The 2015 Year in Secular Perspective Blogs

by Gary Berg-Cross

2015 was a diverse year with many issues, some ups and more seemingly downward trends.  In between, as they say there were some learning situations and perhaps some insights. On this Secular Perspective site we had range of topics posted which offers its own perspective.  In case you missed it here are some of the top ones from our volunteer posters. Edd Doerr, president of Americans for Religious Liberty, provided the first 6 or so on some of his favorite issues.

10. Aborting Aristotle  Edd Doerr’s review of a book by  Dave Sterrett had over 200 readers.  He found it an “odd little opus” with an “ anti-abortion screed extruded by an evangelical publisher and concocted by a youngish Southern Evangelical Seminary grad who evidently dwells in a rickety Ivory Tower somewhere in the Twilight Zone beyond Cloud Nine.”

9. Edd Doerr  also had A brief comment on "Zombies of 2016"

Based on Paul Krugman’s column in the April 24 NY Times, that  choped up Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and other Repubs who would like to infest the White House.

8. Edd Doerr also provided a Review of Liberty’s First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech

Freedom of speech, press, assembly and petition, like religious freedom  and church-state  separation, were/are intended to be protected by the First Amendment to our Constitution. However, in 1798, less than a decade after the Bill of Rights was adopted, the Federalist controlled Congress and President John Adams enacted the Sedition Act, which was immediately used to prosecute/persecute the slightest printed or spoken utterance that annoyed the Federalist establishment.

7. Edd published several on vouchers including, “The unpopularity of vouchers” which discussed the DC situation with the Congress and the Obama administration on the wrong side of the issue.   “Despite the council’s objections, Congress seems determined to continue D.C. school vouchers”

6. School Choice Works, Privatization Won't noted the importance of knowing  where the candidates stand on important issues like improving public education.

5. Edd’s Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools? Had over 300 readings and give a 5 star rating to a book by Mercedes K. Schneideron the controversial “Common Core State Standards” system.  The “Core” was largely pushed by big-money entrepreneurs and so-called “reformers” with little actual connection to teaching, including such conservative school-voucher-promoting outfits as the Fordham Institute.

4. I authored the next three mostly popular starting with the seasonal Channeling  Robert Ingersoll for Thanksgiving which had over 300 views.  It excerpted Robert Ingersoll’s 1897 , “Thanksgiving Sermon.” Turning from the divine he instead asked who should be thanked.  He found real groups of people - scientists, artists, statesmen, mothers, fathers, poets in contrast to religious organizations and their operatives.. He found plenty of things to be thankful for starting with the long rise from savagery to civilization.  

  

3. The trouble with Hanukkah? Had over 600 views since it was posted in Dec. based on a fact finding article on the Jewish Holiday.  The blog’s title is based on Tom Flynn’s more famous take on that bigger winter holiday in The Trouble with Christmas.

2. Also seasonally popular (>800 views) was my Sustained Seasonal Symbolic Struggles noting various symbolic struggles over words and associated values.
 such as Italian parents who were reportedly furious when a school canceled the "Christmas" concert with a winter recital.

1.  By far our most popular blog was by Matt Goldstein whose recent Can leftism be saved from Jeff Sparrow?  Had over 1000 views since published on Dec. 6^th. Matt notes that the Guardian newspaper’s Jeff Sparrow has been on the attack against New Atheism for some time. Matt rebuts Jeff’s latest salvo We Can Save Atheism From the New Atheists which begins with the question "Why are the New Atheists such jerks?". The provided explanation for the New Atheist's "dickishness" is "anti-Muslim bigotry" and "paranoid, racist shit". Matt sides with Chris Hitchens & Sam Harris’ idea that, "All religions are bad but some religions – especially those in the Middle East, by sheer coincidence! – are worse than others." 

Matt proposes that “What we really need is to save liberalism from bigoted regressive leftist dickish know-it-all jerks like Jeff Sparrow.”

Happy New year all, from one of the editors of Secular Perspectives.

Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?

Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?, by Mercedes K. Schneider. Teachers College Press, 2015, 245 pp,  $29.95 was reviewed by Edd Doerr.

A “common core” of K-12 education in math and reading sounds like a good idea on the  surface, given the complexity and mobility of our society, but the controversial “Common Core State Standards” system (Common Core or CCSS for short) that started off late during the Bush administration is nothing so simple. Mercedes  Schneider, a veteran public school teacher and author of the important 2014 book, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education  (which  I reviewed in Voice of Reason No. 128 at Arlinc.org), traces the development and “selling” of Common Core in this well-researched, carefully documented report on the who, how and why of this  little understood movement in the schools that serve nearly 90% of our nation’s kids. This book is essential to understanding what is happening in American public education today.

Now, to get to the heart of the matter, let’s all too briefly summarize Schneider’s opus, quoting the author. “CCSS is a hurriedly produced product intended to impose high-stakes outcomes onto those without power over it. In general, CCSS is not owned and valued by those  required to institute it – current American public school teachers and administrators nationwide. This alone makes CCSS destined to fail.” Common Core grew out of George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind,” with its “dependence on high-stakes testing outcomes to ‘prove’ that education was occurring – or else.” CCSS was largely pushed by big-money entrepreneurs and so-called “reformers” with little actual connection to teaching, including such conservative school-voucher-promoting outfits as the Fordham Institute,  headed by one Chester Finn, appointed in 2015 to the Maryland state board of education by Republican governor Larry Hogan. (Years ago Finn was a speaker at a Catholic University conference on vouchers; I was there and heard him declare that he was “ashamed to be a Jew” because the main Jewish organizations opposed vouchers; a prominent rabbi in the audience responded appropriately.)

Schneider explains that two groups, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, got “their unsuspecting state education systems” to commit to “what would be a set of inflexible standards tied to punitive assessments,” a set-up that “did not emerge from teacher practitioners and other education stakeholders.” And all this before the CCSS had actually been created. She shows that the CCSS was never field-tested before being foisted on the states by the federal government.  She concludes that “In the name of educating children, profitability assumed center stage – an exploitation that is indeed tragic for its corporate-serving end.” Then: “Those who love and respect the locally controlled American classroom  -- and resist its takeover by profiteers or by right-minded but misguided nonprofits who, for funds received, must produce studies, plans, influence, and results – need not despair.”

Schneider’s conclusions are worth citing. “We  need to put an end to policies and programs that betray our vulnerability for worshipping standardized test scores. Test-centric education allows for incredible scapegoating and profiteering even as it bankrupts our children’s education experience.” And: “A second lesson is that CCSS is principally the creation of those outside of the K-12 classroom. . . . There was no piloting of CCSS, and this incredible oversight continues to be excused by CCSS promoters. . . . [It] reduces public education to a dollar sign.”

The emphasis on endless testing in just two subjects tends to stifle other subjects, such as social studies, the arts, phys ed, languages, etc. Note that the respected 2015 Gallup education poll showed that fully 67% of Americans polled agree.

A short review  cannot do justice to this powerful, important, 5-star book. It needs to be purchased and read by everyone who cares about the future of education in our country.

For a 2014  interview with Mercedes K. Schneider see 

Bill Gates and the Push to Privatize Public Education

The unpopularity of vouchers

Edd Doerr, president of Americans for Religious Liberty, published this letter  in the Washington Post on  Oct. 25, 2015  on Vouchers.

Regarding Valerie Strauss’s Oct. 16 Answer Sheet column, “Despite the council’s objections, Congress seems determined to continue D.C. school vouchers” [Metro]:

In opposing expansion of the D.C. school voucher program, the Obama administration is in sync with the majority of Americans. The 2015 Gallup education poll showed Americans opposed to vouchers by 57 percent to 31 percent. (The D.C. vouchers are paid for by taxpayers nationally.)

In 28 state referendums from coast to coast between 1966 and 2014, millions of voters rejected vouchers or their variants by an average margin of 2 to 1. 

In 1981, D.C. voters rejected a tax-credit voucher plan by 89 percent to 11 percent, and this month a majority of the D.C. Council expressed opposition.

See also Voucher Fail.

DC charter schools serve fewer at-risk students than nearby neighborhood [public] schools

Edd Doerr thinks that the  Oct 8 Washington Post online article  by Michael Alison Chandler “DC charter schools serve fewer at-risk students than nearby neighborhood [public] schools” is "Dynamite".

He noted curiously, that the Oct 9 print edition of the paper did not run the story. Here is what Edd posted in the paper online ---

The article details, with maps and charts, how about 90% of DC’s large charter 

school array serve fewer at-risk kids than nearby public schools and are rather selective, which regular public schools cannot be. As the DC charters are regarded as some of the best in the US, what does this say about charters generally? The big question is why did the Post omit this article from its Oct 9 print edition?

There is a strong consensus among educators and others that charter schools – and school voucher plans – are part of an ongoing Republican/conservative campaign to undermine and privatize public education. Diane Ravitch, Mercedes Schneider, and many others, including myself, have been writing about this for a long time.

DC School Vouchers

The Washington Post on Oct 9 did publish this story by Lyndsey Layton, ”8 on [DC] council seek end to private school vouchers.” The story refers to a letter that a majority on the DC City Council sent to a congressional committee on Oct 8 urging no further expansion of the school voucher plan imposed on the District of Columbia by Congress and the George W. Bush administration. You should be able to Google the story. Here is the comment I posted online ---

“Excellent! The Council majority accurately reflects public opinion against vouchers. Remember that in 1981 DC voters voted down a tax-credit voucher plan by 89% to 11%. Remember that DC vouchers are paid for not just by DC taxpayers but by all taxpayers nationwide.

“Let’s note also that the annual Gallup education poll in August showed that Americans nationwide oppose diverting public funds to private schools by 57% to 31%, a supermajority that has held for nearly 50 years and that is reflected in the 28 state referenda from coast to coast from 1966 through 2014.”

ACLU sues to stop new Nev. School vouchers

Edd Doerr (arlinc.org) notes the Washington Post, article, Aug 28. “ACLU sues to stop new Nev. School vouchers,” by Emma Brown. Here is the comment Edd posted on line  ----

Nevada's Republican-rammed-through school voucher plan clearly violates Article XI, Sections 2, 9 and 10 of the state constitution. If the legislature had done the honorable thing and tried to amend the constitution, the amendment would have been rejected by the voters. How do we know? Because the neighboring states of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah and Colorado have had twelve referendum elections in which vouchers or similar schemes to divert public funds to private schools were rejected by an average margin of 64% to 36%. Nevada voters would surely follow suit.

And the annual PDK/Gallup education poll released on August 23 showed opposition to vouchers at 57% to 31%.

Nevada's GOP lawmakers thumbed their noses at the state constitution, at the voters, at the public schools that serve 95% of the state's kids, and at the religious liberty of the state's citizens, their right not to be forced by government to support religious institutions. 

See ACLU site for more.

Colorado Supreme Court’s & the Douglas County school voucher plan

Edd Doerr's (Silver Spring, Md.) letter on the Douglas County school voucher plan was published in the Denver Post on July 2, 2015. Curiously, a Post editorial on June 29 angrily denounced the ruling, thus thumbing its nose at the state constitution, the voters of the state, the public schools, religious liberty, and the principle of church-state separation.  

The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling [June 29]  against the Douglas County school voucher plan was a great victory for public education and religious liberty, the right of taxpayers not to be compelled to support religious institutions. The ruling lined up nicely with the view of Colorado voters, who rejected vouchers at the polls in 1992 and 1998 by a landslide average margin of 63.5 percent to 36.5 percent.

In 28 state referendum elections from coast to coast between 1966 and 2014, millions of voters rejected vouchers or their variants by an almost identical margin, most recently in Hawaii in 2014 and in Florida in 2012.

Taxpayers for Public Education (one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Douglas County schools) is to be commended for its efforts.

Numbing Ideas to Destroy Public Education

A review by Edd Doerr

A Democratic Constitution for Public Education, by Paul T. Hill and Ashley E. Jochim. University of Chicago Press, 2015, 152 pp, $22.50.

This strange book, paradoxically, is at once mind-numbingly simplistic and almost infinitely complex. While purporting to “reform” American K-12 education inside-and-out, top-to-bottom, it actually makes anarchy look well organized by comparison. Fortunately, this vehicle is so Cloud-Nine Twilight-Zone weird that its proposal is unlikely to get off the ground, except maybe in places like Louisiana. One clue to its far-out-ness is its paying respect to such as Chester Finn, Bruno Manno, Milton Friedman, Joel  Klein, and Chubb and Moe while ignoring educators like Diane Ravitch, David Berliner, Mercedes Schneider, and the Lubienskis.

While the book does  not overtly plug vouchers, charters, online teaching for children, and similar bad ideas, Hill is a long time avid promoter of such devices for undermining public education and the teaching profession, while blithely oblivious to state constitutions and well established laws and institutions. He has even gone so far as to propose coalitions of religious groups to start tax-supported schools. Nowhere in this awful opus do the authors demonstrate the slightest concern that their bizarre scheme would do other than fragment our school population and society along religious, ideological, class, ethnic, linguistic, ability level, and other lines; create logistical, financial and traffic nightmares; and siphon public funds to rapacious private pockets while reducing teachers to the level of transient hamburger flippers.

The University of Chicago Press would do well to disown this clunker and avoid further embarrassment.

(Edd Doerr, a former history and Spanish teacher, is president of Americans for Religious Liberty.)

Godless environments & sweeping tax-credit school voucher bill

Edd Doerr, president, Americans for Religious Liberty, Silver Spring, Md.

Texas Republicans are trying to push a sweeping tax-credit school voucher bill through the legislature. As part of the plot the lieutenant governor’s hand-picked advisory board issued a letter calling every public school “a Godless environment.” The May 1  Ft Worth Star-Telegram ran a long comment by a group of ministers (Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Christian, Presbyterian) slamming the letter, defending the public schools, and defending church-state separation  and religious liberty. Below is my letter that was published in the Star-Telegram on May 7. – Edd

The pastors who signed the commentary opposing the diversion of public funds to private schools through vouchers or tax credits are in the very best tradition of religious leadership in America.

They see, as did Founders Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, that religious liberty for all requires that government refrain from forcing all citizens to support religious institutions, either directly or indirectly.

This church-state separation principle is enshrined in the Texas Constitution in Article I, Section 7 and Article VII, Section 5.

Religious freedom and our heritage of free public schools should not be tossed away by politicians in Austin or Washington.

Polling Vouchers for private schools

by Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty (arlinc.org)

On August 20 the Washington Post ran this story, “Poll: Common Core support has eroded across the US”, regarding the new Gallup/PDK poll.  Below is the comment I posted in the Post on line – Edd

This story does not give a very complete view of the new Gallup/PDK poll. Here is what was missed:

Vouchers for private schools are opposed 63% to 37%, almost exactly the % by which vouchers or their variants have been rejected in 27 statewide referenda from coast to coast. Republicans favor vouchers 52% to 48%. Democrats oppose vouchers 77% to 23%. Independents oppose vouchers 63% to 37%.

67% of parents give an A or B rating to the public school attended by their oldest child; 50% give an A or B to the public schools in their community; 17% give an A or B to public schools nationally. What this seems to mean is that parents give a good rating to the public school they know most about, but fall for the barrage of anti public school and anti teacher propaganda dished out by conservative media with regard to schools nationally.

The biggest single problem facing public schools is lack of adequate funding. So say 32% of all respondents, 45% of Democrats, 33% of Independents, but only 21% of Republicans.

Most Americans are vaguely familiar with charter schools but are widely misinformed: Only 50% think that charters are really public schools; they believe they are academically selective by 68% to 29%, which is correct; half believe that charters may teach religion, which is wrong because they are publicly funded; by 54% to 33% they believe that charters are better than regular public schools, while the 2013 Stanford CREDO study found that 3/4 of charters are worse or no better than regular public schools despite their obvious and acknowledged selectivity advantage.

I really wish that the Post would do a better job of reporting on educational issues.
 
Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty (arlinc.org)

PEARL of Great Price: Public Education and Religious Liberty

by Edd Doerr

Humanists, like most Americans across the religio/philosophical spectrum, support religiously neutral public education and the constitutional principle (federal and state) of separation of church and state that is designed to protect public schools and religious freedom. But this year, 2011, our country faces the most severe challenges ever in this area.

Today, May 9, Wisconsin Gov. (and college dropout) Scott Walker, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, and turncoat former DC school chancellor Michelle Rhee were speaking in Washington before the misnamed American Federation of Children (AFC), a group fronting for the infamous Koch Brothers and the DeVos (Amway) interests. These shadowy radical right outfits are out to defund and wreck public education, undermine the teaching profession, and channel public funds to sectarian and other private schools through vouchers or tuition tax credits. Both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, along with Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, Florida and other states are in the midst of furious political battles over vouchers.

In today's (May 9) Philadelphia Inquirer reporters John Martin and Amy Worden track some of the money being spent to fund these attacks on public education and religious freedom. AFC, mentioned above, poured $3 million into elections last fall. AFC's directors include Carrie Walton Penner of the gazillionaire pro-voucher Wal-Mart empire, Betsy DeVos of the Amway fortune, and Keven Chavous, a former DC councilman. Former Texas congressman Dick Armey's Freedom Works has poured hundreds of thousands into the Pennsylvania voucher effort. These are just the most visible efforts. Catholic Church officials, though unable to quell the ruckus over coverups of clerical sexual abuse, have been pushing for vouchers, ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of Catholic parents prefer public schools for their kids.

At least 38 state constitutions forbid tax aid to religious schools, as does the US Constitution, though in recent years the Supreme Court has been moving away from church-state separation, thanks to judicial appointments by Reagan and the two Bushes. Tens of millions of voters have rejected vouchers or their variants in over two dozen statewide referenda from coast to coast by landslide margins (89% to 11% in DC in 1981). The actual referendum results may be found on my web site -- arlinc.org.

In essence, the argument against vouchers or other gimmicks for using public funds for nonpublic schools is simple. About 90% of private schools are pervasively religious (Catholic, Protestant, fundamentalist, Orthodox Jewish, Muslim). They separate children by religion, class, ethnicity, ideology, ability level, degree of disability. They also generally impose religious tests on teachers. Fragmentation of education would create chaos in our country while raising taxes.

The pro-voucher, anti-religious freedom and big money forces have taken over the party of Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. The other party is struggling for its life. We who value the principles of a progressive Humanism need to work with moderates and progressives across the spectrum to protect our common interests.

The Itch for Mitch

by Edd Doerr

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is being touted as one of the least unacceptable Republican possible aspirants to take on Barrack Obama in 2012. The competition includes the relatively sober Mitt Romney and such klutzes as Mike Huckabee, Michelle Bachman, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and the hotel/casino magnate with the funny hair whose name (rhymes with dump) I would as soon forget. Daniels brought glee to the hearts of the conservatives gathered to hear his speech on education issues on May 4 at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. And that is what sounds the alarm bells.

Daniels recently signed into law in the Hoosier state one of the most far-reaching school voucher plans in the country for diverting public funds to private schools, the overwhelming majority of which are pervasively sectarian institutions that tend to discriminate along religious, social class, ethnic, ideological, ability level, degree of incapacity and other lines, primarily in admissions but also in varying degrees in hiring faculty and developing curricula. Voucher plans, and similar tuition tax credit (tax-code voucher) plans, if widely implemented, would fragment our school populations along religious, class and other lines, reduce educational quality, increase costs (including school bus transportation costs), and degrade the teaching profession.

Daniels seems not to care that school vouchers violate Article I, Sections 4 and 6 of the Indiana constitution, or that if Hoosier voters were given the opportunity to vote on the matter they would doubtless reject vouchers just as tens of millions of voters from coast to coast have done by superlandslide margins in over two dozen statewide referenda (including three in the neighboring state of Michigan).

In addition to diverting public funds to religious schools, Daniels has also mimicked his fellow Neanderthal governors in Wisconsin and Ohio in sharply curtailing the right of teachers and their unions to meaningful collective bargaining. Without collective bargaining the public school teaching profession would rather quickly degenerate into something resembling migrant labor or peonage. Teaching would cease to attract the kind of young professionals we need in classrooms.

As if this were not enough, Daniels has also opened up his state for the expansion of charter schools. Years of experience with charter schools around the country have shown that fewer than 20% are better than local public schools, nearly 40% are worse, and the remainder are about the same. One big difference between regular public school and charters (which are publicly supported) is that teachers rarely have unions in the charters.

On yet another front Daniels has indicated that he will sign legislation to strip Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funding, a move that could cost Indiana over $2 million in federal funds. In addition, his legislature is considering bills that would ban abortions after 20 weeks, require clinics to provide women with inaccurate information and nonconsensus religious opinion disguised as fact.

Is there no room in the Republican party any more for an Eisenhower, a Willkie, a Nelson Rockefeller, a Charles Mathias, a Gilbert Gude, an Abe Lincoln?