When Brandon
Straka founded the WalkAway movement in May, hardly anyone imagined
that several hundred thousand longtime Democrats could turn against the party
of their family and friends. Although it's a big, difficult
decision, many Walkaways made videos aggressively explaining their decisions.
They often conclude: "I'll never vote Democrat the rest of my life."
What
made these people walk away with such passion? Certainly, Trump's
success and charisma explain a lot. The "lying media"
are also a major factor. One woman attended a crowded Trump
rally. When she reached home a half-hour later, CNN was showing a
half-empty stadium where she had been standing. She knew that the
place had been jammed. At that moment, she walked away from CNN.
Perhaps
the most important factor is that leaders on the left, for many decades, became
increasingly socialist/communist in their perspectives. The
rank and file are more sophisticated now and realize that their party bosses
walked away from them long ago.
So
here's the picture that Straka has brought into focus. Namely, lots
of people are mad as hell and determined not to take it anymore.
We
need this exact same spirit in K-12. You're mad as hell and refuse
to continue the same destructive relationship. You know what the
schools are doing to children: keeping them ignorant and illiterate. You hate this. You don't
want it being done in your name. Or with your taxes.
So
walk away.
Democrats,
heretofore passive, are showing you how to do it. Just do
it. The liberal leaders at the top of the Education
Establishment are exactly the same people whom working-class Democrats have
learned to scorn. (Indeed, studying K-12 education is a great way to
understand the warped politics of the party. Same people, same goals,
same collectivist thinking.)
You've
heard the rumors, or you have seen the results yourself. Kids can't
read, not fluently. Incoherent Common Core homework makes them cry. Students don't know the
simplest things about geography, history, science, or anything
else. Jay Leno, Jesse Watters, Mark Dice, and now Jimmy Kimmel have
shown this over and over.
The
incompetent, ideological extremists perpetuating this educational malpractice
should be rejected or at least rebuked. What's a simple way to do
that? You don't need to send them a card. Just walk
away...if not physically, at least emotionally.
Parents
with kids in a public school have to deal with teachers and school
officials. But you can withhold support; you can show disdain for
programs you don't like. Let the Education Establishment know that
you don't approve of their dumbing-down strategies. You would like to
see children educated at the highest level that each one can
handle. The main thing is to stop tolerating what you sincerely feel
is unacceptable. (Some people say homeschooling is the only
option. I argue that being an informed, demanding parent contributes
greatly.)
Teachers
in particular know the dark secrets about ideological
maneuvering and financial chicanery. The result is that
textbooks and methods that didn't work 25 and 50 years ago are still used today
and still don't work. The dysfunctional gimmicks that made New Math useless
can still be found in Common Core Math. Someone is making more
money. But the students are losing. Don't support what
you wouldn't want for your own kids.
According
to one of the popular sophistries of the past 75 years, if you criticize public
schools, the professors will say you are "opposed to public education." You may have to
spell it out. You're not at all opposed to public
education. You're opposed to ineffective, screwed up education that
keeps many children as ignorant and illiterate in the 10th grade as they were
in the 4th grade.
The
point is not to give support to something not worth supporting. Our
Education Establishment has grown increasingly wacky and reckless over the past
90 years. The country had near universal literacy in 1915, then Progressives started
to take over. By 1955, a book titled Why Johnny Can't Read became
a huge bestseller. Apparently, millions of people
knew "Johnny" personally. Many social critics wrote
books with titles such as Quackery in the Public Schools andEducational
Wastelands: The Retreat from Learning in Our Public Schools. Sixty years later,
the steady decline slithers on. Prof. Patrick Deneen at Notre Dame
recently accused our public schools of creating "cultural illiteracy"
intentionally.
Now
is a good time for everyone to start being judgmental.
Walk
away from dangerous, chaotic schools. Walk away from sight-words and
the functional illiteracy they cause. Walk away
from Common Core nonsense that makes little children
cry. Walk away from dysfunctional theories and methods that never
seem to work as promised. Walk away from imperious superintendents
who tell the parents what they can have, not what they need.
Walk
away from elaborately engineered pedagogy that diminishes
children. Walk away from Constructivism,
which dictates that children must figure out everything for themselves while
teachers stand idly by. Walk away from Self-Esteem, a cute little
sophistry that basically freezes every class at the level of the slower
students. Walk away from Multiculturalism, which dictates that
American children have to know more about foreign rivers than about American
rivers. Walk away from all the clever
gimmicks that undercut real education and replace it with
"progressive" – actually regressive – folderol.
In
particular, walk away from so-called educators who see education as
indoctrination, not enlightenment. That is John Dewey's malignant legacy. We need to walk away
from all that.
Bruce Deitrick Price's new book is Saving
K-12: What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them? He deconstructs educational theories and
methods at Improve-Education.org.