Tim Alberta And The Mystery of What Happened To The Church

Are you a Christian who has spent the last decade or so wondering what the heck happened to your church? Have you been wondering if there are any serious Christians left who have not been swept up in some version of MAGA madness? Good news. They exist, Tim Alberta is one of them, and he's got a book.

The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory: American Evangelism in an Age of Extremism is a hard look into the heart of what has happened to the conservative Christian church. Alberta does not, like some authors, push back against the rise of Christian Nationalism by attacking the Christian part, and this book may be a tough slog for folks who do not embrace the faith.

But because Alberta is an evangelical Christian himself, he develops a clear view of where they lost the plot. As Chris Winans, the pastor who followed Alberta's pastor father, and who opens and closes the book, observes, the problem with American evangelicals is that "too many of them worship America." And power over it.

The book is a series of chapters organized around locations and the people Alberta has traveled there to interview. Some carry more weight than others--Lynchburg gets two chapters, as Jerry Fallwel's Liberty University serves as a particularly pointed example of how the pursuit of money and power completely overwhelms real attention to the Gospel. 

Alberta notes the particulars of how MAGAfied evangelicals have lost the plot. Of Trump pastor Robert Jeffers, he writes that he "no longer cared about fighting evil with good. He just wanted to fight evil--period." At a Ralph Reed event he notes:

Character didn't matter. Truth didn't matter. Honor and integrity didn't matter. Those were means, and all that mattered was the ends: winning elections.

Quoting from another pastor he interviews.

The great fault in the evangelical movement today is that we're disobedient to the commands of the one we claim to follow. What were those commands? Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Care for widows and orphans. Visit those in prison. Seek first the kingdom of God.

Alberta talks to some religious leaders who seem honestly confused and lost, and others who are wrestling with the understanding that if they don't get political in the pulpit, they will lose those parishioners-- the ones who think the sermon on the mount is too woke.

He has particular concern over the folks like Charlie Kirk, who, he notes, don't even pretend to that the goal is to glorify God, but simply to "take back America." He is disappointed in figures like Ron DeSantis who pretend to care about the faith, but barely nod toward it, and never in a meaningful way. 

Politicians, he notes

 saw the pointlessness in talking about servanthood, about humility, about unity and peace and love for thy neighbor. The market for such a message had long since disappeared. The demand was for domination, and Republicans like Trump and DeSantis were happy to supply it. Their appeal to evangelicals had everything to do with acting like champions and nothing to do with acting like Christ.

Of the culture wars being waged these days, Alberta is direct: "This effort to assert dominance over the culture is but a precondition for dominating the country itself."

Champions of Christian nationalism would have you believe that these efforts to rule the country are inherently theological; that they are in service of a broader effort to reclaim America for God. This is a lie. 

For Alberta, it's small potatoes. The God of All Creation has far larger concerns than the political victories of one political party in one country on one planet in one year. For Alberta, that is just another brand of idolatry.

In Alberta's travels and interviews, I see plenty of what I call the People of the Tiny God-- a god so small and powerless that electing the wrong politician for even the most trivial of offices will somehow threaten that god's existence. 

If you want a book that will explain why the chriustianists are wrong and bad because they oppose humanistic, progressive ideals, this may not be your book.

But if, like me, you've been looking around the past many years listening to alleged Christians valorize decidedly unChristian behavior, to insist that they cannot exercise their religion without being free to strike out at those of whom they disapprove, to express an ideology that seems laden with hate, to disdain any principles except the pursuit of power-- if you've been looking at all that and thinking that it does not resemble the faith that you grew up in, then this is your book.

It is discouraging to read just how far and deep and ugly some of the rot is. But it is encouraging to read that there are some folks who have not lost the plot and who embrace a faith that would even allow those of who disagree (and I am sure there are points on which Alberta and I would disagree) to coexist in ways that would still honor and energize and be energized by that faith. 

It's a big book, thorough, bolstered by interviews that run wide and deep (when you're a noted reporter for The Atlantic, people answer your calls). I've bought copies for some of the people I love, and I recommend you get your hands on a copy as well. 

 

ICYMI: Wavin' Those Palms Edition (3/24)

Every year I wonder just how many palm frond suppliers out there. It can't be that lucrative a business, yet once a year demand must spike enough to provide children across the nation with the opportunity to poke a tickle their friends and siblings in church. 

For those of you new to the blog, this is the every-Sunday collection of links to things that I think are worth reading (but did not already mention or link to in anything I wrote last week). You are encouraged to share from the original link and give the writers a little love and attention. Tips and suggestions always appreciated.

Here's the list for the week.

City Council Races Could Complete Andrew Wommack’s “Takeover” of Woodland Park

Logan Davis re4ports for the Colorado Times Recorder about how one religious right group is working to take over the schools and the town in Woodland Park.

5 Things I Would Never Do With My Own Kids After Working As A Teacher

A perfectly fine HuffPost listicle, including an appearance by Jose Luis Vilson.

No, Teachers Are Not in a Panic About ChatGPT

Anne Lutz Fernandez puts ChatGPT panic in the proper context of student authentic work and the larger history of student writing assignment integrity (looking at you, Cliff's Notes).

My curriculum not the reason kids can’t read

It probably won't me a thing to the Hanford fanfolks, but Lucy Calkins has finally written a response to all the criticism of her work (or at least the portrayal of her work that gets criticized).

The Great Textbook War

An NPR Throughline audio episode, featuring Charles Dorn and Adam Laats, reminding us that we've seen this movie before, and it always ends the same way for the book banners.

Banned in Boston: Coverage of Walton Family Spending on K-12 Interest Groups

Dark money expert Maurice Cunningham takes a look at just how much money the Walton's have been spending to push privatization. Then he looks at how little it has been reported by certain newspapers.

What Choice Do We Have

Jose Luis Vilson takes a look at school choice, how it has led to some rot, and how it ignores the larger purpose of schools.

Classical Charter Schools of America Pays ACLU $1.456 Million in Gendered Uniform Lawsuit

The lawsuit involving that North Carolina charter that wanted its fragile girlfolk to wear skirts has finally reached a settlement. 

Dark money group goes after GOP House member for opposition to Tennessee school voucher plan

The DeVos family's American Federation for Children is going after voucher opponents in Tennessee (just like they did in Texas). This is how out of state billionaires work to get their preferred policies passed.

Gayle Greene on How to Build a Human

I wrote a review about Gayle Greene's book a while back. Short version: buy it and read it. Here's Bob Shepherd with another good argument for picking up this excellent argument for human education.

Where are all the teachers? Breaking down America's teacher shortage crisis in 5 charts.

USA Today of all places ran this set of charts drawn from some of the research out there. Florida, Arizona, and Nort Carolina have the highest demand. Hmmm, go figure.

'Free Mom Hugs' volunteer labeled 'groomer' by hate group. Here's how she responded.

A nice account of one group's response to more M4L baloney. Not updated to include the post in which M4L doubled down on the groomer accusation, but they did, because of course they did.

Competency-based education failure raises concerns with new standards

CBE continues to be a great system except when you try to actually implement it. New Hampshire reports on its troubles trying to make it work.

Bad Governance with Education Vouchers

Thomas Ultican looks at the latest in voucher fraud activity, and why we can expect plenty more. 

My Kid's Textbook Doesn't Know We Elected a Black President

Jess Piper looks at some of the direct effects of refusing to fully fund schools. Like history textbooks that are old enough to vote.

Will Reforms by Texas and an Audit by Federal Charter Schools Program Be Enough to End Shady Practices at IDEA Charter Schools?

The IDEA charter chain has been a source of shady shenanigans for quite some time. Jan Resseger asks if there's any reason to believe that things will get better.

Who Carried You?

TC Weber offers a parental perspective on laws that mandate schools outing LGBTQ students. 

Open season on scholars of race

Wondering what Chris Rufo's been up to lately? Don Moynihan reports on the building of "plagiarism" as a tool for going after scholars of color.

Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies

The New York Times reports on another frontier in the surveillance state. That computer in your car is not your friend.

This week at Forbes.com, I wrote about the sequel lawsuit to Carson in Maine (about making religious schools follow antidiscrimination rules if they want to collect voucher bucks) and looked at the great book about grading by Jack Schneider and Ethan Hutt.

Also, at the Bucks County Beacon, a look at how Pennsylvania stacked up (a middling C) in the NPE report on how well states support public education. 

You are always invited to join me on substack, where you can get all of my various output right in your email inbox. It doesn't cost a cent.

Kirk Cameron and M4L Have a Book for You

Kirk Cameron has a book to plug. It's being published by Brave, a publishing house founded by Texas ophthalmologist Trent Talbot to fight the woke agenda and be "pro-God, pro-America." They've got some fun kid titles like "Elephants are not birds" and other non-Cameron authors like Kevin Sorbo and Lara Trump.

Cameron's book is one of many set on Freedom Island. The back cover copy shows that the saga includes other stories about topics like "dangers of socialism" and "perseverance." Actually, the whole back cover is heavy on right wing nationalism, and God makes no appearance at all, though the description gets into "fruits of the spirit" and "Biblical truths." The whole enterprise seems very much from the sector of folks who worship power and America more than they worship God.

Cameron has been touring and doing book readings to plug his book, which is what authors do. But his scheduled stop in a Houston suburb gives us some very awesome coverage from the right tilted Washington Examiner. 

Cameron had a scheduled stop at a local furniture store known for its owner's appearance in commercials as "Mattress Mack." That stop was apparently at least co-sponsored by the local Moms for Liberty chapter. 

Moms for Liberty’s Harris County Chapter Chairwoman Denise Bell said she is excited to provide an event for families that highlights “wholesome literature, educational material, and entertainment.”

 But it was Cameron who came up with this great quote for the Examiner. 

“I can’t wait to read to families in the Houston area and bring them a message of hope and revival in our public spaces,” Cameron told the Washington Examiner. “Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’ Whether you come to find physical rest on Mack's mattresses or spiritual rest for your soul, this story hour is sure to give you both.”

Hustlers gotta hustle. I'm still not buying a copy of the book. 

How About AI Lesson Plans?

Some Brooklyn schools are piloting an AI assistant that will create lesson plans for them. 

Superintendent Janice Ross explains it this way. “Teachers spend hours creating lesson plans. They should not be doing that anymore.”

The product is YourWai (get it?) courtesy of The Learning Innovation Catalyst (LINC), a company that specializes in "learning for educators that works/inspires/motivates/empowers." They're the kind of company that says things like "shift to impactful professional learning focused on targeted outcomes" unironically. Their LinkedIn profile says "Shaping the Future of Learning: LINC supports the development of equitable, student-centered learning by helping educators successfully shift to blended, project-based, and other innovative learning models." You get the idea.

LINC was co-founded by Tiffany Wycoff, who logged a couple of decades in the private school world before writing a book, launching a speaking career, and co-founding LINC in 2017. Co-founder Jaime Pales used to work for Redbird Advanced Learning as executive director for Puerto Rico and Latin America and before that "developed next-generation learning programs" at some company. 

LINC has offices in Florida and Colombia. 

YourWai promises to do lots of things so that teachers can get "90% of your work done in 10% of the time." Sure. Ross told her audience that teachers just enter students' needs and the standards they want to hit and the app will spit out a lesson plan. It's a "game changer" that will give teachers more time to "think creatively." 

These stories are going to crop up over and over again, and every story ought to include this quote from Cory Doctorow:

We’re nowhere near the point where an AI can do your job, but we’re well past the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job.

Look, if you ask AI to write a lesson plan for instructing students about major themes in Hamlet, the AI is not going to read Hamlet, analyze the themes, consider how best to guide students through those themes, and design an assessment that will faithfully measure those outcomes. What it's going to do is look at a bunch of Hamlet lesson plans that it found on line (some of which may have been written by humans, some of which may have been cranked out by some amateur writing for online corner-cutting site, and some of which will have been created by other AI) and mush them all together. Oh, and throw in shit that it just made up. 

There are undoubtedly lessons for which AI can be useful--cut and dried stuff like times tables and preposition use. But do not imagine that the AI has any idea at all of what it is doing, nor that it has any particular ability to discern junk from quality in the stuff it sweeps up on line. Certainly the AI has zero knowledge of pedagogy or instructional techniques.

But this "solution" will appeal because it's way cheaper than, say, hiring enough teachers so that individual courseloads are not so heavy that paperwork and planning take a gazillion hours. 

This will certainly enable teachers who are either overwhelmed or lazy. It certainly shortens the process for teachers who regularly consult with Dr. Google for their lesson planning. But I would certainly wonder about an administrator who not only allowed it, but encouraged it. 

There's no question that lesson planning can be a time-consuming burden, but there are far better ways to deal with that issue than an AI lesson planning assistant. This is not how we get high quality teaching materials into the classroom. 

Update:

Courtesy of the New York Post

I missed the third co-founder of LINC, Jason Green, who turns out to be an old buddy of NYC school chancellor David Banks. Also, the Yourwai website appears to feature a bunch of fake testimonials. "Well, we just used fake names to anonymize the testifiers," says the company. Sure. 

Teacher Morale: Is Everything Fine?

If you aren't a regular Education Week reader, you may have missed the debut earlier this month of their Teacher Morale Index, and it's actually, well, pretty good. 

The beauty of this index is its elegant simplicity. It's based on three questions from their State Of Teaching survey, each with three simple choices.

1) Compared to one year ago, my morale at work right now is worse, the same, or better.

2) Right now, my morale at work is mostly bad, equally good and bad, or mostly good.

3) One year from now, I expect my morale at work will be worse, the same, or better.

Each answer has a value (-100, 0, or +100). Answers collected, and the crunching begins. Some takeaways from the morale index.

Overall teacher morale is low. (-13).

But that total hides some vast differences depending on subject area. Foreign language and CTE teachers are actually on the positive side. Meanwhile, the very lowest morale score is reported for social studies/history, science, and elementary teachers. Fine arts are not much better.

Morale also varies by where you teach. Urban teachers report the lowest morale, rural teachers the highest (though still negative).

Black teachers actually report positive morale; every other group is negative. Hispanic and multi-race are next, with White teachers reporting lowest morale.

Finally, years of service also factor in the findings. Teachers with fewer than three years report positive morale--but it's not a steady slide. Teachers with 3 to 9 years of experience show much lower morale than their more seasoned brethren. You know--the teachers who have never known anything except the doubled-down high stakes standardized test accountability of ESSA, and who came of career maturity under the Trump/DeVos administration. 

Other fun data points from the report--

Administrators believe that the morale situation is far better than it actually is. The survey also shows that administrators favor structured consistency over teacher autonomy-- and value teacher autonomy far less than teachers do. 

And in other unsurprising findings, way more administrators (84%) think professional development is relevant than teachers do. Not only do over half of all teachers find PD irrelevant, but about half also think there's too much of it (only 15% of admins agree). 

Black and Hispanic teachers report more hours of work (65 and 64) than White teachers. And teachers mostly don't want their own children to become teachers. 

There's more detail to dig through, so if you tend to save your free peeks at EdWeek carefully, this is one worth considering. 

These aren't big surprises. Morale is down, and an awful lot of administrators are out of touch with their own staffs. That's bad news-- an administrators Number One Job is to create the conditions that help classroom teachers do the best work they can. If administrators are disconnected, that's a problem for everyone in the system (and given the state of morale, the problems reported with safety and management in buildings, and the pandemic destabilization issues, it's evident that many administrators are, in fact, on some different planet from their staff). Note to principals everywhere: everything is not fine.

BS Test Blows A Billion

It's hard to track each and every sad side effect of the unexamined, unsupported assumption that the Big Standardized Test, our annual adventure of administering a mediocre math and reading test and then pretending that we have somehow measured how well the whole Education Thing is going. But here's one more bad example.

The feds had a whole grant program called Investing In Innovation (i3). It ran from 2010 to 2016 and doled out $1.4 billion to universities, school districts, and private outfits in a total of 172 grants to either develop, validate or scale up shiny reformy ideas. That innovation is "important to help improve student learning and close equity gaps nationwide" and the goal of this program (courtesy of the US Department of Education) was "to build high-quality evidence about effective educational strategies and to expand implementation of these strategies." 

And all of that pretty language about "improve student learning" and better "effective educational strategies" just means "raise scores on the BS Test." 

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the arm of the feds that is like a test lab for education stuff, and they've done a study of just how well i3 grantees worked out by sifting through the research done about those various programs. So how did well did the programs work?

The short answer is, "Not great." 

The long answer is, "Nobody is even asking the right questions."

Of the 172 grants, only 148 had completed research that could be viewed. Of those, only 26% showed a program that actually had a positive effect. A small number had a negative effect, and about 76% showed no affect at all. 

Grants are grouped by different sort of effects. One small group of grants was aimed at student attendance and completion, an effect that can actually be measured in a reasonably accurate manner. 

The rest were aimed at "student performance" in academic areas, plus a small group aimed at social emotional learning; the biggest number of programs wanted to improve classroom instruction, which in the largest number of cases meant either more teacher PD or developing and instituting curriculum and materials. For all of these student performance areas, the most important question to ask is "How do you think you measured that?"

Improving teaching and materials in the classroom is a worthy goal. But this review is a reminder that using the BS Test to see how we're doing is a self-defeating. It's looking for your lost car keys under a streetlamp 100 yards from where you dropped them because the light is better there. 

It is amazing to me that after all these years, so many folks are still talking about BS Test scores as if they are not just a true and accurate measure of educational effectiveness, but THE true and accurate measure. 

They aren't. They never have been. They remain an effort to gauge height, weight and health of an elephant by examining its toenail clippings. Their effect on education is the most prolonged, debilitating example of Campbell's and Goodhart's Laws in action, a situation in which some have so mistaken the measure for the Thing Itself that they are wasting time and so very much money. 

What the IES report tells us is that in a billion-dollar game of darts, a whole lot of people missed the wrong target. I don't know what that information is worth, but it sure isn't worth $1.4 billion. 

OK: Walters Wants To Take Local Mess National

Oklahoma's Education Dudebro In Chief Ryan Walters has produced a steady stream of ugliness. That hasn't stopped; in fact, it's apparently seeking a national audience.

Walters drew headlines for moves like explaining that Tulsa Race Massacre was not about race. He called the teachers union a "terrorist organization." He also proposed a host of rules for restricting reading, mandatory outing of students, searching out the dread CRT, and backing it all up with threats to take away a district's accreditation if they dared to defy him. And he followed the Chris Rufo playbook and announced his intent to ban DEI from all schools. Walters wants to see the state "champion religious freedom," like the Catholic "public" charter school that the state is trying to launch (and their Republican attorney general is trying to stop). Somehow, "religious freedom" means to Walters that the Ten Commandments should be posted in every single classroom in the state.

 

In keeping with the screw-ups he orchestrated before taking office, Walters managed to fumble away a bunch of grant money and piss off staff--staff who were sympathetic to his agenda--to the point that they walked out.  And he's still cleaning up after fines from his campaign for office. 

He went out of his way to stop a sixteen year old trans student from changing some paperwork. His reaction to the death of Nex Benedict was such a mean-spirited reactionary mess (one part "we want students to feel supported" and two parts "LGBTQ students must be hold the hard truth that their existence is an ugly terrible lie") that 350 groups signed a letter demanding he get the hell out of office, as he has fostered "a culture of violence and hate." Walters is a prime example of the kind of faux christianist MAGA strain running through too much of our country these days, drawing targets on marginalized people, calling them all manner of ugly names, signaling that the power of the state will be used to silence and erase those people, and then denying that any of this creates a culture of hate and violence. It's spectacularly unChristian behavior offered in the name of Christ. 

And yet, Walters apparently senses that he's destined for bigger things on a broader stage. 

Jennifer Palmer of Oklahoma Watch reports that Oklahoma taxpayers have helped Walters hire a PR firm that, among other things, is sending out pitches like this:

An open letter called for Ryan’ (sic) immediate removal from office for, the letter claims, “fostering a culture of violence and hate against the 2SLGBTQI+ community in Oklahoma schools.

Ryan responded to the letter saying: ‘[this is a] standard tactic of the radical left, and they will stop at nothing to destroy the country and our state.’

Want Ryan on to discuss?

Palmer was ahead of this story, reporting back in November that the Oklahoma Education Department was looking to hire a PR firm to provide print and digital op-eds to national outlets, provide national bookings, coordinate national events and appearances for executive staff, write speeches and handle some communications. That included a minimum of three op-eds, two speeches and 10 media bookings per month. This in addition to the in-house comms department. It sure looked like Walters wanted to be bigger.

So Oklahoma has hired a PR firm from Virginia to craft pitches like the one above and presumably to deliver all that national exposure Walters is looking for. 

The firm is Vought Strategies, They seem like a great fit. Their website includes a testimonial from Jim DeMint calling the firm's founder, Mary Vought, "one of the best conservative communicators and public relations specialists in the nation." Mary Vought has been at it for a decade; previously she did coms work in the US Senate and House of Representatives, working for folks like Ron Johnson and Mike Pence; she's also a senior fellow for the far right Independent Women's Forum, and  the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, an outfit that endorses the likes of Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Rick Scott. And she cranks out pieces like this one for the Daily Caller in which she writes "as a parent" (not a conservative PR operative) that she doesn't want her daughter reading naughty books. Or slamming NIH for Fox News. Or noting a Wall Street Journal profile of Walters, saying "we proudly stand beside our clients as they fight to protect our children and parental rights."

In short, she seems like just the person to be running PR for whatever it is that Walters is trying to do with his profile.

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, where he was elected to serve an actual function, Walters draws cranky comments from legislators about his lack of transparency, and reports that he's mostly out of the office. Asked about the expense of $30,000 of taxpayer money to hire Walters some PR services, his regular patron, Governor Kevin Stitt said a whole lot of nothing. 

It continues to look as if the taxpayers of Oklahoma are not getting anything like their money's worth out of Walters. Hard to say what job he is auditioning for at this point, but it seems easier to say how much Oklahoma taxpayers should have to pay to fund his clip reel-- $0.00.