The problem is that the Left has decided that culture is now part of the educational process. And that there is a "good" culture (theirs) and a "bad" one (traditional norms to a large extent). They see education as the most effective tool to changing our culture, which is their number one goal.
The Right, on the other hand, views education as objective. It should teach skills and be unbiased. Let people decide, and leave culture to the centuries of traditions that individual families have built. Those things used to be sacred. As Americans we respected pluralism, were proud of it, in fact. The Left has now decided that those things can be bigoted, and they can't help but try to "fix it."
The anger comes from the Right feeling violated that other adults are attempting to change their own culture by back-dooring their children to be someone that reflects the Left's values, and not the Right. It's a fundamental intrusion into basic family rights and a violation of privacy and freedom.
I see that as why this is so heated, yet the Left doesn't understand it. They're just trying to "show us tolerance and what's right" after all. They think the Right is angry because it is bigoted or intolerant, when it's truthfully the intrusion that's driving it. Most people on the Right have a "live and let live" philosophy. Yes, there are extremes, but that exists on both sides.
In trying to change society, the Left is making cultural choices for your family, and that's infuriating. They are attempting to take away our essence, and that's a dangerous thing to try to do to someone.
As usual, a top notch discussion. Bravo and well played.
Education is a measurable phenomenon. You can benchmark and test for successful outcomes in literature, math, science, and a myriad of such subjects.
Education at the high school level is preparation for life or college or trade school. There is a measurable objective and a destination at the end of the journey.
Today - in part due to the chaos of the Pandemic - US test scores are plummeting. American students are underperforming the world and our obvious long term economic competitors.
This entire discussion devolves into a basic, foundational question: "What is an education?"
Since we can catalog courses and test for outcomes, the question is also -- "Is the teaching of such material relevant to preparing a student for further education or to make their way in the world?"
I say it is not. I do not think becoming conversant on the use and operation of butt plugs will get you into college or land you a good job.
As to the level of outrage we all should marshal on both sides of this issue, I think it is time to unsheath the dirk and have at it.
The teacher's unions are not serving their teachers, the students, the parents, or the nation. Sorry.
They are woefully political and, yes, they are grooming students to adopt certain cultural positions through curriculum manipulation.
If I am asked to value butt plugs and their operation v advanced calculus or computer networking or software or learning how to run family finances, I go with the practical education.
Conservatives have a fatal flaw. In the pursuit of being judged as having an open mind, they let their bloody brains fall out.
This is total nonsense and a pox on any school that would see this as being part of their educational mission.
This might be the best thing I've seen you write, Jeff. I think that candidates - nationally and in state-wide races - will have immense success if they embrace school choice with the pluralistic language you show here. The only things that will moderate public schools (and private schools too) are money and market forces. When parents are allowed to vote with their feet and tax dollars, you'll see actual changes to shift public schools back toward the center.
This was a very good write-up. Especially bringing your knowledge of the people involved to your commentary. Most people, educators in this instance, whether left or right, really are trying to do good things for kids' education. The nutpickers like PV, LoTT, Proft have their place, but they frequently don't bring much humanity, nuance, or context to the discussion.
I agree with you about the specific issues that caused this flair up. I also agree that school choice is necessary, yet I also believe it is nowhere near sufficient. As I said in my comment on the other thread, so much of the nuttiness gets tied back to the education schools. That's where the kids get all the critical theories infused into their coursework. Normal kids who are trained to be teachers also get taught to be activists. Even if you have school choice these new teachers almost all come from this monocultural pool.
I, similar to your past, live in Chicago as a non-leftist with kids. I hate bubbles. I still mostly like it even as I agree with your assessment that it has gotten more difficult to avoid conflict. But it can be done! Not all lefty people are hyperpartisan nuts. When you interact with reasonable people it shouldn't be hard to avoid "them" vs. "us" language.
So much of the "current thing" among elites is just people following trends. As I also said in another thread, I think some of the people who see through a lot of the BS are the kids. So I guess I'm a bit more optimistic about the future than you or some of your other commenters. (That comment is about the broader education/culture. I have a hard time believing public schools in Chicago will ever get better, whether or not there is more school choice.)
I highly recommend Archbishop Samuel Aquila's commentary in today's WSJ. He touched on some of what you bought up, but focused on allegations by NYT and others that Catholics who oppose LGBTQXYZ indoctrination are "hateful" and violent. Here's the link:
I was recently introduced to Betsy Devos, who has been a children’s advocate for decades. As Education Secretary she pushed for tax dollars to follow the child, creating freedom of choice. The teachers unions, always advocates for themselves and not children, were unrelenting in opposition. She continues her advocacy and more should pay attention to her expertise.
I am interested to learn if Parkers kids have experienced the same decline in reading, math, and science scores as seen in the public schools. I find it outrageous that here in Wheaton about 50% of students fail to meet minimum basic education standards. Ted Dabrowsky at Wirepoints has pointed out similar failures throughout Illinois public education.
As for sex ed, a little bit of conservative discussion at home, and leadership by example, goes a long way.
While I intellectually follow your arguments about Parker's value, it's hard for me separate that from the fact that kids at a very young age are being exposed to very complicated sexual issues in a manner like votech subjects. It's not just that all of these sexual options exist. It's also how to actually perform these sexual options, what tools to use, etc. It is possible that the sexualization of education has significantly increased since your kids went there as well. I think sex education in schools was a mistake made 40 decades ago and has led to where we are now. Parents should be teaching culture and values, of which sex is one. Schools should teach reading, writing, math, history, science, etc. This is an issue in which DeSantis has performed well. As did Younkin.
Dec 16, 2022·edited Dec 16, 2022Liked by Jeffrey Carter
Parents are increasingly speaking out about intolerance and bigotry in these schools to preserve what is left of teaching critical thinking.
Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School lost 20%+ of its enrollment after shell-shocked parents exposed that radical left activists replaced Judaism with progressive dogma as the primary religion in the classroom. G-D for Obama and AOC. We yanked our youngest out after two kids graduated, which given the fact my wife's grandfather was the founding Principal, should say something -- the school went off the rails so quickly and so radically it is a tragedy for the entire Jewish community in Chicago. And Parker, Latin, Lab and other "elite" Chicago schools are hiding declining college matriculation profiles under DEIJ.
To save these institutions it is critical to expose the bigotry and rebuild from a position that "all sides are welcome". Parker is and always has been a liberal place ... but liberal used to mean welcoming all sides versus cramming open the gullet and force feeding the geese to make social justice fois gras warriors. Data, debate and dissent are the bedrock of critical thinking and building analytical minds!
My own rules are as follow:1) No taxation without representation; 2) Offer solutions, counterpoints and alternative views; 3) Be in people's faces. Be fearless.
The writer of this editorial has a disgusting tolerance for the perverted actions of the teacher / dean of students who taught students about dildos, butt plugs, and other inappropriate topics.
The writer states that the teacher / dean of students is a “nice guy,” but that is irrelevant. Having a pleasant demeanor doesn’t give one license to behave in a perverted, sexually inappropriate manner.
I’m sure that most of the Catholic priests who engage in child molestation are also “nice guys” with a pleasant demeanor, but that doesn’t justify their evil acts.
Evil done with a smile and courteous disposition is still evil.
Perverts and pedophiles often depend on having a pleasant and nice persona in order to ingratiate themselves to people which allows them to get away with their perverted behavior.
If the teacher / dean of students had an abrasive personality, he would likely have been fired or ran out of the school, which would have prevented him from engaging in his perverted behavior.
The writer of this editorial is wrong to be tolerant of presenting perverted, sexually explicit material to children. The writer is clearly trying to come across as magnanimous and tolerant, but in reality, he is just another enabler. People like him are partly how we got to this point in our culture.
This writer has absorbed some of the norms of the liberals that he clearly spends so much time around. I have no idea why any conservative would send their kids to that hellhole of a school, even before it went woke.
The writer claims to be a conservative, but he seems to actually be a small government, socially ambivalent libertarian who happens to have capitalistic and pro-life views.
No true conservative would support presenting sexualized material to children like this.
A very thoughtful piece, and I'm glad it was delivered to my in-box.
I'm also a Chicago-area resident; I've seen the Chicago Teachers Union abandon education for communist indoctrination (I'm not kidding), suburban teachers despair over what they can and can't teach, children who are bright-eyed in first grade and depressed by ninth grade, and a community that, with but a few exceptions, has neither the knowledge base, interest, or moral fiber to fix things.
With specific regard to Parker: Mr. Bruno must be made to understand that the only thing a six year old boy needs to know about sex is that girls have cooties. There is a time for sex education; it is not in elementary school. Apparently this video is about (it's said) older children; even if in high school, is it an educational requirement that we teach them about kink? It should not have taken a surreptitious video by Project Veritas to bring this to light; concerned parents would have known and done something about this before now. There's your problem.
This illustrates the larger point about 'school choice' must be made: Parker is part of that choice. It is an elite private school, and it's been taken over by the multi-culti, gender-blender agenda without protest by either the parents or the larger community. It has a Dean that will talk to children about butt plugs. Most advocates of 'school choice' would suggest to you, Mr. Carter, that educating children about dildos is NOT the choice they want to see in schools. But those advocates aren't stepping up to enforce societal controls and boundaries (imperfect as these are as we'll all acknowledge).
School choice has boundaries. Our schools in general must have boundaries. A public that has been anesthetized by public life and media and has, for decades now, ceded education to others will not use 'school choice' well, precisely because they aren't willing to enforce those boundaries. They don't know what they're choosing.
We have choice -- the tax dollars don't follow the child but one can put a child into public schools, religious schools (as I did for my child) or a school like Parker. What we don't have is a public that is exercising oversight; until that changes, 'choice' doesn't mean very much. Those who want our schools to follow the progressive agenda dislike intensely when a few parents begin to ask what's going on in the classrooms, and we understand why (witness the confrontations at certain Virginia school board meetings). Most parents have been conditioned to shut up and go along. What 'choice' are they going to exercise?
The failure at Parker may be several things, but it's not a failure to choose.
Agreed! School choice is the answer! I had to be diligent with my son in our Chicago area suburban public school. He sadly had to learn to "keep his head down" in the Big Ten University where he did his undergraduate study. Keep quiet or it would affect your grade! Not the way we ever dreamed it would be back in the 60's-70's when we were aspiring to live Dr King's vision.
For another example about how far off the rails academia and education are, click this link: https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1599943691023835137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1599943691023835137%7Ctwgr%5E69f854bc311c39be92225b5e003bf3a40b709694%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Facecomments.mu.nu%2F%3Fpost%3D402205 If you don't want to click the link, "Rutgers professor says that "white people are committed to being villains" and falsely claims that Africans arrived in North America before white Europeans.
"Whiteness is going to have an end date," she warns. "We gotta take these muthafuckers out."
Excellent article, thank you.
The problem is that the Left has decided that culture is now part of the educational process. And that there is a "good" culture (theirs) and a "bad" one (traditional norms to a large extent). They see education as the most effective tool to changing our culture, which is their number one goal.
The Right, on the other hand, views education as objective. It should teach skills and be unbiased. Let people decide, and leave culture to the centuries of traditions that individual families have built. Those things used to be sacred. As Americans we respected pluralism, were proud of it, in fact. The Left has now decided that those things can be bigoted, and they can't help but try to "fix it."
The anger comes from the Right feeling violated that other adults are attempting to change their own culture by back-dooring their children to be someone that reflects the Left's values, and not the Right. It's a fundamental intrusion into basic family rights and a violation of privacy and freedom.
I see that as why this is so heated, yet the Left doesn't understand it. They're just trying to "show us tolerance and what's right" after all. They think the Right is angry because it is bigoted or intolerant, when it's truthfully the intrusion that's driving it. Most people on the Right have a "live and let live" philosophy. Yes, there are extremes, but that exists on both sides.
In trying to change society, the Left is making cultural choices for your family, and that's infuriating. They are attempting to take away our essence, and that's a dangerous thing to try to do to someone.
As usual, a top notch discussion. Bravo and well played.
Education is a measurable phenomenon. You can benchmark and test for successful outcomes in literature, math, science, and a myriad of such subjects.
Education at the high school level is preparation for life or college or trade school. There is a measurable objective and a destination at the end of the journey.
Today - in part due to the chaos of the Pandemic - US test scores are plummeting. American students are underperforming the world and our obvious long term economic competitors.
This entire discussion devolves into a basic, foundational question: "What is an education?"
Since we can catalog courses and test for outcomes, the question is also -- "Is the teaching of such material relevant to preparing a student for further education or to make their way in the world?"
I say it is not. I do not think becoming conversant on the use and operation of butt plugs will get you into college or land you a good job.
As to the level of outrage we all should marshal on both sides of this issue, I think it is time to unsheath the dirk and have at it.
The teacher's unions are not serving their teachers, the students, the parents, or the nation. Sorry.
They are woefully political and, yes, they are grooming students to adopt certain cultural positions through curriculum manipulation.
If I am asked to value butt plugs and their operation v advanced calculus or computer networking or software or learning how to run family finances, I go with the practical education.
Conservatives have a fatal flaw. In the pursuit of being judged as having an open mind, they let their bloody brains fall out.
This is total nonsense and a pox on any school that would see this as being part of their educational mission.
Butt plugs?
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
"The anger comes from the Right feeling violated that other adults are attempting to change their own culture by back-dooring their children"
Literally, in this case.
This might be the best thing I've seen you write, Jeff. I think that candidates - nationally and in state-wide races - will have immense success if they embrace school choice with the pluralistic language you show here. The only things that will moderate public schools (and private schools too) are money and market forces. When parents are allowed to vote with their feet and tax dollars, you'll see actual changes to shift public schools back toward the center.
This was a very good write-up. Especially bringing your knowledge of the people involved to your commentary. Most people, educators in this instance, whether left or right, really are trying to do good things for kids' education. The nutpickers like PV, LoTT, Proft have their place, but they frequently don't bring much humanity, nuance, or context to the discussion.
I agree with you about the specific issues that caused this flair up. I also agree that school choice is necessary, yet I also believe it is nowhere near sufficient. As I said in my comment on the other thread, so much of the nuttiness gets tied back to the education schools. That's where the kids get all the critical theories infused into their coursework. Normal kids who are trained to be teachers also get taught to be activists. Even if you have school choice these new teachers almost all come from this monocultural pool.
One of the most prominent people who is very much on straightening out the higher education system is Jonathan Haidt. https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/when-truth-and-social-justice-collide-choose-truth Glenn Loury and John McWhorter do some great commentary. It's still an uphill battle.
I, similar to your past, live in Chicago as a non-leftist with kids. I hate bubbles. I still mostly like it even as I agree with your assessment that it has gotten more difficult to avoid conflict. But it can be done! Not all lefty people are hyperpartisan nuts. When you interact with reasonable people it shouldn't be hard to avoid "them" vs. "us" language.
So much of the "current thing" among elites is just people following trends. As I also said in another thread, I think some of the people who see through a lot of the BS are the kids. So I guess I'm a bit more optimistic about the future than you or some of your other commenters. (That comment is about the broader education/culture. I have a hard time believing public schools in Chicago will ever get better, whether or not there is more school choice.)
I highly recommend Archbishop Samuel Aquila's commentary in today's WSJ. He touched on some of what you bought up, but focused on allegations by NYT and others that Catholics who oppose LGBTQXYZ indoctrination are "hateful" and violent. Here's the link:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacegoating-the-church-for-club-q-shooting-denver-post-catholicism-lgbt-evangelicals-catechism-11670525803?mod=opinion_lead_pos9
I was recently introduced to Betsy Devos, who has been a children’s advocate for decades. As Education Secretary she pushed for tax dollars to follow the child, creating freedom of choice. The teachers unions, always advocates for themselves and not children, were unrelenting in opposition. She continues her advocacy and more should pay attention to her expertise.
I am interested to learn if Parkers kids have experienced the same decline in reading, math, and science scores as seen in the public schools. I find it outrageous that here in Wheaton about 50% of students fail to meet minimum basic education standards. Ted Dabrowsky at Wirepoints has pointed out similar failures throughout Illinois public education.
As for sex ed, a little bit of conservative discussion at home, and leadership by example, goes a long way.
Excellent column. #KeepItUp !
While I intellectually follow your arguments about Parker's value, it's hard for me separate that from the fact that kids at a very young age are being exposed to very complicated sexual issues in a manner like votech subjects. It's not just that all of these sexual options exist. It's also how to actually perform these sexual options, what tools to use, etc. It is possible that the sexualization of education has significantly increased since your kids went there as well. I think sex education in schools was a mistake made 40 decades ago and has led to where we are now. Parents should be teaching culture and values, of which sex is one. Schools should teach reading, writing, math, history, science, etc. This is an issue in which DeSantis has performed well. As did Younkin.
Parents are increasingly speaking out about intolerance and bigotry in these schools to preserve what is left of teaching critical thinking.
Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School lost 20%+ of its enrollment after shell-shocked parents exposed that radical left activists replaced Judaism with progressive dogma as the primary religion in the classroom. G-D for Obama and AOC. We yanked our youngest out after two kids graduated, which given the fact my wife's grandfather was the founding Principal, should say something -- the school went off the rails so quickly and so radically it is a tragedy for the entire Jewish community in Chicago. And Parker, Latin, Lab and other "elite" Chicago schools are hiding declining college matriculation profiles under DEIJ.
My own prep school (Shipley) is even putting content on the website about de-centering whiteness in the family (the school incidentally has a 30+ year history of discrimination against free speech and classical liberal viewpoints). https://blogs.shipleyschool.org/decentering-whiteness-at-home-and-in-your-family
You can't make this stuff up anymore!
To save these institutions it is critical to expose the bigotry and rebuild from a position that "all sides are welcome". Parker is and always has been a liberal place ... but liberal used to mean welcoming all sides versus cramming open the gullet and force feeding the geese to make social justice fois gras warriors. Data, debate and dissent are the bedrock of critical thinking and building analytical minds!
My own rules are as follow:1) No taxation without representation; 2) Offer solutions, counterpoints and alternative views; 3) Be in people's faces. Be fearless.
This one made our family die laughing. Satire is hate in this crowd! https://www.chicagocontrarian.com/blog/famed-chicago-school-to-release-the-official-parker-handbook
The writer of this editorial has a disgusting tolerance for the perverted actions of the teacher / dean of students who taught students about dildos, butt plugs, and other inappropriate topics.
The writer states that the teacher / dean of students is a “nice guy,” but that is irrelevant. Having a pleasant demeanor doesn’t give one license to behave in a perverted, sexually inappropriate manner.
I’m sure that most of the Catholic priests who engage in child molestation are also “nice guys” with a pleasant demeanor, but that doesn’t justify their evil acts.
Evil done with a smile and courteous disposition is still evil.
Perverts and pedophiles often depend on having a pleasant and nice persona in order to ingratiate themselves to people which allows them to get away with their perverted behavior.
If the teacher / dean of students had an abrasive personality, he would likely have been fired or ran out of the school, which would have prevented him from engaging in his perverted behavior.
The writer of this editorial is wrong to be tolerant of presenting perverted, sexually explicit material to children. The writer is clearly trying to come across as magnanimous and tolerant, but in reality, he is just another enabler. People like him are partly how we got to this point in our culture.
This writer has absorbed some of the norms of the liberals that he clearly spends so much time around. I have no idea why any conservative would send their kids to that hellhole of a school, even before it went woke.
The writer claims to be a conservative, but he seems to actually be a small government, socially ambivalent libertarian who happens to have capitalistic and pro-life views.
No true conservative would support presenting sexualized material to children like this.
Well done. Again.
https://ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=072000050HArt.+11+Subdiv.+25&ActID=1876&ChapterID=53&SeqStart=19800000&SeqEnd=20500000 someone on Twitter alerted me to this. It could be an actual crime.
A very thoughtful piece, and I'm glad it was delivered to my in-box.
I'm also a Chicago-area resident; I've seen the Chicago Teachers Union abandon education for communist indoctrination (I'm not kidding), suburban teachers despair over what they can and can't teach, children who are bright-eyed in first grade and depressed by ninth grade, and a community that, with but a few exceptions, has neither the knowledge base, interest, or moral fiber to fix things.
With specific regard to Parker: Mr. Bruno must be made to understand that the only thing a six year old boy needs to know about sex is that girls have cooties. There is a time for sex education; it is not in elementary school. Apparently this video is about (it's said) older children; even if in high school, is it an educational requirement that we teach them about kink? It should not have taken a surreptitious video by Project Veritas to bring this to light; concerned parents would have known and done something about this before now. There's your problem.
This illustrates the larger point about 'school choice' must be made: Parker is part of that choice. It is an elite private school, and it's been taken over by the multi-culti, gender-blender agenda without protest by either the parents or the larger community. It has a Dean that will talk to children about butt plugs. Most advocates of 'school choice' would suggest to you, Mr. Carter, that educating children about dildos is NOT the choice they want to see in schools. But those advocates aren't stepping up to enforce societal controls and boundaries (imperfect as these are as we'll all acknowledge).
School choice has boundaries. Our schools in general must have boundaries. A public that has been anesthetized by public life and media and has, for decades now, ceded education to others will not use 'school choice' well, precisely because they aren't willing to enforce those boundaries. They don't know what they're choosing.
We have choice -- the tax dollars don't follow the child but one can put a child into public schools, religious schools (as I did for my child) or a school like Parker. What we don't have is a public that is exercising oversight; until that changes, 'choice' doesn't mean very much. Those who want our schools to follow the progressive agenda dislike intensely when a few parents begin to ask what's going on in the classrooms, and we understand why (witness the confrontations at certain Virginia school board meetings). Most parents have been conditioned to shut up and go along. What 'choice' are they going to exercise?
The failure at Parker may be several things, but it's not a failure to choose.
Agreed! School choice is the answer! I had to be diligent with my son in our Chicago area suburban public school. He sadly had to learn to "keep his head down" in the Big Ten University where he did his undergraduate study. Keep quiet or it would affect your grade! Not the way we ever dreamed it would be back in the 60's-70's when we were aspiring to live Dr King's vision.