Colorado Curriculum Tussle Yet Another Reason to Ditch Public Schools

In Jefferson County, Colorado,
hundreds of students walked out of class and teachers staged a sick
out in protest over a new political tilt in the school curriculum.
They’re pissed off about a school board plan to emphasize
patriotism, free markets, American exceptionalism and the
like—basically, a conservative view of U.S. history. That
curriculum was developed as an alternative to a national history
curriculum from the College Board that takes they accuse of being
leftward-tilting and excessively critical of America’s traditions
and role in the world.

That the two takes on U.S. history are very different and
reflect divergent points of view is not in question. But the whole
debate is an excellent illustration of why we shouldn’t stick our
kids in government schools to be spoon fed whatever tickles the
fancy of winners of school board elections.

According to
CBS 4:

Student participants said their demonstration was organized by
word of mouth and social media. Many waved American flags and
carried signs, including messages that read “There is nothing more
patriotic than protest.”

The school board proposal that triggered the walkout calls of
instructional materials that present positive aspects of the nation
and its heritage. It would establish a committee to regularly
review texts and course plans, starting with Advanced Placement
history, to make sure materials “promote citizenship, patriotism,
essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for
authority and respect for individual rights” and don’t “encourage
or condone civil disorder, social strike or disregard of the
law.”

How devoted to the College Board version of history the students
are is an open question. At Chalkbeat Colorado,
Nicholas Garcia notes, “some students who left school to rally
along Wadsworth were treating themselves to nearby fast food,
running through intersections, and loitering in parking lots.
Others couldn’t articulate why they were protesting.”

At National Review, before the current fuss, Stanley
Kurtz
criticized the new College Board curriculum as an attempt to
submerge the teaching of American history in a “transnationalist”
point of view and “an attempt to hijack the teaching of U.S.
history on behalf of a leftist political and ideological
perspective.”

At the College Board AP Central blog, George Mason Universty’s
Peter Stearns
concedes, “Because world history necessarily reduces the space
available to the West and treats the Western tradition as one among
several major and valid civilizational experiences, it is
inherently suspect.”

So a conservative majority on the Jefferson County school board,
newly ascendant after elections last November,
set out to challenge what they saw as revisionist lessons and
make sure classes “present positive aspects of the United States
and its heritage.” Which is to say, they wanted to insert
their point of view into the lessons instead of their
opponents’ point of view.

And so the classroom culture wars continue.

The thing is…These wars will never end so long as
control of curriculum means access to young minds—or denying access
to the ideological enemy. When your kids are in the classroom, or
your ideas are excluded from the curriculum, the stakes are too
high to not try to seize control and make sure that public
schools become friendly environments for versions of the world
around us that you believe are right and true.

But public schools can never really satisfy every version of
what’s right and true, and so we’re in for endless curriculum
battles, texbook wars, and opportunities for kids to walk down the
street for a burger while pretending to give a shit about what has
the educrats so hot and bothered.

The solution is to abandon the public cafeteria model of
education so that kids don’t have to line up for the slop served by
whoever seized control of the curricular kitchen. If you want to
end the classroom culture wars, make sure that curriculum isn’t a
political prize for whoever wins an election. When families can
pick the education approaches and ideas that suit them, there’s
nothing to fight about. Then the kids can grow up and debate their
ideas in local bars, where these arguments belong.

Now, excuse me while I go teach my homeschooled kid that public
school educrats are a bunch of contemptible control freaks.