Public education is racist. Teachers’ unions exert their influence in all fifty state legislatures. Private schools that cost half as much to run on a per student basis, continually score better on fourth grade and eleventh grade reading and math tests. Scores in reading and writing are improving in private schools. The scores in public schools are abysmal and even before the political pandemic were rapidly trending downward. According to data reviewed in the 11/29 Wall Street Journal by Andy Kessler only 33% of fourth grade students in California were reading at grade level—only 19% of Hispanics and 10% of Blacks.
It costs between $20,000–$25,000/ student in California and New York State. In Idaho it costs about $7000/student in Idaho’s Catholic schools where there is a higher proportion of minority students than in our public schools. Reading and math scores are also 20% better in parochial and charter schools than in public schools. Access to charter and parochial schools is being denied to minority students where their families see these as being a conduit to hope and upward mobility. To deny this access and opportunity to minority students is racist. There are several reasons for this discrepancy.
When my children were in elementary and high schools at Sacred Heart and Bishop Kelly in Boise meet the teacher’s night and PTA meetings were attended by almost every parent—most of the time both parents, and school board meetings likewise had well over 100% attendance. When we attended Boise City School basketball games in sixth grade our side of the bleachers were filled with parents, teachers, priests, and family—a big deal to grandparents, and the city league stands were almost empty. Prior to tip off the coaches would introduce their players. Our coach always remembered the player’s names and recognized their families in the stands, but the city league coach had to read the names of their players from a piece of paper.
If a Catholic coach didn’t know the names of their players, they would have been fired immediately after the game. You see families had power in this type of system and not the teacher’s unions. This is called accountability. These are the same parents that spent time before bed reading to their children from the time they could sit on their laps. These are the same parents that said their prayers before bedtime with their children. There is nothing that “Pre-K” education can do to fill the essential role of mother and father, no matter what an educator-sociologist or politician will tell you. It should be a priority for a society—including politicians, to incentivize families and not make it more difficult to raise and educate children. Government programs disincentivize families and as such they are racist.
Despite the poor results and the ever-increasing costs of educating students in the public school system, bad school systems don’t get fixed. The problem is accountability. Bad teachers and bad coaches can’t get fired in the public school system. In Idaho, the teacher’s union(s) rank high along with health care, energy, Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry (IACI), Chamber of Commerce, and the insurance industry, in campaign contributions to legislators and most of all our Governor. Do you think Brad Little or any of the RINOs have the “chestnuts” to stand up to the teachers—or any of their lobbyist and special interest friends?
Spending time and money on social and psychological development programs and not teaching reading and math is a prescription for failure. Our most valuable natural resource is our human capital—our children. Public schools not focusing on teaching our children basic skills and specifically skills in the areas of STEM studies limits their human potential. The best way of insuring that a society will be productive and successful in the future is to make sure our children all can live up to their full potential by being raised in a family with a mother and a father and by having the family involved in every aspect of their lives as they grow up. The public schools should not be allowed to be a repository for “lost children” and government programs should not facilitate this process.
Mothers and fathers—but especially mothers, rose “En Masse” in Virginia and elected Governor Glenn Younkin and Lt. Governor Winsome Sears precisely because they were tired of educators—teachers and their union leaders, trying to exert their institutional sovereignty over THEIR CHILDREN. Governor Little and the RINOs in the legislature have done just the opposite. They turned their backs on parents and families and cast their lots with the special interests and media elites that finance their campaigns.
The issues in the next year that conservatives need to address are not about policy or political philosophy, but rather about values and faith. Who should decide what is best for me and my children? Some government bureaucrat or head of a union? Should government help and be accountable to families or to special interests? Up until now and apart from the elections last month in Virginia, conservatives are doing a very poor job of defining the race—especially in Idaho.
Let me lend a hand. At a time when all levels of government have increased in size by 30% over the past 10 years, last year the marriage rate in the USA fell to an all-time low of 33/1000 unmarried people and lifetime fertility rates fell to 1.64 per woman—an all-time low, the replacement rate is 2.1. We have belittled and trivialized the role of family, the role of mother and father, and the promise of faith in God. As hypothesized in an American Enterprise Institute and Wheatley Foundation study “the nation is likely to see a deepening divide (in the values—mine) between the affluent and everybody else, between the religious and secular, between Republicans and Democrats (conservative vs Marxist progressives—mine)”, and between rural and urban values
The cronyism and corruption in both Washington DC and Boise need to be addressed before anything else is accomplished. “We The People”, especially families need to be given back our voices. Just like in Virginia last month, families—parents and grandparents need to lead the charge.
Faith and family vs government—corruption, collusion, and cronyism, are where the battle lines have been drawn.
“If not now when?” “If not you who” MIGA
