The multi-decade drip-drip-drip politicization of public schools is in crisis mode. Taxpayer funded schools have gone full court woke. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), with no sense of being off-mission or inappropriate, has instituted “Woke Wednesday”. “A day where wearing apparel related to racial and social justice movements is recommended in order to educate, support, and highlight communities which are marginalized and oppressed for the purpose of sparking meaningful, empathetic educational conversations amongst communities.” Boy is that a mouth full of politicized poop wrapped in progressive jargon. To boot, the description of glorious Woke Wednesday is poorly written.
LAUSD and SDUSD (San Diego Unified School District) are districts that solved failure rate problems by making a ‘D’ a passing grade. Both districts kept kids out of school for over a year. The LAUSD attrition rate this year was more than 6% (26,000 kids), English proficiency levels were 42% and math 31%. Eighty percent of the kids are black or Latino. The teachers just negotiated a 6% salary increase after having been paid to stay home for more than a year. SDUSD lost about 4% of its enrollment with equally dismal student academic performance and teachers huddled indoors at home. These systems are designed for mediocrity pushed indoctrination. Tenure guarantees that after two years of service teachers’ salaries, health insurance and pensions are guaranteed for life. Short of proven molestation of a kid, the teachers serve performance standards free. It’s a scam with our kids as the marks. Parents are the suckers.
What truly marginalizes these kids is an inferior education courtesy of teacher unions more concerned with identity politics and teacher benefits than rigorous math, history, English, biology and civics classes. Charter schools and vouchers are fought tooth and nail by the unions. Maybe just maybe time wasted on ‘woke’ would be better spent memorizing math tables and formulas; writing essays, studying our founding documents, memorizing USA states and capitals; continents and nations; diagramming sentences, learning anatomy and biological systems; and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance each morning? Valuable skills wrapped in gratitude should be the responsibility of schools paid for with tax dollars. Those are the kind of skills required to get a good job, function as adults and be happy. Instead too many schools produce social justice kvetches.
“Woke”, “marginalized”, “social justice” and “oppressed” are words used by partisan advocates for political purposes. These are not the words of scholarship. Parents can introduce their children to these movements and causes at home if they choose or send their kids to private schools promoting the partisan indoctrination they desire. Seems like Harvard Westlake would be the kind of school that sort of family might like. If they want to start the Louis Farrakhan School for Black Supremacy, the David Duke Academy for White Supremacy or the Social Justice School for Woke, go for it, but not on my dime.
Public schools have no business being institutions designed to nurture activists of any sort. Promoting social justice to mandated captives in classrooms is a vile betrayal of public-school teacher’s duties.
In the more elite achievement-oriented schools we have activist training classes as well. Most of these higher performing kids enter college trained to complain, protest and demand “change” as learned and defined by K-12 teachers. One might more appropriately call it narcissists training. Young people with little knowledge and less real-world experience are molded into agents of change. God forbid they be given the following message. ‘Keep your transformative protest ideas to yourself until you have studied the classics, the founding of our nation and understand why you are free and thriving on opportunities unheard of in history. We offer you the old fashion notions of humility and respect for the legacy that was delivered to you by way of the sacrifices and wisdom of previous generations of American men and women.’
Unfortunately, we deal with the virus of hubris among teachers educated to evaluate everything in terms of oppressor versus victim based on race and gender. This is a pandemic of balkanization far more dangerous to kids than Covid-19. Only kids with serious comorbidities fall victim to that infection. But all the kids, unless immunized by great parenting, will fall victim to the ridiculous partisan notions of the LAUSD, SDUSD and other woke publicly paid for institutions nation-wide.
“High school students marched through downtown San Diego and Chula Vista on Friday to raise alarm for action to address climate change”, San Diego Union Tribune, September 24, 2021. These marginally informed children marched on a school day with the support of teachers and administrators. They are unwitting tools used by public servants with agendas detached from education. In what world is it appropriate for public employees to encourage and attend these sorts of events during the school day?
Juniors and seniors at Torrey Pines High School in San Diego can take a class called “Social Justice”. The teacher, unashamed, in an online description says the class is intended to teach kids to be “leaders in social justice”. The bubble he lives in does not inform him that the very notion of “social justice” is political and runs contrary to the core American concept of justice as represented by Lady Liberty wearing a blindfold. This class removes that blindfold in order to scrutinize every situation and person through the lens of wide open-eyed identity politics. Which of course is a complete refutation of justice. That’s why they employ a word to modify ‘justice’.
God bless this teacher and his peer’s commitment to “social justice” and climate Armageddon. They can join any number of organizations to pursue their partisan causes outside of the classroom, even though the kids would get college credit for “social justice”. Too many schools are acting as preparatory provocateur training centers intending to create a woke electorate. This behavior constitutes a misappropriation of public funds.
Those of us who understand that none of this should be in classrooms must demand a return to education. It may be too late. If we fail, we need to continue the abandonment trend we see at LAUSD and SDUSD. If and when that 6% of parents going elsewhere becomes 12%, 24% or 36%, the woke may begin to keep their personal politics out of the classroom.
A taxpayer lawsuit alleging a misappropriation of educational funds should have merit. But I doubt the partisan courts in California would be willing to demand public schools return to an appropriate public mission. Some of us call this state the People’s Republic of California. That description is, regrettably, accurate.