tOP STORY

The Oppression of traditional education by progressive politics

By GREG TAYLOR with Mary Otto-Chang HBA, MES, PhD

The goal of education in American is to create the leaders of tomorrow, and leaders in families, communities, industry and government.

The goal of education in American is to create the leaders of tomorrow, and leaders in families, communities, industry and government. To quote President John F. Kennedy, “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is the fundamental resource.” He, and so many others in history, saw the power of education to build a brighter tomorrow. For so many children that transformative power to help grow society has given way to politics. Timetables and children’s simplistic art have given way to rainbows, the transgender flag, and the BLM banner. Tragically, academic achievement, which is the reason for the existence of schools, and provides the building blocks for future success of children, has suffered.

Student Attainment in Math and English is Decreasing

The National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) shows a decline in Math and English since 2020 that is unprecedented in recent times. The NCES website shows “scores at five selected percentiles to show the progress made by lower- (10th and 25th percentiles), middle- (50th percentile), and higher- (75th and 90th percentiles) performing students. In 2022, reading and mathematics scores for students at all five selected percentile levels declined compared to 2020. In both subjects, scores for lower-performing age nine students declined more than scores for higher-performing students compared to 2020.” Children’s traditional education attainment is falling.

Many will point to COVID 19 being a particular factor in that trend given the years mentioned. However, there have been other factors at play as well, including political activism in the classroom, from administrators, school boards, teachers’ unions and from local, state and Federal government. Cluttering the thinking of the most vulnerable minds are now everything from Black Lives Matter, gender and identity, Social Emotional Learning, critical theory and more. We are clouding children’s minds instead of focusing on the basics of English, Math and other traditional subjects.

Politics in the Classroom – Paulo Freire

“Pedagogy of the Oppressed” looked to provide a platform within teaching that highlighted such concepts as the need for education, to need also to help the oppressed overcome their oppression, for greater teacher engagement with children to explain inequalities, for children to become activists and engage with the world by reflecting their own experiences and for children to be aware of their own oppression through critical thought.

Freire’s ideas found their ways to the classroom through a variety of means. His book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” became a foundational text in education, not only in the US but around the world. Many teacher training courses include Freire’s concepts. Several of his followers have influenced more progressive teachers and administrators to include his ideas into curricula. Scholars and researchers have used critical pedagogy to validate and refine Freire’s concepts leading to broader acceptance of his ideas into teaching.

As with many other areas of the Lockstep Agendas ongoing, “right-think” is all important. Orthodoxy is dominant and those who stray from the narrative will be shunned, face little or no funding, and their papers will not face fair treatment. The educational establishment has accepted critical pedagogy to its core to the cost of all other platforms.

Freire’s theories have a basis that are positive for children and a greater society. However, the platform he established can also act as a method by which political bias and too greater focus on oppression can overtake any positives. That seems to be the case all too often, when the focus of the classroom is on BLM, transgenderism, and when critical race theory is imposed on children instead of teaching a child to read or add. All too often schools are indoctrinating children about race, gender and social justice, rather than educating them in traditional subjects.

Since the 1970’s, the progression through the educational system has been gradually moving from teacher training colleges, to teachers, to children who then find their own way through the educational system. It is suggested that by the 1990’s Freire’s ideas, and his Marxist leanings, had a stronghold in all speres of education. Along the way, additions to the oppressor narrative came along such as intersectionality and critical consciousness that gave us the woke mindset that we see today.

Arguably by 2020, that had risen through the hierarchy to the major teaching unions and the Department of Education. Children now learn in a bottom-up and top-down system dominated by Freire’s critical pedagogy augmented with a focus on race, gender and social justice.

Chicago’s Failing Education System

The theory of how we got to where we are is important, but empirical data on academic abilities is perhaps more critical. One of the more left leaning states is Illinois, with Chicago and its Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former Chicago Teachers Union organizer, the firebrand of progressive politics at city level.

The statistics demonstrating academic achievement in Illinois and Chicago in particular are not good. Prior to COVID, in 2019, 21 schools in Illinois had zero students who achieved graduate level in reading and 37 schools where zero students were proficient in math at grade level.

By 2022, that figure had risen to 30 for reading and 53 for math. In 2023 that figure was 32 and 67 respectively. Of the 32 schools where there were zero students reaching grade level reading 24 were in the City of Chicago School District. Of the 67 schools where no child was proficient at math Chicago accounted for 42.

As schools were forced to close for the pandemic, because of government and teacher union activism, it is perhaps understandable that scores would have dropped. But by 2023 things should surely have started to get better, not worse.

What might amaze many is that, according to Viewpoints.org, 70% of the children in those schools where there were zero proficient in math or reading, still graduated. It is hard to understand how a child cannot read sufficiently or achieve standardized math and yet they can graduate high school and presumably then enter higher education. We are failing children if we tell them they are good enough when they clearly are not.

The problems faced by Illinois are not just down to teaching methods and ideology. Other issues at play will include funding, resource allocation, teacher retention, especially in underprivileged areas. However, it is hard not to consider how critical pedagogy, as a platform for race, gender and social justice, does not play a significant role, especially when the political environment moves further left and embraces the oppressor / oppressed narrative. Here is a thought. Maybe telling kids in deprived areas that they are oppressed, that they are victims but equity means they will get the same outcome isn’t the best way to motivate them to do well in school?

Progressive Cities Also Failing Children

While Chicago is the poster child for educational failure, it is not alone. In Baltimore, Maryland in 2023, it was reported that 23 schools had no students who were proficient at math. Detroit, Michigan public schools have regularly demonstrated challenges with student proficiency. Other cities including Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Oakland, California, St Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee mirror the educational failure of children.

Each of these cities have similar issues. Each has areas of high poverty rates and disparities in funding from one school to another. Undoubtedly, the pandemic has taken a toll both socially, economically and with education as well. But each city is also run by highly progressive politicians for whom identity politics and oppression are key ideological causes.

Proving a causal link from progressive, oppressor-based teaching platforms to failure in educational standards is hard to pinpoint. But there certainly seems to be something indicative when so many highly progressive cities are failing their students.

The Original Social Emotional Learning Format

Ironically, one of the teaching methods that was originally designed for underprivileged children with learning difficulties, known as Social Emotional Learning (SEL), was the subject of an earlier newsletter. SEL was a method by which children are to be transformed to the global citizens of tomorrows equity-based world. SEL was designed to help students that were, as the name suggests, struggling at school because of social issues, such as trouble in the home or lacking interpersonal skills.

In the original implementation of what we now call SEL, Jame Comer in New Haven, CT looked at two schools that had a high African American demographic, high truancy rates and low educational achievement. By addressing social ills with the school, community, and individual students, together with the help of mental health professionals he was able to achieve highly positive results. However, instead of learning from what has worked, politics has intervened.

The Biden Administration and the Department of Education

As with other progressive political bodies, the Biden administration and the Department of Education have not stood back idly to let children achieve academic success.

That order required federal agencies including the Department of Education to implement policies ensuring non-discrimination based on gender identity.

The Biden administration has also revised Title IX regulations to protect transgender students. It requires that schools must treat transgender students according to their gender identity and has allowed biological males to compete in girls’ sports.

The government has focused on equity in education that sometimes sees the oppressor / oppressed narratives with an emphasis placed on the needs for racial and gender minorities.

Diversity Equity and Inclusion, DEI, also have a place with the Biden Administration and especially in the Department of Education which requires educators to consider DEI in all aspects of education.

The Administration’s actions have not gone unchallenged, but generally only by those who do not set their political stall by the progressive stance taken. The failing cities discussed earlier would certainly not consider fighting against race, gender and social justice faux ideologies.

The actions of the Biden Administration and the Department of Education have reflected an intent to put politics into the school room to address social issues, promote inclusivity and challenge what may be considered to be systemic discrimination. They have prioritized ideology over traditional academic subjects.

Many of the ills of society need to be addressed but that should not come at the expense of a basic education. Children do not need to be told that if they are in a minority that they are oppressed and victims. The Biden administration, the Department of Education, state and local government, teacher’s unions, and teachers themselves need to find a suitable balance that protects minorities in meaningful ways, help all children achieve academic success and stop prioritizing ideology.

We need to keep politics out of the classroom. With a new federal administration in the wings, we must hope and pray that our children are protected.