Public Education - What is it post-COVID, post Trump and 40 years of attack

This is a friend of mine. My wife and I got pretty involved in local school board politics last year. QAnon, Moms For Liberty. We were personally attacked - it was bad. Parts of it made national news.

Last year, a friend of mine tried to teach the text by Coates "Between The World And Me.". Included was a discussion of systemic racism, as it's a dominant theme in the book. It set off a shit storm.

I'm really concerned that public education, after being under attack for 40 years, is about to really be damaged..

Teacher ordered to stop 'illegal' lesson; racism 'too heavy to discuss,' student complains

 

It would've been nice to see the video in question but there is a problem between my tablet and the MNNBC video-in-a-video.

As you stated fights over what is appropriate in schools has been going for decades, maybe centuries.

Here in Texas the big battle has been over school books. If publishers want their book$ $elected, they censor the content.

Actually I really need to respond to this using the laptop, because I can babble forever.

 

Understood. Y'all's position in textbook adoption fucks up everyone, but SC would do the same thing. It really makes me think about wanting to think about residency elsewhere.

 

My biggest concern over public schools in the allowance of vouchers for private schooling to be exempted from paying school taxes. If you want our urban & inner‐city schools to sink (further) into the cesspool keep taking away funding.

You could look at nearly any large city as an example. I'm going to mention Detroit because it's financial problems have been ongoing for decades. Detroit's school tax base is already small enough.

But we're not parents. I can understand the resistance to paying school taxes while paying private tuition.

But we gladly pay school taxes because we know public schools need funding.

 

To the victor goes the spoils.

If the Sanitize & Protect movements have their way future generations of children won't be taught there was a fight over what they should and shouldn't be taught.

This is especially scary to me because of the huge gap between what I was taught in Texas Public Schools in the mid '60s through late '70s, and in college.

I hate to think of public education being further reinterpreted to fit a conservative agenda, watered down, & sanitized.


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Digression:

Mentioning universities...some states have already moved to reduce what they see as WOKE agendas in state supported universities.
This could be huge in Texas for many reasons. First we have an extensive system of state universities*. The Univ of Texas, and Texas A&M, are the two largest. Some UT grads go on to attend law school at UT, as do some TAM grads**. Any Sanitize & Protect agendas from those schools could reinforced in the law school.

* Texas falls behind (sucks compared to) many states in many important social & educational categories, but a relatively affordable college education isn't one of them.

** Which goes a long way to explain why our overflowing Permanent University Fund only protects UT and TAM.

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How will the NPD Trump presidency, and the aftermath, be taught in the future?

Will massive voter fraud in 2020 be taught as truth?

Will the overturning of Roe v Wade be taught neutrally, negatively, or as a victory?

Will there be a huge education gap between Northern blue states and Southern red states?

 

I think it'll eventually be taught with a magnitude slightly less than Lincoln - I think the period between W and Trump will be seen as a very chaotic period that could have gone in a lot of directions.

I'm assuming Biden wins in 2024, and the Republican Party either realigns, implodes, or dies.

I think eventually... We know where this is going. Whether it's 3 years, 5, 10, 50, 100 or 500... Eventually rational progressive trends will emerge.

I think we'll adopt a new economic system within a hundred years. We're about due, and communication, travel and data transfer are so different than when capitalism emerged that I have to think we'll have gone through another cycle.

 

https://www.salon.com/2023/07/05/moms-for-liberty-are-in-for-a-rude-awakening/

Easy to dismiss as misdirected do nothings, but not when they get media attention and the backing of top GOP leaders and politicians.

 

And that is a big problem since most states choose to just buy the Texas books because they are cheaper and they don't have to have the battles over what goes into the books in their states.

 

It is a mess in Ohio. The charter schools get to bill the public school for the difference in funds from what the state gives per student and what the public school funds per student. So if the public school is spending $8,000 per student, but the city is well off and only gets $3,000 from the state, the local public school has to hand over $5,000 to the charter school from local tax dollars for each student that goes to the charter school.

https://knowyourcharter.com/

And then people complain about how much tax money is going to the public schools and how taxes just keep going up and up.

 

I grew up in family and friend circle of public education, and I occasionally think to myself : fuck it. Let these nutjobs get what they think they want, and watch the system collapse. Let all the teachers walk off, and see what happens when these people have to actually teach... And baby sit... And counsel... And feed... All these kids.

It would be devastating, so it can't happen anymore than allowing our banking system to collapse when they inevitably create the next unsustainable investment and debt scheme that blows up... But it blows my mind how short sighted people can be.

 

Related to a collapse...
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) recently took over the Houston Independent School District (HISD). This action is huge for several reasons, worthy of a separate thread.

HISD is like a huge tenement building that is so dilapidated it needs to be razed, included ripping out the foundation, & completely rebuilt. Repairs, even major ones, are just temporary, and a waste of money.

But the kids attending HISD schools can't be displaced in an orderly fashion (probably not even haphazardly given the magnitude of the task) while TEA rebuilds HISD.

TEA will make some worthy changes, and inevitably some painful mistakes. They won't be able to do what needs to be done, completely rebuild HISD.

^ This' the short version of my rant.

 

I read about that a few months ago it feels like? I feel like the slant of the article implied it was against the wishes of the community. I figured Abbot was being an asshole again.

It sounds like your understanding is this is a good thing on balance? Is the district too large to really work?

 

Whether or not it's a good thing won't be known for quite some time. My current thinking is the move is too late.

HISD is (was) a huge, with multiple layers of bureaucracy, & many factions. Much of the fighting is between schools that perform very poorly, & ones that do well. And that in turn tends to be along racial lines.

Residents tend to defend their local schools, even the worst ones. And the worst schools tend to be in areas that are largely non-anglo. Attempts to change those schools, esp extreme measures that would be needed for long-term improvements, are met with charges of racism.

HISD's slide into the cesspool needed to be stopped decades ago. The best TEA can do is keep applying bandages, just like HISD did, because major surgery needed is now impossible to perform.

 

That's part of what I gathered - it makes me think about the moves I anticipate here to consolidate as people move money to charters and hollow out public schools.

 

What's the deal with the librarians being closed down in favor of discipline centers in low income areas of the new district? Librarians and media specialists cut? Canned lesson plans and more standardized tests?

It sounds like Abbott is using a tough situation to apply the worst methods if addressing the challenges from what I'm reading..

 

From what I can tell it's budget cutting. I won't be surprised if electives see even more reduced funding, along with an increased emphasis on scoring well on standardized testing.

I'm not sure how much Abbott is involved. It's very possible he wants to pay Houston back for being a blue pebble in his red shoe, but the TEA has been eyeing HISD for years.