The law was intended to shut down a couple of ethnic studies programs in Tuscon, which focus on the influence of particular ethnic groups in American history and literature. This is a big problem, according to the state schools chief, Tom Horne, because . . . wait for it . . . the program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people. That just cracks me up. I mean, I hate to break it to Horne, but Latino students don’t need an ethnic studies class to know that. Rest assured, they’ll learn that lesson one way or another.

But wait, there’s more. Horne also said the presence of the ethnic studies program has created an environment in Tuscon schools that is “just like the old South.” Whoa there! Looks like the Horne-ster may have been the product of America’s Failing Public Schools himself! Brief refresher. Old South: Lynching. Racial terrorism. School segregation. Jim Crow. Violence. KKK. Literacy tests. And most importantly? Notable absence of ethnic studies programs.

It says a lot about the pitiable state of things in Arizona that the man in charge of schools (the chief, no less) believes in pacifying students by teaching them complete nonsense. It takes a special kind of educator to get behind a program that seeks not to teach.

The ACLU has already argued the law violates the First Amendment and is hopelessly vague. Presumably, Horne’s going to be a little biased when he decides what classes “are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.” But look. Isn’t a history class that excludes the perspectives of ethnic minorities in America designed primarily for white people? Maybe the real problem with the law is that, if taken seriously, it could knock out 99% of all public education in Arizona for lack of racial bias.

Finally — isn’t overthrow of the U.S. government more of an after-school club?

-AS

Of course, ignorance of the beliefs of the founders is nothing new in Texas, at least if former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey is any indication.  When asked why he was basing opposition to the “government takeover” of health care on the Federalist Papers when their principal author, Alexander Hamilton, “was widely regarded then and now as an advocate of a strong central government,” Armey replied:  “Widely regarded by whom?  Today’s modern ill-informed political science professors? . . . I just doubt that was the case in fact about Hamilton.”

Armey’s comment that “I just doubt that was the case”  is telling, and makes the Texas effort even more disturbing.  The Republican take on the founders isn’t based on an alternate reading of history.  It’s not based on any reading at all, but rather an unwavering faith that our history conforms with their current political aims.

Right-wing nutcase extraordinaire Rep. Steve King of Iowa (even more here!) combined the efforts to lie about the past and present, both exaggerating the implications of the health care bill and downplaying the oppression under Communist regimes by calling for a “Velvet Revolution” to respond to the Democrats’ health care efforts.  This is not the first time that Republicans, apparently unaware that one of the features of democracy is that sometimes your side loses, have compared themselves to victims of totalitarianism.

But perhaps the most disturbing Republican take on history last week came from Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, who said that if health care reform passes, people’s “free insurance cards” (whatever the hell that means) will be as worthless as Confederate currency after “the Great War of Yankee Aggression.”  Really?!?  Still?

But I suppose that, even in the context of an intense, often race-based hysteria caused by the election of our first black president, I shouldn’t be too concerned about an elected official trying to undermine the legitimacy of the Civil War.  I mean, it’s not like Republican leaders are running ads imploring good God-fearing Americans to take the country back from scary black men.

-AR

The action of the Central Falls school board is the most extreme manifestation of the growing trend toward scapegoating teachers generally and teachers’ unions specifically for the problems of failing schools.  It is generally easy to predict from the demographics of a school district how successful it will be on certain measures.  Central Falls is a good example:  according the Associated Press, “More children live in poverty in Central Falls, a city of just 1 square mile, than anywhere else in Rhode Island. Until recently, one of the city’s few growth industries was a quasi-public jail.”  The school also a high percentage of students who speak English as a second language.  Yet it’s an article of faith that the reason schools fail is that unions make it impossible to fire bad teachers.

There seems to be a belief that we can eliminate the flaws in the system supposedly caused by teachers’ unions without getting rid of the benefits the unions provide.  The benefits of good pay and job stability provided by unions are most important in the most difficult and stressful positions.  Put another way, it’s unclear to me, after we fire all the teachers in struggling schools, how we attract people into these high-stress, difficult jobs without the wages and job security teachers’ unions protect.

While my general support for unions no doubt motivates my defense of teachers’ unions, there’s a broader public policy concern at play.  Somewhere along the line, we decided that improving schools was the only anti-poverty measure we are willing to consider.  This decision has led us to reverse the relationship between poverty and education quality:  we believe that improving schools will eliminate poverty, rather than that attacking poverty is the only way to improve failing schools.  Since we have decided, against all evidence, that poverty is not the problem with our failing schools, the problem must be that our lazy, union-protected teachers just aren’t trying hard enough.  Bust the unions, and we don’t have to lift a finger to create jobs in the inner city, improve public housing, or reform our criminal justice system.

There is thus a cruel irony in the rhetoric used against teachers’ unions.  Teachers are assailed for putting their own self-interest ahead of that of students.  But they are the only ones being asked to sacrifice anything in this equation.  Because we unwilling to spend any additional public resources on attacking the root causes of poverty, we demand more from those who have already decided to dedicate their lives to the difficult task of teaching our most disadvantaged children.

-AR