Buckle Up for a Critical Race Curriculum

Once Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20, it’ll be time for everyone to look forward to and focus on the future. After all, it’s not only Biden but also the people he’ll bring into his administration who will call the shots over the next four years.

One of Biden’s key players is Miguel Cardona, former Connecticut commissioner of education, and Biden’s choice for education secretary. We all knew Biden would do whatever he could to undermine or roll back the progress made by President Donald Trump and now former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, but Cardona is planning on a more extreme agenda.

If Cardona’s history is any indication, our kids will likely be learning a lot about critical race theory in the Biden years.

Promoted as a way to make sure the voices of people of color are included in education, CRT teaches young people to despise the foundations of our civilization. This typically includes an assault on the free market, individualism, religion, the traditional family structure, and the like.

As Connecticut’s commissioner of education, CRT is what Cardona pushed. There, the Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Collective helped develop the curriculum and provides teachers with professional development opportunities so they can become" anti-racist" advocates. Their recommendation to the State Education Resource Center also prepares students to become anti-racist leaders in their communities.

This may not seem like a big problem on the surface, but leftist political ideology has increasingly seeped into our schools in recent decades. It’s one of the reasons why so many young people are ready to throw away our institutions and traditions. The kids we teach today will be in power tomorrow.

If Biden and Cardona have their way, when today’s kids become tomorrow’s leaders, they’ll be carrying the torch for the far Left.

Before Cardona is given the green light to push CRT in our schools, the Biden administration will first rescind President Trump’s executive order banning it. Last fall, Trump signed an executive order stating that critical race theory “is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.”

As Max Eden, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, writes in City Journal, “Most Americans, of any color, reject the premise of inherited guilt based on race, or the demonization of any group by virtue of immutable characteristics. Promotion of critical race theory in schools would produce a backlash and do nothing to promote the healing and national unity that Biden claims to seek.”

Eden adds, “It seems all but certain that on education, Biden will govern to the left of Barack Obama.”

Rather than teaching our children what unites all Americans, Cardona as secretary of education will make sure our children learn to hate their country. Throw in Biden’s opposition to school choice and his plan to reassert Obama’s Title IX protections to include “gender identity,” and we’ve got a tough period ahead for the most vulnerable and impressionable citizens: our children.

It’s time to buckle up and brace for an onslaught of leftist ideology in our nation’s classrooms. But knowledge is power, and parents who know what’s being taught in our schools don’t need to wait for the next election to protect their kids from the poisonous precepts of critical race theory.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/76878-buckle-up-for-a-critical-race-curriculum-2021-01-08

Undermining Duty, Honor, and Country at West Point

In May 2020, some 73 cadets from the United States Military Academy at West Point cheated on a calculus final exam. Fifty-five of those cadets were athletes and 24 of them football players. This isn’t the first time West Point has dealt with large-scale cheating on exams and not even the first time it was mostly athletes. In 1951, 90 cadets, mostly football players, were expelled for cheating. In 1976, 153 cadets resigned or were expelled for cheating on an electrical engineering exam. This is the first time, however, that West Point has tolerated cheating by softening the punishment and even removing the standard consequences for committing an honor violation. Naturally, there has been significant outrage among Academy graduates, many of whom are now instructors at the Academy.

West Point Superintendent LTG Darryl Williams sent a December 30, 2020, letter to all graduates to presumably explain the situation, but only after the seven-month-old honor incident was national news. Unfortunately, his email serves only to acknowledge concerns rather than address them and offers excuses while simultaneously claiming there is no excuse for the cadets’ behavior. Math instructors uncovered the cheating immediately in May, but honor investigations couldn’t begin until the Corps of Cadets returned in September from the pandemic-induced dispersion and remote learning. While this explains the first three-month delay, it does not excuse why graduates and the nation heard nothing about the largest scandal in almost 45 years after four months of investigation until it was a lead story on USA Today.

Part of his explanation includes a newly created Willful Admit Program implemented in the spring of 2016. Under this program, cadets that willfully admit to an honor violation can do so in the hopes of being granted discretion and enrollment in a 50-hour Special Leader Development Program for Honor as a form of rehabilitation. Previously, this type of discretion was reserved for minor infractions, especially those made under duress or in the heat of the moment. Cheating on a final exam is anything but minor and its scale shows organization and premeditation. LTG Williams claims that a part of this program is “losing rank and privileges,” but his own actions directly contradict this claim and are conveniently not mentioned in his letter to graduates. On October 23, 2020, LTG Williams lifted a ban on direct representation of West Point by cadets found (the official term for convicted) on an honor violation. Before this, any cadet found on honor was not allowed to officially represent the academy in any capacity — which includes playing on a sports team.

The purpose of West Point is to prepare cadets for war and the responsibility of making decisions with absolute and irreversible consequences. The honor code isn’t aspirational — it’s the foundational and unconditional requirement for trust. While rehabilitation and development are noble goals, willful admission can’t erase poor decisions or somehow revert their consequences. The only honorable thing for any cadet or Army officer to do is accept the full consequences of their actions, not excuse them or willfully avoid responsibility, especially when those consequences are personally detrimental. Unfortunately, LTG Williams endorsed this type of evasion explicitly when he suspended direct representation restrictions and allowed willful admission to excuse major honor violations. He prioritized “Beat Navy” in the annual football game over instilling a sense of honor in future combat leaders. Cadets attend West Point to become Army officers, not to play a sport. Playing a sport is a privilege — one that is not reserved for cadets found lacking in honor.

Army officers make decisions with permanent consequences for their soldiers’ lives and America’s national security. Respect for the totality and seriousness of this responsibility begins with the Honor Code and an understanding of the trust Americans place in their military leaders to do what is right. This is what LTG Williams is missing by removing the consequences of honor violations for athletes, making excuses for willful admits, and lowering the most basic standard for faith and trust in our future combat leaders.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/76889-undermining-duty-honor-and-country-at-west-point-2021-01-08

What's Wrong with Public Schools? It's the Unions

To understand what's gone wrong with big-city public education -- where militant teachers union bosses dictate urban school policy and politics -- just look to Chicago and the saga of Sarah Chambers.

Her embarrassing story has gone worldwide. But it does have a message.

It tells public school parents who want their kids back in school, and property taxpayers, everything they need to know:

That they don't count. And their children don't count.

Which is why some parents are leaving shutdown cities like Chicago to find places where their children can benefit from in-classroom learning rather than be dumbed down by Zoom instruction, which fails the kids.

And it is another reason, for the sake of all kids -- but especially low-income children trapped in large, substandard public school systems -- that there must be real school choice.

CTU officials have insisted it is all about saving lives during the pandemic.

Chambers was lying on her stomach, wearing a floppy sun hat. She was beaming and said she was going to enjoy some delicious seafood. "Then we are going to old San Juan to get some yummy seafood mofongo! We have an entire private Airbnb house to ourselves."

Is mofongo tasty? I certainly hope so. I prefer lemon, olive oil and oregano. But I've learned that mofongo is actually a soup made with shrimp, rice and tomato sauce. I'd love to try it.

Chambers wore something else besides that floppy sun hat: She wore the extreme arrogance of the CTU, where she was on the executive board. She's reportedly no longer on the board, and she has issued some kind of apology and suspended her social media accounts.

I'm not writing this to pick on her. I respect teachers. I married one. But until union members wake up and challenge the militant CTU leadership that has led them and hundreds of thousands of students astray, this disaster will continue.

Chambers made a stupid move, yes. But she's a special-education teacher and wouldn't have entered the field without caring for special-ed students. Yet she should know better because children who suffer from learning disabilities have been among those most hurt by the loss of in-classroom instruction during the pandemic shutdowns of public schools.

More than half of Chicago Public Schools teachers who were expected to return to school on Monday did not show up for work.

Some teachers defied their militant union bosses and did go, knowing they should be in the classroom. They care about their kids. Teachers know that oftentimes, a public school teacher is the only adult who really cares for the kids.

But more than half not showing up? That's unacceptable.

The union leaders prattle on that they're concerned about the lack of what they say is adequate COVID-19 protection. They once insisted that they "follow the science" in urging public schools be closed.

But now science tells us a different story, that children are not major transmitters, that the best place for kids is in the classroom, that remote learning is a failure, and that many students -- especially low-income minorities -- are being lost.

Supermarket cashiers go to work every day. Store managers like my brother go to work. Cops go to work. Nurses, paramedics, firefighters, doctors, streets and sanitation workers, bus drivers.

Are all of them less human or worthy than a teachers union boss chowing down on mofongo?

One study, now a bit outdated, showed at least 39 percent of Chicago Public Schools teachers sent their own kids to private schools. I figure the number is probably higher today.

Those schools, for the most part, have been open, either fully or in some hybrid fashion.

Many Democratic politicians who kowtow to the power of the teachers unions also send their own children to private schools.

In Chicago, the teachers union leadership hones its image as political intimidators. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has caved to them before, giving teachers 16 percent pay raises over five years.

But Chicago police are still waiting for their contract.

To illustrate the reach of CTU political leverage, more than 30 Chicago aldermen signed a letter of concern supporting the teachers union against the Chicago Public Schools.

"Why the concern now?" CPS boss Janice Jackson asked on Tuesday. "Do they care more about the lives of CPS teachers than the Catholic schoolteachers that have been going to school since August?"

Unfortunately, she didn't answer her own question. So, I'll answer it for her.

Because the old Chicago political patronage system -- which supplied generations of political workers for elections -- has broken down.

The power vacuum was filled by the CTU and other public worker unions. They're organized. They have money for political contributions and provide muscle in the precincts that can break political careers.

The mayor is clearly afraid of the militant CTU leadership. The aldermen are, too, as are, I suppose, many good and committed public school teachers who'd rather not speak up against their leaders, though they know they're doing wrong by the children.

And what are the students and their parents and taxpayers to do?

They can leave.

Or they can chew on a big bowl of mofongo and think of Sarah Chambers, smiling, in that big floppy hat poolside, telling public school teachers not to go to school.

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnkass/2021/01/08/john-kass-whats-wrong-with-public-schools-its-the-unions-n2582733

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

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http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

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http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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