As a
semi-retired business writer who taught in Detroit 35 years ago, I returned to
the classroom because a local high school was unable to replace a Latin teacher
who had resigned. I hold an advanced degree in medieval studies and
renewed my certification to teach Latin, history, and social studies.
Once in class, I witnessed firsthand the politicized atmosphere of today’s
factory-style government-monopoly schools.
My first exposure to school politics came
when I renewed my certification. The 1982 certificate only listed the
courses I could teach. In contrast, the 2018 version had a 300-word “Code
of Ethics” that amounted to a profession of faith in collectivism,
egalitarianism, state schools, and diversity (typically limited to superficial
things like skin color and gender, not ideas). Nonetheless, I proceeded,
thinking that I couldn’t possibly make matters worse. That much was
correct.
Grosse
Pointe South High School is architecturally
interesting, sits in a higher-income community,
and is considered a good
school by locals.
After
an interview and teaching a few “test” classes to first- and second-year
students, I was hired. Within a few days, however, it was clear that many
students did not understand English grammar, much less Latin
fundamentals. In response, I taught remedial grammar and outlined how
students could pass my course with a “C” or “D.” There were some
excellent students, but test scores were not distributed in a bell-shaped
curve. It was an “inverted” bell, or bimodal
distribution – with scores clumped at the two extremes.
Poor preparation, however, was only the tip
of the iceberg. Students did not bring books to class, relentlessly
complained about homework, and expected high grades regardless of
proficiency. And when I asked questions, I uncovered some alarming facts:
- Latin was a dumping ground for students who already had
failed another language; “picking up a few phrases” was the goal.
- Many teachers expected little but awarded high grades.
- Students were subjected to parental pressure to obtain
good grades regardless of performance.
- A department head had been demoted for teaching at a
pre-college level and refusing to lower his standards.
- Senior teachers were dropping out in disgust; younger
teachers had no choice but to accept the situation.
- Under parental pressure, the principal was establishing
a process to prevent students from having to take more than one test on
the same day. College prep?
In
short, the school embraced grade inflation, propelled by the following dynamic:
- Parents of high-performing students are “satisfied
customers.” Their kids study and bring home good grades, so they
think they are getting their money’s worth from high taxes. But they
don’t know that there is no
correlation between per-pupil spending and student performance.
And they never complain.
- Parents of low-performing students also want good
“results.” They hear their children’s tales of woe and complain
constantly.
Subjected
to this one-sided feedback, administrators tacitly urge teachers to lower
standards, despite proclaiming the opposite in public. Like the Dodo in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland: “…everybody has won, and all must
have prizes.” Austrian economists, however, have explained this
behavior. Ludwig von Mises, for example, noted the human tendency to
place a high value on receiving something sooner rather than later. He
called it time-preference
theory. The desire for immediate gratification with little effort
explains the phenomenon of grade inflation. At Grosse Pointe South High
School, however, this practice goes undetected because it hides behind a much
broader trend toward low achievement – most recently documented by Bryan Caplan
in his devastating book, The Case Against
Education. This trend is even more pronounced in Michigan,
enabling Grosse Pointe students to slip under the radar.
The
illusion of competence also explains why –
despite falling
student enrollment, which should reduce costs – Grosse
Pointe and similar school districts succeed
in raising school taxes. Instead of being outraged at paying dearly
for abysmal academic results, those who favor school taxes double-down on their
support! It’s a combination of psychological
denial and fiscal Stockholm
syndrome. In denial, “the faithful” desperately cling to the notion
that their elite high-tax district is exceptional despite the data. They
cannot admit they have been duped. And since they cannot escape the
fiscal dragnet of this tax-fed monopoly, in a classic display of Stockholm
syndrome, they adopt the stance of their captors and cheer all the louder! But
to an outsider, they are playing the part of the fawning mob in Hans Christian
Anderson’s fable, The
Emperor’s New Clothes: they pretend that the emperor is wearing
splendid garments despite his nakedness.
Today’s
students are never free of the school district’s watchful eye, which seems to
take its cues from the CIA and TSA. But with so many parents accepting
after-school surveillance (and paying for it), children never learn the sense
of outrage that healthy individuals feel in the presence of Peeping Toms.
Instead, they learn to love Big Brother. Likewise, a big-government
political bias shapes their views on current and past events:
- During a presentation about Gutenberg’s moveable-type
printing press, a student became upset upon learning that literacy
skyrocketed as a result of this invention – not because of public
schools. His mother is a teacher.
- Trump Derangement Syndrome was widespread among
teachers, who frequently vent their political views.
- When asked about my politics at an otherwise friendly
private holiday party, a school counselor revealed a comic-book grasp of
and hostility to free markets when I replied, “libertarian-voluntaryist.”
- In the final minutes of my last day teaching, I finally
permitted a political discussion. Some students were attracted to
socialism and Antifa’s violence, but they were shocked into disbelief when
I mentioned that Benito Mussolini, who introduced fascismo to
modern politics, was firmly rooted in socialism and communism. They
were further outraged to discover that the Nazi party was steeped in
collectivism and even included the termsocialist in the party
name, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterparte (NSDAP).
- Ignorance about slavery prevailed. Many believed
it was isolated to the United States instead of practiced worldwide for
ages. They were more surprised – even resistant – to discover that
the word slave is etymologically linked to the word Slav and
white slavery. Moreover, they somehow “learned” that Westerners were
the most enthusiastic practitioners of slavery instead of being among the
first to abandon it.
- In March, 2018, Grosse
Pointe students walked out of classes to protest the shootings in
Parkland, Florida. This occurred before revelations that theFBI
failed to act on tips about the shooter, that school “security”
failed to act, that Broward
County Public School’s disciplinary practices played a key role
in the shootings, and that the school district tried
to cover up its deeds by suing the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper for
publishing documents that revealed these facts. Fortunately
the Sun-Sentinel
prevailedin the lawsuit. The upshot? This school-approved
Children’s Crusade was based on superstitions about guns and hostility to
Constitutional rights.
- Gender dysphoria is the new frontier in
virtue-signaling, but we know that young people experiment with new
identities – adopting and discarding career choices, hobbies, and friends
as they “try them on for size.” But the gender dysphoria fad
requires adherence to a stereotyped view – namely that certain behaviors
are appropriate only for boys and others for girls. Some children,
however, have a powerful need for attention and jump on the latest
bandwagon to obtain it. Others want to please “important” adults.
Shortly after I was hired, a counselor asked me to address one student
with plural pronouns to acknowledge her/his gender dysphoria. This
request would not have been an issue for me if the student were an
adult. I treat people respectfully as a matter of habit. But
this student was too young to make this choice. He/she may have been
responding to the issue’s trendiness and had demonstrated more than once
an interest in fringe politics and behaviors – typical teenage
stuff. I believed he/she was attempting to manipulate adults into
playing along – another teenage pastime. Moreover, he/she was bright
but did not do her homework or study; he/she didn’t even know what a
pronoun was! Since Latin is a highly inflected language, this request
would derail the learning process. Finally, it was completely
unnecessary since I always called on students by name. No pronouns
were needed. My explanation did not please the counselor, but I
continued to treat the student respectfully.
Group identity and outrage culture dominate
public schools. Children learn to pose as victims despite enjoying a
standard of living unmatched in human history and by 95% of the world’s current
population. Instead of learning to function as unique beings with free
choice and that the smallest minority is an individual facing a mob, they are
swapping a legacy of individual rights for group identities that – unlike
individuals – don’t bleed and are manipulated by special interests to undercut
genuine rights. If you wonder why students at schools like the University
of Michigan cannot tolerate
free speech and need trigger
warnings andsafe
spaces, look no further than public schools. They are a political
Trojan horse – a “free” government “gift” with plenty of strings attached.
Lawrence
M. Ludlow provides international location analyses, technical writing, and
marketing services to corporate clients. He holds an M.A. in medieval
studies from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies and has
lectured on manuscripts, early printing, and art history at the Newberry
Library in Chicago and the San Diego Public Library. He has taught in
Detroit and in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.