An education controversy has erupted in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Freda R. Savana reported on the controversy for the Bucks County Herald. In School board directors across PA denounce Central Bucks’ “advocacy policy”, Savana reports:
In an open letter, dozens of school board members from more than 20 Pennsylvania districts called for the repeal of Central Bucks School District’s policy banning teachers from “advocacy activities” in their classrooms.
First, note that there are 499 school districts in Pennsylvania. So the 20+school districts, and by implication the “dozens of school board members,” are tiny minorities. That doesn’t necessarily invalidate the letter’s concerns. But we must keep the controversy in perspective.
“On the surface, the policy is clearly targeted to harm LGBTQ+ students and community members, with the immediate ban of Pride Flags in classrooms, but it has already harmed other historically marginalized groups,” the letter states.
Policy 321, titled, “Partisan, Political or Social Policy Advocacy Activities,” “has tainted the public’s trust in School Boards to foster educational, inclusive, and tolerant environments for learning,” reads the letter.
“On the surface?” What does the Central Bucks School District actually say? Under the heading “Purpose,” Policy 321 states:
Neutrality and balance in classroom instruction are desired in order to create an optimal learning environment and atmosphere of inclusiveness, where all students are welcome. Because views and beliefs about partisan, political, or social policy matters are often deeply personal, employees should not, during assigned work hours, advocate to students concerning their views or beliefs on these matters. Such advocacy does not contribute to a positive learning climate and may be disruptive, divisive, and distracting. Rather, classroom instruction should relate to approved curriculum. The district’s role is to teach students how to think, not what to think, thereby keeping classrooms as places of education, not indoctrination.
My emphasis.
The open letter clearly doesn’t agree that schools should teach students how, now what, to think. But that is the essence of fostering independent thinking.
Under “Definitions,” Policy 321 states:
For purposes of this policy, advocacy and advocate are defined as the use of speech, conduct, or symbols to support or oppose a particular point of view or belief about partisan, political, or social policy issues or matters.
The Policy statement then lists examples of prohibited advocacy activities, followed by exceptions, which would be permitted when related to “Instruction and study concerning partisan, political, or social policy issues when directly relevant to the curriculum and appropriate to classroom studies given the students’ age, class year, and course of study. . .”
“On the surface,” I see nothing wrong with Policy 321. One thing is certain, the policy is clearly not “targeted to harm LGBTQ+ students and community members.” One can argue about specific details of what constitutes improper advocacy and what is legitimate study related to partisan, political, or social policy issues. Where to draw that line is an important question. But one thing is certain. An objective approach to classroom debate on partisan, political, or social policy issues demands that the teacher be strictly neutral on the topic being discussed. A teacher is in a position of power over the students. A teacher taking sides clearly biased the debate. Students who differ from the teacher can feel intimidated into silence, given the teacher’s power to grade the students. The teacher is the authority, and the neutrality of the authority is a necessary way to foster clear thinking and expression, and thus foster intelligent, informative debate.
The policy 321 restrictions on advocacy is directly aimed at employees, and concerns “all District owned or leased property, within all school buildings, and at all District-sponsored activities.” As I read it, the students themselves would be free to advocate for their positions, but only in a personal way. Exceptions to the ban on advocacy include “Wearing small pieces of jewelry, consistent with the professional dress code, that symbolically represent an individual’s personal beliefs.” But no “Employees shall not direct or encourage students to write, address, or distribute advocacy materials related to any partisan, political, or social policy issue.” I take this to mean school property and/or activities should not be a forum or platform for student advocacy, because that makes the school and its employees an implicit “encourager” or endorser of the viewpoint displayed.
I find Policy 321 to be eminently sensible. The open letter clearly doesn’t agree. By opposing this policy, it confirms my belief that American government schools are more indoctrination camps than educational facilities. The contradictions in the open letter confirm this:
School boards play a “unique role in our society,” said the letter. “A crucial part of this mission is fostering an inclusive, tolerant environment, free from discrimination, bias or prejudice.
“On the surface,” the letter seems to agree with Policy 321. Certainly, when partisan, political, or social policy issues are debated within the context of appropriate curriculum, which Policy 321 allows, every student and viewpoint should be included and tolerated “free from discrimination, bias or prejudice.” It is shocking, therefor, to read the very next sentence of the open letter:
“This is particularly true for some of our most vulnerable populations of students — those facing any number of different, personal challenges or working to overcome traditional societal barriers.”
This Woke gobbledegook means that some politically advantaged viewpoints will be privileged, while others degraded or forbidden, on the grounds of not being “vulnerable” or “challenged” or “working to overcome traditional societal barriers,” whatever they mean in practice. Put in “Animal Farm” paraphrasing, this means all students should be equally awarded “an inclusive, tolerant environment, free from discrimination, bias or prejudice” for all students, but some students are to be more equal than others.
As to the collectivist orientation of the open letter, the reference to “historically marginalized groups” is a direct assault on civilization. Civilization, in essence, is the rise of individualism. Individualism holds that every individual is born morally tabula rasa—born with no pre-existing guilt, victimhood, or any responsibility for others’ prior actions, ideas, or prejudices. The idea of considering the historical social, political, or cultural state of groups, such as “ historically marginalized groups,” means that each person is to be judged not on his/her own character, values, and actions, but on the character, actions, and values of a collection of ancestors. This is the basic premise of racism. It is a worldview that obliterates just judgment. This historicism is a direct repudiation of civilization, which lifted humanity up from the savagery of collectivism.
Needless to say, this primitivism has no place in modern education, if the term education has any rational meaning. Yet this Woke horror is being imposed on school kids by adults who should be teaching how to think, not what to think. It is educational malpractice, at the very least. At worst, it is phycological child abuse.
If we’re talking about private schools, it would still be wrong for teachers to inject their advocacy into the classroom process. But then, parents would have the option to pull their children and their money, and seek alternatives, which in a vibrantly functioning free market would be plentiful.
The fact that the opposition immediately “saw '' bigotry “on the surface” indicates that it has no counter-argument to the County’s Policy 321. That is classic Wokism. No proof needed. No evidence needed. There is nothing in the Policy that targets or harms LGBTQ+ students and community members, or any other students. The letter signers just know, like a religious revelation, that it is so. I don’t know what the private motivations of the county school board members are. Maybe the LGBTQ+ issue was on the mind of one of the Central Bucks School District board members. But whatever discriminatory motivations may have been on the minds of any Central Bucks school board member, it doesn’t show up in it’s Policy 321 statement, “on the surface” or in any other way. Policy 321 merely, and clearly, calls for an end to indoctrination, and to stick to a properly defined educational mission.
This basic thrust of Policy 321 is long overdue. That this open letter objects to such a policy, which should be uncontroversial, leads me to strongly suspect that the signers of the open letter are primarily motivated by a drive to protect it’s coercive power to indoctrinate students in its Woke ideology.
American government schools are now dominated by a Leftist Education Cartel which has made our schools What Philosopher Andrew Berstein refers to as a virtual “impregnable fortress” of Leftist ideological indoctrination, as E.D. Hirsch Jr. put it. Hirsch made that observation in 1999. It’s much, much worse now. Kudos to the Central Bucks School District for taking a courageous stand for real education. I hope they can hold up against the fierce reactionaries.
Related Reading:
What is the Purpose of Education?
Critical Race Theory And Gender Ideology Are Ubiquitous In US Schools, New Study Shows by Jack Elbaum for FEE
Contra Michelle Purdy, Education is about Independent Thinking, Not Indoctrination.
The Comprachicos by Ayn Rand
The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools by Andrew Bernstein for The Objective Standard
Is Climate Indoctrination Coming to NJ Government Schools?
‘Anti-Racism’, or the re-Mainstreaming of Racism
Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America by John McWhorter
Bad Schools and What to Do about Them, with Andrew Bernstein by Jon Hersey for The Objective Standard
Woke Racism by John McWhorter
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