the inmates are taking over the asylum

 

Thomas Jefferson once said, “an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people”.

There is unanimity among multiple studies attesting to an epidemic of ignorance among American citizens.  The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation found that 60% pf respondents did not know whom the United States fought in World War II, and only 24% knew why the colonists fought the British. A Xavier University study found that 85% of Americans did not know the meaning of the “rule of law” and 68% did not know how many justices sit on the Supreme Court.  The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found that only 26% of respondents could name the three branches of government, 37% could not name the rights guaranteed by the first amendment, and 53% thought illegal immigrants had no rights under the U.S. Constitution.

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/opinion/columns/2020/11/30/thomas-jefferson-called-educated-citizenry-where-it/6455865002/

When the Republicans become the majority party in the House of Representatives in January, the dumbing down of American will continue.

 

A group of Senate Republicans led by Sen. Bill Cassidy is pressing Education Secretary Miguel Cardona over a panel in his department they say is stacked with liberal activists who support issues like critical race theory and gun control.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became evident that facilitating the relationship between schools and parents is most successfully chartered at the local level," the Cassidy, R-La., letter to Cardona said. "Therefore, I welcome the stated purpose of this council; however, it is troubling that you seem to have forgotten to include any actual families or local officials on it."

"Instead, the Department has filled the Council with organizations that have limited, if any engagement on the local level," the letter continued. "Most, if not all, of these organizations are liberal advocacy groups that seek to nationalize our education systems into a one-size-fits-all system while eliminating parental choice and leaving the individual needs of our students behind."

The controversy over the committee, officially called the National Parents and Families Engagement Council, comes amid conservative discontent over how the Biden administration has handled parental involvement in schools. Last year, Cardona solicited a letter from the National School Boards Association that that compared protesting parents to domestic terrorists.

Cassidy is seeking to become the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee next year. He was joined on the letter to the Education Department head by Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Tim Scott, R-S.C.

“Perhaps the most explicitly political group on the council is National Action Network, which is led by Democratic activist Al Sharpton. Biden spoke at that group's national convention.

Another group, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, expressed support for stricter gun control positions held by the liberal group Everytown for Gun Safety, as well as major teacher’s unions American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. It also sued to keep Virginia's mask mandate in schools, according to the Cassidy-led letter.”

The National Parents Union, also a member of the council, meanwhile wrote a May 2021 op-ed in the Education Post defending critical race theory.

https://www.aol.com/news/biden-admin-education-panel-stacked-140017812.html

Two hours after he was sworn in, Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia signed a law banning “critical race theory” from bring taught in schools – even though it is NOT currently being taught in schools.

Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida endorsed and donated to the campaigns of more than two dozen school board candidates along with groups such as The 1776 Project, “the first national PAC specifically launched to boost school board candidates opposed to [critical race theory] CRT,” and Moms for Liberty, a group deeply embroiled in school board contests, Axios reports.

Now those new board members have taken their seats, and according to Politico, they’re going after educators and administrators with a history of supporting COVID-19 mask mandates, those who have refused to support the board’s ongoing and ridiculous opposition to teaching CRT (which, as we continue to report, has never been taught outside of college-level law courses), and those who do not oppose any mention of LGBTQ or gender identity in classroom subject matter.

Politico reports that superintendents in two Republican-leaning counties and another in Broward County were fired by five board members who were appointed by DeSantis; three superintendents in November were given the boot by board members with connections to DeSantis.

During his time in office, DeSantis, who’s predicted to run for president in 2024, has legislated a “Don’t Say Gay” bill and the “Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees,” aka the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which bans teaching CRT. He’s even targeted some math books, claiming the content contains “indoctrination” or “exposure to dangerous and divisive concepts.” In math.

As for potential school board candidates, they were being asked to take DeSantis’ education survey to make sure their views jibe with the governor’s right-wing agenda of rejecting CRT and COVID lockdowns and supporting “Keep Woke Gender Ideology Out of Schools,” to name a few. They were then asked to pledge to “stand with Governor Ron DeSantis.”

But the scary thing is that Florida isn’t the only place where conservatism has taken hold in our school system.

Thankfully, liberal groups such as Red, Wine & Blue, the Florida Freedom to Read Project, and Defense of Democracy have taken up the battle against the tsunami of conservatism in the nation’s school boards. These parent-backed groups have begun backing progressive candidates for boards and raising money, and as NBC News reports, begun training parents to defend diversity programs and curriculum around LGBTQ lesson plans and books on race and history.

Bottom line: If you've ever considered running for office in your community, there's a school board near you that could use your help!

The irony in all this nonsense is that the people who want to ban the teaching of “critical race theory” do not actually know what it is.

If you are not sure yourself, the quiz posted below will help you:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2022/11/critical-race-theory-quiz.html

It’s also true that if you don’t study the past, you are doomed to repeat the mistakes that you made earlier, and the link below provides another example of why it’s important to study the past:

          https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2022/12/indian-boarding-schools.html

At this point, I’m too old to run for a school board seat, but even if I were younger, I would find it difficult to tolerate the stupidity that it is currently spreading across the country. Hopefully, someone braver and more tolerant than me can take my place on the local school board, and protect all of us from the inmates who have escaper the asylum.”