Lost in Transition: The Department of Education (Wut?)
Just why?
You might have heard people discussing the pros and cons of President-elect Trump’s plans to dismantle the Department of Education, with some people honestly wondering if the idea has any merit. Our financing formula for public education via property taxes perpetuates institutional inequalities reflected across society, former President Obama’s Common Core curriculum has come to be despised by many, former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act has likewise become an albatross, and so why not throw everything away in order to start fresh?
Where did this even come from?
Getting rid of the Department of Education used to be a crackpot idea relegated to the Ron Paul “Dixie-Tarian” crank margins of the Republican Party (here it is straight from the horse’s mouth, no less!)
The fact the Republicans have embraced that which was a bizarre outlier idea as recently as 2011-12 when it was expounded by the self-described Libertarian Congressman from Texas truly says something, if you follow the political history of this matter.
Of course, as with all things white Southern Evangelical, the story starts with that disgusting white nationalist Rev. Jerry Falwell.
After desegregation became law of the land with the Brown v Board Supreme Court decision, white Southern families began to dis-enroll their students from the public education system for private and religious “segregation academy” schools. Legal proceedings stemming from third party complaints eventually compelled the IRS to formally declare that segregationist organizations were by default ineligible for nonprofit status. This in turn led a hundred Southern preachers with delusions of grandeur about their treasonous Confederate grand-pappies to initiate a decades-long project to elect a Republican Party theocracy…that ended up being led by a game show host from Queens.
Falwell had two separate segregation academies. With Republican operative Paul Weyrich, the duo helped organize the greatest political shell-game in 20th century American history.
Suddenly the politically-indefensible, school re-segregation within less than three decades of Brown v. Board, was replaced with one of the most complex issues, abortion rights following Roe v Wade.
The foregrounding of one as opposed to another was easily pulled off with the help of Weyrich’s panoply of think tanks, media projects, and fundraiser campaign mailers. The birth of the VHS home entertainment revolution enabled the proliferation of video cassettes and Church basement screenings for anti-choice propaganda documentaries, such as The Silent Scream (dir. Bernard Nathanson, 1984), which supposedly displays real-time footage of a first trimester abortion.
Falwell and his ilk went from indefensible to unimpeachable overnight.
Historian Randall Balmer has written extensively on this subject.
Abortion rights had previously been affirmed by the Southern Baptist Convention’s leadership well into the 1970s, with a 1971 Resolution that stated “Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” Even a year after abortion was legalized by the 1973 Supreme Court decision, the major Protestant denominations remained unmoved by the issue which previously had been solely for Catholic protests, as Balmer explained.
Northern Catholic parochial schools had been a sort of de jure segregation on the parish level. This is to say that there was a convergence of interests on both sides of this rather rotten moment of religious ecumenism known as whiteness. The two groups have a tremendous amount to teach each other.
The spark of the quest to dismantle the Education Department came from its control of vital federal funding to school districts and how noncompliance with Brown cut off funding to the District. It constitutes a last stand for what was initially called “Massive Resistance,” the organized state-level insubordination towards Brown compliance oversight. After almost two solid decades of carnage brought about by local and state government confrontations, spanning the 1950s and into the 1970s with events like the Boston bussing riots, Washington effectively asserted federal authority and control so to turn a near-civil war back into the mundane state of affairs that traditionally define the operations of an American municipal school board. Rather than having the School Board decide minority right protections, the federal government asserted a proactive duty to protect and serve minority student interests and their wellbeing. (Do you perhaps understand where I am going with this one, My Fellow American Queerdos?)
This is all code for the further privatization of public schools combined with a reduction of anti-discrimination oversight and compliance for school districts.
Special education students and multi-language learners, as well as students who have pediatric health disparities, suffer disproportionately from the outcomes of this type of “education deregulation” (or “dysregulation” is more appropriate?) Bigotry will be given greater leeway in regards to LGBTQ+ students and BIPOC students will be subjected to more carceral disciplinary outcomes. This is terrible for our students.
Meanwhile, in this turbo-charged privatization agenda, will public education even survive?
Read Washington Babylon especially right now!
Obviously I’m biased because I am the old WB Web Editor and Media Producer…but this is a particularly good column that tries explaining why Trump tried nominating such a confirmed sexual sociopath like Matt Gaetz. The fact is that, love or hate him (do you really need to guess where I am on that one?), Donald Trump has a killer political instinct. He has successfully played the American electorate for a solid decade now. When he descended his magic golden escalator in 2015, he completely monopolized the electorate’s attention on a way he still refuses to rescind.
So why Gaetz, who everyone knew had zero chance of getting past this controversy?
Did You Read My 3-Part Report on Upcoming Christian Nationalist Movie “Bonhoeffer”?
Independently produced and released by Utah-based religious film distributor Angel Films, the Religious Right has instrumentalized the life of anti-Nazi Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in propaganda advocating vigilante violence.
Read the Full Series!
Extra Resources on Bonhoeffer from Reliable Sources
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Memories and Perspectives (dir. Bain Boehlke, 1984)
Have you checked out my novel Things Didn’t Get Better After the Cold War: A Novel of Fascist Smasher and the International Brigades? Click here for more information!
