Restoring Our Troubled Academy

The state of our universities is disturbing. Problems abound: high costs, crippling student debt, poor educational outcomes, and, most alarming of all, the radicalism that underlies many of the recent riots and the continuing push for socialism.

All of these problems share a fundamental cause—lack of leadership by those who are legal owners of universities or their representatives, the boards of trustees. No matter what other solutions are employed, one action essential for academic reform is to return board governance to its former place atop a hierarchical chain of command.

Currently, academia operates under a system known as shared governance. Shared governance gives each of the three main stakeholder groups—boards of trustees, administrations, and faculty—control over their own sphere of activities and influence over other spheres. Its complexity can clog the gears of decision-making; it is responsible for higher educational institutions’ inability to address serious problems through inaction and places authority in the wrong hands.

Legally, boards already have the ultimate authority over most matters—major court decisions have consistently affirmed this—but they long ago gave up their control. Before the massive explosion of learning in the nineteenth century, lay board members often had the necessary intellectual proficiency to make detailed judgments about the curriculum. But the growing specialization of knowledge put them at a disadvantage, so they retreated before the faculty.

That retreat has turned out to be a grave error. The curriculum should be decided at the societal level, not by experts. This is especially true at the public institutions that educate roughly 75 percent of all college graduates, since the ultimate purpose of public support for higher education is to benefit society. Boards exist on a plane between the institution and society; they are the proper decision-makers at that level.

Instead, faculty have control over the curriculum, and in many cases, encourage students to adopt the worst ideas. Faculty are not incentivized to be impartial, and they exhibit a strong tendency toward the phenomenon called “groupthink,” a process that gradually eliminates dissent and favors unanimity over objectivity. Academic groupthink has progressed too far to expect that reform will come from inside the academy; one study of humanities and social science faculty voter registrations in 1972 showed four Democrats for every Republican. A 2016 study showed the imbalance had increased dramatically to 11.5 to one.

While boards usually have legal oversight powers, they almost never exercise their authority even to prevent severely egregious faculty hires or new programs and courses. One of the rare examples of a board exercising due diligence that illustrates the need for such oversight was the Steven Salaita case at the University of Illinois. The American Indian Studies department offered Salaita a tenured position; soon after, tweets he made came to light that included, among other antisocial sentiments, praise for the kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers. The board of trustees voted against making his appointment final, saving Illinois from hiring an unhinged radical professor whose academic freedom protections would have made him difficult to fire.

But faculty are just part of the shared governance problem. Administrators have been able to relegate the board to little more than a rubber-stamp committee due to an asymmetry-of-information problem. The administration is intimately involved with everything that occurs on campus, and can therefore manipulate the board, which is composed of largely part-time non-educators who remain at a distance from day-to-day operations, by limiting the information given to board members.

Some may argue that a system of governance that grants power to multiple stakeholders is equitable. But higher education is not a democracy; nor does it thrive without firm leadership. The sad truth is that the current system is failing on many levels and the greatest need is finding the best means for good governance. Shared governance has produced an educational and political crisis. As long as the faculty and top administrators are in charge, the academy will continue to be wasteful, self-serving, and inappropriately political. Change must come from above, where the board is supposed to be.

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‘Going to the Mat’ Over Diversity Training

An associate professor of politics at Converse College in South Carolina says he’s facing possible termination for publicly refusing to complete newly mandated diversity and antibias training.

“My department chairman has informed me that the administration intends to dismiss me for insubordination and other reasons,” the professor, Jeffrey Poelvoorde, said via email. “I’m going to the mat on this one.”

Poelvoorde, who denied an interview request, citing his attorney’s guidance, said that Converse recently told employees to complete mandatory diversity and bias training, in response to the murder of George Floyd by police and other events.

Instead of watching the two training modules, Poelvoorde wrote an open letter to the college explaining his intention to defy the new requirement. He also expressed outrage that the college’s previous public statements condemning Floyd’s murder did not also condemn protests that turned violent. In particular, Poelvoorde mentioned David Dorn, the late Black retired police officer who was killed while providing security to a store in St. Louis in June.

“Our leaders profess that ‘Black Lives Matter,’” Poelvoorde wrote in his letter. “But is it ALL Black Lives or only SOME Black Lives that matter to them? Perhaps they are only concerned about the loss of the Black Lives that confirms their political narrative and supports their progressive ideology.”

Coercive Imposition

Of the training mandate, Poelvoorde said this: “Am I and are my colleagues at Converse in need of additional training in order to overcome unconscious bias and prejudice? Perhaps.” The “quarrel,” he said, “is not so much with the content of the materials the administration would impose upon us but rather the coercive imposition itself.”

Explaining that he has long been Converse’s only Orthodox Jewish faculty member, Poelvoorde also said he’d faced criticism for canceling classes on religious holidays or observing the Sabbath. Comparing his experience of being a minority group member to some Black protesters’, Poelvoorde said, “I did not react with threats of hurling bricks through the college’s windows or torching its buildings or even employing legal action against it -- a recourse available to me as an American that was not available to my Jewish predecessors.”

Instead, he said, “under my department chair’s ministrations, and because of the respect, even affection, I bore towards the parties involved, I let go of my anger and maintained my silence.”

Whatever happens going forward, he said, “I believe that I have done the proper and correct thing by refusing to comply with this coercive mandate and by sharing with you the reasons for my decision. I have tried to follow the example of my Jewish predecessors by meeting coercion with dignity and firmness.”

Poelvoorde has posted a reading of his letter and some additional commentary on YouTube. In it, he explains that Converse is currently a women's college that will soon become coed and change its name to Converse University, with the introduction of some new graduate programs. And so the college's nature is already in flux, he says. Poelvoorde also says he is a scholar of American ideas and a patriot who was once stopped for speeding because he was overtaken by the power of his own solo rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner."

Converse president Krista Newkirk sent her own response to students about Poelvoorde’s letter. The memo says that the required training modules take “a very broad definition of diversity (gender, gender identity, religion, disability, ethnicity, etc.) and remind us that we need to be considerate and respectful of those in our community.”

While “I understand that no one likes receiving a mandate,” she said, “they are very seldom issued here at Converse.”

Newkirk further explained that Converse sent the modules to employees in March, as recommended training. Thirty-eight percent of employees watched them at the time but, given recent events, she said, “I thought it was important that we all complete this training that reinforces Converse's core values. That mandate stands, and each and every employee and faculty member is expected to complete this training by August 3rd.”

As for freedom of speech, Newkirk said it’s not a violation of employees’ First Amendment rights to require training.

“All institutions require employees to go through professional development training, including public higher education institutions,” Newkirk said. Converse, meanwhile, “is a private, liberal arts institution where we value the opportunity to participate in the free and responsible exchange of ideas with the belief that through vigorous and civil debate, the best and most logical ideas will rise to the top.”

The right to freedom of speech is “balanced by our policy on discrimination,” Newkirk continued. “Converse does not tolerate discrimination based upon ‘race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, national or ethnic origin, veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.’”

Seemingly addressing Poelvoorde’s anecdotes about not reporting his own experiences with possible discrimination, Newkirk also said that “any students who have been advised that they should not talk about incidents of discrimination or harassment, but instead should simply be patient and wait for these issues to resolve themselves, let me set the record straight. That is not right, that contradicts our goal of teaching you to use your voice, and that is not what our policies say.”

Newkirk said that tenured faculty members -- presumably including Poelvoorde -- are “afforded certain rights, and actions involving personnel are confidential. Please know that this matter is being addressed within the confines of Converse's policy and the law.”

In the meantime, she said, students concerned about being enrolled in a course in which they worry they may face discrimination should contact administrators.

Newkirk in her memo that she’d been contacted by students aggrieved by Poelvoorde’s letter. But Poelvoorde blames Newkirk for students who have subsequently called him a racist.

In further campus communications with colleagues, Poelvoorde shared part of an email he sent to an anonymous student who accused him of bias.

“You do not tell me what you think ‘racist’ means or how you detect that quality in my letter,” he wrote to the student. “One distressing aspect of our current political and academic discourse to me is how quickly we all resort to hurling epithets rather than seriously listening to each other. I'll confess, my least favorite examples of this are ‘racist,’ ‘fascist’ and ‘insensitive.’ Such terms are not intended to refute an opponent but rather to silence him or her; they are the verbal equivalent of a brick tossed or a baseball bat swung.”

He added, “Were my arguments ‘racist’ because I am White and Jewish?”

Diversity Training, Academic Freedom and the First Amendment

Poelvoorde said in an email that the issues at play in his case “transcend my career and my position at the college” and are “vital to all of us as Americans and academics.”

Converse said in a statement that it has been “working diligently over the last few years to improve as a community that welcomes and values all people” and “recent cases of injustice that we have witnessed as a nation caused us to intensify these efforts.”

While Converse has offered a variety of training opportunities on diversity and unconscious bias for some time, it said, the college has noted “that typically the same people attended those sessions.”

In an “unusual decision,” Newkirk therefore this spring required all faculty and staff members to complete two online training courses on these topics, which together take 90 minutes.

The college declined any comment on Poelvoorde, saying that it “remains optimistic that all faculty and staff will complete this very reasonable and legitimate obligation by the applicable deadline for doing so.” Any situations “involving non-compliance are confidential personnel matters on which Converse will not issue any statements.”

The American Association of University Professors doesn’t have any standing policy regarding diversity training and whether it should be mandated. Hans-Joerg Tiede, a senior program officer at the association, said AAUP doesn’t distinguish between diversity training or any other kind of training, such as sexual harassment or lab safety, and generally holds that faculty bodies should be involved in saying what trainings are mandatory or not.

“The main question is how such a mandate is enforced,” Tiede said. “Our main concern would be that any major sanction be preceded by a hearing before a faculty body and that any minor sanction can be appealed to a grievance committee.”

Zach Greenberg, a program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said colleges and universities should be mindful of their professors’ academic freedom and free speech rights in making such requirements. Yet mandatory diversity training in itself isn’t a violation of free speech rights.

“Educational institutions generally may not force faculty to conform to a political orthodoxy, or compel them to express political viewpoints, under the guise of diversity training,” Greenberg said. “Such programs must be conducted to ensure that professors remain free to research, teach and debate ideas without censorship or institutional or outside interference.”

Still, he said, “generally applicable diversity trainings that merely involve the passing of knowledge” onto all professors would be “unobjectionable” from a First Amendment perspective.

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Get Ready to Homeschool This Fall. Here's a Checklist

As schools and districts across the country finalize back-to-school plans amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, some parents are instead choosing independent homeschooling. My inbox has been filling lately with messages from parents who may never before have considered homeschooling but are worried about their children’s potential exposure to the virus at school. Others are turned off by social distancing requirements being implemented by many schools, such as wearing masks all day and limiting interactions with peers.

Fortunately, research shows low infection rates for children, who seem to avoid the virus’s worst outcomes. New findings out of Germany, where schools have been reopened for several weeks, also suggest low infection rates for young people. Despite these encouraging signs, more parents are looking for schooling alternatives. As The New York Times reported recently, “a growing number of families are thinking about home schooling this fall.”

Here are six tips for parents considering homeschooling for this academic year:

1. Investigate Local Homeschooling Requirements
Many school districts recognize what a challenging time this is for families and are offering flexible back-to-school options, such as continuing with distance learning or allowing for part-time, in-person attendance. Some parents might find that these options work for them, and they can continue with remote learning tied to the child’s school. Other parents, however, may choose to go off on their own, separating from their school or district. In this case, parents will need to comply with local homeschooling regulations, which in most states involves registering as an independent homeschooler with local or state officials.

Connect with homeschoolers near you. Grassroots homeschooling groups and networks have reported surging interest during the pandemic, and these resources will provide the most relevant, up-to-date support and information. Search for Facebook groups in your area (by state, city or region), or Google homeschooling resources in your location. Nearby homeschoolers will be able to share the nitty-gritty on how to register and report as a homeschooling family, as well as offer guidance on curriculum, approach, learning tools and nearby classes and activities.

2. Consider Your Educational Goals and Approach
Some parents may see homeschooling this fall as a temporary measure and plan to re-enroll their children in school once the pandemic ends. These parents may feel most comfortable following a standard curriculum that reflects typical grade level expectations. Other parents may opt for an eclectic approach, blending some formal curriculum with a variety of informal resources and learning tools. Still others may want to use this time to “deschool,” or move away from a schooled mindset of education toward an unschooled approach where a child’s interests and curiosity drive much of the learning.

Independent homeschooling allows for maximum freedom and flexibility, so you can decide how structured or unstructured you want your homeschooling experience to be.

3. Discover Curriculum and Learning Tools
There are so many curriculum offerings and educational tools to choose from that it can feel daunting. The pandemic itself has led to many more free online learning resources. Here is some curriculum guidance by grade cohort:

For preschoolers and kindergarteners, play should be the foundation of your homeschooling environment. Allow your child’s incessant questioning to guide learning, and read lots of books together. Here is a good list of books as your children are just beginning to identify sight words, sound out words and read simple stories. And here are some great books for early independent readers. The But Why? Podcast from Vermont Public Radio is an excellent resource and an enjoyable listen for both parents and kids. Sparkle Stories also offers a wonderful collection of original audio stories for young children.

For elementary ages (PreK-6), the Brain Quest workbooks by grade level offer abundant activities that are aligned with state curriculum standards so your child can stay on track with daily learning. Free, online tools, such as Prodigy Math for math learning, Duolingo for foreign language learning and MIT’s Scratch and Scratch Jr. for introductory computer programming, are playful and interactive educational platforms. Outschool offers thousands of low-cost, online classes for children of all ages. Classes are taught live by educators over Zoom and you can search by subject, age and day/time.   

Many of the above-mentioned resources will also work well for middle school age children (typically grades 5-8), but there are some other resources for this group. Khan Academy is the leader in free, online learning videos in a variety of subjects, and is especially known for its math programming that is used in many schools throughout the U.S. Parents and kids can track progress and identify strengths and weaknesses. Khan Academy has also added new features and functionality as a result of the pandemic, including daily learning schedules for children ages 2 to 18. NoRedInk, is a free, online writing curriculum with a paid premium option that provides writing and grammar lessons for middle schoolers and above. Additionally, here is a good list of middle-grade fiction books to encourage your kids to read.

For high school age learners, Khan Academy continues to be a good resource for free, advanced math instruction and practice, and here are some suggested books for high schoolers to read. While some high school age students may want to take classes through a local community college, others may want to enroll in a full-time, diploma-issuing, accredited online high school, such as Arizona State University Prep Digital.

Some high school homeschoolers may benefit from year-long, online courses in a variety of subjects. Thinkwell offers classes for homeschoolers taught by acclaimed professors in subjects ranging from high school and Advanced Placement mathematics and science to American Government, Economics and even public speaking. Blue Tent Online also offers year-long, online high school and Advanced Placement math and science courses for homeschoolers, as well as high school and Advanced Placement English classes.

Teenagers may want to use this time to build skills in an area of interest or develop knowledge related to a career goal. Classes and certifications offered by prestigious colleges and universities through EdX and Coursera (many of which are free), are worth exploring. Teenagers may also consider becoming entrepreneurs, developing a business around a personal passion or unmet need in their neighborhood.

4. Explore Neighborhood Resources
Most homeschoolers will tell you that the pandemic has caused just as much disruption in their lives and learning as it has for everyone else. Being disconnected from the people, places and things of our communities has been tough on all of us. Typically, homeschoolers spend much of their time outside of their homes gathering with friends, learning from teachers and mentors in the community, engaging in classes and extracurricular activities, visiting libraries and museums and so on. According to recent research by Daniel Hamlin at the University of Oklahoma: “Relative to public school students, homeschooled students are between two and three times more likely to visit an art gallery, museum, or historical site; visit a library; or attend an event sponsored by a community, religious, or ethnic group. Homeschooled students are also approximately 1.5 times more likely to visit a zoo, aquarium, or bookstore during the course of a month.”

This fall will likely be a very different homeschooling experience, as classes are more limited or non-existent, and libraries, museums and similar organizations operate with social distancing restrictions. Still, it’s worth seeing what in-person daytime programming and resources will be available near you. Again, connecting with local homeschooling networks through Facebook and elsewhere can help.

5. Collaborate With Others
Many parents are working from home during the pandemic, and may continue to do so indefinitely, which can make learning at home this fall more practical but also challenging. While many parents work and homeschool too, it can take some flexibility and planning. Viewing your role as a facilitator rather than a curriculum-enforcer, collaborating with other local parents and neighbors, relying on babysitters and being creative with your fall learning plan will make homeschooling in 2020 more feasible and fulfilling.

Some parents are connecting with others in their neighborhood to form small homeschool microschools this fall. As Good Morning America recently reported, the microschool movement is growing during the pandemic. Microschools are usually home-based, multi-age learning communities with no more than a dozen children that are facilitated by one or more instructors and/or parent guides. Parents may take turns teaching and supervising a small group of children in their homes, or they may band together to hire a teacher or college student to help. A modern take on homeschool co-ops, microschools can make homeschooling this fall a reality for more families who are eager for this option.

6. Enjoy This Moment!
This is an unprecedented time and a historic moment for our children. They will tell stories to their children and grandchildren about what it was like to live and learn through the 2020 pandemic. Experimenting with homeschooling this fall can offer some certainty and continuity in what is otherwise a tumultuous time. This doesn’t have to be a long-term commitment. Enjoy this time at home with your children, watch their curiosity and creativity grow and don’t feel pressure to replicate school-at-home. Learning and schooling are very different things.

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Kindergarten History Lessons in Virginia to Focus on Slavery

Most adults who attended public school remember early history lessons about American leaders and symbols—George Washington crossing the Delaware, Betsy Ross sewing the American flag. But starting this fall, kindergarteners in Loudon County—a wealthy suburb of Washington D.C.—will be taught a new radicalized history curriculum focusing on slavery and social justice.

Loudon County has elected to partner with the disgraced far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to develop the new curriculum which deliberately paints America in a highly negative light.

"Sugarcoating or ignoring slavery until later grades makes students more upset by or even resistant to true stories about American history. Long before we teach algebra, we teach its component parts," the curriculum reads. "We should structure history instruction the same way."

The new curriculum also highlights "activism and action civics" opportunities for young students in kindergarten through second grade.

"Students should study examples of role models from the past and present, and ask themselves, ‘how can I make a difference?'" the guidelines explain. "These conversations [about slavery] should lead into discussions about current injustices — particularly those that continue to disenfranchise and oppress the descendants of enslaved people — and possibilities for activism and reform."

In short, public school teachers must prepare their students to take up the mantle of Black Lives Matter.

While the decision to teach five-year-olds about one of the most disturbing chapters in American history may seem extreme, it is being mirrored in school districts across the nation. The New York Times’ much-vaunted but counterfactual “1619 Project” claims to prove that “nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery.” Despite the objections of numerous historians who dispute the narrative provided by the Times, curricula based on the Project are now proliferating at public schools across America.

The political tenor of the new lessons was confirmed by a longtime Loudon County elementary teacher who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her job if her real views about the new curriculum were made known.

"I teach lower grades in elementary school.… [Never before] did I have to teach about slavery," the teacher said. "Our standards were always [to] teach about famous Americans, George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., people like that. But, it was all very general and the bigger picture, we highlighted their accomplishments." She noted that the slavery is usually taught beginning in the fourth grade when students have greater maturity to understand it in its historical context.

"What they're really trying to do is divide people as early as they can, starting now with kindergarteners. They're really going to be inciting hate," the teacher added. "They're pointing out that there's ‘whiteness' and ‘blackness' and that's crazy. We never taught about that in school…. We learn about how to get along with one another and be kind and respect others. But now, with this new curriculum that they're adding, it's going to do the total opposite."

Max Eden, an education policy expert at the libertarian-minded Manhattan Institute, concurred that the curriculum was not suitable for young children. "Students aren't prepared when they're five years old to develop a nuanced sense of history and political processes, and pros and cons of different side effects, and unintended consequences," Eden said. "What the real goal of this is, by introducing [slavery] this young, is to try to get the left-wing, Nikole Hannah-Jones [creator of the 1619 Project], meta-political narrative into kids' heads as soon as possible, which is basically trying to compel them to believe that because slavery happened, therefore, America is evil and you must follow the leftist idea of … how we need to overturn power in society."

Parents in the district also expressed their anger at the politicized curriculum. "SPLC is pushing Marxist ideology more or less. They're really pushing those concepts of ‘revolution' and ‘dismantling the system' that we have," one father stated. "So rather than everyone coming together and building something great together, it's about destroying what's been built."

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