The Left’s Hijacking of American Public Education

By Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D.

16 February 2010

The popular television sitcom, Happy Days, from 1974-1984, portrayed life in America in the 1950s as lighthearted and easy, with two parent families and children who were occasionally mischievous but respectful of their elders.  There was a certain nostalgia about the “good old days” when “life was simple”.

Indeed, life had changed for American families where children no longer had to be “seen and not heard”.

A “me” generation grew up with Gerber baby foods, Barbie dolls, clothing specially designed for children, hoola hoops, Tinkertoys, Lionel trains, Rock n’Roll, and Dr. Spock.  Parents were advised that physical discipline was

unhealthy for the child psyche and that children should be allowed to make their own decisions.  With this new permissive home environment and parents who were willing to go into debt to provide an abundance of material things for their children, it was not surprising this generation turned to drugs, sex and divorce under the pressures of civil rights and the Vietnam War.

Prior to the 1960s, public schools and teachers taught the basics—with the McGuffey Reader, old- fashioned math, and writing---and our American values of patriotism and virtue.  It was in the public schools that immigrant children learned the American language, customs, and laws and became a proud part of our culture.

Children were taught patriotic songs, the Lord’s Prayer, the Golden Rule, and the Ten Commandments.

Adults today reminisce about those childhood school days with the reciting of Bible verses and the pledge to the flag, sitting cross legged on the floor reading aloud the McGuffy stories, learning arithmetic with homemade flashcards, and excitedly copying in their tablets alphabet written by the teacher on the chalkboard during writing lessons.  Underlying this was the secure feeling of a common bond—love of country, our American heritage, and our religious faith and ideals.

Almost overnight the public schools were turned upside down by John Dewey and other intellectual elitists who threw our American values to the winds and told our youth to make their own moral/immoral choices, including sexual diversity.

With the massive dumbing down of the elementary and secondary school curricula, along with the substitution of “whole language” and “new math” for phonics and traditional math, we now have millions of American who cannot read or do math calculations.  The “educational experts” have relegated the learning of cursive writing to the sidelines as an archaic exercise, since students can use computers to write. (With text messaging, they now spell words anyway they wish.)

Liberal teachers are using the classroom to instill fear into young minds about the potential effects of global warming and the extinction of polar bears rather than knowledge and appreciation of our American founders and founding documents.

Instead of teaching basic skills that will serve our youth through life, we waste twelve years and billions of taxpayer dollars to graduate illiterate students who are encouraged to enter college regardless of whether it is an appropriate choice.  A 2004 Department of Education study reported that 42% of freshman needed remedial classes. It’s no wonder that fewer than 60% earn a college diploma, according to a report issued by the American Enterprise Institute recently.

Liberals have infiltrated our schools with their indoctrination of sex outside of marriage, diversity, and multiculturalism.  They have revised our American history to include U.S. guilt as a global villain, denial of American Exceptionalism, and the exclusion of our great heroes and founding fathers.

In two court cases, Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), the fundamental right of parents to control the upbringing of their own children was affirmed.   In rejection of this Meyer-Pierce doctrine, intellectual elites and the radical National Education Association decided they alone knew best what should be taught to students.

With the help of activist judges, leftists have created a monopolistic control over our public education.

In Fields v. Palmdale School District (2005), it was ruled that a public school can teach “whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise," and the right of parents to control the rearing of their children "does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door."

“Whatever information it wishes to provide” has been further determined in recent circuit and federal court rulings to include the teaching of homosexuality,¹ pornography,² and Muslim religion and practices.³

In North Carolina, liberal educators are proposing significant changes to their state’s high school curricula, including the deletion of the study of American history prior to 1877 and the addition of Global Studies.

Universities also have been infiltrated by leftists who preach their particular ideologies and political stances.   The most recently publicized program is the University of Minnesota‘s Teacher Education Redesign Initiative.

One of the critics of the University’s task group is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).  Adam Kissel, FIRE director, wrote a letter to University President Robert Bruininks and the College of Education and Human Development stating that "the result will be political and ideological screening of applicants, remedial re-education for those with the 'wrong' views and values, and withholding of degrees from those upon whom the university's political reeducation efforts proved ineffective….These intentions violate the freedom of conscience of the university's students. As a public university bound by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the university is both legally and morally obligated to uphold this fundamental right."

Missouri State University and the University of Delaware have also come under fire for attempting to institutionalize leftist ideologies, disguised as ‘cultural competence’.

“We the People” are paying exorbitant taxes to support this left wing agenda that has had a destructive impact upon our society and created generations of illiterate students who hate the United States and capitalism.   The classroom has become a platform to effect social and cultural transformation, rather than the teaching of readin’, writin’, ‘rithmetic, and the classics.

For decades we have spent more time watching our favorite TV dramas than in paying attention to the drama going on in D.C., our courts, and our schools.

We must change our priorities or we are destined to lose America—the “shining city upon the hill” that beckons to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.

It’s high time we regain control of our American public schools and our rights as parents!

____________________________________________

¹ Evans-Marshall v. Board of Education (2005)

² Boyd Gay-Straight  v. Boyd Board of Education (2006)

³ Eklund  v. Byron Union School District (2005)

Copyright ©2010 Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D., All rights reserved

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