Sacrificing Children to Progressive Politics

How kids have become collateral damage in the quest to "fundamentally transform" America

California governor Gavin Newsom along with other states has ordered schools to be closed to in-person instruction this fall. Against the wishes of the majority of parents, millions of students will continue to be cooped up at home, trying to learn from “virtual” curricula with hit-and-miss instruction and support. An educational system mediocre in the best of times has now descended into a dystopian world redolent of the old Soviet Union: Teachers pretend to teach, while students pretend to learn.

Education, our most important social institution already long corrupted by ideological fads and deteriorating standards, is heading for complete collapse in order to serve the political and pecuniary interests of the progressive technocracy: Removing Donald Trump and the Republicans from power so that the Democrats can achieve their long-term goal of “fundamentally transforming” the United States. Children are just collateral damage.

Of course, these decisions to sequester the cohort least vulnerable to the virus are being sold as the result of “science” and a concern for “safety.” But across the world evidence from real science shows that kids in school pose little danger to themselves or others. Hence the American Academy of Pediatricians “strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school.” As this spring’s experience in educational sequestration has shown, the AAP continues,

Lengthy time away from school and associated interruption of supportive services often results in social isolation, making it difficult for schools to identify and address important learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation. This, in turn, places children and adolescents at considerable risk of morbidity and, in some cases, mortality. Beyond the educational impact and social impact of school closures, there has been substantial impact on food security and physical activity for children and families.

Moreover, we all know that multiplying the amount of time that children spend in front of screens worsens an already existing problem. Viewing electronic images for several hours a day has physiological as well as psychological effects, apart from the issue of content and the often-malign messages it sends. To a certain degree, experience filtered through electronic images is inhuman: it flattens our experience and shapes it according to the requirements of transmission and presentation. Worse, it necessarily omits what Lionel Trilling called the “buzz of implication,” the dense context of nonverbal cues and reactions that surround live communication. That’s why emojis were invented: to try and capture in an email that context that the words alone can’t communicate, and the absence of which alters tone and distorts the intended meaning.

This dense network of existential conditions for genuine human connection is very important for teaching. Just gathering a group of people in one room at an appointed time enhances learning. A community is established, with networks of connections between and among the students, and between the students and the teacher. Every minute students and teacher give and receive nonverbal signs of approval, affirmation, disappointment, boredom, excitement, and correction. These signs regulate the process of learning and give it an immediate impact. Very little of this visual dynamic can be captured from an electronic image and words alone. There’s no substitute for the intricate, complex reality of human connections in real time and space.

For children, these real experiences are a critical part of their character development and socialization. School is where we make friends or enemies, find our first boyfriends and girlfriends, have our first conflicts and fights, and first learn, successfully or not, how to adjust to a world that is more various, complicated, dangerous, and fulfilling than we ever imagined, not to mention indifferent to our egos and feelings. The worlds on a screen, whether video games, tweets, videos, or canned curricula cannot substitute for that world. Instead, they distort and dehumanize it.

Indeed, our earliest writings about education from ancient Greece focus on the need for personal, real-time interactions between teachers and students. Socrates is the exemplar of this style of pedagogy. Rather than just asking student questions, which is what most “educators” mean when they speak of “Socratic pedagogy,” Socrates’ method was more probing, even aggressive than the therapeutic pablum of most of today’s teachers. More important, experiencing Socrates’ powerful charisma and mind, so different from his shabby, ugly appearance, inspired his listeners with the love and pleasure of learning, and the habit of looking beyond the superficial to discover truth and value. No speaker today no matter how brilliant can completely duplicate that experience on a video. Again, there’s no substitute for human reality.

So why are so many governors and others so eager to deny children these critical experiences of actual human reality? Politics, of course. For four years the Dems have mounted a concerted effort to demonize Donald Trump and cripple his administration. It began in the last days of the Obama administration, when dubious rigged “investigations” were launched on flimsy grounds. The Mueller investigation was supposed to deliver the predicates for removal of the president, but it found no crime remotely close to being actionable.

Then came the “quid-pro-quo” confection of third-hand office gossip and preposterous standards of presidential conversations with fellow heads of state. Once that collapsed with the absurd articles of impeachment for nonexistent crimes, then came the pandemic and the predictably feeble attempts to blame Trump for early comments about the virus similar to those made by experts, and Democrat governors and Congressmen. And all the while the media were inventing and amplifying these lies and quarter-truths, shamelessly repeating them even when they were proven to be lies and distortions.

But the most important mechanism for damaging Trump during the pandemic is the authority of governors to impose the lockdowns, which brought to a near halt a booming economy that would have been the president’s most important achievement come November. So when the lockdowns began to ease and the economy to improve, the anti-Trump factions misused already dubious statistics about the number of new cases and deaths to shut down the economy again. Closing the schools is just a way to inflict even more pain on ordinary voters who have to deal with finding day-care so they can work, assuming they have any work. Thus the “any means necessary” Dems added the anxiety and baleful consequences of un- or underemployment to those of the virus the media have been hyping for six months now––a hysteria, by the way, also bad for kids.

What we are witnessing is the true nature of the progressives. For a hundred years they have yearned for autocratic powers so they can create their utopia of “social justice” and absolute “equality.” In fact, from the bloody streets of Portland to the diktats of governors, from the cancel-culture mobs baying for the jobs and reputations of dissenters to the bougie anarchist punks of Antifa and the calculating hustlers of Black Lives Matter––the reality and aims of progressivist Democrats are clear: power and its perks.

In short, tyranny: The tyranny that sparked the creation of the United States, the tyranny the Founders’ brilliant Constitutional order warded off by dispersing power so we the people could live in ordered liberty. It testifies to how passionately the progressives want to dismantle that order that they will callously sacrifice the well-being of our children to achieve their goal.

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Michigan school fires popular teacher for factually saying "Trump is our president"

Varsity baseball coach and social studies teacher Justin Kucera said Walled Lake school district officials hauled him into a closed-door meeting after he indicated his support for President Trump’s speech to reopen schools. He told the Washington Free Beacon the Walled Lake Western principal and district superintendent gave him an ultimatum: be fired or resign.

“I was required to meet with [human resources], the superintendent, and my principal [on July 10]. They initially took my statement on why I tweeted those tweets and they told me they would have a decision about my future employment in the upcoming days.

When they completed the meeting, I was told I had the option to either be fired or resign.” Kucera said.

Neither the school district nor the principal responded to requests for comment.

Kucera said the statement that cost him his job was intended to unify, rather than divide.

“I know a lot of people are just rooting for Trump to fail, and I don’t think that anybody should do that,” Kucera said. “Agree with him or not, you should want the president to do well. I apologized that [my tweet] brought so much negative attention, but I’m not sorry for what I said.”

Kucera was a popular figure at the high school before the episode, according to parents and former teachers. Even his detractors lauded him on social media as they condemned the tweet. One student said she would need to find a new “favorite teacher” after seeing the missive. Multiple sources said that the teacher never brought politics into the classroom.

Bryant Hixson, a recent Walled Lake Western graduate, said his political views have no impact on how he views his coach and teacher.

“Prior to Mr. Kucera’s tweet, I cannot recall an instance where he shared his political affiliations while teaching or coaching,” Hixson said. “My political views have no impact on how I feel towards Mr. Kucera. Mr. Kucera has always been supportive of me as my AP World History and student leadership teacher and as my baseball and basketball coach.”

A parent of two Walled Lake Western boys told the Free Beacon—on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution—that Kucera was an apolitical figure who coached his son in baseball and basketball and taught his sons AP History and student leadership.

“Justin coached my son his entire high school career and also was his AP History teacher and student leadership teacher for two years. I know Justin very well,” the parent said. “If there’s one thing that I would commend Justin for is, he always tried to stay apolitical. He always tried to stay right down the middle, avoid [political] conversations, and let the students make their own call based on their own life experiences.” The father of two believes Kucera lost his job because administrators caved to a mob that had little to do with the school district.

Other Walled Lake teachers have expressed their political views without any repercussions. Paulette Loe, a now-retired Walled Lake Western teacher, encouraged students to read an article from the Atlantic about “how to beat Trump” while still employed. Nicole Estes, a kindergarten teacher in the district, called Trump a “sociopath” and a “narcissist” on Facebook in 2016 and is still employed at Keith Elementary School. Neither Loe nor Estes responded to requests for comment.

The teachers’ union representative that accompanied Kucera at the meeting did not respond to a request for comment.

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We Should Fund Students Instead of School Systems

Don't force schools to reopen, but don't force families to pay for closed schools either

School closures have affected at least 55 million K-12 students in the U.S. since March. As we march closer to the fall, a debate about reopening brick-and-mortar schools is heating up. President Donald Trump and others are pressuring all schools to reopen in the fall. Teachers unions and other groups are saying that schools should stay closed unless we pour over 100 billion new federal dollars into the system. Both sides are missing the mark.

Those calling to reopen schools have legitimate concerns. Millions of American families have structured their employment and living situations around the school calendar. Keeping schools closed would create disproportionate economic hardships for single-parent households and two-parent households that rely on two incomes.

Some school districts, such as Fairfax County Public Schools, have offered families the choice to send their children to brick-and-mortar schools for 2 days a week or 0 days a week. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that most students will only attend in-person classes 2 or 3 days a week. But those kinds of options do little to help parents return to work full-time.

That’s not the only problem. New national data suggest that most government school districts failed to provide meaningful education remotely. A June 2020 report by the Center for Reinventing Public Education found that only 1 in the 3 school districts required teachers to deliver instruction during the lockdown. Recent data suggest students have already lost ground academically because of these kinds of systemic failures.

Between the complete closures of some schools and the poor performance of schools that have implemented distance learning, taxpayers are paying a lot of money for inadequate education for their children. Nor was the status quo before COVID-19 anything to celebrate. The U.S. has increased inflation-adjusted per-student spending by 280 percent since 1960, and we currently spend over $15,000 per child each year. Meanwhile, the Nation’s Report Card shows that only 15 percent of U.S. students are proficient in U.S. history and 2 out of every 3 students are not proficient in reading.

Reasonable people can argue about whether we are getting an acceptable return on investment. But why should anyone have to continue paying the same amount for schools that aren’t even open?

The American Federation of Teachers claims that government-run schools across the country need over $116 billion to reopen safely. That’s an enormous amount of money. It’s about twice the total amount the federal government allocated towards K-12 education in the most recent school year. It’s also close to the amount the U.S. dedicated to the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II. What’s more, the federal CARES act has already provided over $13 billion to assist in reopening schools. Only 1.5 percent of that money has actually been used by states. Where is all of the money going?

The debate thus far hasn’t taken the preferences of families—the customers who are actually paying for all this education—into consideration.

Many families are reporting that they want virtual learning for their children next year. A new national study found that 53 percent of Latino families are considering not enrolling their children in school this year. A June Gallup survey similarly found that 44 percent of families want full- or part-time distance learning this fall. And a recent USA Today poll found that 60 percent of parents are “likely” to pursue home-based education this fall.

Already, teachers unions have made it hard for parents to enroll their kids in quality distance learning programs. The teachers union in Oregon successfully lobbied to prevent families from enrolling in virtual charter schools. The Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators similarly lobbied to prevent families from accessing virtual charter school options in the spring. More recently, the California legislature just passed a bill that prevents education dollars from following students to virtual charter schools this school year. And it’s not like they’re demanding to do the teaching themselves. The Los Angeles teachers union struck a deal with their district that prevented teachers from being required to work more than 4 hours each day during the lockdown. None of these efforts make any sense unless the purpose is to protect a monopoly from competition.

Families obviously need more options right now. But, at the same time, top-down mandates to reopen all schools are not the optimal solution. Reopening requirements likely differ by region and individuals on the ground have the best information needed to make good decisions about their own communities. And if public schools can’t reopen, or aren’t equipped to provide adequate education online, families shouldn’t be forced to pay for them. Think of it this way: If a Walmart doesn’t reopen, families can take their food stamps elsewhere. If a school doesn’t reopen, families should similarly be able to take their education dollars elsewhere.

If the federal government is to provide any additional stimulus funding for K-12 education, a significant portion of that money should go directly to families, an idea just proposed by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Families could use those dollars to offset the costs of home-based education or to cover private school tuition and fees. However, as Dr. Lindsey Burke has proposed, states could also implement this kind of student-centered solution without unnecessarily involving the federal government.

Putting power into the hands of families would give schools incentives to provide their children with a good education. In fact, a national survey by Common Sense Media found that students in private schools were over twice as likely as students in government schools to connect with their teacher each day during lockdown. This is probably because private school leaders know that they will lose their customers—and their funding—if they don’t meet their needs. Schools that provide shoddy remote learning, do not provide flexible scheduling arrangements, or do not sufficiently address student safety will lose students and their funding.

That’s how the education system should work. We should fund students instead of systems. The power should always be in the hands of families instead of bureaucrats. Proponents of educational freedom have always known this. But the powerlessness of families and their children caught up in pandemic politics makes it clearer now more than ever before.

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Are American Universities Losing Their Lead in Scientific Research?

Like many Americans, I have been critical of American universities on many grounds: they are far too expensive and bureaucratic, teach too little, suppress free expression, etc. But I have also thought that university scientific research in America, while far from perfectly efficient, has been quite fruitful and productive. Indeed, America’s reputation for having many of the world’s best universities derives largely from its distinguished record in research, mainly in the sciences and engineering. That high reputation in research has contributed importantly to America’s economic prowess. It is no accident that Silicon Valley is built around great universities like Stanford and Cal Berkeley.

Indeed, an excellent case can be made that the 20th century was the American Century in higher education because of its extraordinary growth in cutting edge research. In the first three decades (to 1930), fewer than 10% of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences (thereby excluding the prizes for literature or peace) had a strong American association. By contrast, in the last three decades of that century, more than 60% of the winners of scientifically related Nobel Prizes had a strong American involvement (as graduate students or professors at American universities).

Yet after peaking at around 70% in the 1990s, that proportion has fallen some in the 21st century. Twenty nineteen is fairly typical: of the nine Nobel laureates in the STEM disciplines, five (56%) have American affiliations, with others coming from the U.K., Switzerland and Japan. While a surprising amount of basic research is carried on in non-academic settings (one recent Nobel Laureate worked most of his life at Bell Labs), universities are the home of most important discoveries, and they derive most of their funding from the federal government, although there is a good deal of unfunded research outside the sciences that the universities fund themselves, partially by awarding faculty relatively low teaching loads, sabbatical leaves, etc.

Yet there is a problem: after robust expansion in spending by such federal agencies as the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and others in the last half of the 20th century, funding growth has stagnated, sometimes even declining, in recent times. American exceptionalism has been built around discovery, exploration and entrepreneurship, a large element of which is scientific research. Yet, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, inflation-adjusted non-defense R&D spending by the federal government actually fell between fiscal years 2010 and 2019, during a period of one of the longest economic expansion in our nation’s history.

Until recently, we have even had to depend upon the Russians to get Americans to the International Space Station to conduct research. The nation of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright brothers, and great university researchers immigrating from other countries, scientists like Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller and Albert Einstein, is starting to lose its science/technological primacy to other countries where university research spending is growing rapidly.

I talked to Lauren Brookmeyer, speaking for the Science Coalition, a group of about 50 major research universities, the other day. That organization is aggressively promoting the passage of something called the RISE (Research Investment to Spark the Economy) Act, providing about $26 billion to universities for research. The Science Coalition is promoting it as an anti-recessionary stimulus measure—creating science-related jobs.

I am a fiscal conservative who thinks the practice of dropping money out of airplanes (or the equivalent) to stimulate the economy is, generally speaking, a recipe for disaster, adding to the horrendous federal debt that ultimately is likely to severely hurt future generations. But I also think the economy needs to promote investment in our technological infrastructure to promote future prosperity, and to fight the loss of scientific primacy to the Chinese and other nations.

Moreover, Congress should let the scientific community and merit govern the distribution of additional research assistance, not the whim of politicians seeking to promote their own job security more than the national interest. Let scientists, working with agencies like NSF or NIH, distribute the monies.

There are some reforms in the process of distributing research funds, such as lowering and standardizing overhead allocations (reducing funding of university administrative bloat) that are desirable, but this is an area where federal funding directly promotes a core academic mission: the creation of knowledge.

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