Water, Water, Everywhere, Except Where It’s Supposed to Be

Water, Water, Everywhere, Except Where It’s Supposed to Be

Or “Cry Me a River”

How do colleges evaluate an applicant who attended a public high school where truth is trumped by religious distortions? Are those children ready for college where critical thinking and verifying facts are core values? Are those graduates unfavorably compared to those who attended school in districts which are focused on accurate education based on truth? Is anti-“woke” education by definition an inferior product?

I’ve expressed my concern as to the true meaning and impact of the rightwing focus on so-called “culture wars” including anti-CRT legislation, like Florida’s recent passage of the de facto anti-truth, anti-1st Amendment, so-called Stop Woke Act. See, for example my January 16th Is Ron DeSantis the New Emperor of White Christian Nationalism?, January 15th Thou Shall Not Speak of It!, December 17th What Increasingly Seems to Be OK is Certainly Not OK and my October 9th But Not Banned in Boston blogs, to present a few such opinions. But banning books and limiting classroom lesson plans – hallmarks of historically repressive autocracies – are covering up some serious and permanent negative realities about our nation.

First, if you take George Santayana’s admonition seriously (and I do) – Those who do not study are condemned to repeat its mistakes – I suspect that censoring and distorting the teaching of history have the same result. Japan continues to deny its atrocities against WWII-era China in its textbooks and lesson plans, just as Germany requires that its high school students face the ugly truth of the Holocaust as a condition to graduation. What does “never again” mean?

Second, we really should take a look at the recent explosion (literally a tripling) of race and gender hate crimes in this country. So much of this is more about White supremacy, searching for a word that does not say this outright, that letting parents decide what their children can learn in school is really disguised racism and religious bigotry. We have a very, very long legacy of public education without giving parents direct control over the classroom and what’s in local public libraries. What’s changed? Yeah, that!

Indeed, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the champion of that Stop Woke Act, has found a path to foster White supremacy and evangelical values – pretty much denigrating almost anyone else – with one word: anti-woke. He no longer has to use words like “Christian values” or “White traditional leadership.” “Woke” is the buzzword that short circuits using words that just might otherwise turn off “voters in the middle.” It effectively challenges those “liberals” who believe in racial, gender, ethnic and religious equality. After all, White supremacy rejects that liberal axiom.

In January, the DeSantis administration sent a letter to the College Board (curriculum standard bearer and national testing entity) rejecting their standards for a purely elective Advanced Placement course in African American Studies, saying, “As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” Topics like contemporary racial discrimination and the results of past slavery and Jim Crow laws are subject to heavy censorship under DeSantis’ view. In short, the Board is apparently changing their national requirements for this AP elective course to cater to a rightwing bully.

But lest you think that this red state proclivity to declare and fight this culture war cannot happen in the blues of the blue states, California, think again. Just a few miles south of Los Angeles, “Madison Klovstad Miner ran for the Orange [County] Unified school board with financial backing from conservative groups, signaling her ideology with phrases like ‘parent first’ and ‘education fundamentals.’… On the campaign trail, she stopped short of favoring a ban on critical race theory but said it was ‘not the best way for our students to become more inclusive, to become more accepting.’… Earlier this month, in her second meeting after narrowly beating an incumbent Democrat, Miner voted with three colleagues to fire the district’s superintendent…

“The board’s new conservative majority has not stated a reason for the move, which was opposed by many parents and teachers. But it appeared to be the opening salvo in an effort to bring what is taught in the district’s classrooms in line with conservative values… ‘I will not let this district’s reputation be destroyed by a group of extremists that are coming in to tear down the work that we’ve been doing as parents and active members of the community for the last decade and a half,’ said Kris Erickson, a Democrat on the school board.

“In the November elections, conservative groups backed school board candidates around the state, with limited success… Where conservatives did take control, as in Orange, the new majorities have begun laying the groundwork for their agendas, despite heated opposition. The conflicts are likely to grow more intense as communities debate proposals that seek to remake public education.

“A new conservative Christian majority on the [nearby] Temecula Valley school board immediately banned critical race theory — an academic framework that seeks to examine how racial inequality and racism are embedded in legal systems, policies and institutions — then called a special meeting last week that adjourned early amid protests and fears that the board would fire the superintendent.” Los Angeles Times, January 28th.

I have taught (as lecturer and adjacent professor) in two UC universities, at the undergraduate, graduate and professional school levels. Students that rely on extremist theories in college-level courses, in lieu of hard factually based research, simply are not prepared for a higher education. They can adhere to their beliefs without question, but when they substitute their beliefs for research as a primary proof of the empirical studies, not even presenting alternative views, exactly how should their instructor/professor grade them and evaluate their work? Should they be given the imprimatur of a college degree based on that approach? Perhaps that view may hold in state universities in Idaho, Florida and Alabama (and it might not work even there), but when you look at what employers and most of the world expect from college grads, that just plain does not cut it.

Are those anti-woke high schools actually preparing their students for the real world or for the challenges of solid college education? Are college admissions officials accepting such high school preparedness at the same level of students not so limited in their learning parameters? Exactly what does such anti-woke teaching actually mean for their students’ future?

Remember the anti-science revolution, the guilty verdict against a man teaching evolution contradicting creationism in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial? History.com adds: “In 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the Monkey Trial verdict on a technicality but left the constitutional issues unresolved until 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a similar Arkansas law on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment.” Spoiler alert, rightwing school districts are still trying to find a way to legitimize creationism as a solid alternative to Darwin’s vision of evolution.

I’m Peter Dekom, and wearing my academic hat, I do not consider a high school with an anti-woke mandate as the equal of a high school that has no such restriction.