I am so glad that you are expanding these investigations to the private elite prep schools that are what we both know is the central source to the elite Ivy schools. “Get them while they’re young and you have them for life.” I tried to convince another attendee at the most recent Manhattan Institute event in Palm Beach.
I lived lived, worked, and taught with this group and was part of the administration who didn’t conform. After 28 years, I was “retired”. These people are even worse than their hire education, institution colleagues. The stories I could tell you.
Stories we could tell...Here's one - an extract of a mother describing her son’s experiences of gender studies at England's most prestigious school - Eton: https://thecritic.co.uk/eton-needs-a-headmaster/
"Your son has gone quiet on the family holiday. He asks you for help with his homework. It transpires that, at the age of fourteen, he’s been dispatched to review a novel about incestuous rape and pregnancy. Your son attends a film about “Seahorses” (and which thirteen-year-old wouldn’t)? It turns out to be a graphic account of male pregnancy. The contrast with his expectations is so disorientating that he wants to leave the room but feels he cannot, worrying he will be marked out. As what, exactly? A normal boy. In second year, your son attends a talk by transsexual author Juno – previously James – Dawson. A quick search revealed her to have written a “trans Alice in Wonderland, full of cocaine, cosmetics and the sexually abusive Tweedle twins” concerning a boarding school pupil with an “an active, app-based sex life with married men from outlying commuter towns”. We were told that the talk encouraged boys to experiment sexually. Books for sale in the foyer afterwards included This Book is Gay, which is basically a sex manual. Parents were not offered an opt-out as it wasn’t “sex education” but “literature”........................Soon the ripples from the pebbles being cast in your son’s imagination become crashing waves. A heavily-promoted event in the school’s history library – billed as a “Creative Pornography Workshop” – is open only to the two youngest years. It is offered by “The School of Sexuality Education” whose “team ....deliver ‘sex positive’ workshops on porn, consent, healthy relationships and sexual pleasure.”.......................The school invites “The Good Lad Initiative” to undertake annual “masculinity” workshops for the younger year groups..... In these sessions, your son is made to role play “coming out as straight” – and he then returns to an all-male boarding house co-habiting with 18-year-olds!" https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
“I also contacted several alumni who were angry about Exeter’s recent transformation but reluctant to come forward, given long-standing family ties to the school and the risks of publicly criticizing elite institutions.”
Oh puleeeeze. There’s a playground word for people like this. It starts with a “p” and ends with a “y”. Call them out and ridicule them. Public shaming is powerful. If you don’t, every kid on the playground knows what you are…
It was astounding to read about how uninformed Ackerman was until very late in the game; He discovered his daughter became a Marxist at his alma mater Harvard - it's material for a Tom Wolfe novel.
Ackman knew what was going on but only gave a shit when Harvard didn’t back Zionist genocide of innocent Palestinians. But Ackman definitely knew the situation beforehand.
I have read accounts where he was astonished to see how 'badly' Harvard turned out his daughter....it's as if he were asleep at the wheel or was so busy didn't pay asttention...
How could a guy as smart as Ackerman, with a daughter in the school, and a DEI grifter plagerist like Claudine Gay no know how corrupt Harvard had become with Affirmative Action grifters and DEI racist indoctrination that they had systematically institutionalized for over a decade?
You mean the genocide of the embattled warriors ready to defend southern Gaza... the ones our senile POTUS wants to let off before the hostages are released. He has a backbone of melted better... rotten, rancid, spoiled butter.
At least at private schools hardworking moderate and conservative taxpayers aren't footing the bill for the leftist indoctrination of their children. School choice and homeschooling aren't feasible for many families. This scourge must be addressed at the state dept of ed level so that our veterans, our cops and our truck drivers have options for their kids.
No but we are footing the bill for our libraries, rec centers, police departments, etc. Our military and National Guard units are teetering. The ideology has crept into our institutions at an amazing rate.
I believe Brigid's point is that those who cannot afford private school do not have the choice. They are still paying for their child's education (as are we all) through their taxes. The parents of Exeter kids at least made the choice to pay for the indoctrination.
Back in the late 1970s, when I attended WPI, a "townie" from Exeter told me that they were admitted without charge. It was boarding students that had to pay tuition. Of course, the boarding students put down the townies socially, but my friend who attended the school said it was still excellent for everyone.
He told me about his high school history teacher who was the President of the enormous state legislature... over 800 people... that met once every two years. Since New Hampshire had no lieutenant governor, whenever the Governor was out of state, he'd be called out of classes to sign disaster area proclamations or even be called to his office in the state Capitol if there were some sort of emergency.
Sorry to say that private schools like private universities do get federal funding. Our school did not but when I left I found out they now do. So, being private doesn’t mean that you aren’t still a parasite like so many other schools.
School loans are the largest source of finances. For public and private schools. But they put the young into bondage. The answer, IMHO, is to kick the Fed out of all schools altogether. Create vouchers. And let private sector companies create apprenticeships (Many Unions already do this).
You have it right. We “traditionalist” began to see the value of apprenticeships and vocation institutions. I now encourage my younger friends and family to consider whether the academic institutions now have much to offer other than therapeutic exercises. In my own family I saw those who needed and did go into the military and thrive whereas in academia they floundered. Most alternatives to the education will teach the basics, provide a viable skill and teach the importance of character and consequences. We used to be all about application in education but now it’s ideas and things that are ephemeral. But don’t worry, there will be a subsidy (or trust fund) to handle your real life needs like food…
Same in my family. Military and apprenticeships have done wonders. On the other hand, academia has had mixed results. Great for the talented. Terrible for those not so.
Many rural areas have prohibitive transportation issues so "choice" isn't very practical. I'm not against vouchers, but in the meantime we can also put pressure on the current public school system to better serve their communities. All our public institutions should be required to practice political neutrality, for one thing. The creep of leftist bias has become normalized in media and elsewhere, so now a generation of workers, including many (but not all!) teachers, think they are morally charged with converting or canceling conservatives. Anything they don't like is "hate speech." This crisis has to be addressed urgently along with moves towards reform.
After thinking about this, I decided I'd like to see patriotism work it's magic first.🇺🇸 I get that a lot of conservatives want to let public education burn so that the market can take over. There's definitely a lot of money to be made in education, but I'm not convinced pure market forces are a perfect fit for all vital services. That's worth a debate and democratic solution. Meanwhile, right now, the situation in our public schools is urgent for millions of Americans. We can't afford to continue to let a generation learn to divide by race, scorn the Constitution and hate the United States. We see the results in the pro Hamas marchers taking over our streets. We need to re-assert US values of pluralism and democracy in our schools now, or we may not get another chance. We can still take back the schools with enough pressure, and hearts and minds along with them with the right message of unity. United we stand...
A great point. But I think Kevin and MM have great points too. Let's not forget small communities have churches so they are not too small to educate. And today we have the luxury of on-line course technology. These resources are available to even the most remote communities. The funding of public schools denies income to churches, private sector firms, and others who would gladly fill the gap. Your argument, although I know it is not your intent, is the universal argument of why it is tough to return government control to the people. It feels pragmatic but there is always a way to transition away from it in as little as a few years. The gov could likely be cut 80% (not including military and law and order) and few would be affected negatively (except the load-mouthed lefty elitists who will lose their dreams of a utopia). Can you say twitter? In fact, IMHO, the greatest benefits would go to the poor who would be freed from the tyranny of drug-like government handouts that keep the poor poor. Just my opinion. 🤷♂️
Using churches as schools can be problematic. It is important to understand how the Left has built an internal bureaucracy within government to fight political battles, and how that has made some of the simplest most common sense answers impossible to execute.
Churches are typically not built to fire codes necessary for a school building. Yes, a building deemed perfectly safe for children on Sunday is apparently not safe for children on Monday. I know of churches which were used a few times a week for homeschool tutorial classes (bringing in a expert/teacher to teach a group of homeschoolers.) when they were found out by some anti-choice activists the local fire inspector threaten to inform their insurance carrier of the practice. Continuing to use a building for outside code approved activities would result in the loss of insurance coverage for the church. The church had no choice but to turn out the homeschoolers. Of course this is a coordinated ruse to prevent school choice.
You make an excellent point about rural areas and choice. That is a something that is not discussed enough. I don’t know how far you can “put pressure on the current public school system to better serve their communities.” They have been captured hostage by the department of education who holds all the purse strings and makes the rules. There is a movement to build new schools because of the frustration of the stranglehold which department of education and all of its tentacles have on public education. It is not always feasible without philanthropist to create a new school in the classical tradition because of the rot at the top. There is little hope for change until that entity is either eliminated or completely overhauled. You can see their focus by looking at their website https://www.ed.gov
Phillips Andover Academy, aka Andover, founded by another member of the Phillips clan,( The uncle founded Exeter.), from which I graduated many moons ago, promotes the same woke nonsense. The school has billions in its endowment, and the scions of the rich, powerful from across the globe attend. The alumni magazine features pictures of boys in skirts on the cheerleading squad and is full of virtue signaling, self congratulatory articles about how enlightened they are, fighting racism and climate change, and all for only $70,000 /year these days. The headmaster, who is now called the head of school, is a promotionally gay, black physician.
Why a physician is an expert in secondary education, I have no idea. The school, which used to deliver a fantastic educational experience, is now an indoctrination academy for the Ivy League and other formerly great universities.
You and I both have the same question; why are more headmasters no longer in the traditional of the first criterium of a headmaster, a master teacher? Now they are business leaders or people who have experience in the “real world” and because school is a business first is what I was told. There seems to be a dichotomy here. School is indeed a business as everything has an operational side but the purpose is to educate. The product is/was college preparation. However, just like anything else, people have a choice to choose whether they want the brand name or the best “product”.
Everything is about the brand. Everything is mercantilist. Not so much about what’s in the box. Tragic really. I went to public high school and then transferred to Andover for my last two years. The teachers at my public high school - some very good, some absolutely pathetic. The teaching was so good at Andover. There were no weak instructors. The classes were almost all college level offerings.
Senior year, as I was beyond the offerings of the Spanish curriculum, I got to sit with the distinguished head of department in a one in one seminar for half the year. I read great literature, and we talked about life. How could you not get a lot out of that with a great teacher? Can you see that happening today?
Maybe it does and I’m just too far out of that scene, but I would doubt it.
Exeter was similar in those days, according to my "townie" friend who grew up in Exeter. They didn't have to pay tuition... the town's students were given a free education (with some property taxes, I believe... but NH is all about that, just as Texas, where I live, is).
In brief, my 28 years. Started out as a young teacher in a school that promoted academic rigor. We had no idea of this slow malignant growth that was infiltrating from the top. We were busy working on our classes and helping students while also doing the other obligatory duties outside of teaching.
Then, some of us moved more into administration because of our experience and time at the school. It started off fine until we changed headmasters.
Many of the “traditionals“, as they called us, were slowly removed from committees. There was a slow process of removing us from the curriculum review committee because they needed new blood and fresh ideas. I was “rolled” off the admissions committee where we traditionals insisted that we continue to use independent norms, as opposed to national norms, as they are better predictors of success at this institution. The traditionals were slowly picked off of every committee. Unfortunately because of some bylaw, a few of us were “elevated” to the senior leadership team. Let’s just say that I was not a team player and defenestrated myself from the committee after 5 years. That is where I really saw the rot. It was incubus of what we see today. Eventually, I was asked to retire. Lesson to learn is that the pedigree of a private school is even stronger than the higher education. These are younger parents who are making a name for themselves or persevering a tradition (which is long gone) for their families. They will put up with much of what we see today because either they trust the school or they need their children to attend these schools to position themselves in society and give their children a chance at the Ivy’s. This is where we need parent education to understand what they are giving up for short term gains. And for alumni/alumnae to understand and care what is going on. Unfortunately, I have little hope that even when the legacies know, they will not care. The woke have put them to sleep.
Although I didn't put two and two together, in hindsight I should have seen this coming in the early 1980s when, discussing welfare reforms with two crusading colleagues, I suggested that welfare should be tied to the use of birth control. "That's genocide!" they exclaimed. My middle-class self was puzzled: Don't all people with common sense and pride limit the number of children they have to the number they can rear on their own, without government largesse?
I was always interested in including more black literature and history in my lessons, and did, but it got my back up in the early 2010s when faculty meetings began being led by young consultants (usually of color) who separated us into affinity groups and tried to get us to confess our identities. There was lots of talk about unconscious racism. It got to be a bit much.
"Elite" private schools have been in this for a long time. Decades ago, awareness of the needs of black students was sketchy, it was rectified as much as it could be, and now we've made our kids into perpetual victims (and consulting firms very wealthy).
No one's saying that some few kids, some few teachers, and some few parents at such places aren't racists, but the institutions themselves are not.
We saw this in the 1970s, watching the Regents curriculum decay into non-existence in New York State because they "had" to promote the minority students of single-parent families... not educate them, mind... promote them. Doing that to the REGENTS curriculum, which was not meant to be for the typical high school student, was profoundly offensive.
Single-parent families created and funded by government ****ing suck. They are even more of the problem than is generally believed, as that is how the grifters and left-wing loons that are the backbone of the cancerous Democratic National Committee got their vile hands on our children. We need to terminate the left-wing establishment of education and welfare and give the states control once again. Many will go back to terminating the parental rights of indigents. We need to spend our money on intact families, not pre-broken ones. Intact need not be nuclear... it is about emotional commitment. That is how the Irish escaped the Brooklyn ghettoes Francie (who represents the author herself, as a schoolgirl) wrote about in "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn". Alameda County (whose county seat is Oakland, CA) found that African-American families that had one full-time wage earner and two people in parental roles were statistically indistinguishable from Caucasian-American families with the same makeup. So much for "systemic racism"... at base, that's a paranoid delusion no better than "flat Earth" delusions.
Thank God the Archdiocese of Philadelphia established the parochial school system in the 1960s in reaction to desegregation and the obvious ruin that would have on students. Today 90% of blacks in Philly schools flunk reading and math grade level proficiency tests. Jewish students escape by going to publicly funded special charter schools. Whites abandoned Philly because they saw what was coming; 500 murders a year, 2,000+ shootings a year, 6,000+ assaults, robberies, car-jackings a year. Lawless, drug infested, broken and run by DEI black appointees.
Last year, I applied to Milton Academy for my oldest son, then a rising kindergartener. The environment at this "elite" school is just as you describe - ideologically repugnant, even for children as young as my son.
On the day that my son attended his "observation," accompanying parents were invited to join a discussion group/ Q & A with three current parents serving as panelists. I found the parent panelists to be insufferable, completely lacking in self-awareness, and offensive in the extreme. I knew in that moment: (1) these parents were but the tip of the proverbial iceberg of toxicity and (2) the school was absolutely not right for me, let alone my son.
Thankfully, he didn't get in, and my only loss is the time spent on the application and whatever the application fee was.
The Ivys and the layers of society in which these parents want to position their kids: Both are rotten and well passed their use-by dates. These parents' attitude appears equally silo'd as that of folks who persist in watching network news or PBS.
The "will to believe" is perhaps the most common human delusion. They watch that crap because they want to believe that the world it portrays is the actual world. My closest relative is there, and the others have been overwhelmed by the extremism forced on the American Roman Catholic Church. The Papacy left Rome for good until it agreed to allow mutual control over the naming of diocesan bishops. That ended when "Saint" (HA!) John Paul II decided (like King Louis XIV of France before him) that there was no need for mutuality... he was going to do it all himself, and the hell with everyone else. Now, the Church is run by rubber-stamping, form-filling right-wing slaves of the Vatican demanding six to eight kid families from each couple healthy enough for that many.
What is disappointing is that some of the parents of these kids I taught. I looked at the board and some I taught. They were not always like this. It must have been time and placed created this singularity.
Andover grad here, but the situation is similar. You have done a service for alumni at these schools, Christopher, who have no real access to the culture and pedagogy of the schools except to be on the receiving end of many contribution solicitations. I recall my first exposure to the current Andover Head of School on Zoom, and the first words out of his mouth were how Andover had to combat systemic racism. I sent him an email saying that it appeared that he has been captured by the sloppy thinking of the likes of Ibram X. Kendi, as there has not been systemic racism in the United States since the mid-60s civil rights legislation. I never heard back, and I haven't contributed since
There is systemic racism in America. You can see it in laws that force minority kids to attend failing public schools and limit opportunities to attend more successful ones. You can see it in the refusal to enforce the laws that might give more minority kids an opportunity to grow up in safe neighborhoods. Even the constant effort to teach minority kids that they have no hope of a good life without dismantling capitalism is part of the systemic efforts of the Left to keep minorities oppressed.
This snowball has been rolling and it will not be stopped. Doesn’t matter if it’s being exposed, an entire generation has become this and they will rear the next. Great job America, you got Trojan horsed.
Yeah, but there’s also a cohort of gen z that knows this is bs and are motivated. I teach at a STEM charter school and my students, largely male, are hungry for purpose and so over all this woke stuff. They tune it out. Play along. Ignore the grownups. Never fear, all is not lost.
Thank you for uncovering one of many tragic educational situations. I wish you'd do this kind of investigative work with Brearley, Chapin, Spence, and other New York private schools.
My kids went to Nightingale-Bamford in NYC. Ten years ago, DEI was starting there....the black prep-for-prep student (free ride) called the other kids pejoratives for being white like 'Cracker' but was never disciplined for it, while the white kids were constantly expected to give way to such students. I didn't know what to make of the unfairness of the administration's view - and questioning it was not allowed and more over some parents gave you the skank eye if you did question things - but at this point it's clear what was going on.
I went to Brearley and what's saddened me the most is the silence--ask any question about the school's promotion on its site of "gender diversity"--what do they mean, exactly?--and the reply is either shocked silence or insinuations about people who "expect everyone to be alike." Have you got 72 hours? I could go on longer than that . . . and yes, the DEI stuff, the worship of Kendi and DiAngelo, also appalls me.
We could talk! The NYC private schools are worrisome. Smart people like Meghan Kelly pulled her kids out of Collegiate- the top boys’ school- after they repeatedly asked her eight year old son if he thought he could be a girl? What insanity is that? Messing with kids’ heads is alarming. Kelly pulled them out and went to Connecticut but still has to be vigilant. When my daughter was just in pre-school- over 25 years ago at this point, the teacher at the Park Collegiate pre-school on West End Avenue was so woke and very rigid about her beliefs that I occasionally would question her on a few things. For Thanksgiving Day celebration I brought in some of this traditional pilgrim cardboard cutouts to put up - she stuck them behind a cabinet. But most surprisingly, by the time the first semester ended she called us and told us we were no longer welcome at the school. First off, my daughter did nothing and eventually went onto Harvard and is now very successful in the finance industry. I did suggest things to the teacher here and there but not aggressively at all. We were shocked, but another school quickly enrolled my daughter. This rather nutty teacher professed to be the the niece of the founder of the Brookings Institution where my husband and I met doing Economic Research - but it is another once solid place which used to be non-partisan but is also now ideologically corrupted. This is the place that housed the Russian Danshanko who was one of the culprits who supplied misinformation about Trump in Hillary Clinton’s ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax. The world is on fire.
Would love to talk. What's the best way to get in touch? If you like, message me through my substack? Not sure I should put email in a comment here. I'm on Facebook as myself, and I post announcements of my substack writing there. You could direct message me there.
Why isn’t the propagandizing/indoctrination/brainwashing of our children/youths using the threat of ostracism/bullying/exclusion considered social extortion and child abuse, punishable by already existing laws?
These are actual crimes. There are actual victims.
“ the real conflict today is not confined to the wars on which the liberal elite depend for their livelihood. It is between the fantasies of the rulers and the reality of the ruled.”
Frank Wright Substack.
What a keen mind he has, spectacular.
This Rufo fella is fighting the good fight. Good guy ☝️
Hey, Latin and Greek are apparently as yet untouched; the administration is probably waiting for the old-fogey teachers to retire.
In the Soviet bloc countries (and no doubt still in Communist China, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, etc) every school and workplace had its political office with agents tasked to enforce the Party line. So, too, our elite private schools, apparently. These offices and their pernicious work need to be delegitimized and abolished before our institutions become unable to break free from their ideological stranglehold. Thanks for exposing this single example. I salute the courage of men like you and this former student.
I was one that old-fogey and hate to say the I see my former world starting to be influenced by this plague. The Latin book I taught from has been “updated” to be inclusive by adding more “studies” material. I will still keep my found memories.
John Charles Daly and Bennett Cerf were known to quote Greek and Latin proverbs on "What's My Line" in the original. They weren't just taught that stuff... they learned it and still remembered it as adults.
Thank you for investigating this. I wanted to point out that George Floyd was on drugs when he died, and the officers followed their training. Also the main officer KNEW George for years as they worked at the SAME night club !!! The most amazing thing is how the media and govt were ready to jump on this incident and launch it into the stratosphere to get their crazy beliefs into the mainstream. But I guess that's what left wingers do, plan for an opportunity and then pounce.
Christopher, as you continue to expose the corruption within our institutions, might I suggest investigating our teacher colleges? As a retired teacher with 3 degrees, I can attest to the pathetic “standards” that guided these institutions to crank out poorly qualified and incapable graduates over the past 15-20 years. These are the people who populate our current educational system at all levels. If anyone wants to know why and how American education has become so woke, morally corrupt and incompetent, they need to go to the source - the training (or lack thereof) and indoctrination of those who call themselves educators today.
Also investigate the graduate school requirements for educators. Years ago, actual Masters Degrees in "X" were strongly discouraged in favor of "X Education" Masters degrees. By now, there are probably states that won't give full credentials to anyone without an "X Education" Masters... and, as far as I know, "X Education" Masters degrees for all X... definitely including STEM... are stuffed full of Marxism in all fifty states. I would argue that school districts, administrators and teachers not willing to disavow Marxist prattle should be decertified... it's that bad.
I am so glad that you are expanding these investigations to the private elite prep schools that are what we both know is the central source to the elite Ivy schools. “Get them while they’re young and you have them for life.” I tried to convince another attendee at the most recent Manhattan Institute event in Palm Beach.
I lived lived, worked, and taught with this group and was part of the administration who didn’t conform. After 28 years, I was “retired”. These people are even worse than their hire education, institution colleagues. The stories I could tell you.
Claudine Gay went to Phillips Exeter. Tells you everything you need to know.
Stories we could tell...Here's one - an extract of a mother describing her son’s experiences of gender studies at England's most prestigious school - Eton: https://thecritic.co.uk/eton-needs-a-headmaster/
"Your son has gone quiet on the family holiday. He asks you for help with his homework. It transpires that, at the age of fourteen, he’s been dispatched to review a novel about incestuous rape and pregnancy. Your son attends a film about “Seahorses” (and which thirteen-year-old wouldn’t)? It turns out to be a graphic account of male pregnancy. The contrast with his expectations is so disorientating that he wants to leave the room but feels he cannot, worrying he will be marked out. As what, exactly? A normal boy. In second year, your son attends a talk by transsexual author Juno – previously James – Dawson. A quick search revealed her to have written a “trans Alice in Wonderland, full of cocaine, cosmetics and the sexually abusive Tweedle twins” concerning a boarding school pupil with an “an active, app-based sex life with married men from outlying commuter towns”. We were told that the talk encouraged boys to experiment sexually. Books for sale in the foyer afterwards included This Book is Gay, which is basically a sex manual. Parents were not offered an opt-out as it wasn’t “sex education” but “literature”........................Soon the ripples from the pebbles being cast in your son’s imagination become crashing waves. A heavily-promoted event in the school’s history library – billed as a “Creative Pornography Workshop” – is open only to the two youngest years. It is offered by “The School of Sexuality Education” whose “team ....deliver ‘sex positive’ workshops on porn, consent, healthy relationships and sexual pleasure.”.......................The school invites “The Good Lad Initiative” to undertake annual “masculinity” workshops for the younger year groups..... In these sessions, your son is made to role play “coming out as straight” – and he then returns to an all-male boarding house co-habiting with 18-year-olds!" https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
please do tell!
"hire education" Good one!
A Freudian slip
“I also contacted several alumni who were angry about Exeter’s recent transformation but reluctant to come forward, given long-standing family ties to the school and the risks of publicly criticizing elite institutions.”
Oh puleeeeze. There’s a playground word for people like this. It starts with a “p” and ends with a “y”. Call them out and ridicule them. Public shaming is powerful. If you don’t, every kid on the playground knows what you are…
It worked for Bill Ackman
It was astounding to read about how uninformed Ackerman was until very late in the game; He discovered his daughter became a Marxist at his alma mater Harvard - it's material for a Tom Wolfe novel.
Ackman knew what was going on but only gave a shit when Harvard didn’t back Zionist genocide of innocent Palestinians. But Ackman definitely knew the situation beforehand.
I have read accounts where he was astonished to see how 'badly' Harvard turned out his daughter....it's as if he were asleep at the wheel or was so busy didn't pay asttention...
How could a guy as smart as Ackerman, with a daughter in the school, and a DEI grifter plagerist like Claudine Gay no know how corrupt Harvard had become with Affirmative Action grifters and DEI racist indoctrination that they had systematically institutionalized for over a decade?
You mean the genocide of the embattled warriors ready to defend southern Gaza... the ones our senile POTUS wants to let off before the hostages are released. He has a backbone of melted better... rotten, rancid, spoiled butter.
At least at private schools hardworking moderate and conservative taxpayers aren't footing the bill for the leftist indoctrination of their children. School choice and homeschooling aren't feasible for many families. This scourge must be addressed at the state dept of ed level so that our veterans, our cops and our truck drivers have options for their kids.
No but we are footing the bill for our libraries, rec centers, police departments, etc. Our military and National Guard units are teetering. The ideology has crept into our institutions at an amazing rate.
I believe Brigid's point is that those who cannot afford private school do not have the choice. They are still paying for their child's education (as are we all) through their taxes. The parents of Exeter kids at least made the choice to pay for the indoctrination.
Back in the late 1970s, when I attended WPI, a "townie" from Exeter told me that they were admitted without charge. It was boarding students that had to pay tuition. Of course, the boarding students put down the townies socially, but my friend who attended the school said it was still excellent for everyone.
He told me about his high school history teacher who was the President of the enormous state legislature... over 800 people... that met once every two years. Since New Hampshire had no lieutenant governor, whenever the Governor was out of state, he'd be called out of classes to sign disaster area proclamations or even be called to his office in the state Capitol if there were some sort of emergency.
Sorry to say that private schools like private universities do get federal funding. Our school did not but when I left I found out they now do. So, being private doesn’t mean that you aren’t still a parasite like so many other schools.
School loans are the largest source of finances. For public and private schools. But they put the young into bondage. The answer, IMHO, is to kick the Fed out of all schools altogether. Create vouchers. And let private sector companies create apprenticeships (Many Unions already do this).
You have it right. We “traditionalist” began to see the value of apprenticeships and vocation institutions. I now encourage my younger friends and family to consider whether the academic institutions now have much to offer other than therapeutic exercises. In my own family I saw those who needed and did go into the military and thrive whereas in academia they floundered. Most alternatives to the education will teach the basics, provide a viable skill and teach the importance of character and consequences. We used to be all about application in education but now it’s ideas and things that are ephemeral. But don’t worry, there will be a subsidy (or trust fund) to handle your real life needs like food…
Same in my family. Military and apprenticeships have done wonders. On the other hand, academia has had mixed results. Great for the talented. Terrible for those not so.
I think vouchers would go a long way.
Many rural areas have prohibitive transportation issues so "choice" isn't very practical. I'm not against vouchers, but in the meantime we can also put pressure on the current public school system to better serve their communities. All our public institutions should be required to practice political neutrality, for one thing. The creep of leftist bias has become normalized in media and elsewhere, so now a generation of workers, including many (but not all!) teachers, think they are morally charged with converting or canceling conservatives. Anything they don't like is "hate speech." This crisis has to be addressed urgently along with moves towards reform.
Let capitalism work its magic. If parents are given vouchers you can bet private schools - even small ones - will pop up in rural areas.
After thinking about this, I decided I'd like to see patriotism work it's magic first.🇺🇸 I get that a lot of conservatives want to let public education burn so that the market can take over. There's definitely a lot of money to be made in education, but I'm not convinced pure market forces are a perfect fit for all vital services. That's worth a debate and democratic solution. Meanwhile, right now, the situation in our public schools is urgent for millions of Americans. We can't afford to continue to let a generation learn to divide by race, scorn the Constitution and hate the United States. We see the results in the pro Hamas marchers taking over our streets. We need to re-assert US values of pluralism and democracy in our schools now, or we may not get another chance. We can still take back the schools with enough pressure, and hearts and minds along with them with the right message of unity. United we stand...
A great point. But I think Kevin and MM have great points too. Let's not forget small communities have churches so they are not too small to educate. And today we have the luxury of on-line course technology. These resources are available to even the most remote communities. The funding of public schools denies income to churches, private sector firms, and others who would gladly fill the gap. Your argument, although I know it is not your intent, is the universal argument of why it is tough to return government control to the people. It feels pragmatic but there is always a way to transition away from it in as little as a few years. The gov could likely be cut 80% (not including military and law and order) and few would be affected negatively (except the load-mouthed lefty elitists who will lose their dreams of a utopia). Can you say twitter? In fact, IMHO, the greatest benefits would go to the poor who would be freed from the tyranny of drug-like government handouts that keep the poor poor. Just my opinion. 🤷♂️
Using churches as schools can be problematic. It is important to understand how the Left has built an internal bureaucracy within government to fight political battles, and how that has made some of the simplest most common sense answers impossible to execute.
Churches are typically not built to fire codes necessary for a school building. Yes, a building deemed perfectly safe for children on Sunday is apparently not safe for children on Monday. I know of churches which were used a few times a week for homeschool tutorial classes (bringing in a expert/teacher to teach a group of homeschoolers.) when they were found out by some anti-choice activists the local fire inspector threaten to inform their insurance carrier of the practice. Continuing to use a building for outside code approved activities would result in the loss of insurance coverage for the church. The church had no choice but to turn out the homeschoolers. Of course this is a coordinated ruse to prevent school choice.
You make an excellent point about rural areas and choice. That is a something that is not discussed enough. I don’t know how far you can “put pressure on the current public school system to better serve their communities.” They have been captured hostage by the department of education who holds all the purse strings and makes the rules. There is a movement to build new schools because of the frustration of the stranglehold which department of education and all of its tentacles have on public education. It is not always feasible without philanthropist to create a new school in the classical tradition because of the rot at the top. There is little hope for change until that entity is either eliminated or completely overhauled. You can see their focus by looking at their website https://www.ed.gov
Not so, given that all contributions to private schools are tax deductible.
Exeter has a 1.5 BILLION dollar endowment that is tax free.
They all got PPP money.
Phillips Andover Academy, aka Andover, founded by another member of the Phillips clan,( The uncle founded Exeter.), from which I graduated many moons ago, promotes the same woke nonsense. The school has billions in its endowment, and the scions of the rich, powerful from across the globe attend. The alumni magazine features pictures of boys in skirts on the cheerleading squad and is full of virtue signaling, self congratulatory articles about how enlightened they are, fighting racism and climate change, and all for only $70,000 /year these days. The headmaster, who is now called the head of school, is a promotionally gay, black physician.
Why a physician is an expert in secondary education, I have no idea. The school, which used to deliver a fantastic educational experience, is now an indoctrination academy for the Ivy League and other formerly great universities.
You and I both have the same question; why are more headmasters no longer in the traditional of the first criterium of a headmaster, a master teacher? Now they are business leaders or people who have experience in the “real world” and because school is a business first is what I was told. There seems to be a dichotomy here. School is indeed a business as everything has an operational side but the purpose is to educate. The product is/was college preparation. However, just like anything else, people have a choice to choose whether they want the brand name or the best “product”.
Everything is about the brand. Everything is mercantilist. Not so much about what’s in the box. Tragic really. I went to public high school and then transferred to Andover for my last two years. The teachers at my public high school - some very good, some absolutely pathetic. The teaching was so good at Andover. There were no weak instructors. The classes were almost all college level offerings.
Senior year, as I was beyond the offerings of the Spanish curriculum, I got to sit with the distinguished head of department in a one in one seminar for half the year. I read great literature, and we talked about life. How could you not get a lot out of that with a great teacher? Can you see that happening today?
Maybe it does and I’m just too far out of that scene, but I would doubt it.
Exeter was similar in those days, according to my "townie" friend who grew up in Exeter. They didn't have to pay tuition... the town's students were given a free education (with some property taxes, I believe... but NH is all about that, just as Texas, where I live, is).
Well, Bill Gates is an expert in immunology, so there's that.
In brief, my 28 years. Started out as a young teacher in a school that promoted academic rigor. We had no idea of this slow malignant growth that was infiltrating from the top. We were busy working on our classes and helping students while also doing the other obligatory duties outside of teaching.
Then, some of us moved more into administration because of our experience and time at the school. It started off fine until we changed headmasters.
Many of the “traditionals“, as they called us, were slowly removed from committees. There was a slow process of removing us from the curriculum review committee because they needed new blood and fresh ideas. I was “rolled” off the admissions committee where we traditionals insisted that we continue to use independent norms, as opposed to national norms, as they are better predictors of success at this institution. The traditionals were slowly picked off of every committee. Unfortunately because of some bylaw, a few of us were “elevated” to the senior leadership team. Let’s just say that I was not a team player and defenestrated myself from the committee after 5 years. That is where I really saw the rot. It was incubus of what we see today. Eventually, I was asked to retire. Lesson to learn is that the pedigree of a private school is even stronger than the higher education. These are younger parents who are making a name for themselves or persevering a tradition (which is long gone) for their families. They will put up with much of what we see today because either they trust the school or they need their children to attend these schools to position themselves in society and give their children a chance at the Ivy’s. This is where we need parent education to understand what they are giving up for short term gains. And for alumni/alumnae to understand and care what is going on. Unfortunately, I have little hope that even when the legacies know, they will not care. The woke have put them to sleep.
Although I didn't put two and two together, in hindsight I should have seen this coming in the early 1980s when, discussing welfare reforms with two crusading colleagues, I suggested that welfare should be tied to the use of birth control. "That's genocide!" they exclaimed. My middle-class self was puzzled: Don't all people with common sense and pride limit the number of children they have to the number they can rear on their own, without government largesse?
I was always interested in including more black literature and history in my lessons, and did, but it got my back up in the early 2010s when faculty meetings began being led by young consultants (usually of color) who separated us into affinity groups and tried to get us to confess our identities. There was lots of talk about unconscious racism. It got to be a bit much.
"Elite" private schools have been in this for a long time. Decades ago, awareness of the needs of black students was sketchy, it was rectified as much as it could be, and now we've made our kids into perpetual victims (and consulting firms very wealthy).
No one's saying that some few kids, some few teachers, and some few parents at such places aren't racists, but the institutions themselves are not.
We saw this in the 1970s, watching the Regents curriculum decay into non-existence in New York State because they "had" to promote the minority students of single-parent families... not educate them, mind... promote them. Doing that to the REGENTS curriculum, which was not meant to be for the typical high school student, was profoundly offensive.
Single-parent families created and funded by government ****ing suck. They are even more of the problem than is generally believed, as that is how the grifters and left-wing loons that are the backbone of the cancerous Democratic National Committee got their vile hands on our children. We need to terminate the left-wing establishment of education and welfare and give the states control once again. Many will go back to terminating the parental rights of indigents. We need to spend our money on intact families, not pre-broken ones. Intact need not be nuclear... it is about emotional commitment. That is how the Irish escaped the Brooklyn ghettoes Francie (who represents the author herself, as a schoolgirl) wrote about in "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn". Alameda County (whose county seat is Oakland, CA) found that African-American families that had one full-time wage earner and two people in parental roles were statistically indistinguishable from Caucasian-American families with the same makeup. So much for "systemic racism"... at base, that's a paranoid delusion no better than "flat Earth" delusions.
Thank God the Archdiocese of Philadelphia established the parochial school system in the 1960s in reaction to desegregation and the obvious ruin that would have on students. Today 90% of blacks in Philly schools flunk reading and math grade level proficiency tests. Jewish students escape by going to publicly funded special charter schools. Whites abandoned Philly because they saw what was coming; 500 murders a year, 2,000+ shootings a year, 6,000+ assaults, robberies, car-jackings a year. Lawless, drug infested, broken and run by DEI black appointees.
Grifters and loons are the leaders of the Democratic Party. Time for it to be reborn or die... their choice.
Last year, I applied to Milton Academy for my oldest son, then a rising kindergartener. The environment at this "elite" school is just as you describe - ideologically repugnant, even for children as young as my son.
On the day that my son attended his "observation," accompanying parents were invited to join a discussion group/ Q & A with three current parents serving as panelists. I found the parent panelists to be insufferable, completely lacking in self-awareness, and offensive in the extreme. I knew in that moment: (1) these parents were but the tip of the proverbial iceberg of toxicity and (2) the school was absolutely not right for me, let alone my son.
Thankfully, he didn't get in, and my only loss is the time spent on the application and whatever the application fee was.
The Ivys and the layers of society in which these parents want to position their kids: Both are rotten and well passed their use-by dates. These parents' attitude appears equally silo'd as that of folks who persist in watching network news or PBS.
The "will to believe" is perhaps the most common human delusion. They watch that crap because they want to believe that the world it portrays is the actual world. My closest relative is there, and the others have been overwhelmed by the extremism forced on the American Roman Catholic Church. The Papacy left Rome for good until it agreed to allow mutual control over the naming of diocesan bishops. That ended when "Saint" (HA!) John Paul II decided (like King Louis XIV of France before him) that there was no need for mutuality... he was going to do it all himself, and the hell with everyone else. Now, the Church is run by rubber-stamping, form-filling right-wing slaves of the Vatican demanding six to eight kid families from each couple healthy enough for that many.
What is disappointing is that some of the parents of these kids I taught. I looked at the board and some I taught. They were not always like this. It must have been time and placed created this singularity.
Andover grad here, but the situation is similar. You have done a service for alumni at these schools, Christopher, who have no real access to the culture and pedagogy of the schools except to be on the receiving end of many contribution solicitations. I recall my first exposure to the current Andover Head of School on Zoom, and the first words out of his mouth were how Andover had to combat systemic racism. I sent him an email saying that it appeared that he has been captured by the sloppy thinking of the likes of Ibram X. Kendi, as there has not been systemic racism in the United States since the mid-60s civil rights legislation. I never heard back, and I haven't contributed since
There is systemic racism in America. You can see it in laws that force minority kids to attend failing public schools and limit opportunities to attend more successful ones. You can see it in the refusal to enforce the laws that might give more minority kids an opportunity to grow up in safe neighborhoods. Even the constant effort to teach minority kids that they have no hope of a good life without dismantling capitalism is part of the systemic efforts of the Left to keep minorities oppressed.
This snowball has been rolling and it will not be stopped. Doesn’t matter if it’s being exposed, an entire generation has become this and they will rear the next. Great job America, you got Trojan horsed.
my only solace is that next gen tends to rebel against the prior. lets hope.
Yeah, but there’s also a cohort of gen z that knows this is bs and are motivated. I teach at a STEM charter school and my students, largely male, are hungry for purpose and so over all this woke stuff. They tune it out. Play along. Ignore the grownups. Never fear, all is not lost.
The recent Bronx Science grads I've met are still clear-headed and very smart.
Bryan Rigg is to be commended for "claiming the truths he speaks".
Thank you for uncovering one of many tragic educational situations. I wish you'd do this kind of investigative work with Brearley, Chapin, Spence, and other New York private schools.
My kids went to Nightingale-Bamford in NYC. Ten years ago, DEI was starting there....the black prep-for-prep student (free ride) called the other kids pejoratives for being white like 'Cracker' but was never disciplined for it, while the white kids were constantly expected to give way to such students. I didn't know what to make of the unfairness of the administration's view - and questioning it was not allowed and more over some parents gave you the skank eye if you did question things - but at this point it's clear what was going on.
I went to Brearley and what's saddened me the most is the silence--ask any question about the school's promotion on its site of "gender diversity"--what do they mean, exactly?--and the reply is either shocked silence or insinuations about people who "expect everyone to be alike." Have you got 72 hours? I could go on longer than that . . . and yes, the DEI stuff, the worship of Kendi and DiAngelo, also appalls me.
We could talk! The NYC private schools are worrisome. Smart people like Meghan Kelly pulled her kids out of Collegiate- the top boys’ school- after they repeatedly asked her eight year old son if he thought he could be a girl? What insanity is that? Messing with kids’ heads is alarming. Kelly pulled them out and went to Connecticut but still has to be vigilant. When my daughter was just in pre-school- over 25 years ago at this point, the teacher at the Park Collegiate pre-school on West End Avenue was so woke and very rigid about her beliefs that I occasionally would question her on a few things. For Thanksgiving Day celebration I brought in some of this traditional pilgrim cardboard cutouts to put up - she stuck them behind a cabinet. But most surprisingly, by the time the first semester ended she called us and told us we were no longer welcome at the school. First off, my daughter did nothing and eventually went onto Harvard and is now very successful in the finance industry. I did suggest things to the teacher here and there but not aggressively at all. We were shocked, but another school quickly enrolled my daughter. This rather nutty teacher professed to be the the niece of the founder of the Brookings Institution where my husband and I met doing Economic Research - but it is another once solid place which used to be non-partisan but is also now ideologically corrupted. This is the place that housed the Russian Danshanko who was one of the culprits who supplied misinformation about Trump in Hillary Clinton’s ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax. The world is on fire.
Would love to talk. What's the best way to get in touch? If you like, message me through my substack? Not sure I should put email in a comment here. I'm on Facebook as myself, and I post announcements of my substack writing there. You could direct message me there.
Let me see what I can do!
Why isn’t the propagandizing/indoctrination/brainwashing of our children/youths using the threat of ostracism/bullying/exclusion considered social extortion and child abuse, punishable by already existing laws?
These are actual crimes. There are actual victims.
Name, shame, and expose. Don't stop until they're all out of a job. DEI is racism, pure and simple.
“ the real conflict today is not confined to the wars on which the liberal elite depend for their livelihood. It is between the fantasies of the rulers and the reality of the ruled.”
Frank Wright Substack.
What a keen mind he has, spectacular.
This Rufo fella is fighting the good fight. Good guy ☝️
Sorry for the grammatical errors. I am allowing passion to take over.
Never apologize, it's a comment and not a scholarly article. You're among friends here.
That’s okay - I’d “hire” you!!! 😀
Hey, Latin and Greek are apparently as yet untouched; the administration is probably waiting for the old-fogey teachers to retire.
In the Soviet bloc countries (and no doubt still in Communist China, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, etc) every school and workplace had its political office with agents tasked to enforce the Party line. So, too, our elite private schools, apparently. These offices and their pernicious work need to be delegitimized and abolished before our institutions become unable to break free from their ideological stranglehold. Thanks for exposing this single example. I salute the courage of men like you and this former student.
I was one that old-fogey and hate to say the I see my former world starting to be influenced by this plague. The Latin book I taught from has been “updated” to be inclusive by adding more “studies” material. I will still keep my found memories.
John Charles Daly and Bennett Cerf were known to quote Greek and Latin proverbs on "What's My Line" in the original. They weren't just taught that stuff... they learned it and still remembered it as adults.
Thank you for investigating this. I wanted to point out that George Floyd was on drugs when he died, and the officers followed their training. Also the main officer KNEW George for years as they worked at the SAME night club !!! The most amazing thing is how the media and govt were ready to jump on this incident and launch it into the stratosphere to get their crazy beliefs into the mainstream. But I guess that's what left wingers do, plan for an opportunity and then pounce.
Thank you for reminding us of this.
Christopher, as you continue to expose the corruption within our institutions, might I suggest investigating our teacher colleges? As a retired teacher with 3 degrees, I can attest to the pathetic “standards” that guided these institutions to crank out poorly qualified and incapable graduates over the past 15-20 years. These are the people who populate our current educational system at all levels. If anyone wants to know why and how American education has become so woke, morally corrupt and incompetent, they need to go to the source - the training (or lack thereof) and indoctrination of those who call themselves educators today.
Yes!
Also investigate the graduate school requirements for educators. Years ago, actual Masters Degrees in "X" were strongly discouraged in favor of "X Education" Masters degrees. By now, there are probably states that won't give full credentials to anyone without an "X Education" Masters... and, as far as I know, "X Education" Masters degrees for all X... definitely including STEM... are stuffed full of Marxism in all fifty states. I would argue that school districts, administrators and teachers not willing to disavow Marxist prattle should be decertified... it's that bad.
Truth.
With classes such as “Marxism in Education” being offered for more than 20 years, it’s a wonder there are any qualified teachers out there today.