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Friday, December 16th, 2022

‘We can’t have 2 countries’: 2022’s elections foreshadow new divides in education

Author:     JUAN PEREZ JR. and ANDREW ATTERBURY
Source:     Politico
Publication Date:     12/14/2022 04:30 AM EST
 Link: ‘We can’t have 2 countries’: 2022’s elections foreshadow new divides in education
Stephan:   This is what the culture war of facts vs fantasy looks like in public education. In my view, it is a war between education and indoctrination. And indoctrination instead of educating kids to think and be fact-based over a relatively short time always degrades the intellectual quality of the culture in which it is practiced, and destroys democracy. Seen through the prism of the Great Schism Trend, this story also tells us that we are becoming two nations, which is why I think power is devolving to the states. It is also going to cause people to leave Red states, where indoctrination is the purpose. Just as they are going to leave Red states because of Dobbs, and healthcare generally.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won his reelection in a landslide and made education — including the opposition of critical race theory — a priority issue. Credit: Daniel A. Varela / AP

Republicans spent big this year to elect scores of candidates who vowed to remake the American public education system — an effort that’s inspiring conservatives to do more in 2023.

Some of the GOP’s investments paid off quickly: Newly-elected school board officials in charge of South Carolina’s fourth-largest school system voted to fire their superintendent, replace the board’s chair and approve a resolution barring the teaching of critical race theory to more than 37,000 students.

Superintendents in two Florida counties were ousted after conservative-backed candidates were sworn into office. Board members in the Dallas-area suburb of Keller, Texas, approved bids to allow for armed school staff and ban school library books that discuss gender fluidity. It’s enough change to keep conservative organizations focused on these local races going into next year.

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia held state school board or education superintendent elections this year. […]

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