Originally published at: Watch this montage of Qnut madness at school board meetings for a good scare | Boing Boing
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Honestly, this worries more than anything else going on. Wealthy Republicans are pulling their kids out of public schools for private academies or home schooling, while radical nut-bags are taking over school boards so they can control what everyone else learns - and no intelligent competent professional wants to be forced to put up with them. Teachers are changing careers in droves because of having to accommodate idiots like these, many of whom aren’t even parents.
When I say I fear for the future of education, I’m not talking about “everybody must get a college degree”. (I’m a huge fan of trade schools and organized apprenticeships.) I’m afraid of who will educate kids under 16. That is what will guide their core beliefs for the rest of their political lives. Political control of school textbooks is part of how Texas became the bizarre circus it is.
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the pandemic can’t take those folks quick enough.
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Mmmm. . . gives me an idea, I’ll dress up as THE VACCINE for Halloween.
“Scary.”
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Same here. This isn’t just the raving of lunatics but also a power-grab tactic they’re sharing: harass and intimate enough sane board members into leaving and then elect their fellow Know-Nothings in their place. Right-wingers understand the “farm team” value of these offices in a way the Dem establishment never grasps.
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The old k-12 schooling model is dying off, which leaves two models going forward:
1] Qnut/tRumper/KKKpublican teachings take over of schools
2] e-learn/tele-learn/internet school the young of our Nation
Before anyone poo poos [#2], think about in regards to invasive misinformation / religious teachings / populist political tampering in schools. This option allows fact / science / math based learning to be the norm for growing children. Removal of tribunal school board bullshit is paramount, that system has run its nasty coarse. The added plus is the right-wing-loonies will be all for it before they are not, and then it’ll be too late, children will be acclimated to this environment and likely already are.
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But, honestly, what’s the keep them out of online schools either. A major part of the problem is who decides on curriculum, and far too often, it’s partisan figures, rather than experts in the field. Any sort of public education is going to have to deal with this political struggle head on. And of course, the problem with people with means pulling their kids out of schools (be it left or right) is that the people with little are left with no options but a shitty education (and as the pandemic taught us, those same folks ALSO have problems with high speed internet access).
There just isn’t an easy answer to the problem of right wing ideology seeping into education.
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Time for National curriculum standards, they do it in other 1st World countries.
is that the people with little are left with no options but a shitty education (and as the pandemic taught us, those same folks ALSO have problems with high speed internet access).
National funding for all k-12 children, untethered from any outside influences & tampering
(and as the pandemic taught us, those same folks ALSO have problems with high speed internet access).
You are totally correct, we know we can get high speed internet anywhere in the USA, we lack the initiative & proper funding, right now, but that can change.
If the children of the USA are our number one priority, then all these issues can be resolved. We need to stop fighting the GQP, bypass and start the game a new.
If we want change, then why not go all the way?
P.S. All those schools can be re-worked for/into housing, last I heard we needed to house a lot of Americans…
P.S.S. All those schools have internet infrastructure already in place, are centrally located, and have been paid for with tax payer money.
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Agreed. As long as those are driven by educators and experts in the field. We got to get the partisan hacks out of education. Right now, that’s not the case…
Sure. No more funding via property taxes. Put that money into public transit or something.
If we solved the first problem (partisan hacks warping education) we could solve this one as well.
Part of the problem is that while it seems everyone agrees on that core principle… what it means in practice is very different. While you and I clearly value an education driven by expertise and a desire to create educated and engaged public citizens… others define that concept as being indoctrinating children into their patriarchal, racist world view.
I agree, but it’s not me that needs convincing on these issues.
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They say ignorance is bliss, but these people sure seem pissed.
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Aw man… that sucks. I remember lots of creative projects in school that I bet have been shit-canned since then. Like doing a comic book of an Edgar Allen Poe story, creating your own mythology (like Greek mythology), and choosing and tracking 2 3 stocks for a month and then chart them. Or similar to the NFL project, we had to adopt a state, write to the governor, learn about it, and give a report.
I recall standardized tests every other year or so - but we were not educated around those tests. 
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Just wait until they get elected to a board and have to attend, board meetings, unpaid, for four years…
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Awesome threads, thank you! They sum up the whole experience very well. I’m in adult certifications and workforce training, so different situations re: standardized test development and political influence, but he nails it regarding the hodgepodge results that come out of that process.
And I love this line:
Psychometrics is phrenology, basically.
I know we can do better than this.
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The laws don’t allow for the Feds to set curriculum. Not sure about “standards” per se.
But Common Core is a state lead initiative to get a consistent set of standards for all states to meet. So that educations don’t vary so much from state to state.
But the trouble with that is, there are places like Texas that don’t want these national standards "dumbing down’ their system. So it isn’t nationally adopted.
Common Core suffers from having support of the Obama administration and has been poisoned in the minds of too many people. I side eyed it when I first learned about it -but after looking into it, literally NONE of the criticism i have seen leveled at Common Core actually has anything to do with Common Core.
Of course consistent standards doesn’t actually mean consistent curriculum.
Lest we forget:
Yet another example of how our current “conservative” party has no consistency in what they support or revile, aside from the old, “if the other side is for it, we are against it.”
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Good point, but literally none of them care about facts.
“I don’t want the Federal Government telling me what my kid should learn or not!”
I would be like, “Good news! The Federal Government doesn’t set curriculum. Nor is it setting the standards. They have only given money for the STATES based group, an initiative started by STATE governors, to come up with a set of standards that states can opt into.”
Yep, they don’t even have a platform anymore, just “against the Democrats”.
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I love it. It’s a solution that sends funding to desperately poor communities with little opportunity to argue, referendum, redirect those funds to where they aren’t really needed. (i.e. rich kid schools)
