The Miseducation of America by Geoff Carter

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

The 1983 study, “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform” sounded major alarms about the American public education system. It maintained that our schools were failing because that, among other things, that SAT scores had dropped drastically, students could no longer write coherent essays, draw inferences, and were deficient in solving math problems. Although the study later came under fire for having faulty data and virtually no educational experts—only one teacher—on the committee, it nevertheless initiated a fusillade of reforms. Concerning its credibility, one critic said,

“It should come as no surprise that a commission dominated by administrators found that the problems of U.S. schools were mainly caused by lazy students and unaccountable teachers. Administrative incompetence was not on the agenda. Nor were poverty, inequality, and racial discrimination” (Babones),

Now, forty years later, our public schools are at risk again, but not from student underachievement or teacher incompetence (if they ever were the cause). Our schools are under attack by Christian moralists, charter school profiteers, and far-right Republicans seeking to implement their politicized and regressive ideologies into public school curriculum.

Wisconsin was one of the first states to implement the school voucher plan allocating public school funds to privatized charter schools. The way it worked was if a parent decided to place their child into one of these charter schools, the per student public school funding would be diverted to the private school. In theory, this system would allow for low-income families to have greater choice in schools. In practice, it became something else altogether.

There are presently 244 charter schools in Wisconsin serving a little over five percent of the school population, but they haven’t quite delivered what they promised. Over the years, Wisconsin charter schools have systematically underserved students with special needs, forcing public schools to bear the expensive burden of special education services; cherry-picked and recruited the best and the brightest students; and denied their underpaid teachers the right to unionize. They have also siphoned off large amounts of money from our public-school systems. Lastly, Wisconsin charters have been plagued by a number of fly-by-night operations that have come under investigation for fraud and embezzlement.

Some charters do not come under the purview of local school boards and are able, like any private school, to implement their own curriculum. In Florida, where over ten percent of students are enrolled in charter programs, a growing number of schools have been using religious anti-science curriculum like ACE and Responsive ED, which teach, among other thing, that the theory of evolution (as interpreted by Hitler) caused the Holocaust, that the Earth is only six thousand years old, and that electricity is a mysterious force we do not fully understand. In fact, the number of religious-based charters, usually sponsored by conservative interests, is growing at an alarming rate.

Charter schools are only one front in the fight over public schools. During the last few years, the idea of Critical Race Theory being taught in public schools has created a furor in far-right conservative circles. Even though CRT has never been taught in K12 schools, conservative politicos and media pundits are bent on portraying it as a clear and present danger to their children.. In point of fact, CRT is an academic concept that racism has been instilled and institutionalized into legal, financial, and many other social institutions. It maintains that racism is so deeply interwoven into our society, it is now part of our normal lives.

Conservative critics maintain that any curriculum that examines racism in America and ascribes any accountability to white culture is harmful to our children. A recently passed law in Oklahoma, HB 1775, prohibits the teaching of any curriculum which teaches that “anyone is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,” or that they should feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex (NBC News). That unit on slavery? Sorry, it makes little Suzy feel bad about being white. That unit on manifest destiny? Sorry. It makes us look racist and greedy.

Conservative critics who object to the teaching of divergency training also seem to feel that teaching that whites are inherently privileged in our society and that achieving racial equality would necessitate discriminating against whites. This is not only putting our educational system at risk, it is putting American concepts of fairness, justice, and equity at risk.

The recent controversy about the inclusion of trans-gender students in schools is another factor that is putting our public school system at risk. Disputes over gender choice, bathroom use, and the participation of transgender students in sports have created a firestorm in some school districts, prompting the permeation of local school boards with ultraconservatives and the wholesale practice of book-banning.

Last week, against this background, the hypocrisy and avarice of the MAGA conservative ideology was on full display in Florida. Bridget Ziegler, a powerful school board member on the Sarasota School Board, was asked to resign after a sexual scandal involving her husband, who happens to be the Florida Republican Party Chair, and another woman. Ziegler, a founding member of Moms for Liberty, a far-right conservative group which advocates for parental rights in education, a bill signed by Governor Ron DeSantis limiting curriculum about gender identity and sexuality in schools—better known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Before the scandal, Ms. Ziegler had lobbied the board to hire Vermillion Education as a consultant. Vermillion has close to ties to conservative Hillsdale College and advocates its ultra-conservative 1776 curriculum, which Adams helped create. Jordan Adams, Vermillion’s owner, (who incidentally has absolutely no experience in public education) informed the Board that Vermillion’s consulting services, which would include textbook and curriculum recommendations, reviewing district policies, and participating in teacher interviews, would cost only $30,000 per month.

Vermillion and Hillsdale are proponents of the classical education charter schools that have been criticized for creating a biased and ideologically driven curriculum to its students. The 1776 curriculum has been criticized for being overly patriotic and simplistic. According to NBC News, “The American Historical Association has accused the 1776 Curriculum of downplaying racism, the Great Migration and the power of the Ku Klux Klan” (NBCNews). So the folks at Hillsdale and Vermillion are not interested in teaching critical thinking or even facts to their students. They’re interested in teaching them their own truncated and shriveled version of American history.

Our public schools are now at risk now than they have ever been. Political opportunists like Betsy DeVos, Ron DeSantis, and Bridget Ziegler are turning our public schools into indoctrination centers. If American History does not include slavery, manifest destiny, or the history of labor unions, we will be creating a generation of single-minded jingoistic zombies worshipping at the feet of a tin god. The concept of public education creating a well-informed and discriminating electorate will have become as extinct as the Tyrannosaurus Rex. But isn’t that the whole point?

We cannot let a small group of greedy zealots hijack our educational system, and with it, our democracy.