By Thomas Ultican 11/22/2024
President Trump’s new video on the Carter Family’s YouTube channel lays out his ten points for public education. It is no surprise that the lies come immediately while he channels his inner Joe McCarthy, calling Biden and his administration communists. He also claims America is a failing nation.
Before kissing Trump’s ring recently, Joe Scarborough said his failing nation claim was wrong and stated:
“We are also the strongest military power in the world. Even our enemies understand we’re not a nation in decline. Trump is always talking about Russian President Vladimir Putin and what a great leader he is. But the fact is, Texas has a higher GDP than the entirety of Russia.”
Politifact looked at the communist claims Trump has made about Biden and Harris:
“We sent the Trump campaign’s evidence to academics with expertise in Marxism or communism, including those with expertise in Latin America or the former Soviet Union. We noted examples we found of Harris showing support for people owning their own homes or businesses — basically the opposite of calling for government takeovers. No expert called her a communist or Marxist.”
From Carter Family YouTube Channel
The lies cited above have been standard fare for Trump; so routine that most of us have accepted this as what he does. But in the opening paragraph of his education speech he tells a lie about public education that needs to be corrected. Trump claims:
“But instead of being at the top of the list, we are literally right. Smack. Guess what? At the bottom, rather than indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual and political material, which is what we’re doing now, our schools must be totally refocused to prepare our children to succeed in the world of work and in life, and the world of keeping our country strong so they can grow up to be happy, prosperous and independent citizens.”
The indoctrination charge is baloney. The Hill noted:
“In the last two years, 15 states have adopted educational gag orders restricting ‘discussions of race, racism, gender, and American history’ in public schools, with seven states applying such orders to public higher education.
“Campaigns to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, undermine tenure, ban or sanitize books, and appoint MAGA extremists to public university boards are well underway.
“Yet almost all the conservative claims about left-wing indoctrination are wrong.”
“The ‘patriotic education’ mandates pushed by anti-woke partisans, by contrast, are — practically by definition — indoctrination.”
Trump’s claim that on international testing “we are literally right. Smack. Guess what? At the bottom” is an easily checked bald face lie. In 2022, the US participated in the international PISA testing. The following chart of data provided in the 2022 PISA report shows that the US was not nearly at the bottom.
Because America does not filter students from the academic system before high school, tested populations do not compare well internationally. However, since 2010, in the yearly International Math Olympiad, the USA team has come in first five times and never finished lower than fourth out of over 100 entrants.
One measuring stick demonstrating how successful the American system is would be Nobel Prize winners since 1949: America has 420 laureates; India 10; and China 8. The US has never won at standardized testing but leads the world in creative thinkers which is why a panicked China has been studying our system. They realize their test centric system is not developing innovation.
Diane Ravitch speculated that the new Common Corps standards might have been partly responsible for the drop in US scores on the 2016 international PIRLS testing. She sent her question to the distinguished social scientist David C. Berliner. He responded, “But before you or any others of us worry about our latest PIRLS scores, and the critics start the usual attacks on our public schools, remember this: Standardized Achievement Tests are quite responsive to demographics, and not very sensitive at all to what teachers and schools accomplish.”
Berliner shared the basic results:
- USA 549
- Singapore 576
- Hong Kong 569
- Finland 566
He then observed,
“First, we can note that Asian Americans scored 591. That is, our Asians beat the hell out of Asian Asians!”
Berliner also shared some other interesting US results broken into demographic groups:
- White Kids (50% of our students) – 571
- Upper Middle-Class Schools with 10% to 24 % Free and Reduced lunch – 592
- Schools with 25% to 50% Free and Reduced Lunch – 566
It is obvious that the big drag on international testing data for US kids is childhood poverty and that the US education system is still the envy of the world.
Trump’s Ten Education Points
1) “First, we will respect the right of parents to control the education of their children.”
Writing in Forbes, Peter Greene reports, “advocates in the parents’ rights movement have not merely tried to opt their own children out of certain instruction and curricula, but have sought to ‘shape school curricula and policies for all students.”’ Scholar Vivian Hamilton, law professor at William and Mary notes, despite courts holding that parents have the right to decide whether or not to send their child to public school, “they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child.”
2) “Second, we will empower parents and local school boards to hire and reward great principals and teachers, and also to fire the poor ones. The one whose performance is unsatisfactory. They will be fired. Like on The Apprentice, you’re fired.”
Even teachers have the protection of labor law and any firings must be justified. My experience was that within the first year, teachers who did not make the grade quit. They could not deal with the kids.
3) “Third, we will ensure our classrooms are focused not on political indoctrination, but on teaching the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Reading, writing, math, science, arithmetic, and other truly useful subjects.”
I never met a classroom teacher focused on political indoctrination. It is not happening. However, the “patriotic education” mandates pushed by anti-woke partisans, by contrast, are — practically by definition — indoctrination.
4) “Forth, we will teach students to love their country, not to hate their country like they’re taught right now.”
Out of 1,000 teachers, there may be one that teaches this way but they will be gone soon. This is just not something even remotely occurring.
5) “Fifth, we will support bringing back prayer to our schools.”
This is a Christian Nationalist agenda that undermines the rule of law.
6) “Sixth, we will achieve schools that are safe, secure, and drug free with immediate expulsion for any student who harms a teacher or another student.”
This sounds good but it should be a local decision and not a mandate by the President of the United States.
7) “Seventh, we will give all parents the right to choose another school for their children if they want. It’s called school choice.”
In Overturning Brown, Steve Suitts provides overwhelming evidence for the segregationist legacy of “school choice.” He shows that “Brown v Board” has been effectively gutted and “choice” proved to be the white supremacists’ most potent strategy to defeat it. In the 21st century, that same strategy is being wielded to maintain segregation while destroying the separation of church and state.
8) “Eighth we will ensure students have access to project based learning experiences inside the classroom to help train them for meaningful work outside the classroom.”
I am a fan of project base learning but curriculum design is not the business of the federal government.
9) “Ninth, we will strive to give all students access to internships and work experiences that can set them on a path to their first job. They’re going to be very, very successful. I want them to be more successful than Trump. Let them go out and be more successful. I will be the happiest person in the world. But we want our children to have a great life and be successful.”
This looks like another step in the ongoing Republican Party effort to undermine child labor laws.
10) “And tenth, we will ensure that all schools provide excellent jobs and career counseling so that high school and college students can get a head start on jobs and careers best suited to their God-given talents. This is how we will ensure a great education for every American child.”
OK but this is meaningless fluff that has little to do with great education.
“And one other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington, DC and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states.”
Can we trust that the Trump administration will maintain civil rights enforcement and special education monitoring? Will they replace title one funding with something that is its equal? If the answer is no, then this is a horrible idea.
Conclusion
President Trump just announced that he disrespects teachers and will undermine public schools. He is so determined to end taxpayer funded free public education; he is trying to convince people that the greatest education system in the history of the world is a failure.
tultican 
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