Republican Assault on Public Education (1 Viewer)

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    MT15

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    This probably needs its own thread. It ties in with a lot of different R culture wars: Attacks on universities, attacks on CRT and “woke”. Classifying teachers and librarians as “groomers”. Pushing vouchers to send tax money to private, often religious, schools. Betsy DeVos was an advocate for all these policies that will weaken public education, and there are several billionaires who also want to dismantle public education. Public education may have its faults, but it is responsible for an amazing amount of upward mobility. Kids from poor areas can still get a college prep education in a public school.

    Vouchers (sometimes disguised as “school choice”) are a particular peeve of mine. Public money is diverted from poor schools to wealthy private schools, which aren’t required to offer accommodations for special needs or challenged students. Families with special needs kids are left out. Rural areas often suffer disproportionately because there are no private schools to attend, but their public schools still see the reduction in funding. Often the families who take advantage of the voucher money are upper class and the private schools simply raise tuition knowing the families are getting taxpayer money now.

    Greg Abbot is being particularly vile in this area. No surprise. Voters will have to make a statement about public education. If we want to halt the growing divide in this country between the “haves” and “have-nots”, we need to pay attention to public education.

     
    I am so sick of this forking guy
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    The Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, announced a new education policy for the state on Thursday, which includes the allegation that there were “discrepancies” in the 2020 election, which President Donald Trump baselessly claims was stolen from him.

    Jeus christ pretty soon they will tell the kids trump was a first responder and requed thosands and saved the world ten times over.
     
    The Texas governor Greg Abbott on Saturday signed a law making more than 5 million students eligible to use state funds for private schools, a watershed moment in the conservative campaign to remake public education in the US.

    Texas is allocating $1bn for the first two years of the program to offer parents vouchers to pay for school. It is the 16th state to make all students eligible to receive public funds for private education.

    “Today is the culmination of a movement that has swept across our state and across our country,” Abbott said during a signing ceremony at the governor’s mansion. “The day has arrived that empowers parents to choose the school that’s best for their child.”

    The so-called universal school choice programs are all in states whose legislatures are dominated by Republicans, who for years have accused public schools of indoctrinating children with liberal ideology.

    Advocates say school vouchers put control of children’s education into the hands of parents. Opponents say they drain money from public schools and predominantly benefit wealthier children.

    More than 1 million US students use state money or benefit from tax credits to pay for private school, according to EdChoice, an advocacy group supporting vouchers.

    The new Texas law means all 5.3 million children in the state’s elementary and high schools are eligible for vouchers, far more than in any other US state. Texas has the country’s second-largest public education system.

    About 50 million students are taught in public schools across the US, according to federal data.

    Donald Trump signed executive orders in January directing the Department of Education to prioritize federal funding for school choice programs and instruct states on how to use federal grants to support private and religious schools.………

     
    The US Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was ending billions of dollars in research grants and other aid unless the school concedes to a list of demands from the Trump administration that would effectively cede control of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest to the government.

    The news was delivered to Dr Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a deeply partisan, scathing letter from Linda McMahon, the education secretary, which she also posted on social media. “This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote.

    The main reason for the crackdown on Harvard is the school’s rejection of a long list of demands from the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force, prompted by campus protests against Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. McMahon also accuses the university of “a systematic pattern of violating federal law”.……

    The government’s “sweeping and intrusive demands would impose unprecedented and improper control over the university”, Garber wrote.

    In its lawsuit against the Trump administration, Harvard said the government’s funding cuts will have stark “real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff [and] researchers” by ending crucial medical and scientific research.

    The text of McMahon’s letter, like a Truth Social post from the president, is littered with all-caps words. “Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country – and why is there so much HATE?”

    “Harvard University has made a mockery of this country’s higher education system. It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus,” McMahon claims.…….

     
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    The US Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was ending billions of dollars in research grants and other aid unless the school concedes to a list of demands from the Trump administration that would effectively cede control of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest to the government.
    man sounds ljust lie kthe mafia. No shame, all 100% do what the fork I say or suffer. I think Trump thinks he is god to the United States.
     
    In 2021, JD Vance, then a candidate for Ohio senate, gave a provocative keynote address at the National Conservatism Conference.

    Vance’s lecture was an indictment of American higher education: a “hostile institution” that “gives credibility to some of the most ridiculous ideas that exist in this country”.

    The aspiring politician did not mince words before his receptive rightwing audience:

    “If any of us wants to do the things we want to do … We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities.”

    The title of Vance’s keynote was inspired by a quote from Richard Nixon: “The universities are the enemy.”

    The Maga movement, of which Vance, the vice-president, is now at the forefront, has been unabashedly on the attack against campuses, professors and students.

    Donald Trumpcharacterizes colleges as “dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics”, and student protesters as “radicals”, “savages” and “jihadists” who have been indoctrinated by faculty “communists and terrorists”.

    He has already delivered swift vengeance against campus protesters and non-protesters alike with visa terminations and deportations.

    This administration has gleefully withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to force colleges to crack down on student dissent.

    While Vance paid homage to Nixon and other forebears on the right, he failed to acknowledge that his political lineage had been fighting the university as an enemy for more than 100 years.

    In fact, reactionary backlash is a feature of two main milestones in the academy’s history: the democratization of admissions and the diversification of curriculum.

    Trump and Vance’s attacks are part of a longer history of rightwing backlash that follows each time college becomes more democratic……..

     
    As part of the latest Republican push in red states to promote ideologies sympathetic to Donald Trump, Oklahoma’s new social studies curriculum will ask high school students to identify “discrepancies” in the 2020 election results.

    The previous standard for studying the 2020 election merely said: “Examine issues related to the election of 2020 and its outcome.” The new version is more expansive: “Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”

    The revised curriculum standard comes at the behest of Ryan Walters, the state school superintendent, who has publicly voiced his support for Trump. In October, Walters lauded Trump in an interview, saying that “Trump’s won the argument on education”.


    Walters, who has also advocated for ending “wokeness” in public schools, went on to say: “We have education bureaucrats that are left-wing, elitist, that think they know best for families, and they have become so radicalized that our families are going: ‘What is going on here?’”

    Oklahoma’s new social studies standards for K-12 public school students, already infused with references to the Bible and national pride, were revised at Walters’ direction. The Republican official has spent much of his first term in office not only lauding Trump but also feuding with teachers’ unions and local school superintendents.

    “The left has been pushing left-wing indoctrination in the classroom,” Walters said. “We’re moving it back to actually understanding history … and I’m unapologetic about that.”

    As part of his revisions, Walters also proposed removing education about Black Lives Matter and George Floyd’s murder, Tulsa’s NBC affiliate KJRH reports.

    The outlet further reported that the revisions were expected to cost the state’s taxpayers $33m in new textbooks and related material.…….

     
    As part of the latest Republican push in red states to promote ideologies sympathetic to Donald Trump, Oklahoma’s new social studies curriculum will ask high school students to identify “discrepancies” in the 2020 election results.

    The previous standard for studying the 2020 election merely said: “Examine issues related to the election of 2020 and its outcome.” The new version is more expansive: “Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”

    The revised curriculum standard comes at the behest of Ryan Walters, the state school superintendent, who has publicly voiced his support for Trump. In October, Walters lauded Trump in an interview, saying that “Trump’s won the argument on education”.


    Walters, who has also advocated for ending “wokeness” in public schools, went on to say: “We have education bureaucrats that are left-wing, elitist, that think they know best for families, and they have become so radicalized that our families are going: ‘What is going on here?’”

    Oklahoma’s new social studies standards for K-12 public school students, already infused with references to the Bible and national pride, were revised at Walters’ direction. The Republican official has spent much of his first term in office not only lauding Trump but also feuding with teachers’ unions and local school superintendents.

    “The left has been pushing left-wing indoctrination in the classroom,” Walters said. “We’re moving it back to actually understanding history … and I’m unapologetic about that.”

    As part of his revisions, Walters also proposed removing education about Black Lives Matter and George Floyd’s murder, Tulsa’s NBC affiliate KJRH reports.

    The outlet further reported that the revisions were expected to cost the state’s taxpayers $33m in new textbooks and related material.…….

    It's hypocrisy in the extreme for Walters to complain about indoctrination, then to set about to indoctrinate students with conspiracies. Perhaps it'll spark debate, as kids ask questions, and talk to their parents. The MAWA will nod, but some parents will correct the record, and some kids will take that back to school, where they may not otherwise even think about it.
     

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