Can All Culture War Combatants Agree On This?

Earlier this week, I posted this thread on Twitter, and it drew an interesting assortment of reactions.

The issue of teachers' beliefs in the classroom looks a lot different in a small town/community setting. A thread. 1/

 
There's a popular notion that teachers shouldn't bring their beliefs into the classroom. In my neck of the woods, that's virtually impossible. For example: 2/

 
For roughly half of my career, I was also a columnist for the local newspaper. My personal beliefs are not exactly a well-kept secret. 3/

 
For all of my career, I taught the children and grandchildren of people I grew up with. I taught my own children, and my children's friends. It is unlikely that my personal beliefs and values could be a well-kept secret. 4/

 
For many years, a history teacher in my school was also the mayor of the town. In a neighboring district, a teacher is the head of the county Democratic party. 5/

 
The small town thing about few secrets is real. Single teachers can't hide who they date, or where, or when. Everybody knows where you go to church (or if you don't). 6/

 
The multiple connections are endless. You spend time with students' parents in the church choir, the grocery store, the community organizations. I cannot set foot in a local business without encountering students or their families. 7/

 
In short, the notion that a teacher could keep their personal life and the beliefs that go with it somehow walled off from their classroom, that they could present in school as a blank, belief-free "professional" is a non-starter. 8/

 
All that said, I absolutely agree with those who say that a teacher is not hired by the public to preach a particular set of beliefs to students. 9/

 
It's not only wrong, but in high school at least, highly counterproductive (just ask my 10th grade social studies teacher, who tried to convince us that the war in Vietnam was immoral). 10/

 
So what do you do? First, own who you are while remembering always that your classroom is not about you. It's about the students. 11/

 
It's not great to model pretending that you don't believe what you believe. It's bad practice to do any version of "But enough about prepositions. Let's talk about me." 12/

 
My practice (not that I'm the God of Teaching) was 2 insist on a classroom rule of respect, an atmosphere in which it was safe to think whatever you thought. In that context, it was okay 2 challenge what other people said (including me), but not simply attack it or the person 13/

 
My ideal was a classroom in which students could learn how to have productive and useful conversations with people with whom they disagreed. 14/

 
And as an ELA and writing teacher, it was absolutely critical to foster an atmosphere of free exchange and expression. You can't do that if only some students are allowed to say some things. 15/

 
As a teacher, you have to know and be aware of your own stuff, to know where your personal triggers are so that you're prepared to step back and take a breath--because your personal stuff can come in the classroom, but it can't overrule professional judgment. 16/

 
(And yes, I'm aware of the irony here--that my pluralistic respect-required classroom reflected my own set of values, and I'm okay with that) 17/

 
The goal is a classroom in which all students are safe to be who they are and express who they think. There are many paths to that classroom. 18/

This thread was, for me, a pretty popular one. And what struck me was the range of people chiming in in agreement, from many camps in the culture debates. 

Could this be an area in which we all have a broad agreement, I thought. Well, okay-- I thought that for about three seconds. 

We have some broad agreement on the principles (well, those of us participating in these discussions in good faith, which is unfortunately not all of us), but we have some pretty serious disagreements about what the principle looks like in practice.

For instance, I do not think that Jenna Barbee, the teacher who showed some fifth graders a movie with gay characters in it, crossed the line I described above. In fact, I'd argue that banning the movie is the greater offense. How do all students feel safe in a classroom if their own (or their family's) identity is rendered invisible or declared? And yet, for some on the anti-inclusion side, any acknowledgement that LGTQ persons exist is "ramming it down our throats." 

I don't think the AP teacher in South Carolina who has been slammed for teaching a unit around Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me crossed the line either the reporting may be incomplete, but in what I've read, there is room for discussion of the works and ideas. The key question is not "did the teacher bring up a topic I don't like or which makes me uncomfortable." The key question is, "Is it safe to disagree with the idea in this work?"

The lady who wanted Amanda Gorman's poem banned? She's on the wrong side of this. A Christian teacher who wants to convert her students is on the wrong side, as is the atheist teacher who wants to disabuse their students of faith of their ideas. I don't know what we do with people who insist that a pride flag is a "symbol of aggression against straight people." 

So while we can agree that the classroom should be a safe space for students, we have little agreement on what safe means. I'd say there's a big difference between "place where you can question what other folks say" and "place where nobody can question what you say." There's a big difference between "free to speak out" and "free from having to hear anyone else speak out." There's a big difference between "I can challenge other peoples' beliefs" and "Nobody can challenge my beliefs."

"I'm right, so my way should get to control the conversation," is not a useful approach. The notion that there should be different rules for people who are right and people who are wrong is not a useful--or a principled approach. 

There is a huge gulf between "this value should not be required" and "this value should not be presented at all." And yet some folks are unable (or unwilling) to make that distinction. 

Ultimately, I think the issue comes down to conflicting views of reality, twice over. First, there is the conflict between differing views of what is true (e.g. flat earth vs. globe). Second, there is the conflict between differing views of how to handle differing views (e.g. discussion and exploration allowing persons to make up their own minds vs. shout down, repress, silence, obliterate any expression of the "wrong" view). It is no surprise that we are having this conflict in schools, because schools exist downhill from the culture, and that's where we are as a society. 

All of this, it should be exacerbated by opportunistic bad actors that see benefits in pouring gasoline on all of these fires.

Nor is the discussion made easier by people who are not consistent within their own belief system. Some folks argue both that adult concerns should not take priority over student needs and also that parental rights must be prioritized. You can't do both. Nor is there any question at this point that the parental rights movement is concerned only with certain select parents. It's hard to have any kind of meaningful discussion with people whose words don't really mean what they say.

So I know what I think the words above mean-- that we allow students to safely discuss and encounter any and all ideas in an atmosphere based on respectful treatment of all. But I suspect some of the people who liked it were thinking, "Yeah, get those guys over there to knock it off so students can be taught The Truth," which is counter to what I wrote. 

In the end, I believe that the whole "Only teach students the One Truth so that they grow up to view the world the way I want them to" is not just immoral and unethical, but it just plain doesn't work. One way or another, reality wins; even when someone seems to be beating it away, the cost of denial is steep. 

And this ought to be good news, because if what you've latched on is true, then sooner or later, allowed the chance to discuss and explore and puzzle, people will converge on that truth. Conversely, if your truth has to be protected from every single piece of dissent, every piece of contrary evidence, every contact with a larger world, then what kind of weak, fragile truth is it? Reality is made of sterner stuff.

Well, I'm wandering. The bottom line is that if you are trying to promote a singular view in a classroom, either by barring Certain Ideas from entering or forcing Certain Ideas as requirements, you're messing up. If you are privileging the promotion or prevention of Certain Ideas over the growth and nurture of young minds, then those young minds are not really your primary concern, no matter what you say. 

Feds Tells SCOTUS To Let Charter School Remain Public

I have written more than I care to about the Peltier v. Charter Day School case, a case that is nominally about an antediluvian dress code but has ended up hinging on a bigger question-- are charter schools really public schools? 

Charter Day School says no. After the case worked its way up through the court system, with rulings to and fro, it finally arrived before the full panel of the U.S.4th Circuit Court of Appeals, where the word was that yes, charter schools are public schools--and therefor don't get to violate things like Title IX.

That view very much gets in the way of things like the hope of some to establish religious charter schools (and in fact this whole business may be tested via another avenue) as well as just generally allowing charter schools to ignore certain laws when they're in the mood. And so the multinational law firm backing this case immediately asked to take their show before the Supreme Court.

The Supremes have shown a bit of reluctance to leap right onto the case (a surprise, given their willingness to just make shit up in order to okay staff-led public prayer in public schools) and asked the Biden administration to offer their opinion on whether or not SCOTUS should take up the case. 

That was back in January. In May, the feds offered an answer.

They say "the writ of certiorari should be denied," which means "don't take the appeal" which means the 4th Circuit decision that the charter school is a public school (and therefor has to follow the rules) should stand.

Their brief's argument comes in three parts:

A) The court was right to decide that the school's enforcement of its dumb dress code was, in fact, a state action.

A holding that CDS is not a state actor would allow States to evade constitutional constraints by delegating core governmental functions to private entities. West specifically addressed this concern, noting that a State cannot relieve itself “of its constitutional duty to provide adequate medical treatment to those in its custody” by “[c]ontracting out prison medical care.” 487 U.S. at 56. As the court of appeals noted below, that concern applies equally here, because a finding of no state action would mean that “North Carolina could outsource its educational obligation to charter school operators, and later ignore blatant, unconstitutional discrimination committed by those schools.” Pet. App. 17a.

Calling a charter school "not really a state actor" would allow charters and indeed the state itself to do all sorts of naughty things by simply hiring someone else to do it. "Yeah, we know we can't deny Black children an education, so we just hired Aryan Nation Charter Chain to handle it for us."

Nor was the court impressed by the argument that a "public charter school" is pretty much like a "public utility" or a "public access channel" on cable. 

B) The decision does not warrant review. 

Lots of lawyerspeak in this one, but I did pick out that the feds say that the petitioners are big overdramatic snowflakes when they claim that the decision of the 4th Circuit poses an existential threat to charters everywhere, that it will expose charter operators to "the slow strangulation of litigation." 

This is a baloney argument that amounts to a claim that charter schools could not possibly function if they were forced to live under the same rules as every single public school in the country. Or as the brief puts it, "there is no incompatibility between encouraging educational innovation and respecting students' constitutional rights."

Also, the feds point out, it's not like court cases haven't called charter schools public schools before. It's just that this time it's inconvenient for the charter school involved.

C) The case would be a poor vehicle for considering the question presented.

It's not entirely clear that reversing the decision would solve anything--the charter school might still lose any attempt to maintain its ripped-from-the-1950s dress code.

So the feds say to SCOTUS, "Don't bother. Just let the ruling stand." 

It remains to be seen what SCOTUS will decide to do (or not do), and hard to divine what they might decide if they do hear the case, even as there's plenty of disagreement about what the preferred outcome might be. Stay tuned. 

Koch's West Virginia Voucher Mountain

In Education Next, Garrett Ballengee offers a metaphor for the pursuit of vouchers, and in doing so gives us some practically-honest hints about what a voucher-based education system would look like. The summit of Mount Everest, he says, saying that passing a universal education savings account (aka voucher) law is just setting up the base station. 

Well, no.

First, a little background on Ballengee himself, and the outfit he's attached to. 

He's the inaugural grand poobah of the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy. The right wing thinky tank was founded in 2014. Board chairman is Keith Pauley, an engineer who has worked from Beijing to Houston. Vice chair is Karen Bailey-Chapman, who has worked for Americans for Tax Reform (Grover "Drown government in the bathtub" Norquist) and the Center for Individual Freedom (she commutes between WV and DC, which is where LinkedIn lists her home). She's a coms and lobbying pro. 

The board also includes former senator Bill Cole, the guy who made West Virginia a right to work state, Jim Shaffer, who led WV welfare "reform," and Ed Gaunch, former senator and secretary of the WV Department of Commerce. You can see which way this wind is blowing.

The actual staff includes Adam Kissel, senior fellow. Kissel was a deputy assistant secretary for higher ed under Betsy DeVos, defense director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and a senior program officer at the Charles Koch Foundation. He's also a visiting fellow in higher ed reform for the Heritage Foundation these days, as well as the chairman of the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board.

Policy Analyst Jessica Dobrinsky Harris only graduated from WVU in 2020 (Bachelor's in Criminology), but she's been busy-- Charles Koch Institute internship and healthcare reporter for the Washington Examiner.  Kyle Hanlin, director of development, has worked for the North Carolina Republican Party, Nevada Policy Research Institute, Citizens Against Government Waste and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Comms and Social Media guy Nathaniel Phipps has a 2021 MBA from Regent University (formerly known as Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network University) where he worked in admissions before getting into campaign work. He just started in May. Amanda Kieffer, communications director, was another Koch Associate after she graduated from Liberty University.

Jesi Troyan, Director of Policy and Research, is about the only staffer who wasn't hire in the past couple of years. The rest were hired in the last three years; back before 2018, Sourcewatch found Ballngee as the sole employee. Why did they go on a hiring spree? Where did they get a bunch more money? Their 990 forms report that in 2021 they took in $786,037--roughly double of any previous year since 2017 (prior to that, they took in even less). But I will note that West Virginia's education savings account voucher program, one of the most massive in the country, was approved in 2021-- and their origin story is all about pushing ESA vouchers. 

Ballengee has the kind of conservative credentials one would need to run with this crowd. American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network. BS in Finance from WVU. Former KIP and KAP (that's Koch Internship and Associate Programs) and a Stand Together Fellowship (new brand name for Koch Institute) alum. Here he is plugging choice in an op-ed co-written by the Stand Together executive director. And what book does he say "opened my way to a different way of thinking"? Why, Atlas Shrugged, of course.

So we've got the picture now-- Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy (which belongs to the State Policy Network) is a Koch organization. 

Cardinal Institute is all for the usual Koch version of liberty. They are pushing a West Virginia Miracle, and the four pillars are "Economic Freedom, Labor Freedom, Education Freedom, and Montani Semper Liberi - a culture of freedom." They would like to promote "limited government, economic freedom, and personal responsibility." They've got a podcast-- "Forgotten America." And they promise a "new paradigm"--

An “island” of poverty in the wealthiest country the world, West Virginia’s brighter future depends on a new paradigm – a new way of looking at the world with new ideas and a philosophy built on innovation, human flourishing, and a recognition that freedom is the greatest alleviator of poverty the world has ever seen. Ours is a philosophy built on the entrepreneur, the tinkerer in the garage, and the idea that small government means more room for people to create and build their own futures.

It's a curious pitch in a state that is not exactly known for government overreach. West Virginia is a state with a history of labor struggles and a history of state government that exerts its power mostly to aid guys like Charles Koch. Regular people have always had plenty of room in this state that is renowned for its poverty-- worst health, worst education levels, worst employment, and geography that makes it hard for basic infrastructure like roads and water and electricity and internet to reach some citizens. (And at least one community gutted by the departure of its WVU college campus--but hey, they're free now.) It's hard to imagine that any of these problems would be solved by less government, but libertarians gotta libertarian.

So what does Ballengee say about Mount Everest?

In his Education Next piece, Ballengee comes close to honesty about the larger goals of his particular arm of the school voucher movement. 

There is a common misconception among education reform advocates that passing universal choice legislation is akin to summiting Mount Everest. Upon universal choice’s enactment into law, it is done. Time to exhale and pop the champagne, for the mountain has been scaled.

In other words, voucher laws are not the end game. Simply making a voucher program available is not enough.

Next, the program has to be pushed and promoted. There will be a surge, then a steady growth "as families become aware of the program and hear from neighbors, fellow church attendees, and other connections about their new options" (just in case you had doubts about voucher ties to religion). But awareness must be built and PR must be provided to popularize the program.

Failure for an education choice program does not often come in the form of mistakes, fraud, or incompetence. More frequently, the problems are apathy and ignorance.

I don't know. There's an awful lot of fraud and incompetence in the school choice world. Nor am I sure how the lack of interest in a choice program is not the same thing as a lack of market demand. But of course modern marketing means creating a demand for your product. So, Ballengee asserts, somebody will need to work on that.

Someone will also need to build/attract a supply of educational "providers." "Help private schools sign up," he says, skipping over the question of why a successful private school would want to sign up. Somebody has to reach out to edupreneurs and get them signed up, too. Basically, be an education broker.

Now that choicers need to spend less time lobbying legislators, "the nexus of a successful program [he means a privatizing program, not an educational program] will shift somewhat from legislative considerations, lobbying, and bill design towards family outreach and relationship cultivation, specific government agency relationships, and broad marketing campaigns."

Also, you'll have to prepare for those "legions of entities" looking to "besmirch" the program (public education establishment, unions, union-friendly media). 

 

And this--

You have to figure out how – not if – to help the families about to embark on this journey for the first time...

You must figure out how to manage each “case” not only for the sake of the family and child but also for the overall health of the program.

There will be grandparents who have never used a computer now asked to upload a birth certificate on their grandchild’s behalf. There will be parents with limited education who know only one thing when it comes to navigating this fresh bureaucratic concoction: “my child needs something different.” Be sympathetic, but, more importantly, develop competence.

Learn the law and accompanying statutes backwards and forwards or find someone who does. You must have a path or contact for families to use. “I don’t know the answer, but I know someone who might” will become one of the most useful phrases in your reform handbook.

In short, Ballengee is outlining all the new business opportunities available on the mountaintop voucher peak. The only one he left out was the booming business in K-12 education loans for all those parents for whom state's voucher won't cover the cost of their education provider. Not only will government stop providing public education, but there are many opportunities to make a buck or ten in the newly free and unregulated marketplace of education stuff.

The Koch mountaintop

Because here's what "freedom" means on Koch mountain-- you are free to try to get to the top if you can, and I am free to ignore any of your problems (unless you pay me to help you), because the dream remains a world in which I have no responsibility to my fellow travelers on the earth (and certainly don't have to pay taxes to provide services for Those People). 

Ballengee isn't going to have any discussion of how well vouchers work as far as education goes (hint: not very well). But that's okay, because, as he says, "education choice is good and a moral necessity." I'm of the opinion that guaranteeing each child a decent education is the moral necessity, and, as always, I question the assumption that "education choice" must somehow involve the free market, one of the great unexamined assumptions of the modern choicer movement. Are choice and freedom important values in life? Damn right they are--which is why we as a society bear a responsibility for getting every child an education that will help them freely access more choices.

In the end, Ballengee's mountain is one that Ayn Rand would probably approve of.

Though the last few steps up the mountain are the steepest and most difficult, they are also closest to what we are looking for when we embark on our journey: helping children find their own path to their own personal summit.

In other words, I've got my summit, Jack. Go find your own. 

"Helping" I suppose could mean choice advocates just helping out of the goodness of their hearts (though their hearts, bless them, don't know much about actual education). But I suspect that help will be provided, for a price (or a cut of your voucher), to those who can find it and access it while navigating a sprawling unregulated complicated marketplace. It's funny, because another thing we could do is collect all the experts in delivering education under one roof, where they'd be easy to find. And we could pay them with public tax dollars, and recruit and hire them with the understanding that they are there to help students climb their own personal mountain. But then some of us would have to pay taxes to fund it, and they might not be willing to make it all about christianist ideas. 

So instead, Koch-trained folks imagine a mountain, an Everest. By the way, do you know what Everest looks like these days? It's a crowded mess of wealthy, resource-rich tourists who are hiring someone else to guide them. Well, that's Everest.

The peak of the school voucher mountain looks a lot like wealthy, well-resourced folks looking down at the folks struggling on the slopes of other mountains and saying, "Well, don't they look free. I wonder if they'll make it."

The Two Faces of Hillsdale

Hillsdale has conflicted ideas about money--specifically money that has been handled by the government.

Oh, no. I just couldn't

Hillsdale College, Michigan's favorite right wing christianist private college, sends out regular e-mail messages from its president, Larry "Teachers Are The Dumbest" Arnn, and I'm no that list. 

In his latest missive, Arnn underlines one of the colleges signature features-- they don't accept federal money in any way, shape or form, including aid to students. They have their reasons.

The kind of education offered at Hillsdale College is rare in America today. There are several reasons for this. Let me mention two important ones.

One reason is that, since the 1960s, radical Leftists have come to dominate many American colleges and universities. They reject the classical liberal arts curriculum and instead seek to promote a progressive ideology.

Another reason is the massive amount of taxpayer funding of colleges and universities—funding that comes with regulatory strings attached.

By contrast, ever since direct federal taxpayer funding first became available to colleges and universities in the 1950s, Hillsdale has refused to accept such funds.

Over the years, our Board of Trustees has pledged several times to resist any attempts by the government to regulate its internal affairs. Hillsdale was almost alone in seeing the dangers posed by federal funding.

So, there will be no money following the student onto Hillsdale's campus. (Instead, they need supporters to open their checkbook to help provide their own student aid.)

When it comes to K-12 charter schools, Hillsdale has different feelings about accepting taxpayer money that has passed through government hands. 

Okay, maybe I will.

For just one example, their intent to put five charter schools in Tennessee could involve them siphoning something like $35 million in taxpayer dollars from the state (with dreams of ten times that). 

I'm not aware of any instance where a Hillsdale charter was proposed or opened with the caveat "we will not accept any taxpayer funding." And really, if that were the goal, it would be much easier to set up private schools that operated outside of the public school funding system (and refuse, of course, to accept any taxpayer dollars packaged as vouchers). Hillsdale does a tiny bit of that (but not the voucher refusal part).

Of course, some "Hillsdale charters" are owned and operated by other folks who are just using the Hillsdale materials for their school. And it's entirely possible that Hillsdale has greater trust is state-level government to keep its mitts off theirs school; a reasonable assumption, given that many states have enshrined a mitts-off clause in voucher laws. 

Still, it's hard to see how exactly the creation of schools that depend on taxpayer dollars for their very existence squares with Arnn's promise to "remain a beacon of genuine independence." Because Hillsdale's charter schools are not particularly independent at all.

ICYMI: Summer's Here Edition (6/11)

In our neighborhood, school's out, the Board of Directors (coming off their birthday celebration) have begun summer vacation, the CMO starts her summer gig next week, and I am once again confronting my backwards thinking about summers. It's one of the things I have not managed to shift since retiring--I still think of summer as the time when I can put some of my extra time into projects that I haven't quite launched. As any stay-at-home parent of school age children can tell you, that is exactly backwards. 

But there's still time to read. Here's some highlights of the week.

It’s Long Past Time to End the Tyranny of High-Stakes Testing in Public Education

Damn straight. Nora dela Cour at Jacobin is singing my song. Let's be done with these things.

Voucher truths

I don't generally link you to Twitter items, but this two minute video from Stephen Owens is the best two minutes you'll watch about school vouchers. 

Arizona's fuzzy math spells trouble for school vouchers

One of the recurring issues with voucher programs is that they turn out to be waaaayyyyy costlier than promised. Especially in states like Arizona, where you're eligible even if you never set foot in a public school before. Rhonda Cagle at AZCentral has some figures. 

Iowa school voucher applications surpass expectations, cost likely to follow

Just in case you thought Arizona was an aberration...

New Oklahoma Religious Charter School Will Once Again Test the Constitution’s Protection of the Separation of Church and State

Jan Resseger looks at Oklahoma's new venture in unconstitutional school funding.

Prayers recited at Berkeley Co. School Board meetings cause chaos

They're getting cranky in South Carolina, as the "moment of silence" takes on a new format.

More on Walton and Barr Stakes in Voices for Academic Equity

Maurice Cunningham just keeps tracking the money in Massachusetts, which provides lessons for the other 49 states.

New HISD leadership hires New York consulting firm to transform district

The state takeover of Houston schools continues to be ugly, but lots of folks are drooling at their prospects. Kennedy Sessions reports for the Chronicle.

The Indoctrination Paradox

Paul Thomas wonders exactly who is being indoctrinated, how, and where.

ETS and Carnegie Team Up for ‘Zombie’ Ed Policy

Competency-based education will not go away, and as Thomas Ultican reports, it has a couple of big time boosters these days.

Can a State Reading Program Be a Success if Students are Segregated and Hungry?

Nancy Bailey asks some important questions about "fixing" reading instruction in Mississippi.

Khanmigo

Khan academy plus ChatGPT! What could possibly be wrong about that? Gregory Sampson has some thoughts.

High school seniors sneak into principal's house and spend the night in epic prank

"Epic" is an overused word, but I think it fits here. And there's video.

I was busy at Forbes this week. I looked at

-- Oklahoma's new religious charter

-- An NPE report about the rising tide of right wing charters

-- The cases on the horizon that could change the religious charter game

And as always, you can sign up for all my usual posting here and there on Substack.

Be Careful What You (Say You) Wish For

AKA: Why can't we just have the real conversation about the real issues on the table.

Legislators and advocacy groups promoting anti-inclusive bills across the country have mostly known that they shouldn't say what they want to say, so they have been saying stupid things instead. That has simply contributed to an atmosphere of blurry, shouty argument. I'm not an Ingrid Jacques fan, but she was correct when in her USA Today essay, she complained that the book ban debate has reduced the sides to "fascists" and "groomers," and this serves no one, least of all the students.

There should be plenty of room for an honest, nuanced discussion about appropriateness when it comes to the age of the reader and the content of the book. And while both sides are guilty of tossing out nuance, honesty took its first big hit when states started passing their various versions of reading restriction laws.

The laws have been spectacularly vague. Barring "instruction" about "gender identity and sexual orientation" is a law that absolutely nobody can follow. The impact of the law comes from the silent "non-heterosexual." Lawmakers wanted to ban LGBTQ stuff, but mostly they haven't had the nerve to say so. The laws can be extra chilling when any individual can charge a school or teacher with violation. That extra chill--that effect of making schools and teachers too scared to come anywhere near the fuzzy and unclear line--is only part of the desired outcome.

The citizen enforcement of these rules is to promise every hyper-conservative crank in the base that they can personally stop anything from happening of which they disapprove. So you can argue all day that the word "gay" doesn't appear anywhere in Florida's Don't Say Gay law, but at the end of the day one lady in a district can come after a teacher for screening a Disney movie that merely shows two gay characters existing--and then use that as further ammunition to against the superintendent she wants to get rid of. 

It's administration that ends up getting really hit. Jacques and other conservatives like to argue that Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem wasn't "banned," it was just moved out of reach of certain lower grades. But that's only because the administration held the line--the request filed by the woman asked that the book be "removed from the total environment."

The new rules aren't stupid just because they don't say what they really mean. They also, stupidly, invite "abuse" by their opponents.

Remember when, as the ink was drying on Don't Say Gay, Moms for Liberty freaked out over a supposed template for a letter being circulated by teachers?

While this letter turned out to be simply trolling, it is correct. It is the partner to the Missouri legislator who could not decide if it would be okay to refer to Martha Washington as George Washington's wife. Traditional gender roles are, in fact, gender roles. Heterosexuality is a sexual orientation. The only thing sillier than trying to ban such content is the folks who insist that they don't use pronouns.

Utah gave parents the power to get a book banned, and the immediate results were absolutely predictable. In one district, a parent has challenged the Book of Mormon. There's also considerable fuss over the banning of the Bible. The parent who called for that ban was pretty clear about his thinking:

"I thank the Utah Legislature and Utah Parents United for making this bad faith process so much easier and way more efficient," the parent said in the complaint. "Now we can all ban books and you don’t even need to read them or be accurate about it. Heck, you don’t even need to see the book!"

The writer of the law, Rep. Ken Ivory, is now thinking he needs to rework it a bit. Not, mind you, to make it less stupid, but to make it more political, by giving the final say to the elected board members instead of a separate book review committee. A world in which each new school board re-decides which books are or are not acceptable? There's no way that could end badly.

This is the oldest Dumb Political Idea in the world--invest a political power in an office without ever stopping to imagine what might happen if the other team gets ahold of that office and that power. 

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, where they've now approved a Catholic-run religious charter school, folks are lined up to walk through that door. Both the Satanic Temple and Hindu leaders have expressed their intention to join in. 

Attorney General Gentner Drummond warned the state:

While many Oklahomans undoubtedly support charter schools sponsored by various Christian faiths, the precedent created by approval of [the Catholic charter school] application will compel approval of similar applications by all faiths, even those most Oklahomans would consider reprehensible and unworthy of public funding.

Why create these rules and laws that are so vague that they invite all sorts of consequences that their writers clearly did not desire? Why write stupid rules?

This, I'd argue, is the worst sort of politics. You don't say what you really mean, because if you do that you might get shot down. You might not get your way. So say whatever it takes, even if it's inaccurate, even if it's vague and sloppy, even if it's a lie--just so long as at the end of the process, you get to have your way. 

Bad faith just engenders more bad faith. A lack of seriousness, honesty and nuance does not make the world a better place for anyone on any team. But this is what the crafters of these laws and rules and ordinances asked for. Can't wait to see what comes next.

The Care of Humans

We have had a rough couple of weeks here, weeks that have provided ample opportunity to reflect on medical care. 

We talk about it in the abstract as if it's all a science, as if we can just give people a test, then just read the cut-and-dried results and then go to a book where we just cross-check those results on some chart that tells us that if the doctors do X then that will totally fix Y. 

But care of actual humans in the actual world doesn't look much like that. There are assorted tests to try and they give results which suggest a variety of possible issues that in turn suggest some possible responses. Add to those the moving target that is your own observation. Anyone who has had a loved one go through serious health issues knows the drill-- one minute you're thinking, "You know, this doesn't seem so bad. I bet we could go on down this road for a long time" and then ten minutes later it's "Oh, hell--I don't know if we can manage this for the rest of today." And on top of that, you add the fact that this is a loved one, a person you care about, and so all of what appears to be true bumps up against what you want to be true. 

Lord knows you want it to be easy, or at least clear, but you are dealing with the care of humans, and so you get occasional glimpses of clarity and certainty, just before the fog rolls in again.

Everyone is interested in reducing the care of humans to simple, scientific, evidence-based, rock-certain clarity. The humans there on the ground want it because God damn it this is hard to sort out when you're talking about the life and health and comfort of someone you love. The policy clowns in the clouds want it because they want to set their policies in stone, their procedures in concrete, because complexity and nuance is just tiresome and hard to sell. The bureaucrats in charge want it because it's just easier to run a business with fewer messy human variables in play. 

The best parts of the system are the places where you encounter someone who is bucking the system, ignoring the system, or has somehow negotiated a corner in the system where they can act like a human being who is dealing with human beings. Thank heaven we've encountered all of these in the past few weeks.

I get the desire for clarity and certainty when dealing with the care of humans. Lord, I get it. But that is not how the care of humans works. You find trained professionals, and you listen to their judgment, and then you fold that in with your own personal judgment, which includes your own knowledge of the specifics of the situation. You don't jettison any attempts to grab a picture of reality and fill in the blank with feelings and desires, but when you grab some reality, it is not facts alone that will tell you what exactly to do next. And then you move forward and just kind of keep your eyes and ears open.

Am I supposed to be writing about education? Okay, then.

You can't reduce education to settled cut and dried science, to some program where a teacher just looks at some numbers generated in order to have solid data, and then goes through the specific actions that will move the data needle in the required direction. You can't measure a human's educational progress in any way that reduces it to clear, simple, actionable data. You can't reduce the process of teaching to a clear, simple procedure that the teacher must simply follow "with fidelity" in order to get the required result out of every single student in the room. 

You cannot come up with policies, procedures and systems that eliminate all the human messiness and nuance from the educational process. But education in this country has suffered immeasurably at the hands of people who want to try, whose dream is schools that can be managed by screen and classrooms in which neither the humanity of the teacher nor of the students interferes with the smooth operation of the education machine. Let's stare at these high stakes tests scores, they say, as if staring at the toenail of an elephant will give you the complete picture of the animal itself. \

The care of humans, from the hospital to the classroom to the simple interaction with them in work and family, must be conducted in a human way by human beings. To treat humanity like a bug instead of a feature, to try to eliminate the human element is, by definition, dehumanizing, and dehumanized care of humans is Not A Good Thing. 

Yes, the human care of humans is messy and complicated and often results in debates and discussions that never reach a clear and perfectly settled conclusion. But a system that is perfectly clear, perfectly settled, perfectly flowing like a perfect machine is also perfectly inhuman, and that is no way to live.