Last week, we addressed a piece by leftyblog Blue Man in a Red District bagging on Representative-Elect Glenn Gruenhagen (HD25A) for proposing a series of resolutions at a State School Board Association convention that he termed “extreme” that, as I pointed out, really are pretty mainstream except within the context of, well, the State School Board Association (think Comintern with a nice buffet).

It turns out Gruenhagen himself wrote a piece on the subject four years ago entitled “Can the Minority Be Wrong?”:

I would like to respond to the criticism of my 8 resolutions in last week’s editorial by Mark Rudy, titled, “Can 5 GSL school board members be wrong?” As a school board member, I have voted in the minority numerous times, although if you count my total votes, over 90% have been in agreement with the majority.

Question: Can the minority ever be right? Historically, there are thousands of examples where this is true, but I will use one recent example.

Approximately 10 years ago the Minnesota State Legislature and the governor passed the unproven educational experiment called the “Profile of Learning” (POL). The POL was promoted by great and small in public education as the solution to all public education’s shortfalls in every area of academics.

Over a billion dollars of MN taxpayer dollars were wasted promoting this unproven educational approach. There was only one problem; the POL did not have one shred of evidence that it would raise academic standards in public schools. In fact, for those who did the research, there was plenty of evidence that it would damage academic achievement.

As a public school board member I spent numerous hours studying and researching the issue both pro and con. What I found from credible sources was that the POL was hatched in atheistic psychology-land, based on feelings rather than academics. I was usually the sole vote against the POL on the GSL school board. I sent several resolutions to the Minnesota School Board Association (MSBA) conventions opposing the POL and calling for its repeal. Every resolution was voted down (some with laughter) by over 95%, but in the end the State Legislature and Governor repealed the POL. My view prevailed as a result of growing public awareness and pressure.

One thought that didn’t occur to me reading Blue Man’s original swipe at Gruenhagen; back when Paul Wellstone was the “1” in countless 99-1 votes in the Senate, the DFL – including, likely, Mr. Blue – celebrated it as an example of sticking to ones’ principles; as  a profile in courage.  Call it what  you will – Wellstone was way farther out on the extreme than Gruenhagen (at least six of whose proposals were statistically pretty mainstream, outside of the rarified confines of the State School Board Association).

As with the POL, I have spent a similar amount of time researching my 8 resolutions. I will not kneel at the “alter of public education” and blindly support experimental educational ideas with our children. Knowing the truth and the facts has a way of stiffening one’s knees.

There are many excellent staff members in public education, but we have allowed our schools to become expensive experimental laboratories (to the detriment of our children) by atheistic psychologists, radical left wing social planners and junk scientists (such as advocates for macro evolution and global warming). 

Say what  you will about evolution (it is in no way incongruent with an allegorical reading of the Bible) or the worldview of psychologists; our public schools, especially in Minnesota, are being used as social laboratories by the radical, but PR-savvy,  left (when they’re not being used as meal tickets for the Minnesota Federation of Teachers).

 I will continue to vote against such nonsense even if 100 % of state and local representatives vote for it. And I will do so, in the words of our first president, George Washington, “So help me God”.

There are several current books I would recommend for those who want to do additional research: “One Nation Under Therapy”, “Unprotected” (A campus psychiatrist reveals how political correctness in her profession endangers every student) and last, “Destructive Trends in Mental Health” (co-authored by a former president of the American Psychological Association who admits that much of modern day psychology is little more than “witch doctoring”) All three can be ordered from Barnes and Nobles.

And Christina Hoff Summers’ The War On Boys is another must-read for anyone who wants the background on the feminized teaching academy’s war on the male gender in education, under the fraudulent claim that schools were biased against girls.  Watch your lefty school administrators’ nose hairs curl as you mention it.

At any rate – it’s seemed to me for years that the DFL’s long-term agenda is to paint everyone who isn’t a DFLer as an extremist.