From The Fringe

From The Fringe - The left-wing media is fond of one particular stereotype - the right-wing "Freeper" conspiracy theorist, tirelessly cranking out feverish theories about the liberal plots - conspiracies, dammit! - that make the world such an awful place.

I'd suspect they're fairly proud that they don't get much of a voice in their paper.

They'd be wrong - about everything but the politics, that is.

You'd think the Strib, equipped with the likes of Doug Grow, Nick Coleman, Lori Sturdevant and Syl Jones, wouldn't need to go outside the shop to hunt for paranoid, blinkered, insular opinions.

And yet, yesterday they did, with this op-ed by David Rubenstein, described as "a Minneapolis writer" whose article "is adapted from remarks he made at a public meeting on school closures last week", which begs the question, "if he's such a writer, why didn't they just make him write the thing, but I digress.

His perspective is not that of a parent:

I don't have a kid in the Minneapolis public schools,

...but merely that of the perpetual indignant

...but I don't like what's happening to them.

I'm angry at the district, too. But I do know that if school officials weren't talking about closing these schools, it would be other schools, or programs.

The reason is political. One political party now dominates, in this state and nationally. And that party basically wants to destroy the public schools. And in Minnesota it is succeeding. Closures speed the exodus and vice versa.

Now, we've been through this. Minneapolis is shrinking, and its school enrollment is shrinking even faster.

But to Mr. Rubenstein, it's not a matter of demographics. It's a conspiracy:

I can't say exactly why they want to do it. I believe it has to do with their idea of a free market, and their hatred of unions. But I do know how they are doing it.

They are destroying the schools by adding to their responsibilities but not likewise adding to their money.

It's about here you realize you're not dealing with a rational person.

Conservatives - the type even I lampoon - are all about taking away from the schools' responsibilities; if you listen to some of the duller specimens on "Garage Logic", the ideal is "Readin', Writin' and 'Rithmetic", a no-frills school just like the one room schoolhouses of the 1800s; no art, music or languages (although sports seem to get a pass with most of them).

It's the other side - the utopian, social activist left that took over the education academy in the past 40-odd years - that's added the extra mandates; sex ed, endless focus on diversity and multiculturalism, endless and unfunded mandates driven more by social agenda than by any educational goal.

To the conspiracy theorist, the most infuriating thing is that the truth is out there, and yet nobody will believe him!

I'm angry because the district is not saying it: Republicans are starving the school system. And leaving it up to the district to parcel out what's left and take the heat.

Why isn't the district saying it? Sometimes I think the district is like an abused woman who thinks that if she talks about what's happening, it will just make things worse. Maybe it's time to start talking.

So get this; the Minnesota Educational-Industrial Complex, after three decades of absolute free rein, and after decades of booming spending, finally had to go on a fiscal diet - not cuts, mind you, but smaller increases than they wanted - and they're crying "abuse?"

The Minneapolis Schools aren't an abused woman. They're a spoiled child, used to stomping its feet and getting its way.

Which might explain why drivel like this op-ed is being published.

Rubenstein hits on all the usual boogeymen:

If there are public school teachers who are not voting or are voting Republican, they should open their eyes and turn off their TVs and their AM radios. If there are parents who are not voting, it's time to start. And start talking about it. The Republicans are trying to destroy the public schools.

Mr. Rubenstein, unplug your MPR and throw away your Utne Reader. If you had any kids in school, you might realize that the system is doing a fine job of killing itself. This deathwish is both bigger than the Minneapolis public school system, and an integral part of the way the MPS runs itself.

More on this in a later post.

There are lots of these "overtaxed" rich people in Minnesota, and now they run it. And they are going to keep on running it unless everybody else gets real interested in politics.

More interested in politics than the Democratic Party or the Green Party are themselves. You have to wonder why they aren't outside these hearings signing people up.

Embarassment?

My message to the school system is: Maybe it is time to quit being shy when it comes to talking about what is going on. No more statements about "necessary cutbacks" without pointing out why they are necessary.

Right. Because if we really knew why the cutbacks were necessary - shrinking enrollment combined with - and in some ways, driven by - complete systemic failure, more people would recognize your post for what it is; a spittle-flecked rant with no bearing on reality.

I'll join Mr. Rubenstein in this sentiment, though. The public school are failing; that's pretty much the conservative cant. And no amount of money can save them, nor for that matter can endless DFL administrations or crazed focus on the Three Rs and reinstitution of corporal punishment, for that matter.

The public school system - and for that matter, most of the private school system - are failing because the very model they use for teaching is flawed from its very core, and is designed - whether intentionally or not - to leave the majority of kids out. It's failing because it not only ignores a number of key facts about human learning - it institutionalizes that ignorance, and even give people PhDs in the advanced practice of that ignorance. And - perhaps I'm being optimistic in a back-handed way - it's failing because its founding model is completely inimical to democracy. And when a system is that desperately flawed, you can no more "reform" it that you can polish a turd to a fine mirror sheen.

But that's not only a post for later this week - it's a digression.

As far as Mr. Rubenstein's op-ed is concerned - how many good, well-thought-out, well-written op-eds from the right were squeezed out to make way for the semi-literate, poorly-written (speech doesn't make good writing) rant of someone who's using the issue purely for political partisanship?

Rhetorical question, of course.

Posted by Mitch at February 23, 2004 07:33 AM