OH: Another Attack On Church-School Wall

Christianists continue doing their best to force public education to bend to their brand of faith. In Ohio, legislators are now trying to create a whole new church-issued Get Out Of School Free card.

It has long been an option for schools to release students from school for part of the day to receive religious instruction, and districts have chosen to exercise that option or not as they see fit. The bill proposed on Ohio makes one simple change--instead of "may," the law would read "shall." 

In other words, if parents demand their child be released for religious instruction, the schools must comply.

A key focus has been LifeWise Academy, an organization that has been capitalizing on the original Supreme Court ruling by delivering Bible study during the school day. Their focus is called The Gospel Project, and it is aimed at encouraging "true transformation that comes only from the gospel, not from behavior modification." Every session is "doctrinally sound and thorough," though whose doctrine, exactly, it follows is not made clear. 

LifeWise is the brainchild of Joel Penton, who was a defensive tackle for the Ohio State football team. He graduated in 2007 (BA in Communications and Media Studies), then after what appears to be a two year gap, Penton got into the Christian Speakers Biz, starting Relevant Speakers Network, Stand for Truth Outreach, and LifeWise Academy, all based in Hilliard, Ohio.

Stand for Truth was an earlier version of the release time Bible study model as well as school assemblies, with a filed purpose of assisting "youth, youth organizations, schools and churches by providing seminars, educational materials, inspirational and motivational materials, books and other programs to help youth reach their full potential." 

The LifeWise 990 shows that it is, for legal purposes, a Stand for Truth under a new name, with the purpose unchanged. At SfT, Penton was drawing an $87K salary to handle a million-and-a-half dollar budget. The 2022 990 for LifeWise shows Penton with $41K in salary and $69K in other compensation, while LifeWise is handling $13 mill on revenue (more than double 2022) from "contributions, gifts, grants" and paying almost $6 mill in employee benefits and compensation to... I don't know. The only other paid officials listed are Steve Clifton (COO) with $108K salary and $57K other, and treasurer David Kirkey with $31K salary. Almost $5 mill is listed as other salaries and wages, including program service expenses. They list no lobbying expense, but some mid-six figure numbers for advertising, office expenses, and travel. In all they took in almost $14 mill and spent about $9.5 mill. 

Board members include Rev. Stephen Hubbard, pastor at Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Logan, Ohio; Brad Hulls, a real estate agent "and remodeling specialist" from Columbus. Figuring in the group's history is Tim Stoller, a founding board member for Cross Over The Hill, an organization with a similar message. It was Stoller who approached Penton, leading to a combining of Stand for Truth and Cross Over The Hill to form LifeWise Academy.  

LifeWise has expanded to multiple states, and it's their work that the new Ohio bill is primarily aimed at, by requiring every school in Ohio to offer a LifeWise option (or something like it). 

LifeWise has not experienced large growth by playing softball. One school board member recounted a story of being approached by LifeWise, first pleasantly, and then with veiled threats about re-election. "As a church, we can't endorse political candidates, but we can educate people." And last summer LifeWise got in a big fight with an Indiana father who volunteered for the group so that he could gain access to their materials, which he then posted on his website. LifeWise took him to court. The parent made a point that ought to be familiar to the culture panic crowd--that parents ought to be able to review the materials that were being used with students. LifeWise has also gone after a man who created a map showing the locations of LifeWise schools.

The Akron Beacon Journal is among those opposing the proposed law, calling it "a dangerous crack forming in the wall that separates church and state." 

Release time for religious instruction is a problem beyond simply breaking down the wall between church and state (though that is problematic enough). It also requires school officials to decide which part of a child's education is expendable enough that it can be replaced with religious instruction. Supporters have argued, "Well, they shouldn't be pulled from core classes" which brings us back to the old problem of labeling the arts, recess, even lunch time as unimportant parts of school, despite everything we know about the value of the arts, of free play, and even the social bonds built in the cafeteria. It creates two classes of students and has the effect of holding students up for social stigma based on their beliefs. Not to mention the issue of an outside entity that gives adults access and oversight of children that is not subject to state oversight.

It's a bad idea to force this on districts that don't want it (and not a great one for those that do) but Ohio has shown great determination to make itself the Florida of the Midwest. We'll see how this goes. 

Can Public Education Make a Deal?

At Hechinger Report, Johnathan Gyurko surfaces with a curious proposition. Donald Trump is supposed to be a dealmaker, he says, so maybe instead of getting alarmed, The Left should try cutting some deals about public education. But first, he needs to redefine a few terms.

Gyurko spins off the Network for Public Education's call to arms for heading into an administration likely to herald “a new era of federal hostility toward public schools.” (Full disclosure-- I am a member of NPE). 

NPE warns of deep cuts to federal programs that support low-income students and those with disabilities, more funding for charter schools, advocacy for religious education and a nationwide voucher program. The group also fears new curriculum mandates and a rollback of student protections.

A threat to public education, indeed, as NPE defines it. But that’s the problem.

The italics are his, because he wants to debate the definition. He says "the political left" has a single definition for public schools-- "district schools governed by local school boards, along with special purpose schools like magnet, vocational and agricultural tech schools run regionally or by state governments."

I don't know if I'm an example of the political left, but that's not quite how I would define public schools, but it doesn't matter for our purposes, because Gyurko is in the weeds in the very next sentence:

This blinkered view excludes 7,800 tax-funded and government-authorized charter schools that enroll 3.7 million children across 44 states and Washington, D.C.

It also excludes another 4.7 million children in private schools, many of whom receive tax-funded services for purposes important to the public.

He writes as if charter and private schools were somehow cast out into the darkness by public school advocates. But they cast themselves out there. School choice have consistently made the fact that they are NOT public schools central to their pitch. 

It's true that charters have, at times, claimed to be public schools, making arguments like "They get public funding so they are public schools." You will note that advocates (like Betsy DeVos) have never attempted to extend that argument to voucher-accepting private schools. But charter schools have only claimed to be public when it suits them. Just this week we got yet another example of charter schools refusing to open their records to the state and arguing that they aren't subject to the kinds of transparency laws that govern public schools. The privatizing crowd has tried multiple times to get the Supreme Court to rule that charter schools don't have to follow the same rules as other "state actors," either because they aren't public schools or because, well, they just don't have to.

Voucher-fed private schools have never pretended to be anything other than non-public schools, and voucher supporters have been all in on declaring that they are separate from and superior to public schools, those woke-infested dens of gender ideology and commie teachers. Voucher laws come with carefully-crafted "hands off" clauses, guaranteeing that private schools accepting taxpayer-funded vouchers are still free to discriminate as they wish.

So let's not pretend that charter and voucher schools are not considered public schools for any reason other than they don't want to be.

Okay, so let's move on to his point. This is probably the time to note that Gyurko teaches education and politics at Teachers College, Columbia University, founded and runs the Association of College and University Educators, and has a book-- Publicization: How Public and Private Interests Can Reinvent Education for the Common Good. He's been on the Have You Heard podcast with Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, and he's had a chat with Rick Hess. His Hechinger piece is re-presenting some of his favorite ideas.

So how does he want revise the definition of public school?

Instead of focusing on types of schools, we should consider a school “public” when it (1) enrolls and educates any student who wants to go there, and (2) prepares them to be engaged citizens, productive workers, good neighbors and stewards of the planet.

I note quibbles and limits. His definition does not include any sort of accountability, but if you're going to spend public taxpayer dollars, there has to be some form of accountability to the public, and to this day, the choice sector resists that. 

It's hard not to notice that #1 disqualifies every voucher program in the country. Gyurko wants to note that attendance zones and real-estate-linked school funding are exclusionary practices, plus elected officials who only pay lip service to parents and community members, and learning standards imposed by experts without input from stakeholders. 

It's also hard not to notice that #2 leaves lots of room for interpretation, enough to accommodate the ideas of any christianist white nationalist academy in the country. 

But Gyurko wants to offer families a new way forward, and this is where he gets to his cutest ideas-- the negotiating part. 

The left should play some offense and propose a transformative increase in federal funding for all schools — district, charter, charitable and proprietary — with a catch.

Dollars would need to be used to end exclusionary practices and to prepare future citizens, workers, neighbors and stewards of the planet.

I don't even know where to start, so let's begin with some of the specific "deals" that Gyurko imagines.

For example, could “hardening” schools against mass shootings also get us high-tech, 21st-century facilities? Would we trade vouchers to publicly purposed private schools for a national minimum teacher salary? Can we include patriotism in curricula that also respects everyone, equally? Might we eliminate caps on new charter schools if appointed charter authorizers were replaced with elected officials, thereby democratizing the charter sector?

Hardening for 21st century schools? Do you mean every single school building in America? I have no idea exactly what that might cost, but I'm guessing somewhere between a shit-ton of money and all the money in the world. "Publicly purposed private schools"?? That's not a thing, and our experience with vouchers so far is that no private school is going to take that deal since states already have made them a vouchers-with-no-strings-attached deal. Maybe you could get some pop-up crappy voucher schools that set up shop to cash in, but we already know that produces non-educating junk schools.

Patriotism and equity? Which part of the Donald "I Will Defund Any School With DEI or CRT" Trump administration do you think will sign on for that? Elected charter boards? I think that's a great idea, and I also think that the many folks profiting in the charter business have no interest in making such a deal.

And is there a reason for public education to offer to accept further privatization in hopes of some of these possible returns?

The central flaw in Gyurko's idea is that he is proposing to make a deal with privatizers in which they give up fundamental parts of their business model in return for stuff that they already get from their state government anyway. Or maybe the thought is to force states that have resisted voucher incursions to give up by offering some crumbs in return, but I have my doubts that privatizers would accept his conditions. 

The modern choice movement is based on competition with the public system. I appreciate Gyurko's notion that we could have one big public system that embraces many forms of schooling. I've played with that thought experiment myself. But the premises required for such a system are unacceptable to the folks in the modern choice biz. 

Public good, true non-profit and not free market? Public ownership, operation and accountability? No religious education? Honest discussion and support for the real total cost? Serving all students? All of those necessities for a public school system with robust choice--every one of them--has been pointedly and systematically rejected by choicers over the past few decades. They reject them either because they truly believe that a market-based competitive system is the path to educational quality for all, or because they don't actually care about educational quality for all as much as they care about profit, about a multi-tier system that keeps lessers in their place, or about pushing their own favored ideology. 

My impression is that Gyurko's heart is in the right place, but his head is deep in the sand if he imagines that Dear Leader or any of his underlings are interested in any of these deals. This may be a better pitch than the privatizers longing for the days that Democrats joined a coalition in order to roll over for right-tilted reformsters but not by much. This administration will, in fact, be plenty hostile to public education, and trying to get them to make deals when they imagine they can just take what they want is a pointless exercise.

Arne Duncan, Slayer of Irony

Year after his stint as secretary of education, Arne Duncan can still push irony so far that it collapses and implodes under its own weight,

Duncan appears in a recent EdWeek piece, one more asking the question, "What can Trump actually do to education?" This particular piece by Alyson Klein was considering how extensively Trump could rewrite curriculum. Klein notes that there are rules against that sort of thing, and that's when Duncan pops up with this- 

But Arne Duncan, who served as education secretary for seven years under President Barack Obama, doesn’t think wonky legalese will matter much to a chief executive who was found guilty of multiple felonies and was impeached twice by the House of Representatives—including for inciting a mob to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

“They could trample those. They could run roughshod over those,” Duncan said of ESSA’s prohibitions. “There are literally zero schools in America teaching CRT right now. That’s not a thing. It’s not reality.

“But he doesn’t live in reality. He creates his own reality,” Duncan continued. “And so, they can take money from schools and say they are teaching critical race theory. They can just make it up and move it to a state where people support him politically.”

 As I've noted elsewhere, we know that Trump could hang on to Title I funding and use it as leverage to extort compliance from the states. We know he could do this because we have seen that trick before. It was a feature of No Child Left Behind, with its "gate all your test scores above or else," and was doubled down by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who declared that states would adopt acceptable standards (with the hint that Common Core would be acceptable) and acceptable standardized tests or else. "Or else" means "or else no money for you." He used Title I funds to threaten California and any states thinking of following them into not adopting his preferred tests. 

Why does ESSA have provisions aimed at reining in the Department of Education? Because the one bipartisan agreement that Congress could reach was that Arne Duncan had overreached his authority way too much. And what was his reaction at the time? He told Politico that the department had lawyers smart enough to circumvent any guardrails that Congress erected.

And when it comes to disconnection from reality, we could turn to the part where Duncan wanted to shift special education oversight because "We know that when students with disabilities are held to high expectations and have access to robust curriculum, they excel." In this construction, "excel" is doing a lot of work, but Duncan seemed to think that students with special needs only really specially needed encouragement and expectations.

Or we could discuss the reality of the policy notion that testing would fix everything, that, as we used to say till we were out of breath, weighing the pig will somehow make it grow.

Or we could discuss how, since leaving office, Duncan has repeatedly attempted to retcon his administration and create a new historical reality (here, here, here ).

Look, I don't want to stay mad at Duncan forever, and I have no doubt that the Trump administration is going to do many wrong things to education. But the unrepentant and devoid-of-self-awareness Duncan is not the guy to call him out. Linda McMahon isn't going to "trample" anything so much as just follow a trail that Duncan had a large hand in blazing (and DeVos followed) and if she responds by referencing pots and kettles, she’s not wrong. It's one more example of how some feckless Democrats abandoned public education and set the stage for the far right, and until they fess up and apologize, they aren't credible critics of the coming messes. 

ICYMI: Another Thanksgiving Edition (11/24)

It's coming around again. Here's hoping you are able to enjoy it. In the meantime, here's the readings from the week.

A Tiny Victory in the Battle against AI-generated Stupidity

Remember the story about the student who used AI to plagiarize a paper, then sued the school for catching him? Benjamin Riley has the story on how that ended up, with spicy commentary from the judge.

ChatGPT Has No Place in the Classroom

I don't know who Emily is, but her takedown of ChatGPT's guide for teachers is a thing of beauty.

Back to the Future

I don't often dip into Slate, but when I saw that Adam Laats had a piece there providing historical perspective on what Linda McMahon may have in mind for education, I gladly burned one of my free views, and I wasn't sorry. Nobody puts across "We already tried that and it sucked" like Laats.

Donald Trump Cabinet picks: What Linda McMahon wants to do with the Department of Education.

Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby at Popular Information provide a rundown of the various attempts to cram right wing christianism into schools.

FOX 25 uncovers the Heritage Foundation's sweeping influence in Oklahoma education

In one of the less-surprising reveals of the season, it turns out that Ryan Walters has been hand in glove with the Heritage Foundation, and Fox 25 has more receipts than you have time to read.

Segregation Academies

ProPublica has created a whole batch of stories about the segregation academies still operating in the South, including one that focuses on how many are soaking up taxpayer dollars via vouchers.

Google's AI Chatbot Tells Student Seeking Help with Homework 'Please Die'

Newsweek reports on one more example of an AI going off the rails.

New Board of Education member thanks God, DeSantis for fourth appointment

Welcome to the free state of Florida, where voters can resoundingly reject your campaign for board membership, and Ron DeSantis will just appoint you anyway.

Children experiencing homelessness have rights to a public education

Andru Volinsky is a New England lawyer who knows a thing or two about education law, and what some children are legally entitled to..

Special education staffing shortages put students’ futures at risk. How to solve that is tricky.

Kalyn Belsha reports for Chalkbeat on the big time shortage of special ed teachers. I'm sure the Trump administration is going to get right on that.

Trump’s and Project 2025’s Education Policies Would Dangerously Roll Back Civil Rights Protections

Jan Resseger looks at the outcomes for Trump education policies.

Is Liberty University Coming to A Florida School District Near you?

Sue Kingery Woltanski warns that some Florida districts could be getting a big helping of Liberty University baloney

Weaponizing Empathy and other Heritage Foundation Rhetoric for School Reform

Nancy Flanagan with the latest in creepy Heritage Foundation rhetoric. 

This week at the Bucks County Beacon, I looked at some bright spots in a dark election season. And at Forbes.com, looking at the current state of test-optional colleges (for all you parents of high school juniors). 

Bluesky is taking off. Personally, I've gains about 900 followers in 10 days. If you're over there, look me up at @palan57.bsky.social

As always, I invite you to subscribe on substack. It will always be free and it makes it easy to get all my stuff in your inbox.

To Build The Wall

It's just the latest brick. Florida has moved past banning courses that are expressly about that woke stuff, and has moved on to removing subjects like sociology from course requirements. As the NY Times line on the post says, "conservatives in Florida have moved from explosive politics to subtler tactics to uproot liberal 'indoctrination' in higher education." The headline (at least right now) is more blunt-- "Republicans Target Social Sciences to Curb Ideas They Don't Like."

The idea of building a wall to keep out Those Others at the border is not just its own policy goal, but a ready-made metaphor for most of MAGA's culture panic reaction. 

Build a wall around the minds of people (especially young people), because if we can insure that they never see, hear, read about, or are touched by Certain Ideas then they will grow to be clean and pure and just the way we want them to be. 

The wall is built for brute force and fear. We must not allow them to see a certain view of the world, but we do not fight it with reason or argument, with persuasion or discussion. We don't meet that Other View and grapple with it. No, we must build a wall to hold it back, to block it out, to anticipate and search for every little crack through which it might creep. They use the wall because they rely on brute force to suppress those other views, and they do it because of fear. Just a taste, a touch, a look would somehow pollute the young, pollute the culture, seduce generations away from the One True View of the world and our country.

I've known MAGA types my whole life. In religious circles I call the followers of the Tiny God, a God so weak and helpless that He must be protected from disbelievers, from people who do not worship Him properly. He needs the support of human laws, human government, because if He were not soi protected and wreathed in human-made bubble wrap, he would be blown away on the wind. These are the folks who believe the Creator of all that is, the great I Am, the Being who made all and sees from end to end of the great sweep of time and eternity and the universe itself, vast and unknowable-- that God will be seriously threatened if Americans in 2024 vote for the wrong person to occupy a seat in the House of Representatives. That God waits to see if the right person will be elected to an office of secular, earthly government. 

That's the kind of fragility we're talking about. Is their Truth so weak that nobody must be allowed to challenge it, that they have no way to answer opponents except to shut them up. Their view of what is Right and True is absolutely and unassailable, except they live in constant fear of having it assailed. And so, a wall. To keep out people with the wrong beliefs, the wrong culture, the wrong background, the wrong ideas about gender, and if not keep them out, at least force them to keep their wrongness to themselves.

This is not an automatic feature of conservatism. Conservatives can absolutely be those folks who watch what appears to them to be dumbassery, call it dumbassery, and stand in opposition to it, patiently waiting to watch it play out, secure in the knowledge that dumbassery always falls apart, always fails to hold up against actual truth and facts and reality. Even when it builds a wall to keep all those things out. 

Unfortunately, building the wall comes with extra problems, extra destruction, anguish from grinding human bones to make mortar. And the terrible strain of denying what's out there, of maintaining your view of reality in defiance of the evidence. 

Yes, it all goes hand in hand with grasping for power, but power for what? Power to silence the banging of time and tide and reality and the growling beast reminding you that you are dust, that in another blink or two you will be dust again, with nothing left behind but the pieces of a wall and the imprint of your boots on too many necks. It's not wealth and power for joy-- do any of these MAGA wall builders look joyful? How can they be when they are exhausted by the daily efforts to maintain the wall? How can they rest when that hammering rings in their ears every hour of the day and night?

It is one thing to try to build a society up, to try to build the edifices and structures and supports that cause it to more closely resemble the ideal you envision by harnessing the heart and passion and love and bright rising humanity and, yes, even holiness that can lift it up into something a little more shining. It is another thing to try to mold that society by trying to keep all those human and divine forces from being able to act on it. It is one thing to try to bring all the pieces of a society together to create something awesome, and quite another thing to try to subjugate them and wall them up, to say "Only I can create here, and the first thing I will create is a wall that blocks all ideas and wills but my own."

There is no human system of government that cannot be twisted into an ugly and dehumanizing state, and none that cannot be turned to foster all the great beauty that humans are capable of, but certainly some systems tend more naturally one way or another. 

We can talk and argue at great length about values and morals and ethics, but some days I can see it simplified to a two-part question-- what are you trying to build, and how are you trying to build it?

Are you trying to build a garden that flourishes and grows and delights in all manner of living things that also grow and flourish, doing it by cultivating and nourishing and lifting up, or are you intent on building a wall to keep out all the parts of the world you don't like so that some sad, meagre little creature can gather power without ever being challenged by anything scary from outside that wall.

That wall-free garden is never going to be all fluffy bunnies and kum-bay-yah circles. Life is rich and complicated and sometimes hard and often contentious. But building a wall to keep away everything that bothers you is never a solution; it's anti-life and anti-human. It's destined to fail, and to sow chaos and destruction as it collapses. 

We are in an age of wall-builders, which makes it both harder and imperative that we not build our schools according to their specifications. It's a lousy way to educate young humans. We have to do better. Poke holes in the wall, and bring the world in through every tiny crack. 

Trans Panic Abuse

I first encountered trans folks in the 1970s, trans women who I was in high school with when they were guys. I've had trans students over the years. And if I'm honest, I still struggle with the issue. If one of my own children came to me to say they were trans, I would have all the misgivings-- how do I bless that kind of transition for someone who can't even decide which shirt to wear, who has a different plan for their toys every single day. I hope that I would get to a good place with my child, and throwing them out would not be on the table, but it would not be an easy journey to some form of acceptance. Sitting here right now, I can't say that I know what that would look or feel like. 

But I do know this--as difficult as it would be, I can't imagine how an edict from the government or my local school board would make any part of it easier.

Right now we are awash in trans panic. Project 2025 is riddled with it, in every single chapter. Writers of the conservative battle plan will be droning along in boring wonkese and suddenly erupt into lurid purple prose over the threat of trans persons. The GOP spent $215 million on ads attacking trans rights (that, says a civil rights attorney, is $134 per trans person). Moms for Liberty are recruiting heavily on the Title IX loophole that says your district doesn't have to adopt the federal rules if there's a M4L member parent in the district. Everywhere, at all levels of government, folks are passing rules to restrict trans persons' rights.

All policies that attempt to restrict trans persons are inherently cruel and abusive, and not just of trans persons. In response to Nancy Mace's ugly, personal bathroom attack on trans Rep-elect Sarah McBride, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez gets it exactly right:

“What Nancy Mace and what Speaker Johnson are doing are endangering all women and girls,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters late Wednesday. “Because if you ask them, ‘What is your plan on how to enforce this?’ they won’t come up with an answer. And what it inevitably results in are women and girls who are primed for assault because people are gonna want to check their private parts in suspecting who is trans and who is cis and who’s doing what.”

“The idea that Nancy Mace wants little girls and women to drop trou in front of who — an investigator? Who would that be? — because she wants to suspect and point fingers at who she thinks is trans is disgusting. It is disgusting,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

This trans panic has been aimed disproportionately at high school athletes, because any attempt to push repressive policy works better if you attach "for the children" to it. But anti-trans rules open the door to all sorts of abuse. Like the time some disgruntled parents of second and third place winners filed a protest that they wanted the first place winner's gender checked. Or the various times that states have proposed bills that required winning athletes (female, because for some reason there is never concern about trans men) to submit to a barrage of tests to "prove" their gender. Or the nice folks in New Hampshire suing for the right to harass transgender teenagers.

You can ban trans women from sports all day, but in the end, enforcement comes down to demanding that some teenaged girl prove she's a "real" girl by submitting to physical and/or genetic inspection. 

I get that there are some concerns that reasonable people can share. Does having trans women with bigger, stronger frames pose a threat to other athletes? I don't know. But does that concern mean that schools should also institute rules delineating maximum allowable strength for athletes? And what does it say about sports like football, in which we know that students are absolutely in danger of serious injuries with long-term effects?

There are real issues to be discussed, but not everyone involved in the discussion is serious. When Nancy Mace says "any man who wants to force his genital into women's spaces" is waging a "war on women," I have to wonder what that means coming from a staunch supporter of President Pussy Grabber. 

Pushing trans-restrictive rules for schools may make boards feel good and righteous and play well to the culture panic crowd, but the ultimate result is the abuse and harassment of actual individual live human beings, and while I don't know exactly how I feel about transgender issues, I know exactly how I feel about harassing and abusing live human beings, especially young ones, so that you can score some political points. 

Department of Redundency Department

Teachers ought to know. Marketers certainly know. Politicians ignore it at their peril.

Repetition works.

There is a tendency among certain brands of humans (I am one of them) to believe that one shouldn't have to explain oneself over and over and over again. One clear and cogent explanation of the point, and that should do the trick. To keep hammering on it is boring, inefficient, and unnecessary. Redundancy is self-evidently Not Good.

But that's not how humans generally work.

Marketers understand this. You boil your campaign down to one simple message, and then you hammer that message over and over and over again until people can't have even a passing thought about thirst without an image of Coke popping into their brain. 

It's understandable that some teachers are resistant to this idea-- explaining this idea over and over "wastes" the valuable and scarce commodity of class time. There are many textbooks that are built entirely around the "explain it once then move on" principle of instruction. But it's repetition that gets things to stick. If you're trying to drive a nail into a block of wood (I would tell my student teachers), does it work better to try to drive it all the way on with one mighty thwack, or a whole series of moderate taps? 

We know that repetition is effective even in the absence of actual explanation. Does Coke pop into our head based on the extensive evidence the Coca-Cola company has published on the bubbly sugar water's thirst-quenching qualities? 

How did "America's schools are failing" become conventional wisdom? Not through any credible evidence. Some folks have just been repeating it for forty years, accompanied by simple illustrations that don't rise to the level of credible evidence but make the statement feel more true. We're far from the top of international test results, they warn, ignoring that we're right where we've already been and Estonia hasn't conquered us yet. SAT scores! NAEP scores! I found this one teacher who said something stupid! Arguing with these is fruitless, because they aren't actual evidence-- they're just illustrations to underline the point, and the point is hammered home by a steady top-tap-tap of repetition.

I don't pay a lot of attention to "science of learning" arguments, which often have as much real-world salience as would an argument about the "science of marriage." But the idea of repetition has recently been bandied about as if it's a hot new idea (these days we're attaching to "cognitive load theory" stuff), and even if someone is announcing they've just invented the wheel, that doesn't mean that wheels don't work. Repetition and redundancy in the classroom absolutely work, even spaced out over considerable time.

I've known people in the education blogoverse who worry about redundancy. "I don't want to write about that because this other person already did" or "I already wrote about this once." Even I, with my noted lack of writing restraint, will sometimes contemplate someone else's piece and think, "Well, I don't really have anything to add to that." I'd argue that this is a mistake, that anything worth saying is worth saying a few hundred times. 

There are, for instance, multiple pieces noting that school vouchers went down to defeat in three states even in the midst of a red wave. There should be a million of them. It's an opportunity to connect a clear message ("Voters don't like vouchers and always vote them down") with a clear illustration ("In the 2024 election, three states with strong MAGA support still voted vouchers down"). It's true, and it's important, first, because legislators are repeatedly conned into supporting vouchers because "they're so popular" and second, because the Trump administration is signaling that it wants to impose school vouchers on the entire country.  

Defenders of public education should be saying it over and over again-- vouchers are not popular with United States taxpayers and voters. It's not just that they're a bad idea (they are, and should be fought on that basis), but they are an unpopular idea. We have the receipts. 

NH: Defunding Special Ed

Is educating students with special needs getting expensive for your district? If you're in New Hampshire, Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut has a message for you-- "Too bad, Sucks to be you."

Frank Edelblut was a businessman, venture capitalist, and one-term NH state representative before he decided to run for the governor's seat. He was beaten in the primary by Chris Sununu, son of former NH governor and Bush I White House Chief of Staff John Sununu. Edelblut gracefully conceded and publicly supported Sununu, who then appointed Edelblut to the top education job, despite Edelblut's complete lack of anything remotely resembling education experience.

All of Edelblut's children were home schooled. As a legislator, he backed vouchers and as a candidate he backed personalized [sic] learning. As education high mucky muck, he has continued to back all manner of ed reformster nonsense, including the ramming through of vouchers over the objections of actual taxpayers. 

So it was on brand this week when Edelblut told districts that they would be getting even less support from the state for special ed students.

Several factors are in play here, including increased costs for special services and an increased number of students requiring those services-- all mandated and beyond the control of the districts. But the other huge factor is that the state budget for special ed hasn't been boosted since 2021. So the states special ed pie has stayed the same, meaning that school districts get smaller and smaller slices.

You'd think that the state education chief's response would be to ask for a bigger pie, but Edelblut says he just did that in 2017 and 2018. Sure, once a decade or so seems like plenty.

Edelblut does have other ideas, though. 

Instead, Edelblut wants the state to consider whether it can provide special education services more effectively and for less money. He said parents and educators frequently tell him they are unhappy with the services provided.

Yes, they would undoubtedly be happier is the district spent less money to educate their child. This is the undying reformster notion that education is somehow riddled with inefficient spending and surely there's a cheaper, better way to do things, as if the system isn't already depending on teachers donating their own money and contributing unpaid hours just to keep their schools afloat. 

Edelblut syas he doesn't have a solution (because he's physically unable to ask for more funding?) but he does believe that school vouchers could be the answer, which is just silly. A school voucher does not cover special ed kinds of costs, and it does not mean that the private school of your choice is going to choose to admit your high needs student. Of all the problems that vouchers don't solve, meeting needs of special ed students is one of the problems it doesn't solve the most.

I'm convinced this is the new privatizer game-- instead of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, you have to take any topic or problem and connect it to school vouchers. You don't have to connect it in a way that makes sense or offers evidence. Just tack "but this would be solved by school vouchers" on the end of whatever you're saying. It may be fun for guys like Edelblut to play, but it's the students and taxpayers who lose, every time.

So Linda McMahon Is New Ed Secretary

It's Linda McMahon, wife of Vince McMahon, co-founded WWE (the wrestling show biz outfit). 

She was head of the Small Business Administration in Trump's first go-round, has a failed Senate campaign behind her (2010), and has previously headed up the America First Policy Institute, a right wing thinky tank for Trump/MAGA policy to percolate while its members waited for the day that has now arrived. They were, of course, part of the Project 2025 team.

Yeah, she looks nice

She was supposed to be a leading contender for the top Department of Commerce spot, but she didn't get that one, so here she is leading the Department of Education.

Course, since few had her on their cabinet bingo cards for education, we're now all scrambling to figure out what this might mean. Here are some quick initial thoughts.

Unlike former secretary Betsy DeVos or some of the contenders like Tiffany Justice and Erika Donalds, McMahon has not spent most of her adult life trying to devise and implement ways to dismantle and privatize public education. (And at age 76,  she is a decade older than DeVos--one more aging boomer in this administration). I'm not saying that won't be part of her policy objectives. It's just that she won't enter office with a whole suitcase of explosives already packed.

However, that doesn't change the fact that she is completely and utterly unqualified to run the department. She may actually have an edge on DeVos, who had never worked at an actual job, led a large organization, or sold an idea with any technique other than throwing money at people. She spent some time on the Connecticut State Board of Education, so she knows a bit about the bureaucratic ins and outs. 

She may represent a hint about which way Trump will jump when it comes to choosing between his goals. He can pursue either 1) the culture panic goal of using federal funds as leverage to force schools to follow culture war edicts or 2) dismantling the department and sending the federal funds out to states as no-strings block grants. Well, #2 was always the less likely (it requires Congress to go along), and McMahon seems like a better fit for #1, though of course her long-time minimal interest in education may mean it's easier for her to walk away from the ruins of the department.

The fact that Trump gave her this position as a sort of consolation prize suggests that, as with his first go-round, he's not all the interested in education nor is it on the top of his to-do list. So McMahon may signal a sort of ill-intentioned neglect, like a toxin in the bloodstream that will get around to fatally poisoning you sometime soon, just as soon as it wraps up a few other things.

No, I don't see any way that this is not terrible. If you squint real hard through your rose colored glasses you might convince yourself that this isn't going to be quite as terrible as some of the alternate realities we can contemplate-- but it's still terrible. Like the rest of his cabinet picks, she will be there to make sure that her department of the government doesn't work and collapses into some configuration of smoking rubble. 

Though unlike other cabinet picks, she does not have an actual criminal background [Update--okay, maybe not actual criminal conviction, but some very shady and abusey stuff], an observation that reminds us that Trump has not just lowered the bar to the floor, but has dug a deep hole so that the bar can be buried. It also means she should have a less strenuous confirmation hearing than some of her fellow picks.

Now brace for a few days of wild speculation and bad professional wrestling gags. 

OK: More Mandatory State Religion

Education Dudebro-in-Chief Ryan Walters continues to test the line between church and state, as well as testing the line between fulfilling a state job and auditioning for a federal one. No sooner had Dear Leader cemented his return to the power, then Oklahoma's leading pick-me boy was in the news again, for yet another attempt to ram his version of Christianity into classrooms and homes.

First, he announced the formation of the Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism (which, if you stop to think for even a second, makes as much sense as the Department of Bicycles and Vests With No Sleeves) which he promises will align with incoming President Donald Trump’s aim of protecting prayer in schools. They'll be going after anyone who dares to interpret the First Amendment to mean that a public school shouldn't be endorsing any particular religion. Like this example:

Walters cited a September 2023 incident in which a Skiatook school removed Bible verses from a classroom at the urging of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which contended it was unconstitutional for a public school to allow religious displays. At the time, Walters said the removal was “unacceptable.”

Note the term "unacceptable," as if Walters is saying the fault is not that they broke some law, but that they personally displeased him. That's the language you use when you want people to understand that we're not talking about the Rule of Law, but the Rule of You.

“It is no coincidence that the dismantling of faith and family values in public schools directly correlates with declining academic outcomes in our public schools,” Walters said in a statement Tuesday. “In Oklahoma, we are reversing this negative trend and, working with the incoming Trump Administration, we are going to aggressively pursue education policies that will improve academic outcomes and give our children a better future.”

Walters taught AP History; he knows this is ahistoric bunk. But it fits in with his other activities; calling church-state separation a “myth,” ordering Oklahoma districts to teach from the Bible, buying Bibles with taxpayer funds and trying to open a Catholic charter school. Those Bibles they bought-- 500 Lee Greenwood "God Bless The USA" bibles, endorsed by Dear Leader. 

Walters followed that up with a mandatory watch party, demanding that all schools show all students a 90 second video, in which Walters announces the new department, complain about the radical left, say they "will not tolerate" the erosion of religious liberty. Also, "we've seen patriotism mocked and a hatred for this country pushed by woke teachers unions." I guess he cut out the part where he says "like the teacher standing next to this screen, who is evil and woke and out to get you, so don't pay too much attention to her today." Again with the "we will not tolerate that," which I guess is the royal "we." No mention of actual laws so far, just the royal preferences. He wants everyone to be patriotic and their religious practices to be protected. 

Then comes the prayer. He says students don't have to join, but he's going to go ahead. He folds his hands and bows his head. 

Dear God, thank you for all the blessings you've given our country. I pray for our leaders to make the right decisions, I pray in particular for President Donald Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change to the country. I pray for our parents, teachers and kids that they get the best education possible and live high quality lives. I also pray that we continue to teach love of country to our young people, and that our students understand what makes America great and that they continue to love this country. Amen.

And cut. Also, Walters wants districts to send the video to all parents. 

Many districts have indicated they will not be showing the video, and state Attorney General Gentner Drummond says Walters has no authority for any such demand.

"Not only is this edict unenforceable, it is contrary to parents' rights, local control and individual free-exercise rights," said the attorney general's office spokesperson Phil Bacharach.

Not the first time Drummond has told Walters to back it up a step. But history suggests that Walters will just ignore and end up in court over it, which won't really matter, because he's already made his points-- people in positions of authority can too lead prayer in school, teachers are terrible commies, that it is people in power and not laws that rule the land, and he's just the kind of guy that Dear Leader should want with him in DC. Undoing the edict doesn't really unring any of those bells, and the fight looks great on the audition reel for the Presidential transition team. 

ICYMI: Blue Skies Edition (11/17)

Roughly thirty years ago you could have found me logging onto my Compuserve dial-up pay-by-the-minute service to spend some time on the Prodigy BBS (bulletin board system). Soon the isp's started offering all-you-can-eat pricing. "Well," muttered the old timers, "There goes the neighborhood. We'll be crowded out by basement-dwellers who will just never log off." 

Then came faster connection speeds that allowed loading images that looked better than an 8-bit character at a thousand yards. I gravitated to ICQ (an instant messenger program) and the chat rooms (channels, some folks called them back in the day) and made some actual friends (Hey there, #hatrack). Because my daughter was at Penn State, I was an early adopter of Facebook (I skipped MySpace). Found other social havens, like Cafe Utne. Sometimes I would set up an account at a site and it would sit until I could figure out what to do with it (still haven't figured out Pinterest). 

Social sites online come and go. There are problems that nobody has fully solved, like how to deal with people who simply want to kick things over and be an asshat, and yet still respect that whole freedom thing. There also seems to be a bit of an attention span thing; after a while, what seemed interesting and new in a site or online person gets old and predictable. I've watched my audience turn over fairly regularly. I don't think I'm pissing anyone off; it's just that if you've been reading me for ten years, I probably won't surprise you any time soon.

The old conventional wisdom was that a social site burns out in about two years. Facebook beat the odds by turning into something else, and Twitter... well, I'm not sure what it's done. I've been telling you for weeks that I've been warming up my Bluesky account, and this week, a whole lot of people made that jump. Millions of people, though still a drop in a Twitter-sized bucket. But my followers there have gone from about 100 to closing-in-on-700 in a week. Meanwhile, my Twitter numbers have been slowly dropping as many people leave completely.

There are lots of reasons to abandon Twitter, including its conversion as of 11/15 to an AI training source. I'm not leaving entirely (there's too much that I still want to see, and I don't deal with the level of abuse and crappery that some do) but I think it's fine and natural that folks do. Meanwhile, Bluesky has drawn enough people to become interesting, unlike certain failed attempts of the past (looking at you, Google+). Hard to know what comes next; the only thing I'm certain of is that it will be something different.

Sorry--that was a lot. Here's some reading from the week.

Can Trump Force Schools to Change Their Curricula?

There were a zillion takes on Trump and the education department this week. Alyson Klein at EdWeek had a good look at one particular aspect of this looming question-- how does he enforce a woke prohibition?

Closing the U.S. Department of Education: A LOSS for Children with Disabilities

Nancy Bailey looks at how Trumpy education policy may affect students with special needs.

The trans school sports rule the Democrats didn’t talk about

The GOP hammered on trans athletes, and Democrats let them do it. Rachel Cohen digs into the issue, and the Democratic middle-ground proposal that everyone just sort of forgot about. At Vox.

Scam Education Study from Denver

A new study says that choice really helped education in Denver. Not so fast, says Thomas Ultican.

How Do German Schools Teach Their Political History?

Nancy Flanagan suggests that Germany might have a thing or two to teach us about dealing with a problematic past.

Will Trump’s Education Policies Accelerate Support for School Privatization?

Jan Resseger is asking the question and is, as usual, doing all her homework to come up with answers.

Trump and Education

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider also consults the Trump tilted crystal ball.

Will Florida Preempt Local Zoning Laws and Fund Expansion of Near Capacity Private Jewish Schools?

More Florida shenanigans, explained by Sue Kingery Woltanski.

Ohio passes sweeping college trans bathroom ban, first in nation after election

Come on, Ohio. Be better. Everyone else? Pay attention. 

One Alabama school system responds to rise in immigration: ‘What they deserve’

Rebecca Griesbach reporting for AL.com tells the story of how one school district rises to meet the challenge of immigrant children in schools. 

At Forbes.com this week, I also did a Trump take, pointing out that a contradiction in his plan means that he will not be able to do all the awful things he wants to. Also, Adam Laats has written a fabulous book about the first failed con-man driven education reform in this country. 

I've been reviving my participation at Bluesky. If you're over there, look me up at @palan57.bsky.social

As always, I invite you to subscribe on substack. It will always be free and it makes it easy to get all my stuff in your inbox.

November 14, 1960

Things got busy here at the Institute this week, so I missed posting about this anniversary on Thursday. But I don't want to overlook it for another year.

On November 14, Ruby Bridges was six years old, three months younger than the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education. Six years old.

She had attended a segregated kindergarten in New Orleans. The district gave Black children a test to see if they would be allowed to attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School. Six passed. Two decided not to go through with it. The three other girls were sent to a different all-white school; Ruby Bridges would be the only Black student desegregating William Frantz.

Her father was not sure he wanted to put her through that. Her mother argued it had to be done for her daughter and "for all African-American children."

This was three years after the Little Rock Nine were escorted into school by the National Guard. Conditions in the South had not improved. A crowd came out to hurl insults and threaten a six year old child. 

"What really protected me is the innocence of a child," Bridges said at an event last Thursday. "Because even though you all saw that and I saw what you saw, my 6-year-old mind didn't tell me that I needed to be afraid. Like why would I be afraid of a crowd? I see that all the time."

But it is still shocking to see pictures of the protests. They made a picture of a coffin, with a Black baby in it, and paraded it around the school. Along with a cross. Bridges was the only child in her class-- white parents pulled their children out, and many teachers refused to teach. The boycott was eventually broken by a Methodist minister, but Bridges still was shunned, her father fired, her family barred from some local businesses. 

It's Ruby Bridges portrayed in the Norman Rockwell painting "The Problem We All Live With." one of his first works after he left The Saturday Evening Post. It earned him sackfulls of angry mail, calling him, among other things, a "race traitor."

This week, many schools celebrated a Ruby Bridges Walk To School Day in schools all around the country.  

There is a common narrative, that in the sixties we pretty much settled all the racial issues in this country and that demands for equity ever since have just been a political ploy to grab undeserved goodies. "We fixed that stuff," the argument goes, "so we shouldn't need to be talking about it now. You sure you don't have some other reason for bringing it up?" It's the narrative that brings us to a President-elect who claims that since we fixed racism in the sixties, it's white folks who have been the victims, and who need reparations.

But here's what I want to underline-- Ruby Bridges is alive. Not even old lady alive, but just 70. Presumably most of the children gathered around that coffin and cross are also alive, probably a few of those adults as well (Bridges's mother died in 2020). 

This is not some episode from the distant past. It's not about some form of schooling that belongs to some dead-and-gone generation. The anniversary is a reminder to do better, to be better, a reminder that it really wasn't very long ago that a whole lot of people thought it was okay to threaten a six year old child with abuse and violence. White folks don't need to hang their heads in shame and embarrassment, but neither should they say, "That was people from another time, long ago and far away," as a way to feel better about the whole business. It can happen here. It just happened here. Pay attention and do the work to make sure it isn't happening tomorrow.

Heritage: How To Make More Babies

I'm not sure where to start--this is the most mind-blowingly boneheaded "report" I have ever seen come out of a reformster activist group in maybe ever. This is not off the rails or in the weeds. It has left both rails and the weeds far behind, careening into some parched plain where the blazing light of political desire has dried up every drop of sense. Let the record show that I am perfectly capable of engaging in serious discussion with serious making serious ed reform arguments, but this is spectacularly unserious.

The title of the blog post masquerading as a report is "Education Policy Reforms Are Key Strategies for Increasing the Married Birth Rate" produced by Jay Greene and Lindsey Burke for the Heritage Society, and it needs a "Not The Onion" label, but I suppose it signals yet another tack for the culture panic crowd. Heritage made this point with a little less verve just last year, and it was bunk then, too. I've read it so you don't have to. Let's dive in.

The Problem We're Trying To Solve

The United States fertility rate has dropped below the replacement rate, and that is Very Bad. Fertility rates are dropping all over the planet, and resist policy efforts. 

While no silver bullet can increase the married birth rate, developing pro-family policies is essential if Americans want to maintain their political and cultural traditions, avoid economic decline, and strengthen national defense.

Spoiler alert: by "pro-family policies," they do not mean what you think that means. This will not be a discussion of how to provide support for young families, nor will we talk about how the US trails the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to family leave. We just love to talk about supporting families in this country as long as it doesn't inconvenience employers or involve spending taxpayer dollars. 

Sure, some governments try financial incentives and subsidized services. But that, they argue, doesn't work all that much. Besides, raising kids has always been expensive. So with a quick wave of their hands, they dismiss any economic concerns that might be holding young folks back.

No, they argue, "the decline in the number of children is driven primarily by values and priorities." Kids These Days lack the moral fiber to have kids these days. Why, back in 1970s (when, they remind us, that birth control pill was first legalized) the standard of living was lower, the GDP was lower, but people were popping out babies left and right. Now people have more wealth and less inclination to spend it on children.

Now, there's a ton of research out there about this very question, but Greene and Burke aren't going to bring any of that up. Some of it actually offers some support for their idea that we're seeing a slightly selfish values shift (and some of it says "Shut up, Boomer-- you're the selfish ones"), but it also brings up a host of other concerns, including economic worries, the environment, the general state of the world. But never mind any of that. They have a different thought.

"The general standard of living and overall societal wealth" are up compared to 100 years ago, they point out, and at this point I, a non-academic non-sociologist, would question how those "general" terms break down. Averages hide a lot of highs and lows, and lots of folks don't get to participate in "overall societal wealth." But never mind. People are getting married later than they used to. If you know actual young people, a hundred possible explanations may spring to mind, but we aren't looking at any of that, because Greene and Buke have a different culprit in mind.

College. Specifically, college financial aid.

People are spending more time in college. "Much of the trend can be explained" by the "subsidy-induced explosion" of college enrollment, and college campuses don't include many young student parents. 

Put plainly, massive and unnecessary education subsidies are artificially steering people into delaying or even foregoing marriage and children.

Has college enrollment exploded? Has college financial aid exploded? How "non-existent" are married parent students? These all seem like points for which actual data exist, but none will be mentioned here.

And if you were getting to make the excuse that the job market demands increased skills and education, Burke and Greene say no, it doesn't. Only a third of secretaries have degrees, compared to 9% in 1990, which proves... something? There are too many "excess" credential requirements, and too many subsidies keeping too many people in college for too many years, postponing markers of adulthood. 

I have more questions. Like, if college is the culprit, what part of the population does that affect? About five seconds of research reveals that roughly a third of the adult population had a bachelors degree. So what about everyone else? Are they slacking off, too, or is the college crowd just dragging the numbers down all by themselves? 

Finally, a Heritage post about education wouldn't be complete with a demand for privatization:

Finally, to reverse the tide of declining fertility rates, it is necessary to consider barriers to parents educating their own children in ways that increase the likelihood that those children will have pro-fertility values.

They call this "universal education choice," but it is clearly meant to be one particular education choice. They want it for "all families" which of course means "wealthy families already using private schools." 

Let's Drag Religion Into It

Here comes the Institute for Family Studies, another Bradley and Koch funded right wing outfit creating a basis for policies right-tilted folks want--in this case, traditional straight parents raising children with mom at home. IFS has connected the lower birth rate with a decline in religious connection. Church attenders make more babies, and fewer people attend church so the decline accounts for “virtually 100% of the decline in fertility in the United States from 2012 to 2019.”

Now, other countries with higher religious observance don't have higher fertility, admit the authors, but that's because the politics, economics, and culture are different. There's a lot implied and suggested by that observation; the authors will not be examining any of it. We're just going to leave it at the idea that religiosity differences affect fertility differences with countries, but not between them. Because, I guess, there's no such thing as meaningful political, economic, or cultural differences within a country. It sure would have been interesting to examine, say, fertility differences between the different sub-cultures and regions of the US, but we're not going to do that.

Anyway, religious people put more value on children, making parents "more greatly appreciate the personal, societal, and even eternal benefits of having more babies" and therefor not mind the cost.

Now we get to some big time baloney.

When the government compels parents to enroll their children in school and then provides secular, public schools as the only tax-supported option, it is erecting a significant barrier to parents giving children a religious education.

This is simply not true. I've made the long argument before, but this time, let me offer a simple observation. If we're looking for data, let's consider that the decrease in religiosity in this country has occurred at the same time as the rise in school choice. Most of the religious people making this argument themselves came through public school with their religious devotion entirely intact. That's because not telling you what to believe is not the same as telling you what not to believe. Public education leaves the religion spot in a student's life wide open for the family to fill in as they like. 

Conservatives like to argue that they don't co-parent with the government, but this complaint amounts to a demand that the government should co-parent with them, to back them up on a faith that apparently they can't inculcate and grow in their children without someone else's help. 

Then there's this:

Families must be able to afford to pay twice—once in taxes supporting the district public school, and a second time for private school tuition—to be able to access instruction that matches their faith and values.

No. Families don't even pay for tuition the first time. That's the beauty of the system--nobody pays all of the tuition ever. This is especially true for some quiverfull family with multiple children. Do they also suggest that it is unjust for folks with no children at all to pay taxes? (They do not). But the unspoken premise of modern choice is that education is a service provided to families; it ignores the notion that public education is there not to serve only families, but to serve the public as a whole. 

Nor do religious private schools serve even a large number of families. The authors argue that vouchers put religious private schools on a level playing field with public schools. They do not, at least not as long as private religious schools retain the right to reject and expel students for any and all reasons. And not only do they pick and choose which families to serve, but they frequently fail to serve society by failed and unaccountable teaching.

Greene and Burke argue that religious private schools make children more likely to grow up religious, and gee, that's a pretty thought, but it also shows for the gazillionth time that this is not about actual school choice at all--it's about replacing a public system with a particular, limited set of values. It's about taxpayer subsidies for private religious schools. "Parents should have a choice of schools--as long as they choose a properly religious school."

Education savings accounts, tax-credit-supported private school scholarships, and vouchers should be viewed as key pro-fertility policies. Lowering barriers to families selecting a school of their choice, including religious education for their children, increases the odds that parents will have children and that a larger share of those children will retain religious beliefs and practices that boost marriage and fertility.

"You know, Ethel, I wasn't really planning on having children, but now that our state offers school vouchers, let's go ahead and pop out a bunch."

Early family formation and damn that college racket

Greene and Burke lead with a bunch of stats showing that the median age for getting married and for having children are higher than they used to be, and pair that with the assertion that "fertility is significantly reduced for people who delay" those activities. 

Now for some research slight-of-hand. The next paragraph will start by saying that while "many factors" contribute to the late start, "one of the most important is the longer period of time that people spend in school." This is followed by a lot of stats showing that people spend a lot of time in school. Is there anything to connect the cause and effect, other than putting sentences together in one paragraph? There is not. Data about what percentage of late starters are college-educated? Nope. 

They note that grad student population increased from 2.9 million to 3.2 million from 2010 to 2021. So... those 300,000 grad students are the cause of the nation's fertility drop? They blame that hop on the Grad PLUS loan program. That has "likely" played a key role, they argue (without data). Some number of people are spending 6 to 10 years in higher education. What number? "Most of them" put off marriage. How many?

We do finally at some data. 43% of women with degrees wait till 30 to have children; of high school diploma women, the figure is 8.5%. Of degreed women, 22% will never have children; for diplomas, it's 11.5%. How do men figure in this? 

The authors decry businesses that "chase degrees," which they do in part because those damn "overzealous" enforcers of civil rights have "made it exceedingly difficult for businesses to administer job-related pre-employment tests, and I would love to learn more about this thing that I've never, ever heard of before, but there is no source cited for this widespread practice. But you know-- emphasis on degrees over merit has tricked people into pursuing credentials that they don't need, but which keep them from taking advantage of their peak baby-making years. It's that damned government "free" money in the form of loans (which are kind of the opposite of free money, but if they want to argue that 19-year-olds don't fully grasp that, I won't disagree) and those loans create a huge debt load that further delays baby-making.

Here follows an assortment of data to support the notion that college is expensive and doesn't pay off for lots of folks. Again, I won't argue this. 

Now, you might think that a logical conclusion here might be to argue that the government could hand out more grants instead of loans, or that colleges should be restructured to be less money-grubbing, or that government needs to address the economic weaknesses that result in so many people stuck in so many crappy jobs that pay subsistence wages while still allowing employers to demand credentials just because they can further fueling the notion that a college education is important for involving life in the bottom of America's economic barrel.

But this is the Heritage Foundation, so no. Instead, the proposal is for the government to stop helping people go to college and just start working at a young age so that they get straight on to that baby-making. I am sure that everyone at Heritage, and their many fine rich donors stand behind this and refuse to put any of their children through college, insisting that they get out there and get a job. But I get the feeling this is aimed at the poors.

Proposals to cut subsidized student loan programs should therefore be seen as key pro-fertility policies.

The actual agenda here--  "An Education Reform Agenda to Increase the Married Birth Rate and Support Families"

Here's what Burke and Greene say the states should do.

Adopt Universal School Choice.

Well, not choice exactly. But if taxpayers would fund religious private schools so that more students would attend them, more students would grow up religious and go through the "success sequence" by graduating high school, getting married, getting a job, and then having kids, just like Jesus wanted them to. 

Eliminate Teacher Certification Requirements

Speaking of too much emphasis on college, how about teachers? Why get certification? Just let school leaders hire folks "whom they deem to have sufficient subject-matter expertise to teach in K–12 classrooms" so that teachers can get straight to baby-making (though I'm not aware of certification lengthening teacher college time). They cite some research from reformsters that I am not going to take time to chase here to argue that certification doesn't make teachers any better. 

Eliminate Bachelor’s Degree Requirements for State Government Work.

Eliminate degree requirements for government work, because surely a high school diploma is enough. Hell, over the next four years, we may find that a high school diploma is too much. 

Eliminate PLUS loan programs

Both Grad and Parent loan programs should be tanked. Go get a private loan, or a job. 

So, to summarize our argument so far, in K-12, lack of resources should not deprive families of educational choices, but after high school, if you are too poor for college, tough noogies. Also, if government aid causes tuition inflation in colleges, will it do the same in K-12 (spoiler alert: yes).

End Student Loan Cancellation

This seems backwards--after all, if you want young adults to stop worrying about their debt and start making the babies, making the debt go away seems like a productive choice. But the authors are afraid that such largesse encourages more debt. Better to make sure that young men and women understand right up front that college will mean crippling debt, and maybe they should just not bother with such aspirations beyond their class and get on with the job and the baby making.

Revive Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Programs (IRAPs) to Expand Apprenticeships.

Also an excellent path to getting to work and making babies sooner without wasting time at college.

Good Lord in Heaven 

So many questions, and so little curiosity. Why are young adults putting off family stuff? What are the economic and cultural factors? Are there any patterns surrounding where, and among whom, this does or doesn't happen? Are there other policies that could support family formation, like doing something about the world's worst family leave, plus other measures that would make it possible for women to have a family and a job (maybe even make it as easy as it is for men)? What about minimum wage? Are there any possible solutions that fall outside the preferred social engineering policies of right wingers? How effective are religious schools at creating religious adults? Are there any actual data connecting college and late-starting families? If college is an issue, are there other policy solutions to the weight of extra years and financial burdens? What does the data tell us about who does and doesn't follow the "success sequence" and why? What does the data tell us about people who follow the sequence and end up with a crappy job and a family they can't support (and is that related to a reliable supply of meat widgets who can't afford to leave no matter how poorly their employers treat them)? What is really behind the drop in church attendance in this country (hint: there are whole books about this)? How do schools add religion without needing a government bureau of religion approval? Wouldn’t increased immigration be a possible help here? Oh, and do private voucher systems produce good educational results that benefit society as a whole?

There is a whole lot of territory to cover in questions about national birth rates, national religiosity, college and university policies, changes in family structure, and credentialling for various professions. But Greene and Burke show no interest in actually examining these areas--they are simply intent on hewing out a path that leads to their pre-selected conclusions. 

Do they hit on some worthy points along the way, like the effects of over-selling college to a generation? Sure. But mostly they craft an incurious case to support the policies they want to support. This "report" is just a blog post in a tux.

One thing to note--this adds to the list of items revealing some sort of baby panic on the right, an apparent fear that they will somehow run out of pliable meat widgets. It lurks around forced birth policies, the end of child labor laws, the attempts to create parallel education system (one for the haves and one for the have-nots), as well as the concern that a social safety net makes it too easy for the poors to walk away from crappy jobs. The hum and buzz suggest that a certain sector of the country is really worried that they're going to run out of cheap laborers, that our meat widget supply is in trouble. Whether Greene and Burke share that fear or are simply playing on it to sell taxpayer subsidies for religious schools is up for debate