Editor's note: This is the third of a multi-part series on the role of DEI in the decline of public education

Previous parts in this series described the systems in place to hold back excellence. The result of all this is crystal clear: workers and students will lower their effort levels to match those at the lowest level. Teachers and employers will adjust their grading and performance reviews to hide differences -- first to satisfy the ideologues, and then to hide the declining output.

It gets worse. The instruction doesn’t just decline as student effort declines, which would happen naturally -- why should a teacher break themselves trying to get performance out of students who are just not motivated? But there are now many teachers who are products of the college indoctrination mentioned above, who are motivated to pass on their poisonous ideology by teaching that the country is systemically racist and corrupt, and that the youth must join and support them in tearing it down. They instruct that there is no need to work or act responsibly because the system is rigged and they will fail anyway, and since all of the younger generation will probably die of climate change within their lifetimes, there really isn’t any reason to do anything but destroy everything. This indoctrination takes the place of instruction in the sciences, languages and arts that was previously practiced.

Again this is only a subset of teachers. But they exist, they are teaching, and this poisoning of the dreams and the self-worth of the youth is the most vile thing I have seen in my life.

It gets even worse. The equality demanded does not just apply to performance. It also applies to behavior.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

In previous times, students who were disruptive were removed from the classroom so as to not interfere with the learning of the rest. They were put in more controlled environments as either detention or instruction with a higher teacher to student ratio and more control of behavior. If they were found to be a physical danger to others they were suspended or expelled. Now, these corrective measures are not allowed if there is any appearance that they are affecting one identifiable group of students more than other groups, particularly when that group is identifiable by race.

So students have learned that if they can claim racial discrimination they can not only demand grades above what they have objectively earned, they can get away with any level of destructive behavior because if there is any indication that a school is punishing, detaining, suspending or expelling members of one race more than others, lawsuits will follow and compliant judges await to award damages. These damages flow to the parents of the destructive student, awarding the very parental failure that created the problem and incentivizing other parents and students to act destructively in order to reap monetary reward.

The tools available to those who would practice this destructive plunder are intentionally increased. In the most recent years, gender identification has joined race as a class which can be discriminated against. The Portland (Oregon) Public Schools bargaining agreement reached after the one-month teachers’ strike of November 2023 requires school officials to consider a disruptive student's race, gender identity, and sexual orientation when crafting that student's disciplinary plan. That plan "must take into consideration the impact of issues related to the student's trauma, race, gender identity/presentation, sexual orientation...and restorative justice as appropriate for the student." Restorative justice calls for the aggressor and the victim to be both treated as victims, virtually eliminating consequences.

The new disciplinary policy also eliminates mandatory suspensions for students who threaten or harm others—now, those students may only be removed from their classroom, not from school altogether.

So now all a kid has to do is claim minority status on the basis of gender ideology, and they cannot be punished or excluded no matter what. They can choose not to work and can engage in any behavior whatsoever, without consequence.

Kids will be kids, and they will take advantage of this. Not all of them, but enough to ruin it for the others.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The result is that not only have students learned that extra effort will not be rewarded with better grades and low effort will not be met with failing grades, and not only have their minds been poisoned with an apocalyptic ideology, they have learned that they will get away with previously inexcusable behavior from swearing at teachers to destroying property and up to and including actual physical violence. So they yell, swear, turn over furniture and destroy the learning environment for the other students who do want to learn and for the teachers who just want to teach. The teachers become weary of trying to control kids in their classes when they know their efforts will not be followed by corrective measures by the administration, and slowly accept the chaos as the new norm or leave the teaching profession.

The declining test scores are only the canary in the coal mine.


--Bill Dewey

Post Date: 2024-05-22 12:44:52

Last Update: 2024-05-22 19:32:03

Editor's note: This is the second of a multi-part series on the role of DEI in the decline of public education

The ideology alluded to in part one of this series doesn’t accept actual diversity in student achievement. For many reasons originating from their own experiences and resulting emotional states, there are those who don’t just feel it is unfair that some will not do as well as others, they in fact feel deeply emotionally troubled that there are differences in outcomes, standards of living and quality of life.

For most of human history these people had no way to rectify their discomfort and had to simply live with it. But that changed with the civil rights laws of the 1960’s. These laws were indeed benevolent in their intent, aiming to right the wrongs which had been perpetrated on minority communities, particularly African-Americans. Though slavery had been abolished five generations earlier, discrimination based on race had continued in some parts of the U.S. and Americans had decided it was time to ensure this came to an end everywhere. The civil rights laws of the 1960’s intended to guarantee everyone an equal opportunity regardless of race, creed, color or sex.

If they had only had this effect, all would have been well.

Unfortunately there were those who saw this as an opportunity to leverage the law to further their personal ideology. They saw that they could use these laws to not only guarantee equal opportunity, but to force equal outcomes, thus assuaging their personal emotional needs. They would claim that wherever differences appeared in workers’ pay, it was not due to differences in performance of the worker but was rather evidence of discrimination. They would claim that where there were differences in workers’ performance reviews it was not due to differences in performance, but discrimination. And wherever there were differences in students’ grades, this had to be discrimination.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

For a time, they failed when evidence was presented that the pay or the grades were in fact based on objective evidence of differences in effort and performance. But rather than accept that, they set about changing the people who were making those determinations, whether they were employers or teachers. They also set about changing who the judges were who would ultimately decide the inevitable court cases. They first took over the universities and law schools, carefully recruiting like-minded individuals and placing them in positions to indoctrinate impressionable young adults by instructing that the world is only just when everyone enjoys success, regardless of any difference in ability or effort.

These young adults became employers, teachers and judges decades later. They also became parents. This is where we find ourselves today. Though they are a subset of people, their views a minority, they have a presence in both the community as parents and within school administration and staff. They also now have the law on their side, which they continue to change to more quickly serve their ideology anywhere that voters are either apathetic or ideologically aligned with them.

Opposing them is very difficult as they charge any opposition with racism and/or discrimination, which immediately brings about feelings of guilt and can even win in court with scant evidence of any actual discrimination, due to judges whose interpretation of the law and its intent is compromised by their own personal ideology.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The way this manifests in schools is that students who would have previously failed must be given passing grades. More insidiously, those who previously excelled must be prevented from doing so because their success also creates a contrast. There is actually a movement to eliminate ‘talented and gifted’ school programs. This defies common sense; we all benefit from having the inventors and leaders of tomorrow turbo-charged by being challenged to their potential. But the emotional needs of the ideologues is stronger than their logic: this benefit to all can only be allowed if it occurs within a system where everyone benefits equally at every stage and in every place. That being impossible because people will always be different, excelling will simply not be allowed.

With these systems in place, the desire to work harder and excel is squashed. Why work harder when everyone will get the same grade, and the same pay?


--Bill Dewey

Post Date: 2024-05-20 20:37:16

Last Update: 2024-05-19 13:22:05

Editor's note: This is the first of a multi-part series on the role of DEI in the decline of public education

Education has been on the decline in the U.S. for some decades now. School districts and teachers unions demand ever more cash even while academic scores continue to decline.

There are two main causes. The smaller of the two is simple economics; government waste compounded by the schools being a monopoly. It’s simply human nature to be less careful with someone else’s money than with your own, so there will naturally be inefficiency in schools as there is throughout government because it runs on OPM – other peoples’ money. There will also be fraud when public treasury funds are available to plunderers and those lacking a moral compass will take advantage whenever they can. Moreover, the fact that the neighborhood public school is a monopoly -- the only choice for many families, allows it to slack off on performance while retaining the guarantee of continued funding.

If this were the only cause, the correction would not be so daunting. External forces made up of the community of taxpayers and parents naturally applies pressure for performance, and within the schools are teachers who knew they were going into a line of work that would not make them rich and they did so anyway because they love kids and love to teach. These pressures can to a degree counteract the greed and carelessness of some administration and union leaders.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The larger cause is much harder to correct as it has been carefully planned and placed and isn’t made up of just a few people whose actions are more easily discovered, but is rather an ideology that has infected the minds of millions, including members of both the community and the school apparatus -- unions, administrators and even some teachers. The discussion of this ideology is for another time and place. Here we will focus only on its effect on schools.

In addition to the inefficiency and the carelessness, this ideology creates an additional pressure to directly lower performance. Further, this pressure comes from all sides. Thankfully from a minority of those on all sides but it is very difficult to counteract because it is constructed to appear benevolent. Those opposing it are made to feel guilt, a powerful human emotion. So it has continued to spread.

Throughout human history, educators have been keenly aware that students come to them with a spectrum of abilities and desires. Some are voracious learners who excel while demanding ever more challenge. Most are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, doing what is assigned but lacking focus as they try to find and define where their strengths and interests lie. Then there are those who want to learn but struggle with various barriers from cognitive issues such as dyslexia to emotional factors, and finally there are those with more serious issues who cannot be convinced to care about their own future or well-being and are not able to put forth any effort.

Educators have developed systems to meet each type of learner with a program designed to address their particular place and learning style, with the goal of providing the greatest overall benefit to all students. The fast learners are challenged, keeping them focused and on a path toward being the inventors and leaders of tomorrow. The average are assisted with identifying their strengths and encouraged to find their focus and passion. Those with disabilities are provided the specialized assistance to help them overcome their barriers and to feel the beauty of the satisfaction of achievement.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Those who do not wish to learn are helped as much as possible, but correcting their mental-emotional state, which took years to form in dysfunctional and even sometimes abusive households, is a truly monumental task and requires a skill set quite outside the realm of what educators do. It moves into the realm of the psychologist. Schools do in fact employ psychologists, but correcting issues which took years to form would similarly take years to resolve, is so time consuming that it would require a 1x1 ratio of psychologists to students with issues, and doing so while the pressures of the home continue to exacerbate the issue is simply not possible.

As nice as the thought is that we can “fix” these kids, it’s simply not possible. The best a school psychologist can do is to help the child feel some self-worth and somehow convince the child to focus on the long-term. But as the area of the brain responsible for this type of thinking does not fully form until sometime in the 20’s, the psychologist faces a truly daunting task.

So, inherent in the system is the understanding that there will always be some A students, some C students and some F students. This is the nature of the human race and cannot be altered with anything less than a massive investment of resources that no one is willing or able to make.


--Bill Dewey

Post Date: 2024-05-19 20:33:55

Last Update: 2024-05-19 13:21:43