Author: Max Eden Via American Mind
The Views of the Author are not necessarily the Views of Enigmose
Black and Hispanic students should not work hard or be nice. If you believe that doing so would be to their advantage, that’s probably a sign that you haven’t adequately grappled with your internalized white supremacism and anti-Blackness.
So suggests, at least, the founder and CEO of KIPP, America’s largest and arguably most successful charter school network, which operates 242 schools serving about 100,000 students.
A decade ago, charter schools were a rare bipartisan bright spot. Conservatives liked them because they demonstrated that choice and competition can drive superior results. Liberals liked them because they demonstrated that well-run programs could change the life trajectory of disadvantaged students. What distinguished KIPP from traditional public schools was its ethos: high expectations for academic achievement, strict standards for discipline, and an unflagging insistence that their students had the power to shape their destinies. All this was encapsulated in its pithy slogan: “Work Hard. Be Nice.”
But last week, KIPP retired that slogan, explaining that it ignores the significant effort required to dismantle systemic racism, places value on being compliant and submissive, supports the illusion of meritocracy, and does not align with our vision of students being free to create the future they want.”
KIPP’s self-denunciation should be a wakeup call for parents of schoolchildren across the country. In his Mt. Rushmore speech, President Trump sounded the alarm that schools are teaching students distorted, anti-American history. Would that were the worst of our problems.
More important than the facts or fictions our children are taught (and soon forget) is the moral and cultural worldview our schools inculcate.
Perhaps the central tenet of America’s contemporary civil religion is opposition to racial supremacism. And no decent parent could object to schools teaching children to abhor slavery, Jim Crow, or malevolent hooligans carrying Tiki Torches.
But these things were not what KIPP’s CEO Richard Barth had in mind when he “acknowledged the ways in which the school and organizational culture we built and how some of our practices perpetuated white supremacy and anti-Blackness.”
It will sound strange to most parents. Let me translate: that by “white supremacy and anti-Blackness” Barth means encouraging kids to “work hard” and “be nice.” But according to established identity politics ideology, things such as “objectivity,” a “sense of urgency,” “worship of the written word,” “perfectionism,” “intellectualization,” and essentially all the middle-class virtues are “white supremacist.”
An Anti-American Caste System
It’s difficult to overstate how genuinely racist this is. One of the primary justifications proffered by enslavers for slavery was that blacks were—whether by Nature or because of History—incapable of exercising the virtues necessary for self-government. By intimating that the middle-class virtues are inherently foreign or hostile to “Blackness,” KIPP has taken essentially the same stance and labeled it “anti-racism.”
What’s more, Barth insists the new morality must be enforced across the entire KIPP network. “Moving forward,” Barth writes, “we want employee offer letters to include language that requires a commitment to anti-racism as a condition of employment because everyone who works at KIPP must be committed to anti-racism in their beliefs and in their behavior.”
Talk to teachers and they will tell you, sub rosa, that students have figured out that they have a trump card to play at any time: calling something “racist.” The lucky teachers have principals who will sit that kid down and explain to him that he shouldn’t just call anything or anyone he doesn’t like “racist.” Anyone who teaches in an “anti-racist” school will not be so lucky.
State Action to Save Charters
Charter schools were once at the forefront of a movement dedicated to fighting the soft bigotry of low expectations. Unfortunately, KIPP seems to have decided that having high expectations was the true bigotry all along.
This is a tragedy for disadvantaged students. But it should also be a wakeup call for conservatives. Because identity politics ideology is coming for traditional public schools as well. We should no longer look at school choice as merely a way to better serve at-risk students, because it’s becoming less clear that they are. Full Article @ American Mind
Liberal Intelligentsia Hate Charter Schools,
From Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Today, charter schools are frowned upon by liberal intelligentsia for undermining public education. In my own home state of Washington, charter schools are constantly berated in public forums (we are zealously pro-public education, apparently). But what is it that they find so repulsive? In a charter school, teachers are encouraged to push themselves as well as their students towards excellence. Hard work is rewarded while expectations of privilege are not tolerated. Similar to a private school, a charter school encourages mutual respect through equanimity in the form of school uniforms. Traditional ideals are taught openly, such as the contributions of Western civilization to the world at large. There is a tireless effort to encourage open dialogue. Reading and an appreciation for knowledge are held in the highest regard. Even ten-year-olds developed a profound zeal for the material our instructors had prepared.
I’m not saying these characteristics can’t be found in a public school—of course they can! But what I had at Legacy Prep was something I will never forget. It was an opportunity to bathe in the warmth of intellectual curiosity even as a child. Material was not boiled down to its acrid simplicity and then spoon-fed in carefully allotted dosages. Our teachers welcomed us with seminars, lectures, and sincere pedagogical exercises. Instead of setting standards and then rushing along the battle-lines treating the fallen, Legacy Prep adopted a solid, structured approach to education, based on centuries of Western experimentation, and expected teachers to adapt to fit the needs of their students.
If every school was a charter school, a student would enter the world as a well-educated person even if his learning was a passive recollection. But not every school can be a charter school. I understand that. Let’s not prevent others, however, from having experiences like I did in the name of state institutionalization. Options are the key to a prosperous society. The free market works best when innovation is allowed, so why not give the market of education free reign? Full Article @ Intercollegiate Studies Institute
EXPOSED: The Real Reasons Democrats are Fighting 'School Choice' and Charter Schools
Author: Steven Crowder
The Views of the Author are not necessarily the Views of Enigmose
Charter schools. School choice. Educating the young minds of tomorrow. Leftists have one preferred method (public schools) and conservatives have another: competition. That's right, education, like every other industry, can be subject to market choices.
Rather than focus on the merits of one over the other, leftists fall back to purely emotional appeals...
There is no valid argument against school choice or charter schools. Zip, zero, ze. Even people on the left acknowledge the public school system blows chunks. Hence their constant cries for more funding. Because right behind those appeals to emotion, the leftists' favorite pastime is throwing money at a problem. Not their money, though. Your money. What were you going to do with it anyway? Put it toward your child's education? LOL! Loser. Full Article @ Louder with Crowder
De Blasio shouts that he ‘hates’ charter schools at campaign event
De Blasio wants to snuff out charter schools — the bright light of NYC schools
Teachers’ unions step up fight against charter schools