Federal Creep Update: Public School Children
At Public Discourse today, Greg Forster writes about a little known effort that is nearing completion for the Feds to take over public education.
You haven’t heard about it, but for over a year the U.S. Department of Education has been quietly working behind the scenes to establish national control of K-12 education curriculum. Their plans are coming close to fruition as Congress prepares to debate the renewal of the main federal education law, which the administration plans to use as a lever to force states to “voluntarily” adopt a national curriculum and even a national test that all students would have to take multiple times per year.
Historically, national control of education has come up as an issue about once every ten to fifteen years. In the past, it has usually produced a lot of fireworks but burned out pretty quickly. This year is very different. The nationalizers have learned from their past mistakes; they understand now that the American people don’t want the federal government to control schools. So they’ve adopted clever tactics to disguise what they’re doing and misdirect public attention, and as a result, they are already dangerously close to getting everything they want.
Aside from the problem of the federal government taking over more and more control of state and municipal matters, think of what this could mean for what children are supposed to be taught about sex and marriage in every school district in the country.
As signer of the Manhattan Declaration, I've been told by critics that the declaration is overwrought, or "political," or that some of the "wrong" people have signed it and thus it shouldn't be signed by serious Christians who have a more sophisticated understanding of these things than, apparently, the drafters (primarily Robert P. George and Timothy George) or at least some of the signers--"fundamentalists"? Signing it means you are associated with really stupid Right Wing Christians who have been beating their heads against the wall on "pro-life" issues for decades and getting nowhere because they're too stupid to know how things "really work" in society, culture, and politics.
If you don't think that, without serious opposition, the day will not come when children and their parents will not be punished in some fashion for expressing opposition to gay marriage or abortion because of their religious beliefs (or because it seems to violate natural law and commonsense), then I don't know what sort of alarm clock is needed to wake people up. Those engaged in this operation know the more quietly they do their work behind the scenes, the more they can get away with.
3 comments:
Lord have mercy.
I do actually believe that this someday will become the basis for depriving churches of their status as nonprofits - if you don't accept all citizens equally on the basis of their state-recognized status (eg homosexuality, gay marriage), then you don't get this benefit from the state.
Anything written by E.D. Hirsch, jr. is a must-read on the topic of a national/standardized curriculum. Try "The Making of Americans", where he argues for educational reform, namely that all schools should teach a standard core curriculum—the information every American should be equipped with in order to participate in the national cultural life (e.g., everyone should understand the term Achilles heel; know who said, To be or not to be or who wrote the Gettysburg Address). I think think there is a way to say "this is the academic core of what every 2nd, 3rd, 7th, etc.-grader must know" and leave sex-ed. and gender issues to the parents.
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