OH: Yet Another Voucher Bill

Ohio last year joined the club of states with a universal voucher program that requires taxpayers to subsidize private schools even if the student being used as a courier comes from a wealthy family. But that's not quite enough for one Buckeye legislator.

Gary Click serves as pastor of the Fremont Baptist Temple. In 2020, he won a tightly contested GOP primary and then won the House 88th District seat by shellacking his Democratic opponent. He campaigned on Trumpy MAGAtude. He's on his second term. And he's put his name on a ton of bills this year, including arming firefighters, executing condemned prisoners via nitrogen hypoxia, and a couple of anti-trans bills. 

One other thing to know about Click-- he got his degree (Bachelor of Religious Education) from Midwestern Baptist College, an independent Baptist college in Orion, Michigan. They use the King James Bible exclusively and "will not tolerate any other." Founded in 1953, MBC is not accredited by any recognized accreditation body. As it turns out, that may be relevant.

While Click has his name on plenty of bills, one that he's the primary sponsor for is HB 339, a bill intended to establish the nonchartered savings account program.

Nonchartered schools are nonpublic schools that "because of truly held religious beliefs, choose to not be chartered by the State of Ohio." No word on how the state weeds out schools that don't hold their religious beliefs truly.

The bill has its interesting features, like a requirement that a participating school must "maintain a physical location in the state at which each student has regular and direct contact with teachers." 

But mostly, it is a double-dip into choicer concepts. 

First, it is one more means of requiring taxpayers to subsidize religious schools that choose to exist outside the state's system. As Click himself explains, they aren't chartered because they don't want to comply with any government mandates. But government money? That's not so bad.  

The bill includes the now-standard Hands Off language that explicitly forbids the state from attempting to "regulate the curriculum, instructional methods, or other aspects of the school's educational program." We have seen this movie already in multiple states, where the private school reserves the right to discriminate on the basis of religion, gender orientation, or things they don't even bother to explain. This bill comes with a slightly narrower list of allowable expenses, but as Ohio itself has demonstrated, once you have a law in place, it's easy to expand it.

Second, Click is proposing an educational savings account, the type of neo-voucher that has been implemented in states like Arizona and Florida, that allows families to take taxpayer dollars and spend them on a variety of education and education-adjacent expenses, which can end up being theme park tickets and cosmetics and a host of other iffy things. Click has included a means of following up on reports of abuse, but who is going to report abuse of the voucher money? 

Click argues that parents who choose these nonchartered schools "continue two pay twice for education; once through taxation and a second time through tuition." Choice fans never seem to make the leap from that reasoning to the question of why non-parents should pay taxes at all, but of course that would crash the whole system, vouchers and all. Meanwhile, I'm not satisfied with the coverage I'm getting from my local police department, so I would like to hire private security and bill the taxpayers. Also, the local park isn't quite nice enough, so I'd like to join an exclusive club with beautiful grounds, and I will be billing the taxpayers for that as well, because after all, why should I have to pay for those things twice?

Can Girls Get A Christian Classical Education

Among the ideas that percolate among some of the members of the conservative christianist world are the many concerns about the proper role of the womenfolk. 

It has bubbled up lately in the "trending" topic of tradwives, a sort of online white christianist conservative cosplay of an imaginery version of 1950's submissive stay-at-home child-rearing apron-wearing husband-serving woman (who, it seems, does have a lot of time for running her social media account). 

But tradwives are just a new iteration of a recycled idea, and I don't want to try to plumb the depths in a blog post--just look at one particular implication.

That little corner of the world has a lot of ideas about what women shouldn't be able to do, like, for instance. not get divorced. Or vote. 

You know women, with their big fat emotions and their tiny weak thinky parts. Joel Webbon of Right Response Ministries tweets that "women are more easily deceived than men" and that "the 19th Amendment was a bad idea." Bnonn Tennant, author of It's Good To Be A Man: A Handbook for Godly Masculinity, observed on Facebook that "Voting is an act of rulership" and "Since rulership is not given to women, women should not vote." Jesse Sumptor, another leader in that world, tweeted "Brothers, a friendly reminder for election s: make sure your wife votes exactly as you do." And Stephen Wolfe, author of The Case for Christian Nationalism, when asked if he would "affirm franchise for all adult men and women" replied "no." 

Steve Rabeyu, writing for the Roys Report ("Reporting the Truth, Restoring the Church"), pointed out that all of these men have ties to controversial conservative pastor Doug Wilson, and I really, really don't have time to get into the many many forms of controversy that the Idaho preacher has stirred up over the years, from asserting that American slavery fostered "genuine affection between the races" to his many, many, many explanations of the various ways that women are required to submit to their husbands. Or that time he referred to women who disagreed with him using the C word. As Elizabeth Preza wrote about Wilson:

His most famous aphorism is that God designed the male as the one who "penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.” He counsels married couples that sex is "not an egalitarian pleasuring party" so women shouldn't expect to enjoy it as much as men.

Wilson's wife Nancy observed, on the subject of a woman saying "no" that “A husband is never trespassing in his own garden.”

There was a fair amount of stir on the topic of women voting late in 2022 because they just had done so, and in ways that MAGA and Christian Nationalists did not care for. And we could talk about that, too.

But for our purposes right now, I want to point out one particular role that Doug Wilson has.

In 1981, Wilson helped launch the Logos School as founding board member and teacher, a school (later group of schools) "governed primarily by the word of God, as understood and applied by the schools Board of Directors and administration." He also founded a publishing house (Canon Press) which produced much of the homegrown materials that the school needed. A decade later, he wrote a book about Recovering The Lost Tools of Learning, and that in turn led to the formation of the Association of Classical Christian Schools, of which the Logos School is considered a leading example. Wilson was part of the leadership of The ACCS for many years, though he is not listed there now.

Classical Christian Education is a lot like regular classical education, but with more Jesus. Study the old white guy canon, focus on universal truths, emphasis on grammar, logic and rhetoric (the trivium), great books, and an emphasis on what's time tested. Plus a Biblical worldview. I didn't find a lot of explicit discussion about teaching women to know their proper childbearing and submissive place, but how could that not be part of the program? 

Wilson is a controversial figure, even within Christian circles, and the ACCS has at times taken pains to assert that Wilson is not a dominating voice in their association or movement. I have no desire to chase down the Doug Wilson rabbit hole, but the attitudes he espouses about women are clearly not hard to locate in the conservative christianist world.

In fact, this divide is likely to become more discussed if the latest research is accurate in telling us that women and men are diverging ideologically more than ever (and worldwide). 

All of which leads to the question that I do want to focus on-- what sort of Christian Classical Education can young women expect to get from institutions led by people who believe that women should not vote, should stay home and make babies, should live their lives in submission to men? The websites avoid the issue, even show pictures of happy girls learning, but how can the teaching not be influenced by a view that says girls may participate in education, but women should hush and know their place? 

We know the answer (not a great one), but it leads to another question-- should the United States taxpayers foot the bill for schools that teach young women that they are second class citizens, less-than humans who don't need all that fancy learnin' stuff cluttering up their brains and distracting them unnecessarily because, hey, if it's important, their man will tell them what to think and do, anyway. There's plenty of discussion, rightly, about racism and LGBTQ discrimination in the conservative schools movement, but we should also keep an eye on the misogynist elements as well. 

ICYMI: Ice Festival Edition (2/4)

Every year my small town has an ice festival, with carvings and a chili cook off and assorted other goodies. It's not he biggest festival you've ever seen, but it's fun and the Board of Directors enjoys the ice slide. This year the temperature is comfy and the sun is out, so it's a good time all around. 

Meanwhile, we've got some reading from this week. I haven't mentioned this in a long time, but I'm always on the lookout for folks writing about education, and if you have recommendations I would love to hear them. Even if you're thinking "Surely he reads this writer," holler anyway, because you just never know. It's a wide field and always changing. Just drop me a note in the comments.

Okay, here we go.

‘No Accountability’: Vouchers Wreak Havoc on States

Tim Walker, still writing for NEA after all these years! A good roundup of some of the voucher problems out there.

Educators wrestle with new limits on teaching Black history

It's Black History Month. Can you get away with teaching about Black history? Russell Contreras and Sommer Brugal look at the issue for Axios.

Pressed by Moms for Liberty, Florida school district adds clothing to illustrations in classic children's books

Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria at Popular Information looking at more panic over five year olds who might never have seen a penis before and then would ask about it!

Private Schools, Public Money: School Leaders Are Pushing Parents to Exploit Voucher Programs

Alec McGillis at ProPublica looks at how private schools are making sure they cash in on their new government subsidies. 

Exeter charter school closing amid investigation into alleged fraud and embezzlement

From New Hampshire, one more example of amateur hour fraudsters breaking into the charter school market. From Sarah Gibson at NHPR

HB109 and “State-Sponsored Pilfering” of Florida’s Public Schools

In Florida, one more way to rip off the taxpayers--give away their real estate by converting public schools to charters. Sue Kingery Woltanski has the story of this newest Florida pilferage.

The Damage Done

I have a hard time fitting podcasts into my week, but this latest edition of Have You Heard, in which Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider talk to Nora De La Cour about the fallout of test-centered reforms is well worth a  listen.

Activated

From The Bitter Southerner, a Tom Lee profile of a former homemaker and roller derby star who now makes good trouble on the school board. Dot Heffron is a heck of fighter, and the in depth look at her and the Virginia district where she's doing her thing is quite a read.

Moms for Liberty faces new challenges and growing pushback over its conservative education agenda

Even CNN has noticed that the Moms are struggling a bit. Here's a whole delightful article about it highlighting the work of STOP Moms for Liberty.

The Research-Practice Divide is Real. Here's How To Overcome It.

One more insightful piece about the divide, this one by Erik Ofgang.

Back To The Mines!

Kelly Weill, substacking at MomLeft, runs down the busting of child labor protections, and also notes that this movement has repercussions for adult workers as well. Don't worry about being replaced by a bot when you can be replaced by a cheaper teenager.

‘Teachers leaving faster than they can be replaced,’ reports Alaska Dept. of Labor

Is Alaska doing any better than the lower 48? No. No, they are not.

The Uber Rich Are Funding “National School Choice Week” to Attack Public Schools

Truthout looks back at National School Choice Week and the rich folks who fund it. You know about the DeVos family. Meet the Gleasons. 

School vouchers are a bad idea, and Pennsylvania should learn from other states’ cautionary tales.

Susan Spicka puts it all together in an op-ed that explains why Pennsylvania's governor should back away from the whole voucher thing. 

Policy Dialogue: The Meaning and Purpose of Public Education

A conversation between Carol Burris and Johann Neem. It's thoughtful, low on heat and high on light. Really worth a read.

Scenes from an Unopened Binder

Jose Luis Vilson imagines his future in a school where AI writes the lesson plans and teachers are supposed to implement them with fidelity.

Book Bans in the Real World

Steve Nuzum filed some FOIA requests to see what exactly is going on in the drive to ban books. The details are not encouraging.

Sharing the Peas

TC Weber continues to bring both a hard-eyed look at the shenanigans among Tennessee's education bureaucrats and the view of school choice from the perspective of a parent.

I assure you, an AI didn’t write a terrible “George Carlin” routine

You may have caught the headline that some AI created a George Carlin routine, and it wasn't good. That wasn't the whole story, and tech writer Cory Doctorow uses that story to remind us that one of the problems with AI is that it's an awful lot of smoke and mirrors and lies.

At Forbes.com, I looked at Iowa's discussion about making students sing the anthem and share schools with an unqualified chaplain. 

Join me over on substack! 

Pandemic Testophilia

For one brief, shining moment, even Betsy DeVos almost got it. In the spring of 2020, as the nation grappled with the realization that a couple weeks of lockdown were not going to get us past COVID-19, DeVos made one of her rare uses of the Us Department of Education's authority to offer a blanket waiver for states to skip the Big Standardized Test mandate. 

“Neither students nor teachers need to be focused on high-stakes tests during this difficult time. Students are simply too unlikely to be able to perform their best in this environment,” she said. Which was close to the truth that students and teachers simply had more important stuff to worry about. 

For a few moments, back before the pandemic became a political football, most of the country grasped that there were more important things for schools to be focused on than the annual Rite of Testage. 

But by the fall of 2020, the moment had passed. The BS Test would be required, DeVos declared, And the entire world of testophiles was poised to make sure that the pandemic interruption would be brief. Within a year, Learning Loss had been weaponized to help drive a sense of urgency that we had better get back to full on testing Right Now, and somehow this was all taken seriously despite the fact that it was all based on data from folks who make their living selling test materials. It was as if a blue ribbon panel of heroin addicts and dealers announced that the nation has a terrible heroin shortage.

Testophiles in the media have helped to feed the manufactured sense of urgency. The New York Times has always loved it some BS Test mandates. It's a leading manufacturer of NAEP panic, with absurd declarations that "the pandemic erased two decades of progress in math and reading." It's a foolish claim for a variety of reasons, but it fully captures the notion that schools exist not to provide an education for students, but to crank out annual scores, like some sort of BS Test stock market. 

They are still at it, with a new article about a "surprising" rebound for students (who is surprised, other than people like the Times that tried to rouse test support by screaming about a "crisis"), an article that does not actually look at students at all, but focuses on test scores, using charts that absurdly render test scores as years "behind" and talking to corporate testocrats like Thomas Kane and Margaret Spellings. 

Nothing has changed about testophilia in the last twenty-some years. It still assumes that the most important focus of education is the cranking out of Big Standardized Test scores. It is still a narrow, cramped, meager view of education. It is still the greatest toxic force in the country's public schools. 

Testophilia reduces everything not-on-the-test to secondary importance in schools, organizing priorities not around educational richness or variety or depth, but around what is on the BS Test.

Testophilia has reconfigured and gutted the teaching of English, producing a generation of students who haven't read entire works of literature because they've been too busy reading short context-free excerpts and answering sets of reading "skills" multiple choice questions.

BS Testing gets us scripting and lockstep instruction and teacher-proof canned curriculum which are all not so much about education as they are about training students to get better scores on the tests.

And in the post-pandemic world, we face a generation of children who have been through a variety of disruptive events and displayed a variety of results including rampant absenteeism and in-school misbehavior, and testophilia insists that of all the challenges faces students, the one we should be focusing on is their test scores. 

And none of this is what parents want for their children or students want for themselves. Former students talk to me often; none of them say, "Boy, what I really treasure from my time in your class is that work we did to get ready for the state test." No parent says, "I hope that my child can learn to be happy and productive and feel smart and brave and just generally become their best self, but none of that is as important to me as making sure that they do well on that state test."

If it seems as if I'm saying the same things about the Big Standardized Test that I've been saying for years--well, I am, and so are others. Dammit, Daniel Koretz's 2018 book The Testing Charade ought to be out of date and it's not. But testocrats and testophiles are pumping out the same old baloney, still insisting that we can't possibly know how students are doing without test results (except that one, tests don't tell us what they claim to, and two, they don't tell us anything we can't learn other, better ways). Gosh, they still say, test results help us focus resources where they're needed (except that one, they mostly don't and two, the resources they do focus are aimed at test scores). 

Test results will help teachers teach, and tell parents the Truth about how their students are really doing. Except that the data generated in vague and minimall and, in most cases, way too late to be useful. 

We get the same bullshit about how lower test scores mean lower life earnings and the education that the BS Test allegedly measures will somehow fix economic inequality (it won't). Or we get new bullshit about how we will reduce testing by doing more testing (a variation on the old "sure, we'll deprioritize this but not really").

Yes, sure, the BS Test has its place, perhaps, as one more measure in a robust and balanced multi-pronged assessment system, one data point among others. But we are so far from that, so very very far from that, like someone siting in Capetown arguing, "Yeah, under certain circumstances this could be a stop on the road from Cleveland to Seattle." 

I hate that we're still here, hate that we've now been at it so long that a generation of students have grown up and gone to teacher school thinking that test-centered schools are normal, hate that folks who want to dismantle public education can point to what the BS Test has done to public schools as a selling point for vouchers. I hate that testophilia has empowered bad school administrators and made it some kind of radical stance in some schools to want to offer students a full rich education. I hate most of all how testophiles and testocrats have dehumanized education, treating what is most rich and rewarding and joyful and humane about education as some sort of irrelevant and distracting because it's not On The Test, hate that at this moment of crisis and opportunity when students need a more humane educational system, the testophiles are out there screaming, "no, no, don't do that! Get back over to that testing stuff!" I hate that it has changed--for the worse-- the whole idea of what school is for.

Schools and students and teachers have more important things to be focused on than the Big Standardized Test. If only policymakers could realize that. 

Inquiry Vs. Direct Instruction

It's the fight that doesn't need to be a fight, the debate that is solved in the classroom (as so many classroom strategies are) by finding balance between various techniques rather than an absolute victory by any one.

Are we supposed to use direct instruction, with teachers dispending and explaining to students, or should we use inquiry, letting the students search and find and assemble meaning for themselves? 

In the seventies, in teacher school, we were taught about being the guide on the side rather than the sage on the stage. Which was fine, except...

Have you ever been in a meeting or professional development session, and the leader asks a question as if this is an open-ended inquiry moment, except that it clearly isn't. The presenter either wants you to provide the One Correct Answer so they can move on, or they're expecting another answer only so they can pounce on it with a big gotcha to set up the answer they really want to present.

Or maybe it's one of those staff meetings at which the administrator sets it up as a chance for the group to pick a direction and answer (because then you'll be buy in and be invested) only after some preliminary discussion, it becomes clear that administration is only going to accept one particular answer that they've already decided upon.

Don't you hate that? Guess what. So do students.

If you know what answer you want to hear, just say it. If you aren't really open to students inquiring and discovering their own answer, don't waste their time pretending otherwise.

If you don't know more than the students, why are the taxpayers paying you (I am not a fan of "You know, I learn just as much from the students as they do from me"). Do not leave students wandering in the dark in hopes that they will trip over some insight at some point.

On the other hand, if your classroom involves students sitting like potted plants day after day, like receptacles waiting you to pour forth smartitude, God help you and your students both. If every class is 45 minutes of your voice or copying notes from the board, that's a dry, empty, uninspiring, and ultimately not very fruitful method. 

Trying to discover learning without a foundation of basic facts and knowledge is hopeless, even frustrating. But trying to convey that foundational material through discovery can be tedious and painful.

The answer, as is so often the case in educational X vs. Y debates, is either or both, depending.

Jill Barshay published a great piece in Hechinger looking at a big meta-study of inquiry vs. direct instruction, and I recommend that you read it. Here are some critical points from the piece.

The debate is often marked by people talking past each other. When fans of inquiry and direct instruction argue about which is more effective, they're really arguing about what "effective" means. Barshay also notes that for all the noise, everyone essentially agrees that both are necessary. I also like the caveats she pulled from inquiry defenders about when it works best (nobody thinks fumbling in the dark in an unstructured discovery lesson is a good idea).

Caveat 1: Students need a strong foundation of knowledge and skills before inquiry will work. Soi maybe some direct instruction before launching the inquiry.

Caveat 2: Inquiry works best with lots of feedback and guidance from teachers. I agree completely. Research projects were a regular feature of my classes, and they always worked best when I backed students up with feedback; just a simple "you're on the right track" or not was helpful, and you can do it without trying to force the student to a particular conclusion. This is admittedly a tricky area (Barshay confessed to getting a headache) that can lapse into direct instruction, and lord knows it's hard sometimes to resist the urge to wrest the steering wheel out of the student's hand and declare "Just do THIS!" The right amount of guidance will vary from student to student. 

Barshay points out that low-achieving students need more guidance. I'm not sure how true that is (for most of my career, I taught the top and bottom level courses). Low achieving students have often been subjected to more direct instruction and so have been conditioned to think that's what school is--people tell you what you're supposed to say and do and then you get graded on how well you regurgitate it. Therefor, doing discovery lessons may require more teacher creation of an environment where the students can believe that this is really what they're being asked to do. Conversely, top achieving students are often very good at regurgitating and may get frustrated with inquiry lessons ("Just tell me exactly which hoop to jump through to get my A").

Whether their teacher school taught you to be a guide or a sage, most teachers learn pretty quickly that they have to be a mixture of both, and that the mixture depends on the students, the teacher, the material, and the conditions on any given day (every teacher has had that special day when a roomful of students broadcast the clear message "we are not in the mood to discover anything today"). Meanwhile, I guess the academics can continue to debate. 

OK: New Senator Deevers All In On Christian Nationalism

In my in box is an evangelical newsletter headlined "We have been silent for too long." Really? Have Christians in this nation been silenced ever?

They are particularly not silenced in Oklahoma, where we find (among others) State Senator Dusty Deevers. Pastor Deevers took to the pulpit after a career running a pharmacy. In 2023, he ran for vice-president of the Southern Baptist Convention (this was the year after their big ball o'scandals blew wide open), though Deever was critical of SBC president Bart Barber. 

Deevers has taken some strong positions. He's anti-porn, anti-abortion, anti-divorce, anti-vax, and now that he's a brand new Oklahoma senator courtesy of a special election, he's ready to make it all come true. He's been busy. There's a bill to make watching porn a felony and sexting someone other than your spouse good for time in jail. Also, he's filed a bill to end no-fault divorce. 

Deevers is not shy about what he's about. He ran on the promise to appeal to "the word of God on every issue." The folks at Right Wing Watch caught Deevers on the "Conversations That Matter" where he was exceptionally clear:

“Governing is about the use of authority and what is the standard for the use of authority,” Deevers declared. “God prescribes servants of his to govern as his mediators on this Earth. So, he has prescribed governing and then he has also prescribed the means for our governing and that means is in accordance with his word. If we do otherwise, then we are essentially usurping the sovereign role of God through Christ, who has been seated above every power in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth.”

If you've always wondered what the Christian Nationalist answer is to the issue of a diverse and pluralistic nation being ruled by Christians, Deevers offers an explanation that I've seen pop up several places lately. What happens, the host asks, if you force laws on people who might be atheists or even pagans and you require them to live under God's law? Deever's responds

What they're getting is a measure of grace from being in proximity to the true Christianity. So whenever Christians are voted into office, it's not just good for Christians, it's good for the wicked as well. It's good for those who maybe are yet to come to Christ. There are several proverbs and several scriptures that talk about when the righteous increase, the people flourish.

Note that all of this aligns with what Katherine Stewart pointed out in The Power Brokers-- for these folks, legitimacy of government does not come from the consent of the governed, but from alignment with the Right Values. 

Deevers doesn't talk about education directly, but folks like Deevers are surfacing all through the school privatization movement, certain that they have not only a right, but a mandate from God, to impose their views on students. This is a guy who ran on the idea of "the proper role of government and the proper Christian response to tyranny," the assumption being that anything less than Christian domination of the government is tyranny by the wicked. These are folks who believe that they've been "silenced" because they have not been the voice commanding and silencing all others. 

Deevers at least doesn't try to pretend. But he's a fine example of what is scary about these folks and the kind of education they have in mind for not only their own children, but everyone else's as well. There's nothing quite like someone who believes he knows exactly what God wants. 

We Need Public Education, Media Literacy, and Real History (Reminder #423,997)

There's a lot to be alarmed by in the recent news about sentencing of Aimenn Penny, a member of the White Lives Matter group who was convicted of trying to burn down the Community Church of Chesterfield in Chesterfield, Ohio almost a year ago.

The church was going to host a couple of drag events. Penny had a ton of armament in his car and residence. Ina manifesto, he explained how proud he was of the attack. He believed he was doing "God's work." He told the FBI that he would have felt better if the Molotov cocktails he used had burned the entire church to the ground. Prosecutors said that Penny's manifesto was "full of twisted and false historical narratives, calls for war and violence, justifications for his actions, and the spewing of transphobic and anti-Semitic hatred."

Here's what I find chilling. Penny is twenty years old. Authorities say that Penny appeared to have been "increasingly radicalized via online actions since at least 2017."

So, he's been working toward this since he was 13 or 14 years old. Online.

Sure, we've always had a certain amount of this. I've taught more than a few people who grew up to commit felonies, including murders, and I'm not sure what could have aimed their lives in a better direction.

But the seduction of young men by radical violent bullshit on line is one of our growing plagues. The automated downward spiral of the YouTube algorithm is well-documented. "What to do if you think your child is becoming radicalized online" is now a whole genre or writing (see here and here). This is a thing that scares me now as the parent of two young boys in ways it didn't when I was the parent of young children thirty years ago. 

There are so many directions to point fingers. Techno corporations that take no responsibility for spewing crap into the cultural atmosphere. Grown-ups who crank up all this rage and paranoia and racist sexist violent rhetoric as a cynical tool for gathering power with no regard for the effects on young people who take it seriously. People who are incapable of grasping that diversity is part of what makes humanity robust and strong. 

As I said, we could point fingers all day. But maybe while doing so, we can just remember that teaching media literacy is important, because thirty years in, we've still got human beings who believe "I saw it on the internet so it must be true" is a legitimate thought. It's not just that we have a culture steeped in lying and bullshit for matters large and small, but that we keep that a secret from our children instead of teaching useful lessons like "Much of what you will see from the adult world is a lie, so we need to equip you to sort out the bullshit from the truth."

It is not particularly useful to suggest, as some choicers do, that the solution to all of this is to simply separate everyone into their own silos, where they never meet any of those Others and never hear anything to contradict what they hear in their special hermetically sealed snowflake cage. The solution to conflict and disagreement is not to make everyone who disagrees with you shut up, go away, or die.

And history. History is complicated and hard, and we really need to teach that. Teaching the conversation is good preparation for weighing the many voices, including the ones that are not participating in good faith or who are just ignoring parts they don't like or who are just making shit up. The folks who insist that there is just one true answer for questions of history and only that one true answer should be taught--these are people who, out of fear or anger or desire for power, are trying to sell a lie that is toxic and corrosive. It damages society, it damages the culture, and men like Penny are just the curdled rotting edge of that blight.

History, real history, needs to be taught not just because of some philosophical stance or moral imperative, but because a society riddled with these pockets of toxic lies is a more dangerous society, more dangerous to its own people and to the world that surrounds it. Penny's sad, wasted youth is just one more reminder.