There are many threads that need to be teased apart here. I'll try. While I support school choice I'm tempted to give James Lindsay's POV some oxygen. If I can steelman him: the secondary bureaucracies that control credentialling or produce a credentialled class are so strong that most of the new schools will be de facto government/Neoma…
There are many threads that need to be teased apart here. I'll try. While I support school choice I'm tempted to give James Lindsay's POV some oxygen. If I can steelman him: the secondary bureaucracies that control credentialling or produce a credentialled class are so strong that most of the new schools will be de facto government/Neomarxist in structure. The best way to truncate statist wokism is to homeschool.
The Rufo/Desantis model of legally challenging intitutional wokism through courts has, if I'm reading the tweets correctly, failed to produce any institutional change in government run K-12 education (and will continue to fail?)
https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1648500533316173831 'Lawsuits not viable. ' This seems to be an admission that David French and Libertarians at Fifth Column were correct: Opposing CRT in education could not be achieved within the instutions through forced legal reform but must be done relentlessly by parents themselves being overwhelmingly invested in education. Homeschooling being the antipod to public education.
So on one hand we have a bifurcation model and ideological reform is ground up parents rights activism, and on the other we have a top down court ordered legal reform, the later, if I'm understanding correctly, is proving to be legally diffuse/ineffective.
Are we going to continue putting our eggs in both baskets hoping to establish a legal/ideological detente in public institutions or are we going to invest more heavily in the Deanglis/Educational Savings Accounts (ESA) model?
I think I understand the synpsis in the OP. But we seem to be conceding that secularists won and can't be legally defeated even if we prove in courts that CRT is racism, judges don't mind anti-white or anti-asian racism.
Looking for clarification and this isn't my full time wheelhouse so please use kid gloves.
"This seems to be an admission that David French and Libertarians at Fifth Column were correct."
No, precisely the opposite. They argued that no new legislation was required to stop critical race theory-style scapegoating and discrimination. They said "just file a civil rights lawsuit using existing law." But that has proved insufficient—these are new, specific problems that require new, specific legislation to guide public education instruction. They were, and continue to be, dead wrong on this issue—and their diversion has proven to be exactly that: a diversion.
I think I misunderstood the tweet exchange you had with Lindsay. You seemed to admit the lawsuits filed challenging CRT in schools failed. Is that because the laws weren't robust/specific or because the courts didn't care ?!
The French/Kmele argument was that parents should file lawsuits using the Civil Rights Act and First Amendment provisions (existing law). My argument was that these laws were insufficient and not specific to the problem, which has been confirmed by the first round of lawsuits. This is why I've encouraged red states to pass specific anti-CRT laws.
Academics I know at colleges in Florida/Texas are upset by the new anti-DIE laws. On one hand, some are worried they'll be less competitive for federal grants since DIE is required for those grants (woke takeover of NIH is nearing completion, NSF was lost a decade plus ago, but has less money).
Hopefully if these laws pass, the state AGs will prep to sue the Feds (NIH/NSF/USDA/etc) if federal funding drops over the laws-- ideally they find a black female scientist with a compelling project who fails to get funding due to any prospective pushback, and use her case for this. The optics would be fantastic.
On the other hand, one key strength of these pending laws not present in prior ones is that they incentivize the rabid bureaucrats to flip anti-DIE. This will kill it institutionally. Administrators want that sweet, sweet state $$, so they'll appear to comply with any law if it gets them the $$. As long as the wokies are quiet with their proselytizing, the admin will leave them in peace. But the rabid bureaucrats who believe their noble gatekeeping/risk-aversion is all that keeps the university from being defunded will flip out over DIE activity. Then all it takes is anti-DIE people in the departments ratting out the DIE activities to the rabid bureaucrats.
Ok. Thanks. I'm still confused about what you were conceding in the argument with Lindsay. Regardless of the French/Foster position, I think what you were saying about the expensive and ineffective lawsuits was confusing. Also in the OP you seemed to indicate the DeAngelis model works most effectively creating parallel institutions, as opposed to moderating the existing ones. I can't be the only one confused about the dichotomy. At any rate thank you for clarifying
The problem is that the current progressive secular agenda is akin to religion but cannot be labeled as such. As a result, it can easily infiltrate public institutions without much challenge. In reality, its beliefs methods and demands for loyalty are more akin to religious fanaticism than most currently practices religions.
On parents making a difference - there are not enough parents who understand just how much their children are being subverted in schools. Even those who care hear too many diverging messages because the far left also controls most of the media outlets.
Lucy, it's true that many (most?) parents don't understand the degree of subversion in schools (public and, unfortunately, private as well). But we don't need a majority of parents onboard today to prevail. A significant minority, getting it right with various school ventures (HS, coops, micros), is all we really need. That minority can grow quickly and put the bad guys on their back foot.
The wokesters need a monopoly to win; we don't. Good and true ideas vanquish false, bad ideas in a lopsided way, maybe ten to one. Homeschoolers went from nothing to a significant minority totally on their own dime. Shifting funds from wokesters to real educators could have compounding results, relatively quickly. There's hope.
The home is primary, but we also need the school and the society to work with parents to transmit values. During the week, kids spend as much time at school as with their parents once they're in elementary school—those institutions have an obligation to help parents shape their children into good moral citizens.
No, homes are inadequate to keep those values alive now that there are significant government and NGO forces working to destroy them. Many schools are teaching that the US is not worthy of pride and that citizens should assign no value to being an American citizen.
I have two teenagers and, I will be honest, I am fighting an uphill battle to counter what they hear at school, on social media, and from friends, not to mention the rebellious stage/age that automatically disqualifies me as authority.
There are many threads that need to be teased apart here. I'll try. While I support school choice I'm tempted to give James Lindsay's POV some oxygen. If I can steelman him: the secondary bureaucracies that control credentialling or produce a credentialled class are so strong that most of the new schools will be de facto government/Neomarxist in structure. The best way to truncate statist wokism is to homeschool.
The Rufo/Desantis model of legally challenging intitutional wokism through courts has, if I'm reading the tweets correctly, failed to produce any institutional change in government run K-12 education (and will continue to fail?)
https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1648500533316173831 'Lawsuits not viable. ' This seems to be an admission that David French and Libertarians at Fifth Column were correct: Opposing CRT in education could not be achieved within the instutions through forced legal reform but must be done relentlessly by parents themselves being overwhelmingly invested in education. Homeschooling being the antipod to public education.
So on one hand we have a bifurcation model and ideological reform is ground up parents rights activism, and on the other we have a top down court ordered legal reform, the later, if I'm understanding correctly, is proving to be legally diffuse/ineffective.
Are we going to continue putting our eggs in both baskets hoping to establish a legal/ideological detente in public institutions or are we going to invest more heavily in the Deanglis/Educational Savings Accounts (ESA) model?
I think I understand the synpsis in the OP. But we seem to be conceding that secularists won and can't be legally defeated even if we prove in courts that CRT is racism, judges don't mind anti-white or anti-asian racism.
Looking for clarification and this isn't my full time wheelhouse so please use kid gloves.
Respectfully,
"This seems to be an admission that David French and Libertarians at Fifth Column were correct."
No, precisely the opposite. They argued that no new legislation was required to stop critical race theory-style scapegoating and discrimination. They said "just file a civil rights lawsuit using existing law." But that has proved insufficient—these are new, specific problems that require new, specific legislation to guide public education instruction. They were, and continue to be, dead wrong on this issue—and their diversion has proven to be exactly that: a diversion.
I think I misunderstood the tweet exchange you had with Lindsay. You seemed to admit the lawsuits filed challenging CRT in schools failed. Is that because the laws weren't robust/specific or because the courts didn't care ?!
The French/Kmele argument was that parents should file lawsuits using the Civil Rights Act and First Amendment provisions (existing law). My argument was that these laws were insufficient and not specific to the problem, which has been confirmed by the first round of lawsuits. This is why I've encouraged red states to pass specific anti-CRT laws.
Academics I know at colleges in Florida/Texas are upset by the new anti-DIE laws. On one hand, some are worried they'll be less competitive for federal grants since DIE is required for those grants (woke takeover of NIH is nearing completion, NSF was lost a decade plus ago, but has less money).
Hopefully if these laws pass, the state AGs will prep to sue the Feds (NIH/NSF/USDA/etc) if federal funding drops over the laws-- ideally they find a black female scientist with a compelling project who fails to get funding due to any prospective pushback, and use her case for this. The optics would be fantastic.
On the other hand, one key strength of these pending laws not present in prior ones is that they incentivize the rabid bureaucrats to flip anti-DIE. This will kill it institutionally. Administrators want that sweet, sweet state $$, so they'll appear to comply with any law if it gets them the $$. As long as the wokies are quiet with their proselytizing, the admin will leave them in peace. But the rabid bureaucrats who believe their noble gatekeeping/risk-aversion is all that keeps the university from being defunded will flip out over DIE activity. Then all it takes is anti-DIE people in the departments ratting out the DIE activities to the rabid bureaucrats.
Ok. Thanks. I'm still confused about what you were conceding in the argument with Lindsay. Regardless of the French/Foster position, I think what you were saying about the expensive and ineffective lawsuits was confusing. Also in the OP you seemed to indicate the DeAngelis model works most effectively creating parallel institutions, as opposed to moderating the existing ones. I can't be the only one confused about the dichotomy. At any rate thank you for clarifying
The problem is that the current progressive secular agenda is akin to religion but cannot be labeled as such. As a result, it can easily infiltrate public institutions without much challenge. In reality, its beliefs methods and demands for loyalty are more akin to religious fanaticism than most currently practices religions.
On parents making a difference - there are not enough parents who understand just how much their children are being subverted in schools. Even those who care hear too many diverging messages because the far left also controls most of the media outlets.
Lucy, it's true that many (most?) parents don't understand the degree of subversion in schools (public and, unfortunately, private as well). But we don't need a majority of parents onboard today to prevail. A significant minority, getting it right with various school ventures (HS, coops, micros), is all we really need. That minority can grow quickly and put the bad guys on their back foot.
The wokesters need a monopoly to win; we don't. Good and true ideas vanquish false, bad ideas in a lopsided way, maybe ten to one. Homeschoolers went from nothing to a significant minority totally on their own dime. Shifting funds from wokesters to real educators could have compounding results, relatively quickly. There's hope.
Thank you for giving hope 😊
Yes, and a lot of parents were indoctrinated as children and in college
The home is the place for the transmission of moral values and pride and gratitude in being an American citizen,
The home is primary, but we also need the school and the society to work with parents to transmit values. During the week, kids spend as much time at school as with their parents once they're in elementary school—those institutions have an obligation to help parents shape their children into good moral citizens.
No, homes are inadequate to keep those values alive now that there are significant government and NGO forces working to destroy them. Many schools are teaching that the US is not worthy of pride and that citizens should assign no value to being an American citizen.
That's why the home has to work in tandem with a school that reinforces its values.
I have two teenagers and, I will be honest, I am fighting an uphill battle to counter what they hear at school, on social media, and from friends, not to mention the rebellious stage/age that automatically disqualifies me as authority.
It's difficult and they'll pretend that they don't hear you, but they're still listening. Keep strong!