The MAGOP War on Education Rages...

 
Among the many of the MAGOP’s greatest bugaboos, I've long thought that its "war on education" may well be at the top of the list.  Hard to imagine, I know, given how so much the base of the party gets its information from a source that is not only literally anonymous, but says so in its very QAnon name.  A segment of the base that truly believes that JFK is going to come back from the dead.  And that Anderson Cooper eats babies.  But then, since their dear leader Trump hatefully refers to the mainstream media (which is called that because it reports facts, has standards and requires confirmation from sources) the “Enemy of the People,” it pretty much follows.  And the result is that they believe him blindly and drink deep at the no-news, no-education, "Ignorance-Only Here" well.

I know that nobody likes to be called ignorant.  But then learn, study, demand confirmation, demand standards, require evidence, check multiple sources.  However, if you choose to think factual news is the "enemy."  And that there are "alternative facts."  And that JFK is coming back to life to run with Trump.  And that you can get real information from a totally anonymous website.  And think immigrants are eating pet dogs and cats despite every town official saying it's untrue and there's zero evidence.  And think drinking deadly bleach will kill COVID rather than you.  And choose to give up your own thought process and instead just totally believe everything from a man who was convicted of 34 felonies, found liable of rape, and found guilty of fraud who psychologists say has dementia.  And more and more and more -- the result of all that is ignorance.  There's no other proper word.
 
The thing is, and this is the important point, it's been the way of the Republican and now MAGOP party for the past 70 years – an active, ongoing effort against education:  keep as many people as possible ignorant, not knowing what to trust or who to trust, and you can bamboozle them with anything. And alone can fix it. This may have first occurred when Republicans slammed the 1952 Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson for being “an egghead” – y’know…smart.  And then slammed the next 1960 Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy (before the base believed he’d have to come back from the dead) for having advisers Republicans disdained as “the Harvard Mafia” – y’know, smart.  And their own party leader Richard Nixon got elected in 1968 and put students on his Enemies List – and it resulted in students at Kent State University being shot to death.  (No word from today’s MAGOP base if they think those students will come back from the dead.)  I’ve written about this repeatedly through the years, so it’s no surprise to seeing it being brought up yet again now that the party in all its hubris thinks that this is a good thing.
 
The other day, Trump 'efficiency' co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy (and dear Lord, what a title that is and how ghastly that it’s held by two flim-flam, uber-arrogant, fascist con men, along with Elon Musk) was on CNN.  Since Trump has talked about his dislike of the Department of Education, Ramaswamy was asked whether the two crackerjack “efficiency” mavens would suggest closing down the department.  He danced around the question, but -- rarely having met a fully-developed idea he didn’t like -- answered, “We expect mass reductions in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated.” To which he added “So yes, we expect all of the above and I think people will be surprised by, I think, how quickly we're able to move with some of those changes given the legal backdrop."
 
Actually, I think it’s Ramaswamy who will be not just surprised, but gobsmacked flabbergasted by how slowly he’ll be able to do pretty much anything, most especially given the legal backdrop.  (We’re still waiting for Trump’s big, beautiful new healthcare plan that he first announced seven years ago is coming in just two weeks.)
 
But it has perhaps been MAGOP Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction (which some consider an oxymoron) who has been doing his best to push this concept for the Trump administration.  As a guest on CNN, he began to pontificate that “This country was the greatest country in the history of the world, was built without a federal department of education. It was a one-room schoolhouse that helped forge some of the greatest minds in the world.”
 
And what more do you need?  Because there you have it.  This one, simple paragraph is perfect, pure MAGOP doctrine from a party that has been demeaning education for 70 years.  There he is, trying to make the point in today's world of computer processing, 24-hour news channels, and world information and history available online at a person’s fingertips, we should go back to the Little House on the Prairie and one-room schoolhouses, with a school marm teaching six grades of students together.
 
Yes, you read his self-aggrandizing, weepy statement correctly.  That was not satire from The Onion.  Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, is actually arguing against education!  This better than almost anything explains why the state of Oklahoma ranks – (take a guess, I’ll wait… Hint: you can't guess too low) -- #50!!  Yes, last!!!  Dead last.
 
(No word yet if MAGOPS believe Oklahoma education will come back from the dead.)
 
You can check it out here.  I’m not lying.
 
For all of Mr. Walters' attempt at faux-patriotic flag waving, this country was also "built" on allowing slavery and not giving women the vote. I certainly hope he isn’t proclaiming that those are the foundational standards we should maintain.  Furthermore, without arguing whether or not the United States is "the greatest country in the history of the world," it was not "the greatest country" at its birth.  It's growth took time for a brand new, developing nation, one that had to compete with developed countries and cultures that had head starts of a thousand years -- or more.  Even accepting Mr. Walters' argument, the United States didn’t begin to mature and reach its greatness as a majestic world leader until probably after the Civil War.
 
Fun Fact:  The Department of Education was created in...1867!! If people like Ryan Walters studied history they’d know that. As much as such people – including the Ramaswamys, Musks, Trumps and MAGOP haters of education want you to believe, and perhaps believe themselves, the Department of Education is not a “Woke”, new-age concept.  It’s been here for 147 years!  And it is a significant part of why the United States reached a point where the Ryan Walters all around us call the U.S. the greatest country in the history of the world.
 
That said, the MAGOP pushing ignorance, pushing anonymous information sources, pushing actual news as the "enemy" is what risks tearing that greatness apart by getting us to the point where Google Trends actually reported that on Election Day, the search query “Is Joe Biden still running for president” began trending at 8 AM and peaked at midnight – only to trend again the day after the election!

I know people don't like to be called ignorant.  But sometimes, there's no other word for it.
 
And just to give Ryan Walters a farewell topper, this Christian nationalist (and yes, I’m sure so many of you are “shocked” to learn this…) actually, literally issued a mandate that all teachers in Oklahoma must show a video in their classes of him praying for Trump.
 
Yes, really.

The good news is that the Attorney General of Oklahoma has stated what most sentient citizens easily grasp -- that, no, Mr. Walters cannot order anyone to show his video. 

(For the record, the Oklahoma Attorney General, Gentner Drummond, did not get his law degree in Oklahoma.  He got educated in the law at Georgetown University Law School, in Washington, D.C.)
 
Actually, my biggest question in all this is not how on earth did Ryan Walters become Superintendent of Public Education in Oklahoma – since, with the state ranking #50, the answer is somewhat self-explanatory – but rather:  why in the world did CNN put someone like Ryan Walters, whose state ranks last in education on the air as a spokesperson on behalf of education??!
 
But then, all of this is today's MAGOP.  And the party for the past 70 years.  Arguing its War on Education.  Which among other things, is the path that led us to Trump and opened the door for him.
 
As I said, I first wrote in the Huffington Post about the Republican Party’s War on Education on March 29, 2011.  I’ve posted the article here two years ago, but it is now very much worth repeating again. 
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                                     Every Child Left Behind

Several years ago, I had a realization: conservatives don't care about education.  

It's a generalization, I admit.  And sounds outlandish.  Yet for the past 60 years, conservatives have made crystal clear their utter disdain for education.  Hoping to convince others.

It began in 1952.  When Dwight Eisenhower ran for president against Adlai Stevenson, the contemptuous attack Republicans made was that Stevenson was "an egghead."  Someone who was really - smart.  And you just can't trust those smart people.

In 1960, when Richard Nixon ran against John Kennedy, the Republican blast was that JFK was advised by his "Harvard Mafia."  Smart people.  So smart that they were dangerous.  And you can't trust those smart people who go to good colleges.

When Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, he hated those smart people who go to colleges so much that students made his Enemies List.  And later his "get tough" policies on student dissent (including wanting the Secret Service to beat up protestors) resulted in Republican governor Jim Rhodes sending armed troops sent the campus of Kent State University -- and four "enemy" undergraduates were killed.

In 1988, George Bush claimed to be "the Education President" - yet on an campaign stop in Los Angeles told a rally of service employees that not everyone had to go to college.  A valid sentiment, certainly, but for a candidate supposedly promoting education, it leaked his true feelings.

And in 2000, George W. Bush failed to fund his "No Child Left Behind" education program.

It's continued for 60 years, as conservatives have demeaned public education, pounding away at the national consciousness that learning for the masses is a bad thing to be scorned and mistrusted.

There's an understandable - and historic - reason for this, of course, because the less educated the public is, the more it relies on authority figures, rather than question anything.  And the more that education is disdained, the less that inconvenient facts will be believed.

And so, instead, we get an attitude that challenges any assertion of education with a contemptuous, "So, you think you're better than the rest of us??" - conditioning people to wear with pride that they know less.  In all other areas of life, we want the best.  We want more riches, more success, to be faster, stronger, cooler - better at everything.  Except, after 60 years of conservative pounding against education, not to be as smart as we and our children can be.

And while this conservative effort has been surreptitious over the past 60 years, it's finally released itself:  open, unrelenting Republican attacks in Wisconsin against teachers - teachers, for goodness sake! - and a widespread Republican war against education.

In Florida, $3.3 billion has been cut from education over the next two years, almost 15% from the education budget to our children.  While $1.6 billion has been given in corporate tax breaks.

Texas has proposed $9.8 billion in cuts in education assistance to school districts.  (Bringing a loss of 100,000 jobs.)

Wisconsin cut $834 million from state aid to K-12 education over the next two years.  That's 20% of the proposed cuts in the budget.  And cuts to teacher pay and pensions.

We have always heard the praise that teaching is the most important job.  That teachers are preparing our most precious resource, our children, for the future.  How teachers are underpaid heroes.  But from the other side of their hypocritical mouths, conservatives will slam teachers as lazy slackers with three months of vacation, overpaid plunderers of public pensions - and for 60 years desensitize the public for stripping away public education.
 
And now, they couldn't be any more clear:

Last Wednesday in Iowa, three prospective Republican presidential candidates bluntly stated their condemnation of public education at a home schooling rally.

"The public school system now is a propaganda machine," said Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX).  "And they condition them to believe in so much which is totally un-American."  Like, apparently, the Pledge of Allegiance.

"It is not up to a bureaucrat to decide what is best for your children," insisted Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who home-schooled five children.  "We know best."  Except about U.S. history.  Home teacher Bachman recently placed the cornerstone of the American Revolution - Lexington and Concord - in the wrong state.

"That's all we want," said Herman Cain, a prominent businessman testing a GOP presidential run. "For government to get out of the way so we can educate ourselves and our children the old-fashioned way."  Note:  "the old-fashioned way" included one teacher for six grades in one room, few women and minorities, and teaching math with an abacus.

But it was left to the event's host, Justin LaVan, to explain plainly how so many conservatives truly see education.  "Talking about our Creator.  Our rights that came from our Creator, acknowledging that and giving Him the glory."  Of course, that's why God invented church.  For educating children to succeed in a global community where others are learning science, history and geography, it's a disaster.  If prayer worked in school, every kid would get straight-A's.

And in the end, that disaster is what conservatives have long wanted from education.  No need to learn anything.  No public education.  Just private schools and home schooling.  Which is the end of an educated nation.  

Private schools limit education to those who can afford it.  Home schooling limits education to families where one parent can afford to stay home.  While hoping that the parent completed high school.

This is known as every child left behind.

But for conservatives, that's okay.  The wealthy and privileged will get their children a great education.  And the rest of America?  You're on your own.

Public education is what helped make America the envy of the world.  A nation of well-informed citizens.  Leading the way in the space race, technology, finance, and medical advances.

But conservatives? They want to go back to "the old fashioned way."  Like the Dark Ages.  Where kings and the aristocracy ruled.  And you peasants, obey thy overlord.  

Make no mistake, this is nothing new.  The attack against education is the drug that conservatives have been pushing through history.