A Long Train Of Abuses And Usurpations

If society can’t trust its public institutions to do their jobs fairly and impartially, self-government is impossible.

We’ll come back to that.


In the generally outstanding Danish TV program Rita – about a middle school teacher fighting burnout – there was one particularly jarring moment, if you were an American parent; the eponymous teacher was discussing problems with a particular student, and reacted with derision and a little muted disgust to the idea that the kid’s parents knew better about how to deal with the situation than her and the rest of the school staff.

It’s not an uncommon view in Europe; German schools have a similar point of view, but the Scandinavians have taken it to what seems to libertarian Americans an absurd extreme.

I say libertarian Americans, with a small “L”, as opposed to more-communitarian Americans. I once ran into an American – a DFL ward heeler from Saint Paul – who said loudly and proudly in public that he was happy to leave his kids education to “the experts”. I was never sure if that was entirely because that’s what he believed, or if he knew he’s get thrown in the stocks by the teachers unions that control so much of the DFL.

But it’s worth a reminder that the sentiment – not just of my DFL friend, but of a good chunk of America – probably jibes more with “Rita” than with most of the people reading this blog.

This particular op-ed in the WaPo, written by a couple of teachers union shills, titled “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t“, has been drawing a lot of ire on the cultural right.

The thesis of the article shows us part of the problem:

In their search for issues that will deliver Congress in 2022, conservatives have begun to circle around the cause of “parents’ rights.” …curtail the established rights that Americans have over the educational sphere. Yet what’s actually radical here is the assertion of parental powers that have never previously existed. This is not to say that parents should have no influence over how their children are taught. But common law and case law in the United States have long supported the idea that education should prepare young people to think for themselves, even if that runs counter to the wishes of parents.

And there’s a decent point in there, actually. To be educated is, in fact, to have the basis to think for oneself, to stake out one’s own beliefs in the world, to figure out who one actually is and what one really believes. By historical accident or design, my own education more or less fit the bill; I’m sure if my parents had had full sway over everything I learned and how I learned it, I may have become a conservative much later, if ever.

So. yeah – “education” in the classical sense of the term is one of the things that enables a child to become a separate, autonomous adult…

provided that the schools actually teach critical thinking.

And that’s a big caveat:

 When do the interests of parents and children diverge? Generally, it occurs when a parent’s desire to inculcate a particular worldview denies the child exposure to other ideas and values that an independent young person might wish to embrace or at least entertain. To turn over all decisions to parents, then, would risk inhibiting the ability of young people to think independently. As the political scientist Rob Reich has argued, “Minimal autonomy requires, especially for its civic importance, that a child be able to examine his or her own political values and beliefs, and those of others, with a critical eye.” If we value that end, “the structure of schooling cannot simply replicate in every particularity the values and beliefs of a child’s home.”

Which would be a perfectly legitimate idea…

provided the schools weren’t doing exactly what they “worry” about the parents doing.

Can you honestly say modern state schools teach critical thought?

The authors of the piece seem to think so – but I suggest they are describing an education system that has existed since the 1980s only in their fantasy.


If society can’t trust its institutions do do their job, fairly and impartially, self-government is impossible.

Can we trust public education to do the mission the authors claim it has?

I think you know my vote.

15 thoughts on “A Long Train Of Abuses And Usurpations

  1. I’m finding it ever harder to feel sorry for these parents.

    The degenerate trash kids are being taught in public schools is no mystery. There’s not a week goes by that there isn’t stories circulating about some heinous shit that has gone down in those madhouses.

    The reprobates have also made it crystal clear that they’re going to go about their business, parents be damned. So if you’ve *still* got your kids in there; it’s on you.

    I don’t want to hear “well, some people don’t have an alternative”; that’s bullshit. There are homeschool co-ops now, that hire teachers to tutor kids in subjects parents might not be competent with, like math and science. Private schools accept kids on sliding scales, and there are grants available.

    You can sell your house and rent, or buy a smaller one to cover tuition, like the Mrs. and I did. There are options; what’s lacking in many cases is the will.

  2. This could all be simplified into this very glib and true comment from iowahawk:

    1. Identify a respected institution.
    2. kill it.
    3. gut it.
    4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
    #lefties

    In this case, the respected institution is public education.

    In point of fact, the western world is in the process of being changed by the commies from high-trust societies to low-trust. In a high-trust society, parents don’t have to worry about how their children are being educated. In a low-trust society, you do. I’m sure the reader can find all sorts of topics like say, elections, where the transition to low-trust is also in process.

  3. One thing to note here is that for the past 150 years, the public schools have largely pushed Latin and Logic to the sidelines, and the end result is that the graduates of those schools are hamstrung in even figuring out what a real education is. Too much is become a trade school.

    (one of many reasons my family homeschools)

  4. The “experts” give a lot of lip service to “independent thinking”. In practice, of course, “independent thinking” is the LAST thing they want their pedagogic galley slaves to develop.

  5. How in the world can you believe in democracy, yet also believe that parents are not fit to manage their children’s education?

  6. Oh, btw, curious minds and all, when I told an immigrant Dane who’s seen that “generally outstanding Danish TV program Rita”, she wondered if it was because of the promiscuity? And the hot Danish teacher in tight jeans?

  7. The history of public education in the US is interesting. The current model, with a unionized workforce with its own political goals, is pretty new.
    Recognition as a public employee union (ca. 1960) was followed by a rapid radicalization of its members and policies. By 1980, the NEA’s political positions could fairly be categorized as “far left.”
    The NEA has a budget of about $350,000,000/year, and it spends the majority of that money in political donations to Democrat office holders AND in backing its candidates to local school boards.
    Sounds like a system in need of reform. In a 50/50 nation, a teachers union that only supports democrats is a problem.

  8. Unfortunately, in a lot of families, both parents are working, and school has become the Monday through Friday babysitter. I doubt if either parent knew what is being taught to their children. Until now.

  9. I’ve been watching the AG Merrick Garland senate interrogation today.
    OMG we dodged a bullet when McConnell refused to allow Garland to become a SC justice. Garland is an entirely political creature. He views the JD as a political tool to be used against the Biden administrations perceived enemies.
    He is one of those guys who is so corrupt it is shocking and frightening to imagine him in political power. He lies with practiced ease.
    There have been, in the last few weeks, revelations (only from conservative media) about where Garland’s wife and children work, and where their financial interests lie.
    It would be great if the media exposed all of this grift, not just the D’s, but the R’s as well. How much money do they have? How did they get it? What does their spouse do for a living? Their kids? Where did they go to school?
    If this info was out there, Americans of all political persuasions would be calling for heads on pikes.

  10. Pingback: In The Mailbox: 10.27.21 : The Other McCain

  11. All of last year during the farce known as distance learning we parents were responsible for educating our kids. Now we’re being told to sit on the sidelines. Which is it, Brandon?

  12. I hadn’t known anything about “Rita”, but it strikes me that a rather promiscuous teacher whose goal in life is to “protect children from their parents” (e.g. “liberate them from bourgeios moral values”) is a really apt picture of what’s going on in education today. It’s especially apt as she sees one of her children going to “alternative lifestyles”, and she apparently sees no connection between that and her own bohemian lifestyle–or doesn’t care.

    Translate that to our schools, and we have teachers and school librarians putting books promoting pederasty on the shelves, putting in bathroom policies that enable rapists, and then wondering why increasing numbers of students are engaging in these behaviors. And the school boards are apparently running interference as parents point this out to them and ask for change.

  13. My then-gf/now-wife was a student teacher at Park Center HS in 1993-1994. Her experiences there made it easy for us to agree (at that time): If we ever have kids, only over our dead bodies will they set foot in a public school for educational purposes.

    She was teaching 11th grade social studies (back when they somewhat taught history and not SJW indoctrination). There was a 150 point project that covered the semester. 10 of those 150 points were awarded if the student used colored pencil, crayons, or markers to decorate the manila folder instead of pen/pencil. Their minimum weekly essay length was 3 sentences.

    My daughter graduated from Benilde in 2020, my son is a junior there. We live a lower-middle class lifestyle in order to send them there. Our newest car is a 2011. We haven’t been on a true “vacation” since 2008.

    Also, a muslim student in her class said she deserved to die because she was not muslim and wouldn’t accept muslim ideology. But that’s another topic.

    BikeBubba – case in point: https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-school-board-chaperones-elementary-school-students-gay-bar

    then wondering why increasing numbers of students are engaging in these behaviors. And the school boards are apparently running interference as parents point this out to them and ask for change.

    They’re only wondering as a public front. They know damn well what will result (is resulting) from what they’re doing. This isn’t coincidental nor unanticipated. It’s trying to destroy the fabric of western/American civilization.

    “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”
    –Lenin

    They’ve had not just 4 years, they’ve had 3-4 generations. It must drive them batshit crazy that there are still so many conservatives in spite of the efforts of public education since 1960.

  14. . . . it strikes me that a rather promiscuous teacher whose goal in life is to “protect children from their parents” (e.g. “liberate them from bourgeios moral values”)
    This is fight within the bourgeois. Teachers, even little grade school teachers, consider themselves to be, not workers, but part of the “educated class.” They think they are management, not workers, poor souls.

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