The National Populist

PUBLIC SCHOOLS: AN IRREDEEMABLE INSTITUTION?

The public school system has long been a major and powerful institution in America. Today, with the liberal establishment consistently expanding its power, most recently by citing a public health crisis, the leftist march through our institutions has reached the schools. While these kinds of ideas are not new in schools, with patriotic practices such as the pledge of allegiance having been under attack at some level since the 40s, in recent years, the spread of critical race theory, a derivation of critical theory and Marx’s ruthless criticism of all that exists, COVID regulations, and radical sexual education have gripped the schools prompting justified outrage and raising the vital question: what should we do about it?

Critical race theory, masked as only a legal framework existing only within teaching of law, has become a popular topic of debate recently, with stories coming across the country of students being taught vile, race-obsessed narratives attacking whiteness. In Buffalo, New York, for example, the Office of Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Initiatives announced a new curriculum for fifth-grade students last July centered on Black Lives Matter. The fact that children in America are being taught curriculum centered on an organization run by self-described “trained Marxists” that seeks to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family” shows just how far our schools and nation have fallen. The NYC Council approved $10 million in funding for an “education equity action plan, alleging that treatment based on race was mainly responsible for inequity in academic performance. And these are not isolated examples by local districts. Extremely powerful establishments also peddle CRT. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave a $1 million grant to The Education Trust Inc. The Equitable Math curriculum supported by this grant states on its website that “White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when... the focus is on getting the 'right' answer." They also criticize the fact that this way of teaching math promotes objectivity. This is indicative of a deeper belief of the left, that objective reality does not exist, a statement that is plainly contradictory. Similar beliefs about white supremacy were shared by the National Museum of African American History and Culture, who put out an infographic explaining that punctuality, work ethic, independence, the nuclear family, and objective thinking were all aspects of “white culture.” What this says about minorities aside, this is another attack on the tenets that built the West, not any attempt to combat actual racism.

Slavery is another issue public schools get very wrong. The 1619 Project, another fruit of CRT, aimed to reframe American history by considering its true founding 1619, when African slaves first arrived to the nation. According to The New York Times, publisher of the project, after it was released there were “educators around the country teaching The 1619 Project.”The project also posits that slavery was America’s original sin, as opposed to the actual original sin of humanity. This twisting of religion and establishment of racism as the only sin in order to move along their agenda is a key tool serving the progressive orthodoxy. The opening essay states that the “white men” who wrote that all men are created equal “did not believe [that] to be true” This allegation and explicit reference to race is very destructive and accusatory to young, impressionable white students. Even before President Trump combatted the project and supported efforts to keep it out of schools, the historical inaccuracies and racial division this project contains have become part of the education of many students.

The Founding Fathers, as with all other great people and things about America, have also been ruthlessly attacked and described as white, racist, evil men. While it is true that great men have great faults, many details about the founders of our nation are left out in teaching. While everyone knows that Jefferson and Washington owned slaves, many do not know their long histories of combatting the practices or their efforts to free their own. Jefferson called slavery a “moral depravity” and a “hideous blot,” and stated that he believed that slavery presented the greatest threat to the survival of the new American nation. Washington also spoke out against the institution of slavery, and freed all of his slaves in his will. It is important to note that there were many laws against freeing slaves, making it nearly impossible in many places. The slave trades going on in other areas of the world such as the Middle East and Africa are also often ignored, as they don’t fit the racial narrative all of this seeks to promote. Other founding fathers such as Andrew Jackson are also demonized for taking land from natives, ignoring the fact that those natives spent thousands of years taking each other's land and warring before the Europeans ever arrived. While the times America has not lived up to its founding principles should be taught, trying to fundamentally reframe the founding of our great nation or its founders should not be tolerated, and racially divisive rhetoric can not remain within our schools.

Sinful sexual education and radical transgender ideology, directly contradicting Christianity and often parents’ wishes, also plague public schools. 9 states currently have laws requiring discussion of LGBTQ+ identities and relationships to be positive and inclusive. The Equality Act, passed recently under Biden, will provide protections to teachers who wish to implement LGBTQ+ curriculum. On abortion, another evil act endorsed by the liberal establisment, is also being taught to our children in the schools. Only 8 states ban teachers from discussing or recommending abortion, also known as murder. California goes as far as to require public colleges to provide abortion medication. While sexual perversion and the sinful religion of progressivism is pushed on kids, often with the support of the government, actual religion and prayer do not, of course, have a place in our schools. It’s no wonder that younger generations are increasingly identifying as LGBTQ+.

Most recently, and perhaps most dangerously, COVID policy has destroyed the education and freedoms of children. Only 0.001% of children infected with COVID have died, only around 300 people under 18, most with severe comorbidities. People under 18 make up only 2% of hospitalizations, and even leftist NPR states that the risk of COVID is comparable to the flu in children. Students are also much more unlikely to spread the virus than adults and, according to a study by Brown university of more than 200,000 students and 63,000 staff, there is only an infection rate of 0.13% among students and 0.24% among staff. Despite the near nonexistent threat of serious illness to children, long lasting COVID restrictions have had detrimental effects on socialization and learning in schools. Masks, the muzzles that have become the religious icon of secular progressivism, pervade schools and limit social interaction and developments within schools. Even the people who now claim masks are necessary for children do not live up to that advice and even spoke out against them during the pandemic. As the exalted Dr. Fauci said at the beginning of the pandemic, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,” and doing it, presumably especially in the case of undisciplined and uncleanly children, has unintended consequences such as when “people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” Despite some conflicting data about the efficacy of masks, although many of those studies were conducted with faulty methods, tt doesn’t take any data to see that putting a spit-soaked rag on a child’s face for 7 hours, as well as socially distancing them from their peers and teachers, is not healthy or conducive to learning. There is also no doubt that online schooling is even close to as thorough as in-person school, which has not set a high bar recently. The psychological and social effect the lack of structure and interaction school provides can not be overstated, as well as the detrimental effect in health, learning, and socialization that masks and social distancing have on impressionable young children.

The purpose of these policies and curriculum changes in schools are, of course, to indoctrinate children in leftist ideology as well as to get them to accept governmental overreach from a very young age. Falling performance in schools also would suggest that public schools aim at creating unintelligent students lacking the reason and critical thinking to combat the narrative of the liberal establishment. This abolition of objective standards, whether in grading or curriculum, allows the increasingly radical left to continue to dominate education. In order to stop this, we must wield power and take a moral stand. Recognizing the lie of academic freedom, a “superstition” according to William F. Buckley Jr., is vital to taking back the schools. Just as teachers are not permitted to promote naziism, they should not be permitted to promote communism or critical theory. The left knows how to wield governmental power to cause cultural change, especially in education, and it's time conservatives do the same for good. Schools need to take a stand on certain issues, and elementary school is not the place for the so-called “free marketplace of ideas.” The 1776 commission suggested by the Trump Administration, for example, takes a stand against unpatriotic teachings in schools such as the 1619 project. We also need to oppose COVID measures by utilizing our governmental power, such as Governor Ron DeSantis did on masks recently by banning mask mandates and withholding the salaries of teachers who refuse to comply. Teachers can not be permitted to stay home and refuse to really teach without repercussion due to powerful teachers unions. Another more radical, but perhaps necessary, measure would be to pull your children out of the public schools. Homeschooling or private schools, although also flawed at times, are much more likely to provide a true education, and give parents more control. The institution of public schools may be irredeemable, but we need to fight back against the degenerate COVID policy, LGBTQ+ indoctrination, and critical race theory that plague our schools and harm our children.