The Left's thought police are destroying America's colleges

The discourse surrounding campus free speech , or the lack thereof, is a political wedge on the Left between liberals and progressives.

On one hand, liberals have joined the conservative outcry against campus hall monitors who sanctimoniously police university classrooms for violators of anti-racist and woke gender ideology. On the other, progressives defend their illiberal tactics and wither at the thought of state legislatures and governors stepping in to strengthen the values of the First Amendment .

The tension is at the heart of United States politics. Have institutions, including the university system, been so thoroughly captured by anti-American and illiberal ideology that the government must step in to restore viewpoint diversity, free thought, and free expression?

To help answer the question, as chairwoman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, I investigated the state of free speech on college campuses and released the findings in a report .

The thrust of the report paints a grim picture: free speech is all but an illusion for many college students, teachers, and administrators.

The report highlights university policies that are flagrantly anti-free speech. Take, for example, the oxymoronically named “free speech zones,” which limit speech to highly regulated and often out-of-the-way areas of campus. Modern universities purport to be places of free debate and open discussion, but in fact, this freedom is often forced out of the classroom, where instead, students are expected to parrot their professors and peers. This policy is clearly unconstitutional, and yet dozens of schools maintain it.

Policies such as these are the reason nearly two-thirds of college students believe their campus climate prevents individuals from speaking freely on campus. These numbers are chilling.

They also reveal the extent to which universities, in practice and often in policy, have strayed from what the Supreme Court has long established: that “state colleges and universities are not enclaves immune from the sweep of the First Amendment.”

Yet university culture is directly at odds with free speech principles. Colleges and universities have used taxpayer dollars to subsidize culturally one-sided woke faculty and administrators and to allow shout-downs , disinvitations of speakers, and “ cancelations .” A recent survey found that almost two-thirds of college students see no problem with shouting down speakers on campus, and nearly one in five considers it acceptable to use violence to stop certain speech.

Moreover, many universities require lock-step discipleship behind woke policies and politics. Coerced conformity is antithetical to academic freedom, and yet, increasing numbers of schools use political tests to exclude dissenting positions and ensure conformity. Currently, one in five schools requires faculty candidates to provide a statement on their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Take the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for example, which announced that by the 2024-2025 academic year, candidates seeking promotion or tenure must submit personal DEI statements.

Pushing the discipleship of DEI is not only happening at the faculty level. Over 90% of freshman orientation programs across the nation included DEI programming, while only 30% reviewed free speech or viewpoint diversity.

The fundamental telos of every academic institution is – or should be – the relentless pursuit of truth. The rampant censorship described by the committee report undermines that pursuit, but the report also offers possible solutions.

If colleges and universities cannot safeguard diversity of thought among their students and faculty on their own, then Congress may look to where the law could assist institutions in upholding First Amendment rights. Committee recommendations include institutional disclosure requirements, adoption of free speech statements, and prohibitions on the use of political tests.

Congress is not merely free to uphold the First Amendment rights of students and faculty – it is obliged to do so. Remaining silent on this issue is an easy way to lose forever these institutions to progressives who have no moral qualms about turning the university from the free market of ideas into a monolithic echo chamber of woke viewpoints.

Liberty is endowed to the people by our creator, not by government institutions. The government, therefore, has the moral obligation to protect and defend that liberty in the context of taxpayer-funded institutions such as colleges and universities.

Bottom line: our university system has been captured by anti-American and illiberal ideology, and it is time to restore viewpoint diversity, free thought, and free expression in American universities.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom-self-reliance/the-lefts-thought-police-are-destroying-americas-colleges

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Why have so many British parents stopped sending their children to school?

Breaktime at school, and 13-year-old Harry was crouching in the only place he felt safe — a bush in the corner of the playground.

Since returning to school after lockdown, he had been relentlessly bullied by a gang of children. 'I told loads of teachers multiple times. They never even talked to the bullies.'

That morning Harry had plucked up the courage to ask the deputy head if he could move to another school. 'The situation is even worse there!' he told the boy.

Now Harry heard the gang yell out his name. He felt so scared, he thought he was going to be physically sick. Suddenly he got up and walked out of the school gates. At home he told his parents, 'I don't want to go back. Ever!'

So he hasn't.

Around the country, children have been starting the new academic year. But an increasing number, like Harry, are being home-educated.

Indeed, the statistics are startling, as a report from the Centre For Social Justice (CSJ), called Out Of Sight And Out Of Mind, reveals. It estimates some 81,000 children were home-educated at the start of the 2021/22 academic year. That's equivalent to 80 average-sized secondary schools. Even more extraordinarily, half of those had only moved into home education since lockdown.

Local authority sources spoke to the Centre For Social Justice only on the condition of anonymity — proving how loaded the topic of home-schooling is. They revealed that, in some areas, home-education uptake shot up by 180 per cent when schools re-opened.

Of course, home-schooling has long been a feature of our education system, albeit a niche one — for wealthier families who can afford to have one parent educating their children, or for those who prefer a more alternative lifestyle. But as I've discovered in this exclusive investigation, the current explosion in home-schooling reveals something more disturbing than parents suddenly fancying a spot of teaching at their kitchen table — a worrying flight of children leaving state education.

And, make no mistake, the families abandoning formal education are not homeschooling because they want to. They are home-schooling because they are desperate. Last year, my two-part series for the Mail, The Lost Children Of Lockdown, revealed how profoundly teens and young children had been affected by Covid lockdowns.

Yesterday, the Education Committee revealed 22.5 per cent of pupils are consistently absent from school — almost double the pre-pandemic rate. It described this as a 'great concern'.

That might, in part, be explained by a study by consultancy Public First this month, which showed that factors such as Covid, teachers' strikes and, most recently, the RAAC concrete scandal, have also contributed to a 'seismic shift' in parental attitudes towards education.

Pre-pandemic, ensuring daily attendance was considered a tenet of good parenting, but now it's socially acceptable to take children on holiday in term time. From there, it's not such a big step to abandoning school altogether.

I found every sector of society was affected — from the most comfortable to the poorest: middle-class families; single parents; ethnic minorities; even parents whose own education was so bad they are, in effect, functionally illiterate — all forced to home-educate.

All pointed to an education system in crisis. Some parents felt schools were failing their children academically or emotionally, painting a picture of a generation of children anxious in the aftermath of lockdown.

Others felt they were hotbeds of violence and bullying. Some cited a new educational 'woke' agenda which they felt had become uncomfortably prevalent, and was being presented to children at far too young an age.

And — as is always the case — I found the poorest hardest hit, with an absence of guidance or financial support.

'Home education is changing out of all recognition at the moment,' explained Jacky, the lead for home education at a local authority in the north of England, who spoke to me off the record.

'Covid revealed a lot,' added Ziggy Moore, founder of Moore Education, an online tuition programme for maths and English, who has seen a boom in business because of parents home-schooling and also using private tutors.

Thanks to online lessons during lockdown, parents observed how schools were educating their kids up close — and what they saw did not please them.

'I am now seeing with my own eyes that you are not educating my child to a level that is even passable. I can see first-hand how it's not benefiting my child,' as one African Caribbean mother from Brixton, South London, remarked about her 12-year-old daughter's school.

She now home-schools her, assisted by a part-time job with the local council which means she can work flexibly. She hopes to do the same with her two other children.

She's not alone. 'Online learning was a joke in my child's school,' said one parent. 'Some teachers disappeared abroad, we heard. And they never marked my son's work,' said one mother who now home schools, but to do so had to give up her job and go on benefits. 'Money is tight, I can tell you,' she admitted.

Some previously unhappy children blossomed away from school — especially those with special educational needs (SEN), such as the children of Natasha, who is self-employed and lives in a prosperous market town in the Midlands.

'My twins were failed by the school system from the moment they entered it,' she said. She saw her primary-aged twins just parked in a classroom with one teaching assistant and a group of other SEN children.

'Then, during the first lockdown, I was able to see the mental health issues and stresses from being let down by the school system melt away [from them].'

She started teaching them herself. Today, she says: 'My children are thriving. I have them back!'

Some parents acted to avoid disaster for their children's mental health. One single mother who lives in a leafy Essex suburb gave up a well-paid job in marketing to homeschool her child.

'She has suffered from anxiety and depression since lockdown and refuses to go to school. If I was not home-schooling, she would not have an education.' The school tried to help by offering flexible hours to her daughter, but as the mother pointed out: 'You can't force a 15-year-old into school.'

But even without the impact of lockdown, many no longer see school as a safe place, thanks to bullying and social media spats boiling over.

'My children need safeguarding from school,' said one father from Norfolk. He caught his teenage son stealing a kitchen knife from the house 'for a showdown with another lad'. They had been exchanging threats on Snapchat all night.

For today, social media means bullying continues 24/7 on children's smart-phones, with feuds erupting into sickening violence — no doubt contributing to the fact that, shockingly, boys under 16 are most likely to be stabbed on the way home from school.

'Around here,' said the Norfolk father who has reluctantly started home-schooling, 'you hear the police sirens at 8am then again at 3.49pm.'

It's not surprising, then, that parents of home-schooled teenage boys see a substantial reduction of peer-group influence and online bullying.

I also found home-schooling burgeoning among ethnic minorities. As one African Caribbean mother from Streatham, South London, explained: 'School is where our boys start on the trajectory to gangs, crime and prison. Why would I set my child on that path?'

Her son is 15. She credits home-schooling with the fact that he is focused on his education and hasn't been drawn into gang culture.

The curriculum is another cause for concern. Emily, from an upper-middle-class family, worked for a charitable foundation until an incident at her daughter's state school forced her to opt for home-schooling.

Her seven-year-old daughter had become increasingly anxious and depressed. 'She finally admitted she was scared men with terrifying weapons were going to come and take her away and told me: 'And I won't see you again!' '

Baffled, Emily looked through her daughter's school workbooks — and found they contained the story of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani education activist who was shot in the head by the Taliban aged 15 on her way to school.

'My daughter is seven. She does not know where Pakistan is. This is an issue in Islamic countries, but no teacher will point that out because it's considered racist. So my daughter thinks this is happening in Clapham.'

Another home-schooling mother who lives in Richmond, South-West London, discovered her seven-year-old son was encouraged to report on parents who held 'old-fashioned views' on trans rights and climate change. She said: 'My son's teachers are all young activists. They are trying to create a different belief system in my child which actively undermines my parental rights.'

I found some home-schooling parents were anxious about relationships and sex education classes. Indeed, Ziggy Moore explained that, for children from traditional communities, school can be a minefield: 'If you do not hold the prevailing view, you are in trouble.'

But the prevailing view changes from month to month and is very confusing for a child, especially for 'say, children from poor, African, church-going families whose parents work back-to-back shifts'.

They are unaware of the difference between LGBQ and LGBTQ or the potential offence leaving out a letter can cause. They soon learn.

Ziggy knows one West African 12-year-old who handed his relationships and sex education teacher a note two days before class. 'Please, Miss, don't ask me any questions. I will say the wrong thing and the other kids in the class will come after me.'

Three home-schooling Muslim mothers from North London told me they were disconcerted by 'the LGBTQ agenda that's being pushed onto our kids now', and what they saw as inappropriate sex education at too young an age.

One told me she also felt strongly that home-schooled children were more polite, articulate and confident than many of their school-educated peers.

While her child has been taught about the importance of diversity, trans rights and gay marriage, she believes the school failed her six-year-old on the basics. 'I had her in school for two years and she's so behind on reading and writing. The only thing she knows is what I've since taught her at home.'

Certainly, these parents felt they had no alternative. But the fact remains that little data is collected about home-educated children.

Indeed, nine in ten local authorities admit they are unable even to identify every child in home education. We have the highest rate of home education in Europe, but the least regulation.

What happens to these children? Do they pass exams — homeschooled children are not required to sit GCSEs — go to university, find employment, end up in prison? No one knows.

There is no legal obligation on parents to disclose their reasons to home-educate. In one local authority, according to the CSJ report, almost half of families did not give a reason at all.

In practice, home-educating means those 81,000 children could be anywhere. Enjoying an educational trip to a stately home. Selling pies on a market stall. Or on a train delivering drugs on county lines.

The only thing they have in common is that their parents have sent a letter to school de-registering them. Officially, at least, they are being 'home-educated', rather than just being persistently absent from school.

But even for those with the best of intentions, home-schooling can prove a challenge — especially for disadvantaged parents.

Just taking a GCSE can cost up to £300 each. Jacky, the lead for home education at a northern local authority, sees many families doing an excellent job. But many struggle. In the CSJ report, one local authority admitted that, of its 500 home-schooled children, only half were getting a suitable education.

Local authorities, too, are vague about what an education is — counting leaves in a park or baking a cake satisfies one, bedtime reading another. Working on a market stall full time — as one child was doing — does not.

The only tool Jacky has for children like this is a School Attendance Order, which is expensive to apply for and can take months to enforce, during which time the child is not being educated.

It's too easy for children simply to disappear. One officer admitted he had not seen a particular child for two years.

Harry, the bullied boy who walked out of school, shows the chalk and cheese elements of home education. Both his parents worked and could not afford to stop. Harry admits, left to himself, he would have sat in his room on his computer.

Fortunately for him, his aunt Mary stepped up. She explained: 'Not everyone has got a retired aunt with pointy elbows who was an accountant. And you need pointy elbows because kids like Harry have suffered so much.'

She was shocked to discover the lack of funds available for home-schooling families, and the complication of which syllabus and exam boards to choose. 'Every stage is a learning stage,' said Mary. 'But I like a challenge.'

She was dismayed to discover how far behind Harry was, and how damaged he had been by constant failure at school. He did not know his times tables or how to subtract. But she was soon rewarded by his transformation when they discovered physics together.

'That was the first moment I have been happy in years,' admitted Harry. Mary managed to get funding from a charity to pay for Harry to train as a car mechanic two days a week. He plans to have a career working with farm equipment.

The morning Harry got 100 per cent in an online maths quiz, 'he nearly cried', said Mary. 'I never got 100 per cent before,' Harry said. His aunt beamed: 'It's like changing someone's life story.'

What a shame it took such a crisis in his school, a place he should've been safe, to make that change

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12568337/Why-parents-stopped-sending-children-school-report-reveals-one-five-pupils-routinely-absent-HARRIET-SERGEANT-talks-families-uncover-troubling-reasons.html

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Why bad classroom behaviour is demoralising Australia's teachers

This is a major reason why I sent my son to a private school

Australia is facing a dire teaching shortage, and one of its root causes remains under-addressed: out-of-control classroom behaviour. Privately, and in online discussion groups, teachers report feeling burnt out and unsupported. They face defiant pupils, uncooperative parents and administrators with impossible expectations.

“I’ve been teaching for 22 years. Over that time student behaviours gradually worsened but this has dramatically accelerated since Covid,” lamented one teacher in online forum r/AustralianTeachers.

These anecdotes are backed up by large-scale survey evidence. In 2022, a Monash University study of 5000 teachers found that one-quarter did not feel safe in their job. In online forums, teachers share their war stories. “I’m on duty in a break and I go to tell a group of kids sitting out of bounds and out of sight to come back, and they just say ‘nah, we’re not gonna do that’,” writes one teacher.

“I signed up to teach not to manage behaviour. I always knew I would have to deal with some behaviour, but not to the point where my class has to be evacuated for safety,” reports another.

Forget about microaggressions, or poor-taste jokes (reasons for other workplaces to be described as “toxic”) for teachers, a toxic workplace consists of chairs being thrown around rooms, and weapons being brought to class.

“I’ve had to confiscate knives from students and I’ve been punched in the stomach while pregnant by a student,” reported one teacher in a 2019 study. And it isn’t just the experiences of those teachers who post online. A 2021 survey of 570 Australian teachers found that: “Behaviour management was … frequently nominated by teachers as the greatest challenge they face. Teachers explained that just a small minority of disruptive students can have a large and negative impact on the majority, and that managing these behaviours takes even further time away from teaching. Sixty-eight per cent of teachers indicated they spend more than 10 per cent of their day managing individual student behavioural issues. Seventeen per cent said that this consumes over half their day.”

Parents are not much help, either. Teachers report the parents of defiant pupils often have uncooperative attitudes themselves, and can be dismissive of their child’s bad behaviour. One teacher online shares their daily routine of emailing parents about their child’s disorderly conduct, only to receive such responses as “hahaha sounds like them”.

Within three years, NSW is projected to have a shortfall of 1700 secondary teachers, according to federal Department of Education modelling. And this shortage will be most acute in science and mathematics. This is part of a broader trend across Australia, where more than 9000 secondary teachers are expected to be in short supply, and more than 50,000 teachers are anticipated to leave the profession between 2020 and 2025, including 5000 aged 25 to 29.

Currently, one in five pupils in regional NSW is taught maths by a non-specialist teacher, and up to 70,000 pupils could be affected by teacher shortages by 2030. Despite a government strategy to add 3700 teachers over the next decade, there is still no plan to address teachers’ work conditions, such as deteriorating classrooms and stress, in order to make the profession more sustainable.

So what is to be done? Greg Ashman, a deputy principal and education researcher, argued in a NSW Senate inquiry earlier this year that the first step to fixing a problem is recognising there is one.

The Senate inquiry’s terms of reference emphasised that, based on a 2018 Program for International Assessment analysis, Australian classrooms are some of the most chaotic globally, ranking 69th out of 76 jurisdictions.

Ashman argues that part of the issue is that our education bureaucracy is influenced by ideologies that do not recognise bad behaviour for what it is. Poor behaviour is interpreted as a “form of communication,” meaning a child or teenager is in need of extra support, not consequences.

This is reflected in the comments posted by teachers in online forums: “Apparently we are not supposed to use the term ‘behaviour’ anymore,” wrote one teacher just this week. “Apparently behavioural issues are ‘wellbeing’ issues. And behaviour is a stigmatising term for young people.”

In some cases, bad behaviour is medicalised as Oppositional Defiant Disorder – a disorder that is recognised by the The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5). It may be appropriate to use this label in some cases. However, once a disorder has been diagnosed, all consequences can be interpreted as “discrimination”. Schools are required to be “inclusive” and that means being inclusive of children with ODD.

Disability and mental health diagnoses of all types are on the rise. Last year, 22.5 per cent of schoolchildren in NSW were identified as having at least one “disability”, a label that often works as a get-out-of-consequences-free card.

Given the war stories and dire statistics, perhaps it should be no surprise that 40 per cent of teachers leave the profession within just five years. We do not expect other professionals to work in environments where they are disrespected and, at times, abused just for doing their jobs.

But ultimately, the real victims in all of this are the pupils who are just trying to learn. Disruptive children make it hard for everyone to concentrate, and one problem child can detrimentally impact an entire classroom.

Given the lack of control in our classroom environments, perhaps it is no surprise our literacy and numeracy standards continue to decline. Despite the hundreds of billions spent on education.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/why-bad-classroom-behaviour-is-demoralising-our-teachers/news-story/225ebf1301ba28b8e35e000354e03f85

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

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

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

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

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

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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