#education #PublicEducation #bathrooms #BookBans #pronouns #SchoolSports
It’s tough to improve public education when officials – many of whom are elected – talk more about bathrooms, book bans, pronouns and whether transgender students should play on girls sports teams.
No one seems to be talking about things like middle school design, high school size and pupil-teacher ratios, as they had in the past.
But, maybe that’s the point. If officials focus on seemingly extraneous issues, public education will go away, and students will be left to fend for themselves in the private school market.
Maureen Downey, recently retired education columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, addressed this in her November 26, 2024, column.
On the federal level, there’s a push to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. Of course, the states do not want to see the federal education money dry up, but they just don’t want all the regulations that may come with that money.
Besides, the bathroom and book-ban talk gets many voters riled up, Downey points out.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of public schools, they have to take every kid. Private schools can discriminate about which kids they take.
And, if public schools are underfunded, the students are very likely to be less well educated, especially when school officials focus more on extraneous, but provocative, issues more than they focus on student achievement, getting the best teachers and having everything students need to get the best education possible.
But, some elected officials don’t necessarily want smart kids. The smarter the kid, the smarter the adults they will become. They may actually see the extraneous issues for what they are, and vote out some of these elected officials.
These officials may prefer to simply teach obedience rather than creativity. They see danger in encouraging kids to have minds of their own.
These same officials also oppose widespread immigration. If the children we are educating don’t have the smarts it will take to do the jobs of tomorrow, those brains may have to come from other countries.
Many highly technical U.S. jobs are held by people with very foreign-sounding names. Some of these are American, but some are not.
As Downey points out, 56 percent of Georgia students test below proficiency in algebra. Algebra is the beginning of more advanced math, which is and will be required for the jobs of the future.
As discussed here previously, there’s a desire to control smart people, including teachers. Discrediting their work, creativity and ingenuity enhances desired political narratives.
If children become too smart, they can discredit and disprove those desired political narratives.
Therefore, highlighting extraneous issues in education creates the anger the officials want and makes it easier to dismantle public education.
So, if these officials succeed, if you have a student with disabilities or other learning issues and you are forced into the private market to educate them, good luck finding a school that will take them.
If your child is shut out of the private education market, it won’t matter what bathroom or pronoun that student uses.
Peter
Tag Archives: book bans
NO ONE ASKS STUDENTS WHAT THEY THINK OF BOOK BANS
#BookBans #education #students #teachers #parents
Parents are clamoring for certain books to be banned in schools.
Do students want the same thing?
It appears no one cares what the kids think.
Maureen Downey, education columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, tackled this subject in her October 11, 2022, column.
“(Parents) often roll their eyes or guffaw when students themselves defend the books, suggesting that while they want to protect kids, they don’t want to hear their views,” Downey writes.
Downey asked students who have attended school board meetings and hearings what they would like to tell adults advocating book bans.
“I would ask them not even to change their viewpoint, but to keep and open mind. Even though I didn’t agree with what the parents were saying, I still listened. They refused to listen. Whenever someone would speak against book bans, they would start yelling. I also wish they were more informed. They were taking so many things out of context.”
That quote comes from Anvita Sachdeva, a senior at Forsyth County High School, outside Atlanta.
The whole debate about banning books and “protecting” kids centers on open minds vs. closed minds.
So many fear that schools will indoctrinate children into believing things that oppose what they are taught at home by parents, at church or in other non-school locales.
Past generations were easily able to reconcile what they were taught in church, at home and in school, even if there were seemingly contradictory narratives.
Why do some parents fear that no longer is the case?
Perhaps these parents so desperately want their children to think exactly as they do. They don’t want them exposed to ideas, religions etc., that differ from theirs.
Parental restrictions may be the purest form of indoctrination.
The other problem is that parents objecting to certain texts take certain passages out of context, thereby condemning the entire work without reading it in its entirety.
Something that may have a good, even wholesome, overall message may have passages that are less so.
That seems like the old forest vs. trees syndrome.
In short, children should be taught to have open minds, for it is a closed mind that prevents innovation. In that quest, they may come across words, attitudes and behaviors they find objectionable. But that’s not nearly as important as raising a child to think for himself or herself.
Parents certainly want to teach children right from wrong. There are certainly words, attitudes and behaviors that are universally right or wrong. But, children are unlikely to become gay, or trans, based on what they are taught in school. Those are not learned behaviors, but are natural feelings.
Exposing children to people, cultures and beliefs that may not sync up with what their parents believe can not only open their minds, but teach them to accept others for who they are.
By doing that, the world will be better. The children themselves will be better people. And, unexpected friendships could result.
That should be the goal of every parent.
Peter