The Dark Marxist History Of Public Schools
The Dark Marxist History Of Public Schools
Our national education system has big problems. Test scores are down, radicalization is up, and mental health issues are commonplace. Individual schools may not be the cause, but plenty of evidence suggests that public education is being (mis)used for nefarious ends.
Vigilance is critically important because mindsets, mandates, and curriculums not ordered to the pursuit of personal excellence balanced with the common good must be eradicated.
The initial steps in problem-solving are (1) identify the problem and (2) gather the facts. Sometimes that requires revisiting history.
John Dewey is often hailed as the father of progressive public education. But he certainly didn't act alone, and collectivism was on the table before he was born.
Take, for example, New Harmony, an 1820s commune that was established by an eccentric, utopian-socialist named Robert Owen. The community failed, and in typical leftist fashion, Owen blamed it on everyone else. His antidote was well-planned indoctrination.
Owen claimed that his ideas were implemented in schools by the King of Prussia. Also, early academic, political, and philanthropic supporters of a homegrown system wanted religion booted from curriculums.
Today, their progeny despises every sensible moral principle that respects human life, personal dignity, and bodily integrity. No wonder there's rampant divisiveness, promiscuity, substance abuse, and mental health issues.
Horace Mann, another collectivist, traveled to Prussia in 1843 to see these government schools at work. He was responsible for similar methods being imposed on Massachusetts Normal Schools for teachers. Mann also toured America planting collectivist seeds around the same time Marx and Engels were publishing their Communist Manifesto.
Before this children were homeschooled, taught by private tutors, and local communities, school books included the Bible and cheap primers. Students were literate, practical skills were abundant, and religious convictions fostered wisdom. Growth, innovation, production, optimism, and patriotism were trending in the right direction long before Dewey.
When Dewey and his humanist pals from the Frankfurt School and the University of Chicago started pulling strings in the early twentieth century, public school systems were mostly winging it. By the time he died in 1952, a highly politicized national machine was beginning to hum on all cylinders.
Dewey's philosophy and intentions weren't a secret; he wrote many books, essays, articles, speeches, and manifestos. He was an ardent fan of communism, and lectured in Russia and China; however, Dewey and his minions believed a peaceful transformation was possible using classrooms instead of guns.
There's no denying that public schools had a good run; unfortunately, every structure built on an unstable foundation will eventually collapse. It's painfully obvious that modern progressivism has failed because it's ideology-driven not excellence-driven, and a collectivist education paradigm undermines federalism and the individual's right to pursue happiness.
According to Alex Newman, a former teacher turned investigative reporter, writer, podcaster, and advocate, public education today is beyond gimmicks like Common Core. In his words: “It's a house on fire, and parents need to get their children out NOW!” He also advises them to proceed with caution, because some alternatives are just as bad.
Newman backs up his arguments with plenty of primary and secondary sourced evidence. Even a cursory review suggests that the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) kowtows to the United Nations, China, and special interests, rather than developing a national model that inculcates souls with the knowledge, intellectual, and moral virtues necessary to form a more perfect union.
Squandering billions of tax dollars, USDE tyranny, and public school monopolies aren't working. Don't expect any cooperation from an entrenched bureaucracy. Just the same, involved parents and a sagacious electorate voting for a new breed of politician who will champion parental rights and broaden competition seem like pretty good places to start.
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That is a very historical idealist version of that history. Here's a materialist one, starting with questions. Why was it that Dewey's ideas were made reality at the time? Who pushed for this? Who is destroying the public education system now?
The US was industrializing at the time. Capitalists needed a LOT of workers with a certain level of education, including some critical thinking skills. Now, they DON'T need such workers, and such thinking skills are a threat to their wealth and power. So they do everything they can to wreck the public school system, and they're doing a bang up job of it.
Everything is upside down. Our elected officials have no desire to lose union donations so the system chugs along swiftly on the tracks to hell. There are a great deal of examples of school systems that work throughout the world but our government thinks the best way to fix our education issues are to make up new ways to come up with 2x2=4. Even though the system is broken and corrupt, parents are oblivious to these issues. They are not involved with their children's education and any issues the child has is the fault of the teachers. The teachers barely get the support they need from their administers. I know this and more because my wife is an elementary school teacher. The system doesn't care if they learn anything, just keep pushing them through.