To Build The Wall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trans Panic Abuse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Department of Redundency Department

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

Repetition works.

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

But that's not how humans generally work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NH: Defunding Special Ed

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edelblut does have other ideas, though. 

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

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

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

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

So Linda McMahon Is New Ed Secretary

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

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

Yeah, she looks nice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OK: More Mandatory State Religion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ICYMI: Blue Skies Edition (11/17)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can Trump Force Schools to Change Their Curricula?

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

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

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

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

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

Scam Education Study from Denver

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

How Do German Schools Teach Their Political History?

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

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

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

Trump and Education

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

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

More Florida shenanigans, explained by Sue Kingery Woltanski.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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