Category: education

Education Is A National Priority

Throughout our national history, conflict over education has erupted with tiring regularity. Soon after the Revolution, common schools were designed by Protestant elites to foster “Americanization,” but they used the King James Bible and Protestant curriculum. Irish Catholic immigrants in New York and Philadelphia resisted what they saw as forced indoctrination and demanded public funds for their own schools. These tensions led to riots in Philadelphia in 1844, where Catholic homes and churches were burned. This conflict cemented the shift towards non-sectarian public schools, although they often retained a general Protestant character.

Many citizens, particularly wealthier ones, were reluctant to pay taxes for other people’s children to be educated. Some workers resisted the invasiveness of compulsory education, as it kept children out of the workforce, forcing some towns to temporarily abandon or reduce public school efforts, such as in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1860.[1] Child labor was highly widespread in the U.S. during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with over 1.75 million children aged 15 and under (roughly 18% of the workforce) reported as working in 1910. Children as young as 3 or 4 were sometimes used for small, specialized tasks, while 5 to 8-year-olds were frequently employed in hazardous textile mills, mines, and factories. Child labor was finally curbed by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.[2]

Before the Civil War, most Southern states passed laws making it illegal to teach enslaved people to read or write out of fear that they would read abolitionist literature, such as David Walker’s Appeal, and communicate, fueling organized uprisings like Nat Turner’s Rebellion of 1831. Also, literate enslaved people could read maps, forge travel passes, or write passes for themselves to escape to free states, a method used by many to escape bondage. Slaveholders believed an illiterate, ignorant enslaved person was easier to manage and obey, whereas literacy made them “disconsolate and unhappy” in their captivity. And literacy challenged the white supremacist justification that Black people were inherently inferior, unintelligent, or “less than human.”

Even in northern states, black children were largely denied access to public schools, often being forced into segregated, inferior schools, leading to early school desegregation battles, such as Roberts v. City of Boston in the 1840s. The “Slave Bible”—formally titled Select Parts of the Holy Bible for the use of the Negro Slaves—was used in the 19th-century United States, particularly in the South, though it was primarily produced in London in 1807 for British Caribbean colonies. It was a heavily redacted version of the Bible created to promote obedience and prevent slave revolts, with 90% of the Old Testament and 50% of the New Testament removed.

Following the Civil War, southern schoolhouses became battlegrounds to teach the “Lost Cause” narrative—a false interpretation of history that portrayed slavery in a positive light and argued the war was over states’ rights, not slavery. School officials strictly monitored textbooks to ensure they did not challenge Confederate interpretations of history. This led through coming decades to culminate in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) in which the Supreme Court ruled that separate schools were “inherently unequal.” Decades of “massive resistance” from Southern states ensued. In the 1970s, court-ordered busing forced integration in schools resulting in violent protests, most notably in Boston in 1974, and contributed to “white flight” to suburban schools. In response to integration orders, numerous private, segregated religious schools were established, particularly in the South, to circumvent desegregation.

Concurrently, the Scopes “Monkey” Trial in 1925 was a landmark confrontation between traditionalists (conservatives) and modernists (progressives), focusing on a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools, effectively curbing the teaching of science for several decades.

School prayer remains a hot topic for both religionists as well as those defending the Constitution, with two lawsuits serving to define the subject. Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) declared that state-sponsored Bible reading and prayer in public schools were unconstitutional, fueling long-term debates over the secularization of public education. The fact is that public school children have always been able to pray when and wherever they pleased. What upsets religionists is that children in public schools cannot be led in prayer by adults—not teachers, not parents, not the principal. The desire to inculcate all children through prayer voicing religious doctrine drives this falsehood.

The later part of the century was marked by “curriculum wars” over the inclusion of diverse, non-European perspectives in history and literature curricula, which opponents claimed was a political attack on traditional national identity. Like the prayer argument, the textbook/curriculum battles continue unabated today, with most book content decided by heavily-conservative boards. [3]

“Given the high concentration of students in Texas and California, textbook makers know…they need to create books that are going to be approved by those large states.” said Dr. Max Altman, director of research and policy at the Southern Education Foundation. Altman said that requests for changes and outright rejections based on the inclusion of certain concepts are what make California, Florida and Texas so influential.

“This small group of people who approve textbooks within a couple of states have a very, very large effect on what students across the bottom of the United States and really across the country as a whole are able to learn,” he said.

[This 2022 article reports that] …[i]n April, the Florida Department of Education initially rejected 41% of all K-12 mathematics textbooks submitted for state adoption approval — the most in Florida’s history. The dismissal of the 54 textbooks — including 71% of K-5 math materials — stems from several claims: references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core and “unsolicited” inclusions of Social Emotional Learning.

The public push to provide evidential examples of the above reasons for rejection made national headlines, as the state’s Department of Education did not initially release any specifics. Later, it published four visual examples from the rejected textbooks.

Experts suggest that overseeing public school curricula in a small number of highly populated states has an outsized influence on what children are learning throughout the country. Because publishers often create uniform national editions, major state adoption boards, particularly in Texas (conservative-leaning) and California (liberal-leaning), exert outsized influence on nationwide content. Texas, one of the largest purchasers of textbooks, often pushes to emphasize “positive aspects” of American history, de-emphasize the role of slavery, increase the influence of Christianity, and promote gun rights. Conservative, evangelical, or religious viewpoints have often driven content to prioritize patriotism and limit topics like climate science or critical race theory.

California often pushes for inclusive, multicultural narratives, ensuring that textbooks feature stories of LGBTQ+ individuals, marginalized groups, and a more critical view of historical events. Due to this, publishers often create different regional versions or compromise by including, for instance, both more critical and more patriotic interpretations of events, creating a “whitewashed” or highly contentious final product.

Textbook selection and other elements of public schools are the task of school boards, both local and state level. While curricula are determined by state boards of education, there are no educational standards required of state board members. Eligibility for state boards of education typically requires candidates to be residents of the state, registered voters, and often residents of the specific district they aim to represent.

Not requiring a college degree for state boards of education is part of a broader, bipartisan shift towards skills-based governance and a move away from formal credential requirements, which are increasingly seen as unnecessary barriers to entry. While education policymakers need expertise, proponents of this shift argue that a degree is not a guarantee of competence, effective leadership, or relevant experience.

On the other hand, without a deep background in subject matter and education policy, board members may rely on ideological rather than research-based solutions to solve problems like low student achievement, leading to increased political polarization in schools. Members may struggle to evaluate curriculum standards, assessment tools, and learning theories, potentially leading to decisions that do not align with evidence-based practices. More concerning is that without the experience of the wide array of college coursework, members may focus on short-term political issues or “quick fixes” rather than the long-term, systemic changes needed to improve student outcomes.

State boards typically adopt standards (e.g., in reading, math) that outline skills students must master, hopefully informed by state law, national benchmarks, and expert input. State-level entities create frameworks, which may act as official requirements or recommended guidelines for local curriculum. State laws often mandate specific topics (e.g., specific subjects, or in some cases, restricting approaches) that schools must adopt. The degree of control varies by state; some states have highly centralized, mandatory curriculum lists, while others allow local districts greater flexibility. Boards often adopt standards at public meetings, occasionally with guidance from curriculum committees and teacher panels.

Local level textbook adoption policy leaves decisions to a local education agency (i.e. school district). State level textbook adoption policy leaves decisions to a state agency (i.e. state board of education) California has a statewide adoption policy at the elementary level. Secondary textbooks are chosen by local governing boards. The state of Hawaii comprises a single school district.
Map: Emily Schmidt, APM Research Lab Source: Education Commission of the States

Curricula

There are no federally mandated national education standards in the United States, as education is primarily managed by states and local districts. However, the nation utilizes voluntary, state-led standards like the Common Core State Standards, adopted in June 2010 by most states to ensure consistent math and English learning goals. Not adopting the standards are Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma. The reasons for common standards for curricula include the obvious, that children of a family moving from one state to another meet the same basic education as at their previous location. Also obvious is the need for all Americans to share the same understanding of national history, the operations of government, and fundamentals of reading, writing, and mathematics, as well as science.

School boards and districts have been empowered to make curriculum decisions in order to prepare future citizens. State constitutions require the operation of systems of education, and we elect school boards to make important decisions for community schools, including those related to materials and instruction. In some cases, parents object to these decisions, arguing that their constitutional rights have been violated. For example, in the [2008] federal appeals case of Parker v. Hurley, parents objected to their children being presented with books depicting diverse families, including families with parents of the same gender. The district refused to grant the children an exemption from the instruction. The parents argued that the refusal of an exemption amounted to an infringement on their constitutional rights as parents and their free exercise of religion rights under the First Amendment. The court disagreed, citing a long line of cases establishing that while parents have a constitutional right to raise their children, there is no right to direct how a public school teaches those children. [4]   

The New Puritans at Work

The overarching religious education agenda is not a single project but rather a continuous political tug-of-war for the control of educational narratives. The division between these two fundamentals of education has led, in part, to today’s division in American society.

We can identify the ways that the Puritan ethic drives Christian Nationalism. The Puritans sought to build a “city on a hill” defined by severe piety, communal surveillance, and strict adherence to moral codes, rather than by religious freedom. Christian Nationalists interpret the “city on a hill” phrase, derived from John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon,[5] as a divine mandate that the United States is a uniquely ordained, Christian nation meant to act as a moral, religious beacon to the world. This vision, often championed by President Ronald Reagan, blends national identity with biblical prophecy, suggesting America holds a special, providential covenant to embody Christian principles enforced by the government.

Puritan men held public office, imposing religious law to govern social and legal life. Only adult male church members (“the elect”) could vote in elections and participate in town government. Laws were based on Old Testament teachings. Today, many within the Christian Nationalist movement believe that men are specifically ordained by God to lead in government, politics, and the public sphere. This ideology is rooted in a belief in “biblical patriarchy” or complementarianism, which argues that God established distinct roles for men and women, where men are designed to lead and protect while women are called to support and submit.

Puritan leaders were intolerant of dissenting religious views, which were seen as dangerous to the community’s mission. Christian Nationalists generally believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and that its laws and public life should reflect Christian, specifically Protestant, values. Other religions are viewed as subordinate, threats to national identity, or demonic, with many proponents supporting the restriction of non-Christian practices.

Puritan households were strictly hierarchical, with the father as the head. Women were viewed as “helpmeets” for their husbands with fewer rights, though they held significant responsibility in managing the home, raising children, and tending the gardens. Likewise, many proponents of Christian Nationalism believe that women should prioritize staying at home, focusing on raising children and submitting to their husbands’ leadership.

During the early Puritan period, the “Old Deluder Law” required every town of fifty or more families to pay for a teacher, and they founded Harvard College in 1636 for training ministers. They believed in the active presence of the devil and witches, leading to the Salem witch trials in 1692, which occurred when religious political control was waning. Christian Nationalists view public education as a vital, yet currently hostile, battlefield for the nation’s cultural and spiritual direction. They generally aim to dismantle the traditional secular public school system by promoting school choice vouchers to fund private religious education, instilling conservative Christian values, banning certain books, and reversing LGBTQ+ inclusion.

The Trump administration (2017-2021 and 2025-2028) has adopted key elements of the Christian Nationalist agenda by prioritizing policies that blur the line between church and state, fostering religious exemptions for conservative Christians, and appointing individuals aligned with this ideology to high-ranking positions. Trump has appointed conservative Christian judges, including three Supreme Court justices (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett), who have delivered rulings expanding religious exemptions. They joined John Roberts and Samuel Alito, both appointed by evangelical adherent George W. Bush; Clarence Thomas, the sixth conservative on the nine-member court, was appointed by Bush’s father, George H. W. Bush.

At the prompting of his Christian Nationalist backers, Trump initiatives aim to review federal actions for “anti-Christian” sentiment and protect “religious freedom,” defined by Christian nationalists not as the separation of church and state, but as the right to embed a specific, conservative Christian worldview into government, law, and public life including the use of taxpayer dollars in support of religious education and eliminating government support for advancing educational effectiveness.

Based on 2026 budget proposals and actions, we see that the Trump administration has sought to cut or eliminate over $8.5 billion in K-12 education programs and $2.7 billion in higher education, while targeting programs like TRIO (outreach and student services initiatives funded by the U.S. Department of Education to help low-income, first-generation college students, and individuals with disabilities succeed in education, ranging from middle school through adult education), GEAR UP (a federal discretionary grant program designed to increase the number of low-income, underserved, or first-generation students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education), and Federal Work-Study for elimination or massive reductions. (Initiated in 1964, the program provides part-time jobs for undergraduate and graduate students with financial need, allowing them to earn money for education expenses.)

The Trump administration’s cuts to K-12 education focus on slashing, consolidating, or eliminating programs like after-school, summer, and mental health grants. More than 760 in-progress grants, worth over $2 billion, were discontinued in 2025, including cuts to college prep ($300m+), civics ($35m), and racial integration ($26m). Other cuts target teacher training ($2.2 billion) and English learner services ($890 million). The administration also proposed the “Make Education Great Again” block grant, which would overhaul K-12 education by consolidating federal funding, cut federal oversight, and shift control to states. It prioritizes school choice, patriotic education, and literacy/math, while reducing the Department of Education’s role. This would cut existing program funding by 70%.

Trump’s cuts aren’t the first to take the U.S. educational efforts backwards despite extensive research showing the benefits of programs now being eliminated. This has been an ongoing effort by Christian Nationalists over the last fifty years. During the 1980s, Ronald Reagan campaigned on abolishing the Department of Education, with his 1981 budget reducing spending and consolidating grants.

This despite findings on the effectiveness of public education funding showing that increased spending per pupil yields significant social returns, especially in high-poverty districts. State cutbacks to K–12 spending, the rise of voucher programs, and Trump’s attacks on the federal Department of Education threaten to rob the majority of U.S. children of an adequate education.[6] The vast majority of our youth (90%) are in our public school system. Approximately 49-50 million K-12 students attend public schools in the U.S., while roughly 4.7 to 5.5 million (9%-11%) students are enrolled in private schools, based on 2021-2022 data.

Despite Trump’s claim that such cuts are necessary to reduce the outrageous federal deficit, the numbers prove him wrong. The U.S. national debt increased by approximately $1.78 trillion to $2.25 trillion since January 2025, pushing the total gross national debt past $38 trillion. The debt stood at roughly $36.22 trillion around Jan. 20, 2025, and reached $38 trillion by late October 2025. By March/April 2026, total debt crossed $39 trillion.

As for national security and a sound economy, inadequate education is a root cause of significant social issues, primarily driving cycles of poverty, high unemployment rates, and increased crime. It limits economic mobility, reduces workforce productivity, and fosters gender inequality, while also contributing to poor health outcomes, political instability, and social unrest.

Finally, in studies comparing the racial and ethnic composition of charter schools to public schools, researchers generally find that charter schools preserve or intensify racial and economic segregation, and/or facilitate white flight from public schools. Furthermore, studies that compare individual students’ demographic characteristics to the schools they are leaving (public schools) and the schools they are switching to (charter schools) generally demonstrate that students “leave more diverse public schools and enroll in less diverse charter schools.”[7]

Hardly the path toward a unified nation.

[1] Vinovskis, Maris A. “The Politics of Educational Reform in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts: The Controversy Over the Beverly High School in 1860. Final Report,” Institute of Education Sciences, Aug 15, 1980. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED200495

[2] Indiana, Iowa, West Virginia, Idaho, and Arkansas have passed legislation loosening these protections, with Arkansas eliminating work permits and age verification requirements for children under sixteen.

[3] Schmidt, Emily. “Required Readings: How Textbook Adoption in 3 States Influences The Nation’s K-12  Population,” APM Research Lab,  June 2, 2022. https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-textbook-adoption

[4] Paige, Mark. “Constitution vs. Curriculum,” Resource Hub, National Association of Elementary School Principals, Mar 14, 2022.  https://www.naesp.org/resource/constitution-vs-curriculum/

[5] See https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/colliding-cultures/john-winthrop-dreams-of-a-city-on-a-hill-1630/

[6] Wething, Hilary, Bivens, Josh. U.S. Investment in Public Education Is At Risk,” Economic Policy Institute, Aug 21, 2025.  https://www.epi.org/publication/u-s-investment-in-public-education-is-at-risk-vouchers-state-budget-austerity-and-federal-attacks-on-the-department-of-education-threaten-childrens-futures

[7] “School segregation in the United States,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_segregation_in_the_United_States

This material is Chapter 2 of New Puritans and the U.S. Peerage: The Willful Destruction of Public Education

History of Church as State

Why devote tax dollars to teach children to read? Why do they need to understand how numbers work? What do we benefit from learning about our history, the past 250 years of this nation, the past millennia of human existence? Why not let churches provide education?

Why? Because a review of the past warns us of where religious government can lead. Colonists sailing to these shores in the early 1600s taught reading to support religion, a purpose that continued through the mid-19th century. Warring among themselves over which doctrine would be in control, Protestant-Catholic conflicts were driven by intense religious prejudice, political fears of loyalty to the Pope, and imperial wars against France and Spain. While Maryland was founded as a Catholic refuge, Protestants often took control, passing anti-Catholic laws. Maryland’s 1649 Toleration Act, providing freedom, was twice overturned by Puritans. In 1654, Puritan forces overthrew the proprietary government, outlawing Catholicism. Later, in 1689, “Protestant Associators” led by John Coode defeated Maryland’s Catholic proprietarial government, leading to the prohibition of public Catholic worship and the loss of their political rights.

Needless to say, religious violence didn’t start with American colonists. As far back as you care to examine European history, you find religious wars. The Crusades (11th–13th centuries) were launched by Western European Christians, sanctioned by the Pope, primarily to reclaim the Holy Land (Jerusalem) from Muslim rule, assist the Byzantine Empire against the Seljuk Turks, and reunite Christendom. Total deaths are estimated between two to six million. While exact breakdowns are impossible due to limited records, contemporary estimates suggest hundreds of thousands of Muslims died, while Christian losses included roughly one to two million Europeans.

Perhaps most horrific of these bloody religious wars were the years of the so-called Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834) which used systematic, often bureaucratic, methods to enforce Catholic orthodoxy including secret interrogations, psychological coercion, property confiscation, and calculated torture to extract confessions. Common torture methods included waterboarding, the rack, and pulley-based limb dislocating to force confessions which led to public auto-da-fé ceremonies and executions. Roughly 150,000 people, with an estimated 3,000–5,000 burned alive, were caught up in this religious insanity. As a global power, Spain engaged in religious wars against Protestantism, including conflicts with England, culminating in the 1588 Spanish Armada.

These actions were driven by Spain’s determination to create a uniformly Catholic society.  Sound familiar?

Other similar conflicts included:

  • The Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1653): A series of armed conflicts, including the Bishops’ Wars, the English Civil War (1642–1651), and the Irish Confederate Wars. This involved Anglicans (Royalists/Cavaliers) fighting Puritans (Parliamentarians/Roundheads), who were often allied with Scottish Presbyterians, against a backdrop of Catholic uprising in Ireland.
  • The English Civil War: A fundamental conflict between Anglicans (supporters of King Charles I) and Puritans (supporters of Parliament), leading to over 100,000 battle deaths and thousands more non-combat deaths.
  • Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland (1649–1653): Part of the wider civil war, aimed primarily at Catholic forces.
  • The Glorious Revolution (1688–1689) and Williamite War: A shift in power from Catholic King James II to Protestant forces (Anglicans and others), featuring battles between Anglicans and Catholics, particularly in Ireland.
  • Persecution of Quakers: Quakers were not an army but faced severe persecution from Puritans in New England (1656–1661) and both Anglicans and Puritans in England.

Other European religious wars included the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) resulting in 4.5 to 8 million deaths, while the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598) caused 2 to 4 million deaths.

The period after “discovery” of the New World featured the slaughter of millions of indigenous people. Upon arriving on these lands, still thriving with wildlife and virgin forests despite 40,000+ years of indigenous settlement, Europeans viewed these peoples as inferior and un-Christian, a view which justified brutal violence. Estimates suggest that roughly 55 to 56 million native people died in the Americas due to European colonization between 1492 and the early 1600s. This mass mortality, known as the “Great Dying,” represented about 90% of the indigenous population and was primarily caused by introduced diseases, alongside warfare, forced labor (slavery), and societal collapse.

Based on a 1493 papal decree, Christian explorers believed they had the right to claim land belonging to non-Christians, often viewing themselves as bringing civilization and God to “pagan populations.”

One wonders, what would Jesus do?

Religious conflicts in colonial America were widespread, characterized by Puritan persecution of Quakers and Baptists in New England, anti-Catholic laws in Maryland, and violence against dissenting evangelicals by Anglican authorities in the South. Conflicts also occurred between “Old Light” traditionalists and “New Light” revivalists during the Great Awakening. Puritans in Massachusetts Bay exiled dissenters like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, and hanged four Quakers between 1659 and 1661.

Intermingled among these loving brothers and sisters in Christ were the witch hunts driven by Puritan beliefs and fear of the devil, culminating in the 1692–1693 Salem witch trials, which saw 19 people hanged, one pressed to death,[1] and over 200 accused. While Salem is most famous, over 100 cases occurred across New England and Virginia between 1626 and 1730, including a significant 1662 panic in Hartford, Connecticut.

You’ll notice that in all that violent turmoil, it was the Puritans who were the most intolerant, the most determined to force everyone to their chosen faith. The Puritans believed they had a divine mandate to establish a “Holy Commonwealth” that would influence all areas of life, including public morality, law, and social behavior. This strongly parallels the Catholic crown’s effort to create a uniformly Catholic society across Europe.

Nothing could be closer to this four-hundred year old depraved mindset than the present-day reality of the Christian Nationalists’ ongoing determination to force their beliefs on everyone else, that “God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.” They seek secure political power, social dominance, and the implementation of policies based on their religious worldview.

Small wonder that by 1776, the Founding Fathers emphasized the importance of separating the powers of the church and the function of government in writing the new nation’s fundamental governing document and its First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

In the same line of thinking, founders like Thomas Jefferson and later reformers argued that a republic could not survive on ignorance. They viewed tax-supported public education as an insurance premium paid for by the wealthy to ensure political stability, create good citizens, and prevent social unrest. Nativism, driven by fears that newcomers would steal jobs, lower wages, threaten national identity, bring crime, and fail to assimilate particularly targeted Catholicism in the 19th century and non-northern European immigrants later. As immigration increased, particularly in the mid-19th century, public schools were viewed as a mechanism for assimilating children from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds into a shared “American” culture.

Education’s role today is all that and more, critical to our role as citizens of a nation meant to be governed by the people. We are tasked with self-governance as well as developing our moral character, intellectual growth, science-based literacy, and academic proficiency. Few would argue that most modern employment would be possible without these skills.

The chaos permeating United States society today is a primary outcome of our compromised educational system. It’s only going to get worse as budget cuts further undermine school operations and digital media becomes more permeated by artificial intelligence. But the greatest threat is the insidious creep of religious indoctrination, a largely unrecognized form of subversion which demands tax dollars in support of religious teachings in specific opposition to the Founding Fathers’ intent.

These efforts have simmered through our nation’s history, but only in the last fifty years have they made strides in overthrowing our constitutional foundations. We truly face a crisis.

[1] “Pressing” was a method where victims were laid down with heavy weights placed on their bodies, causing breathing to become impossible as ribs fractured, lungs collapsed, and internal organs failed over several hours or days. This happened to Giles Corey, an 81-year-old farmer.

New Puritans and the U.S. Peerage: The Willful Destruction of Public Education

Like the slow spread of a fatal disease, certain interest groups within the United States have been working to undermine the nation’s education system. Their goal, as so clearly outlined in the 900 pages of Project 2025, is to change our democratic republic into plutocratic theocracy. Ruling from the top, the wealthiest citizens (U.S. Peerage) will enjoy virtually no restrictions on their profits or the damage caused by their industries, while ruling from the bottom, the Christian Nationalists and other religious extremists (New Puritans) will ensure the population lives by Christian rules.

This is not a theory. This is the fact of the current situation as recent Supreme Court decisions have opened the door for unregulated homeschooling and religious private schools to receive our tax dollars in support of their operations. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution’s First Amendment, which specifically prohibits any government support for any religion.

This workaround has been steadily advancing since colonial days but has increased significantly since the 1940s when the “Red Scare” brought a fresh level of religious fanaticism to the public arena. The result? Today, billions of our tax dollars flow into religious school coffers while public schools suffer for inadequate funding even though 90% of K-12 students attend public schools. Perhaps more damaging than the financial costs are the lessons learned under religious instruction: that the Earth is only 6,000 years old; that vaccinations are harmful; that men are superior to women. These are the seeds of a modern nation’s destruction.

Grab your copy, only $6. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H3NW358F

New Puritans

Like the slow spread of a fatal disease, certain interest groups within the United States have been working to undermine the nation’s education system. Their goal, as so clearly outlined in the 900 pages of Project 2025, is to change our democratic republic into plutocratic theocracy. Ruling from the top, the wealthiest citizens (U.S. Peerage) will enjoy virtually no restrictions on their profits or the damage caused by their industries, while ruling from the bottom, the Christian Nationalists and other religious extremists (New Puritans) will ensure the population lives by Christian rules.

This is not a theory. This is the fact of the current situation as recent Supreme Court decisions have opened the door for unregulated homeschooling and students at religious private schools to receive our tax dollars in support of their operations. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution’s First Amendment, which specifically prohibits any government support for any religion.

This workaround has been steadily advancing since colonial days but has increased significantly since the 1940s when the “Red Scare” brought a fresh level of religious fanaticism to the public arena. The result? Today, billions of our tax dollars flow into religious school instruction while public schools suffer from inadequate funding even though 90% of K-12 students attend public schools. Perhaps more damaging than the financial costs are the lessons learned under religious instruction: that the Earth is only 6,000 years old; that vaccinations are harmful; that men are superior to women. These are the seeds of a modern nation’s destruction.

91 page booklet $6 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H3NW358F

Table of Contents

Preface

History of Church as State

Education Is A National Priority

The Education Problem: Bigger than the New Puritans

Why the Puritan Agenda Must Not Prevail

Unregulated Private and Home Schooling

The Arkansas Situation

Christian Nationalism’s Goal: Overturn the Constitutional Separation of Church and State 

In Conclusion

Afterword

A Not So Modest Proposal

Social Support Programs: Address the Root

People Need Assistance in Accessing Support Programs. Will is a 61-year-old alcoholic who has managed to support himself through his excellent construction skills. After his work partner died four years ago, he lived in the attic of the man’s house until summer 2024 when the man’s 26-year-old son was jailed for beating up Will. When the son was released after four months, the widow chose to protect her son from future conflicts by telling Will he had to move out. He is currently living in a camper on a rural property by the generosity of an acquaintance. A wheel broke off his truck and he has no money to fix it, but without transportation, he can’t earn any money. He needs food stamps but has no computer or other means of applying. His phone ran out of minutes back in August.

Will is just one example of the problems facing people who need social support. What’s needed for Will and many others is an advocate who can assist him through the process but also, more importantly, to assess the person’s situation, capabilities, and needs and to assist that person in moving beyond their current status. Education, job training, mental health care, and/or medical treatment are among the needs often experienced by those seeking government assistance, but rather than actually helping people get the help they need, current programs throw out random packages of aid without any comprehensive effort at addressing the root causes.

An advocate for such applicants could assist in the process of seeking help as minimal as obtaining food stamps, but also gaining access to the full array of needed services, completing the application process properly, or assigning a counselor to help the applicant sort out his/her current life situation (in which case the advocate and counselor become a team). Without expert advocates to steer each applicant through an increasingly complex system, we risk wasting billions on systemic inefficiencies and do nothing to solve the problems that cause these people to need help in the first place.

Dispose of Outdated Laws

Drug laws: The drug war, like alcohol prohibition before it, frames the use of certain intoxicants as a moral failing. The result has been mass incarceration for private behavior.

All natural drugs should be immediately legalized, regulated like alcohol, and taxed. Tax proceeds for legal sales in Colorado, for example, have paid for homeless housing while reducing expenditures for law enforcement and prisons. This should include marijuana, coca leaf, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, opium, and Ayahuasca, among others. Persons wishing to consume any of these substances should be able to walk into a retail establishment like a liquor store anywhere in the country and buy a product that’s been certified for purity and dosage. Such products should not be controlled by pharmaceutical companies. Individual production of such substances for personal consumption should be allowed without taxation or regulation. Public venues which serve psychoactive drugs should be licensed in the same manner as establishments for consuming alcohol.

Anyone previously convicted or imprisoned for possession, “manufacture,” or sale of these substances should be released from incarceration and their convictions expunged from the record. Unfortunately, due to the massive numbers of persons involved, any compensation for their loss of income or other social costs is not feasible.

Substance abuse, like alcoholism, can become a serious problem for certain people. Currently, only the very rich can afford treatment programs that address the whole person through nutrition, counseling, and exercise, among other things. Tax revenues derived from retail sales should first provide for comprehensive treatment centers in every community where anyone suffering from addiction can be immediately admitted.

Performance testing for job safety should take the place of current drug testing. A brief interface with a computer terminal for tests tailored to immediately show competency to meet job requirements—attention, dexterity, coordination, etc.—should be part of the employee’s work day.  A test failure, no matter what the cause of impairment—hangover, intoxication, fight with the spouse—could become part of that employee’s record with appropriate consequences for repeated failure. Intoxicated driving will be prosecuted.

Sex Laws: Prostitution should be legalized, regulated, and taxed as any other business. If a person wants to sell the use of his/her body for sexual gratification, it should be within his or her right to do so. Government licensing should include regular health inspections to ensure public safety. Houses of prostitution could include luxurious settings, the most attractive employees, or the most innovative approach – for example, offer an immersive experience in an establishment with fantasy themes (medieval, harem, S&M dungeon, etc.). There should be no restriction on how houses of prostitution or individual practitioners might combine their services with other services such as massage, restaurants, intoxication venues (alcohol and/or drugs), or even mental health counseling.

Nudity Laws: Allocation of designated locations where people can go without clothing should be legal in all states.

Facilities/Resources: Eliminating drug and sex laws will result in decreased need for jails and prisons as well as employees of the criminal justice system. Freed-up resources should be redirected to improving public defender salaries and providing for persons prosecuted for other offenses.

Reining in Corporate Greedmasters

CEOs and other top executives should receive pay based on the pay their workers receive. If the company is profitable enough to pay at CEO $27 million a year, workers should be earning far more than $15-$20 per hour. Likewise, prices for products that serve a lifesaving role for consumers should be regulated by the government just as utilities and other vital public services are regulated.

Healthcare: Medicare for everyone. Eliminate insurance companies unless they are non-profit. Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies must be non-profit. Drugs would be price controlled. Research for new treatments and new drugs would operate under federal grants.

Legal Services: Expand funding for free legal aid so that injured parties have full recourse to legal action.

Everyone is responsible

National service: Everyone reaching age 18 must serve whether Peace Corps, military, domestic infrastructure, civic duties or whatever else would benefit the public at large. No exceptions except for significant disability. Higher education, either college or vocational, can wait until the completion of two years’ public service. Serving in such duties should be in a location away from the family home, should provide food, shelter, and a minimal wage, and should result in free college/vocational training at its conclusion similar to the G.I. Bill.

Education

All secondary schools should be required to offer a curriculum that includes literature/language, basic math, basic science, state and national history, speech/debate, music, art, and domestic duties including balancing a checkbook, changing a tire, and nutrition/how to cook. Males and females need the same courses. Domestic duty classes would include thorough sex education with a segment where kids have to carry a baby (doll) around 24-7. Dolls used for this teaching experience should be computerized to function as close to human behavior as possible including messy diapers, hunger, and crying. Birth control pills should be freely dispensed at school health clinics with or without parental permission.

Teacher salaries should be competitive with other professions requiring college degrees even in the most impoverished districts.

States which allow religious schools and home schooling should be required to regularly test home schooled and religious school students for the same course requirements as public schools students. Non-public school students who can’t pass the exams cannot receive a diploma. Repeated failure to pass exams would require the student to enter public schools. Public school students who fail to pass exams would be entered into a special unit of the school system and assessed for need of nutrition, mental health, and family problems, among other things, and individually tutored until learning improves. Vocational training for all trades should be available and affordable as should college.

Homeless Population

An estimated 25-30% of homeless people suffer mental illness. Yet few programs addressing homelessness provide for treatment. Often these individuals end up in local jails because they can’t take care of themselves and there are no longer facilities dedicated to treating them.

“…during the Reagan administration, Federal funding for such institutions was shut down so that our wealthy class could pay less in taxes, and that put many thousands of mentally ill people out on the street corner. We have done nothing since to remedy this. A compassionate nation would care for these unfortunate people, and provide the mental facilities to house them where they could get the help they need that their conditions require.”[1]

Most homeless programs exhaust their resources in simply trying to feed and shelter the homeless. Most of them fall short even of that. Successful efforts to address homelessness are based on meeting physical needs as well as mental health concerns. Addiction is another illness at the root of many homeless situations. Until systemic remedies are put into place, homelessness will continue to plague us.

The more successful programs for the homeless are centered in tiny home villages or converted industrial/commercial properties. As shopping malls have become less viable, some cities and nonprofits have converted these sprawling spaces to homeless housing. Facilities serving the homeless would offer food service, counseling, health care, and job training.

Taxes

Poverty levels should be adjusted annually to meet the real costs of housing, food, and transportation. Persons earning above poverty level should pay income taxes on a sliding scale. Income at some level, say above five million, should pay a very high rate, as much as 70% of income.

In addition to legalized ‘sin’ transactions (drugs, sex) that would generate significant tax revenues, churches should be taxed like any other business. Penalties and additional taxes should be assessed against any corporation or individual found to be hiding income in foreign countries. No tax shelters.

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-successful-homeless-program

What Democrats Did Wrong

Party leaders failed to see the long term need for younger, more vigorous candidates. The bulk of Biden’s term suffered from his shuffling gait, whispery voice, and apparent mental decline. Not that Trump is so much younger, but his demeanor as a bully conveys a message of strength. Sadly.

Dems also failed to foresee Biden’s inability to win a second term and consequently failed to hold a 2024 primary that would have introduced all best possible candidates. Call it allegiance to a venerable old warrior (Biden) or inability to break out of an established order of candidate precedence, or fear of the unknown, this lack of a so-called ‘fair’ fight in selecting a presidential candidate played a significant role in Harris’ defeat.

Sorry, but Kamala Harris was not popular in the 2020 primaries from which she withdrew for lack of funding. Built-in negatives aside from her mixed race and being female included her speech affectations which make her seem smug. One would think that the defeat of Hillary would have been lesson enough. For now, the fight is still between present day realities which are incomprehensible to conservatives and the “good old days” when men were ‘successful’ if they knew how to saddle a horse.

During Biden’s term, there was no apparent coherent approach to illegal immigration. This played into Harris’ weakness on this issue, which Biden appointed her to address. Whatever policy recommendations she made failed to make news cycles. As noted by the Washington Post, “Harris, in fact, has never been in charge of the border. The Department of Homeland Security manages migration. Her immigration role for the Biden administration has included boosting U.S. aid to Central America, traveling to the region and discouraging potential migrants from making the dangerous journey to the United States.” Be that as it may, if there had been a strong Biden policy on illegal immigration and prominent promotion of those policies, Trump wouldn’t have been able to make that topic a centerpiece of his campaign.

https://abc13.com/migrant-caravan-immigrations-and-customs-story-migrants/4690683/

Yes, boosting U.S. aid to Central America is foundational to stemming the tide, as Harris knew. Sadly, the fact is that coherent immigration policies addressing root causes aren’t enough to stop people seeking better opportunities for themselves and their children. If your children are starving and your home and livelihood are daily threatened by violent gangs rampaging through neighborhoods, you too would leave behind everything you’ve ever known and walk to the promised land.

THERE IS NO GOOD SOLUTION to illegal immigration. There is no fence high enough, or military/border guard personnel vast enough to make illegal entry impossible. As climate change advances, more and more populations will face starvation and violent domestic turmoil. The U.S. cannot take them all. No one can. This message must be made clear. Trump’s plan to deport millions WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM. This is whack-a-mole thinking.

Biden, in the seeming tradition of Democrats and, in the words of Michelle Obama, “went high” when the Republicans “went low.” But we’re dealing with primitive thinking where the hero bashes the villain over the head. With no head bashing, there’s no hero. The villain wins. It’s past time for the Democrats to develop more than one track and start bashing. To greatest possible extent, yes, don’t give up the vision of a better world—peace, love, good vibes. But we also must carry a big stick and when somebody needs to get bashed over the head, bash the son of a bitch. The Biden administration’s justice department took waaaay too long quibbling over how/when/why to prosecute Trump for his shocking illegal acts. He should never have been free to run for re-election.

Not that Biden or the justice department had control over local and state prosecutions, but the failure of appropriate federal action left the door open for Trump to escape from prosecution in lower courts, as is now obvious. It was the first Trump presidency which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court, and that will be the case again. His sponsors are playing the long game, moves that have been feverishly planned since at least the 1950s. The strategy is to whip up fear and hatred to drive conservative voters to the polls, desperate to buy God’s favor by forcing the entire nation into a theocracy. None of this matters to Trump, whose entire plan involves self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, and eluding justice.

True to their religious belief system, conservatives prefer government which regulates what the population does in their bedrooms and allows the business segment to run wild. The opposite is true for liberals, who believe what people do in their bedrooms is no one’s business and what the business community does can ONLY be regulated by government. Who else can force corporations not to dump industrial waste in our rivers? Ensure clean drinking water and safe food supplies? Mitigate the onslaught of pandemics? Enforce design and construction standards for roadways, bridges, and buildings?

These requirements of government are easily forgotten by a fearful, angry electorate who is not educated to understand these fundamental duties, an electorate even more distracted by a wannabe dictator whose success depends on agitating division with lies and false promises. This can only be effectively countered by an equally vociferous Democrat whose presence and actions meet the pseudo-strength of a candidate like Trump. Potential right-wing demagogues have the advantage of money flowing from a huge array of business interests. Liberals have only the People to carry on the framework for freedom established by the Founding Fathers:

  • We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Foundational to this vision was EDUCATION. Public education was not an afterthought of the American Revolution – it was a core ideal of our Founders. They maintained that a well-educated population was the only means of ensuring America’s future. The roots of taxpayer-funded public education in the United States can be traced back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1647. The colony passed a law that required towns to establish schools, made children attend school, and allowed the state to levy taxes to support schools. This traditional determination now stands at risk from religious forces who have managed to divert tax dollars into support for private, religious schools which often slant their programs to fit a religious agenda.[1]

Could Obama have warded off this SCOTUS situation with his nomination of Merrick Garland for the post by steamrolling the Senate?

  • It is in full accord with traditional notions of waiver to say that the Senate, having been given a reasonable opportunity to provide advice and consent to the president with respect to the [Supreme Court] nomination of [Judge Merrick] Garland, and having failed to do so, can fairly be deemed to have waived its right.  Here’s how that would work. The president has nominated Garland and submitted his nomination to the Senate.  The president should advise the Senate that he will deem its failure to act by a specified reasonable date in the future to constitute a deliberate waiver of the right to give advice and consent.  What date?…90 days is a perfectly reasonable amount of time.

– Excerpt from an op-ed column in The Washington Post on April 10 by Washington, D.C., lawyer Gregory L. Diskant, who is in private practice and also serves as a member of the national governing board of the liberal advocacy group, Common Cause.

  • “The Appointments Clause [of Article II] clearly implies a power of the Senate to give advice on and, if it chooses to do so, to consent to a nomination, but it says nothing about how the Senate should go about exercising that power.  The text of the Constitution thus leaves the Senate free to exercise that power however it sees fit.  Throughout American history, the Senate has frequently – surely, thousands of times – exercised its power over nominations by declining to act on them.

 – Excerpt from a commentary about the Diskant column by M. Edward Whalen, president of the conservative advocacy group, the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, published April 10 on the National Review Online’s Bench Memo.[2]

Equally appalling was the lack of foresight by none other than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who refused to retire during Obama’s presidency, which would have allowed another justice to step in on her coattails. Despite her excellent record and unfailing support for liberal causes, a bit of hubris caused her to cheat the future of a suitable replacement.

Democrats need to wake up! Making nice is not always the best course of action when we’re dealing with not only ignorant tyrants like Trump but also foreign bad actors with their thumbs on the scales.

[1] In June 2022, in Carson v. Makin, the high court held that when governments choose to subsidize private schools, they must allow such funds to pay for religious schools. A majority of current justices appear to believe that excluding religious groups from government programs is a violation of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Although court precedents prohibit direct funding of religion under the establishment clause, the current court could decide that if the state funds secular public charter schools, religious public charter schools cannot be excluded from such funding.  See https://www.freedomforum.org/government-fund-religious-schools/

[2] https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-could-obama-bypass-the-senate-on-garland-nomination

The New Peasants

https://knightstemplar.co/what-did-peasants-do-in-the-middle-ages/

We need to stop thinking like peasants. We no longer live under the rule of a king or an aristocratic lineage of dukes, earls, and what not. We citizens of the United States (and most modern democracies) hold equal shares of power over ourselves, each of us with the right to assemble, speak our mind, and vote in order to maintain a government that protects us from any force threatening to bar our path to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Apparently some among us have forgotten, or more likely never learned, that this is our gift as Americans. They are the 21st century serfs who plod along ignoring their rights—and their duties—as American citizens. Observers most often label these new age serfs as ignorant, but that’s not entirely the reality. These modern serfs are willfully ignorant, a choice they have made in order to avoid thinking.

True, thinking is a troublesome exercise. Thinking requires the gathering of all pertinent facts on any particular issue. Such fact gathering requires not only the time and effort of the exercise, but also possession of skills in such areas as rationality and research. These skills are taught to children in their school years, but the teaching is clearly inadequate. This inadequacy is not necessarily the fault of the teacher or the school system or the curriculum, although all three can be at fault to some degree. More likely the inadequacy is due to parents not practicing thinking at home.

This kind of generational non-thinking used to be the norm, back when most of us were serfs. Those were the days when a few traditional skills sufficed in meeting life goals. A serf served his/her lord—the duke, earl, or even the king—who made his expectations clear. A woodsman was to cut and haul wood. A farmer was to plant, cultivate, and harvest crops.

As explained in Wikipedia:

  • Serfdom is the forced labor of serfs in a feudal society. In medieval Europe, serfs were peasant farmers who worked without pay for a lord. In exchange, they got to live and work on the lord’s manor. They also got the lord’s protection. Serfs had more rights than slaves (for example, serfs could own property). However, they were not completely free. They could not move, marry, or leave the manor without the lord’s permission. In most serfdoms, serfs were legally part of the land. If the land was sold, they were sold with it. Serfs worked in their lord’s fields. They sometimes did other things related to agriculture, like forestry and transportation (by both land and river). Some also worked in craft and manufacturing … like the village blacksmith, miller or innkeeper. Serfdom developed from agricultural slavery in the Roman Empire. It spread through Europe around the 10th century. During the Middle Ages, most European people lived in serfdoms.

Serf children grew up learning about life from their parents, a life that followed the rules set down by their lord’s demands. The sawyer’s sons were sawyers. The tanner’s sons were tanners. Owned by their fathers as girls, females were handed over to their husbands to serve as wives and mothers, subject to his absolute control.

Those rules made it easy to decide what to do without having to think about it.

https://americanantiquarian.org/millgirls/files/original/8a8abec89136208b78c319d282bac1e1.jpg

Ah, those were the days. There were established rules about not only what work to do each day, but what to wear (same homespun garments as the day before), what to eat (same basic gruel and bread as the day before), what to believe (acceptance of one’s humble place in life because the Bible said so), and so forth. Even a free man could become a serf if he owed a large debt. He would make an agreement with the lord of the land. The lord would keep him safe, give money to pay his debt, and give him land to work on. In return, he would work for the lord. All his children would become serfs.

So while our early ancestors arrived in the American colonies fresh from their peasantry, only a few of them brought with them the practice of thinking. This is the resistant strain of human nature, to do what the parents did, to blindly accept a set of rules to follow, to spend our days laboring to satisfy our lord and master. The goal has shifted only slightly in that we labor in the belief that if we work hard enough, we too can be a lord. This is the fantasy that controls so many, that someday when we’re lords, we won’t want the government to tax us. This is the thinking that allows the rich to pay taxes at the same rate as the rest of us, when their incomes surpass by billions the amounts we earn. Meanwhile, we bow down (at least mentally) to the lords who have achieved ‘greatness’ through wealth or power.

After all, peasants believe, how could lowly persons such as ourselves manage to decipher the intricacies of big business or political process much less discern the many aspects of personality and manipulation employed by the lords? How are we supposed to know what is true? We must believe what our chosen leaders tells us. Never mind what news source may or may not employ actual journalists, or who provide ‘news’ instead of ‘entertainment.’ It’s all a lie anyway, they say, throwing up their hands, disheartened.

Well, yes, these are difficult mental tasks for people who never learned how to research or reason. Besides, we’re busy trying to keep a roof over our head and food on the table.

A full 34% of the voting-eligible population did not vote in 2020, which saw the highest voter turnout since 1914. Even more concerning is the popularity of wannabe dictators like Donald Trump whose supporters openly ridicule education, basking in the praise of a man who “loves the poorly educated.” It should be no surprise that Democrats control 77% of the U.S.’s most highly educated Congressional districts (107 districts) while Republicans control 64% of districts where the fewest people went to college (107 districts).[1]

There is no controlling force that coerces individuals into peasant thinking. Such a role is heavily influenced by tradition and hardly mitigated by many educational opportunities. Community plays a role as well, either offering role models who use thought and action to move beyond peasantry, or by warning of negative results for those who try to move beyond their family traditions of non-thinking. It is often easier to remain in the trenches than to climb out, especially when one has failed to grasp the tools which make climbing possible. Plus, who wants the responsibility of stepping up to the plate? I might swing and miss.

Our society and especially our educational systems are failing to penetrate the mental laziness of lingering peasantry enticing us to depend on lists of rules handed down by lords. Curriculum for all schools, public, private or religious, should provide the methods of rational thinking in order to protect malingering peasants from their self-destructive (and democracy-destroying) behavior. Curriculum requirements should include debate where fact-based points are presented on a chosen topic. A thorough understanding of civics and history should form the core of classes that also teach language arts and mathematics/logic. At strategic points in those school years, there should be lessons in conflict resolution as well as introduction to introspection.

The answer is stepping up to our human potential, NOT to install a wannabe king.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/us/politics/trump-presidential-campaign-voters.html

[1] https://www.politico.com/interactives/2022/midterm-election-house-districts-by-education/

Academic AND Vocational Education

Sidetracking traditional education and leaning into vocational training at an early age will only exacerbate cultural division in the U.S. Much of what currently upsets under-educated Americans is that they do not understand much of what they have to deal with on a daily basis. It’s not news that people fear the unknown.

The anti-vaxxers are a perfect example—people who know nothing about viruses or how they function in the human body or how vaccines work to provide a level of immunity. So there’s all this pressure from the educated (scientists, doctors) and the government (tasked with protected public health) for people to get vaccinated, and the anti-vaxxers just feel pushed around and outraged. Conspiracy theories substitute for knowledge, that health spokespeople are on the take, that they create the virus to make money, that it’s better to take horse wormer than listen to the doctors.

Meanwhile, the virus finds unprotected human bodies to infect and starts happily mutating, a standard activity of viruses and other invisible meanies. Pretty soon the old vaccine doesn’t work against the new variant, and the anti-vaxxers say, “Ha! See?” without realizing that they are the weak link in allowing the virus to gain the upper hand. If the virus has no hosts in which to breed and mutate, the virus dies.

And so it goes.

  • The know-nothings dismiss all journalism because they don’t know the difference between legitimate journalism and fake news from ‘announcers’ who could care less about the principles of professional journalism.
  • The know-nothing avidly embraces sensational claims of wannabe tough guys like Trump whose records clearly reveals his lifelong failure in business and his bankrupt character.
  • The know-nothing passionately puts forth ad hominem arguments without understanding the principles of legitimate fact-based debate.
  • The know-nothing votes only for president because it’s the most high profile without understanding that every level of political office is essential to healthy function of our government.
  • The know-nothing hoards arms and joins with likeminded know-things in fantasizing about civil war when they can get rid of the ‘enemy’ without having any awareness of the real tragedy of civil war.
  • Worst of all, the know-nothing is defenseless against propaganda.

Living in the modern world requires that people are educated not only in math (yes, even algebra, which is not so much about remembering theorems as it is training the brain in logic) and English (grammar, spelling, literature, and essay writing all contribute to a person’s ability to read and understand as well as his/her ability to communicate with others),  but also in biology, speech, civics, and history. Our young people also need full access to learning in the arts whether music or visual arts; for some, these are the only pathways to a fruitful future. We must provide these many facets of a nourishing preparation for life.

So we need to be very careful about any ‘reforms’ to the education system or required curriculum. Yes, vocational skills are great for a significant portion of the population in terms of future jobs. There will always be a need for plumbers, electricians, carpenters, welders, car mechanics, and so forth, and these can be lucrative careers. But that alone does not equip the population to succeed in these times.

We do not need to make a choice, either/or, with our educational system. We must have both.

Arkansas and CRT

https://www.the74million.org/article/poll-half-of-americans-know-little-about-crt-whats-actually-taught-in-schools/

Arkansas’ new governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has raised the colors for her term at the helm of the ship of this state. Not that these are ‘her’ colors, per se, but rather edicts scripted for her by her bosses behind the Republican curtain. These are the same entities who put her in front of a microphone to lie for Trump as his press secretary, apparently under the promise that they would support her efforts toward future political office.

Evidence of her bought-and-paid-for status can be found in the immediate issuance of her ban on Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the public schools. The boiler-plate executive order commands, in part, that the Arkansas Department of Education:

Review the rules, regulations, policies, materials, and communications of the Department of Education to identify any items that may, purposely or otherwise, promote teaching that would indoctrinate students with ideologies, such as CRT, that conflict with the principle of equal protection under the law or encourage students to discriminate against someone based on the individual’s color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, familial status, disability, religion, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law.

Sanders’ measure is put forth as enforcement of Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (P.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241), which was established to ensure equal rights to everyone.

People of one color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, familial status, disability, religion, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law are inherently superior or inferior to people of another color, creed, race, ethnicity, sex, age, marital status, familial status, disability, religion, national origin, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law…

This and similar bans present three absurdities. One, the ban alleges that efforts to reduce and/or eliminate the negative impact of entrenched racism are a form of racism. Two, the ban demonstrates either an utter lack of understanding of CRT or an ingrained denial of systemic racism, either of which would be remedied by a study of CRT. The rightwing furor over CRT is a perfect example of racist thinking and reassures its racist followers that rightwing Republicans will resist any effort to encourage white people to think equitably of their darker-skinned brethren.

Critical Race Theory advances the idea that multiple aspects of American law, institutions, and social structures enshrine racist ideas. Wikipedia describes the tenets of CRT as follows:

Scholars of CRT say that race is not “biologically grounded and natural”; rather, it is a socially constructed category used to oppress and exploit people of color; and that racism is not an aberration, but a normalized feature of American society. According to CRT, negative stereotypes assigned to members of minority groups benefit white people and increase racial oppression. Individuals can belong to a number of different identity groups…

Derrick Albert Bell Jr. (1930 – 2011), an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist, writes that racial equality is ”impossible and illusory” and that racism in the U.S. is permanent. According to Bell, civil-rights legislation will not on its own bring about progress in race relations; alleged improvements or advantages to people of color “tend to serve the interests of dominant white groups,” in what Bell calls “interest convergence.” These changes do not typically affect—and at times even reinforce—racial hierarchies. This is representative of the shift in the 1970s, in Bell’s re-assessment of his earlier desegregation work as a civil rights lawyer. He was responding to the Supreme Court’s decisions that had resulted in the re-segregation of schools.

The concept of standpoint theory became particularly relevant to CRT when it was expanded to include a black feminist standpoint by Patricia Hill Collins. First introduced by feminist sociologists in the 1980s, standpoint theory holds that people in marginalized groups, who share similar experiences, can bring a collective wisdom and a unique voice to discussions on decreasing oppression. In this view, insights into racism can be uncovered by examining the nature of the U.S. legal system through the perspective of the everyday lived experiences of people of color.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, tenets of CRT have spread beyond academia, and are used to deepen understanding of socio-economic issues such as “poverty, police brutality, and voting rights violations,” that are impacted by the ways in which race and racism are “understood and misunderstood” in the United States.[1]

Conservatives, including Governor Sanders’ managers, look for any advances toward greater social equity as a destructive force to their world view. Or, perhaps more to the point, greater acceptance of social equity would reduce or eliminate race as a hot button issue in driving Republican voters to the ballot box.

One conservative organization, the Heritage Foundation, recently attributed a whole host of issues to CRT, including the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, LGBTQ clubs in schools, diversity training in federal agencies and organizations, California’s recent ethnic studies model curriculum, the free-speech debate on college campuses, and alternatives to exclusionary discipline—such as the Promise program in Broward County, Fla., that some parents blame for the Parkland school shootings. “When followed to its logical conclusion, CRT is destructive and rejects the fundamental ideas on which our constitutional republic is based,” the organization claimed.[2]

[On the other hand,] Leading critical race theory scholars view the GOP-led measures as hijacking the national conversation about racial inequality that gained momentum after the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minnesota. Some say the ways Republicans describe it are unrecognizable to them. Cheryl Harris, a UCLA law professor who teaches a course on the topic, said it’s a myth that critical race theory teaches hatred of white people and is designed to perpetuate divisions in American society. Instead, she said she believes the proposals limiting how racism can be discussed in the classroom have a clear political goal: “to ensure that Republicans can win in 2022.”[3]

With all cannons on deck loaded with her preprogrammed agenda, we can be certain this is only the beginning of pushing Arkansas further into the sea floor. Ironically, argument can be made that the label ‘ideologies’ such as forbidden in the CRT ban could be assigned to religion, i.e. “the beliefs and practices of that religion [which] support powerful groups in society, effectively keeping the existing ruling class, or elites, in power.”[4]

Oh, and the third absurdity? Critical Race Theory is not part of public school curriculum. It’s a college level subject.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

[2] Sawchuk, Stephen. “What Is Critical Race Theory and Why Is It Under Attack?” Education Week, Ma 18, 2021. Accessed Jan 12, 2023 @  https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05

[3]  “Critical race theory is a flashpoint for conservatives, but what does it mean?” PBS Newshour, Nov 4, 2021. Accessed Jan 12, 2023 @ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/so-much-buzz-but-what-is-critical-race-theory

[4] https://revisesociology.com/2018/11/09/is-religion-ideological/

Arkansas Education: Part III—The Money Problem

Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has announced her plan to allow parents to shift their child’s ‘education dollars’ from public schools to private or religious schools. Surely she is aware of legal reasons such an action cannot occur: diverting school money to religious schools violates the First Amendment of the Constitution, which requires a separation of church and state. As a taxpayer, I am not alone in refusing to allow my tax dollars to pay for religious schooling.

Sanders makes it sound simple: Parents would take their child’s share that helps finance public schools and instead pay that amount to a private or religious school. But what an individual parent might pay toward their child’s education is a drop in the bucket compared to the money required to education a child, an approximate $10,414 for one school year. These funds come from federal taxpayers, state taxpayers, and local school district taxpayers, not an individual parent. Appropriating that $10,414 to be funneled to a private school, religious school, or homeschool is, plain and simple, a theft of public money.

Sanders promises tax cuts, but only a small portion of each child’s education cost comes from a parent’s real estate taxes.

  • Arkansas K-12 schools receive $638,279,000, or $1,289 per pupil, from the federal government, and would without question be withheld if any portion was directed to religious schools, at the least.
  • State funding, which comes from ALL Arkansas taxpayers including those without children and those who do not wish their taxes to support private or religious schools, totals $2,971,791,000 or $6,002 per pupil.
  • Local funding, which includes ALL local taxpayers not just the parents who demand a voucher program, totals $2,201,220,000 or an average of $4,445 per pupil.[1]

Sanders apparently believes that allowing parents to direct funding to schools they prefer would result in the best possible education of that child, but there is no guarantee that parents have any real comprehension of what constitutes suitable education. Arkansas is one of the most poorly educated states, meaning in general that parents are not well educated. Likewise, school districts—especially small rural districts—are often governed by school boards which are often without any college-educated members.

It’s important to note that the per capita income in Arkansas averages only $29,200. And while some Arkansas counties enjoy per capita incomes which average over $27,334 per year, in other counties that number drops to $13,103.[2] Nearly 20% of the state’s residents live in poverty. This further illustrates the vicious cycle involved:

Poverty has many causes including a lack of education and skills to bring to the work force, a family’s geographic location, a lack of community support, family structure (specifically the number of earners in a family impacts the ability to make ends meet), incarceration, and income inequality. Children in poverty experience additional problems in educational and cognitive development, health outcomes, social and emotional development and are more likely to live in poverty as adults.[3]

Further complicating the problem are teen pregnancies. The state leads the nation in teen births, 27.8 per 1,000 (2022), due largely to a lack of contraceptives and proper sex education. A 2022 study reported the need for the following policy changes:

Create mandatory statewide curriculum for medically accurate sexual education. • Provide free access to Long-Acting Reversible Contraception. • Eliminate restriction to distribution of contraceptives in School-Based Clinics. • Target communities whose birth rates are far above the norm for their groups nationally, including White and Pacific Islander teens. • Expand access and eliminate barriers to health care for Black women and girls, whose teen birth rates are higher than the state average. • Increase educational opportunities as a protective factor. • Continue access to Medicaid, WIC, and SNAP benefits as a protective factor.[4]

It’s a safe bet that the new governor will not champion sex education and better access to birth control for teens, even though this would be a strong step toward breaking into the cycle of low income, poorly educated residents unable to afford medical care. Young women with children are the most common household qualifying for financial assistance including Medicaid—90% of welfare recipients are single mothers. DHS forecasts total federal and state Medicaid funding of $9.46 billion in fiscal 2023 — up from $9.39 billion in the current fiscal 2022. Arkansas taxpayers contribute about 30% of this total.

Does Sanders propose to cut the state’s Medicaid funding? This is part of the Republican effort to reduce the budget. But Medicaid plays a major role in funding for mainstreaming students with disabilities.

In the 2017-18 school year, there were 61,553 students with disabilities aged 5-21 in Arkansas public schools or 12.9% of total student enrollment in the state. This does not include students in the Arkansas School for the Deaf, Arkansas School for the Blind, Division of Youth Services, the Department of Corrections, or the Conway Human Development Center. This is up from 55,874 students (11.7% of total student enrollment) in 2014-15.[5]

It’s no surprise that the big dream of Sanders grows thornier as bill writing progresses. Surely the state’s legal advisors will warn of the potential loss of federal dollars in state education funding if she proceeds with her plan. The best path through this tangle is to eliminate the voucher section from her education plan and instead plow all available funding into public schools where students learn, collaborate, and grow alongside their peers. It will be a tragedy for Arkansas if Sanders succeeds in dividing our youth into potentially prejudicial interest groups that will expand the current culture wars.

[1] https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics

[2] Per capita income is used to determine the average per-person income for an area and to evaluate the standard of living and quality of life of the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arkansas_locations_by_per_capita_income

[3] https://www.aradvocates.org/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-poverty-in-arkansas/

[4] https://www.aradvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/AACF.teen_.birth_.webfinal.9.30.2022.pdf

[5] See https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Bureau/Document?type=pdf&source=education%2FK12/AdequacyReports/2018%2F2018-06-18&filename=SpecialEducationReport_BLR_21