to the end of their lives. We see the fading of the institutions that for one small flash made the American Dream a reality for some. We promised equality and access to opportunities.Instead, the wealth and educational gaps are increasing while politicians gerrymander voting districts to freeze political power to their advantage. School privatization claims “freedom of choice’ but the least reflection shows the reality is segregation and inequalities. At the same time, the exploding costs of elite higher educationinstitutions, make them inaccessible to children on the wrong side of the wealth gap. People advantaged by this system want to keep it that way.

We have survived the litany of our devils and prospered by the actions of our saints. Yet, the purpose of a democratic society is to build and sustain a fair and just society. It is endangered. We face an election that will likely tell the tale. Our obligation is to select leaders based not on the thin chaff of election season but on the principles and wisdom by which the candidates havegoverned, their commitment to the strengtheningof the commonwealth, and their manifest compassion to embrace all citizens.

Will the center hold?

 

Categories Citizenship, Democracy, Elections
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