An Education Revolution Is Needed Now More Than Ever
The recent victory of Donald Trump at the national polls ushered in “morning in America” as much as it indicated a repudiation of wokeness. His vow to dismantle the Department of Education offers the US an enviable opportunity and appointing the media tycoon Linda McMahon indicates a welcome, business-minded (read: meritocracy-based) approach. To effectively revamp our schools and the specific ways we invest in, approach, and even define education, depends on some hard truths and our willingness to confront them.
Americans have spoken by refuting the Division, Exclusion, and Inequality movement taking over our culture and our schools. Parents rejected the leftist push for gender ideology, critical race theory, and pornography in our schools to support girls-only locker rooms and their hard-won Title IX sports.
Yet the war is far from won and success in this battle only slows the advance. To preserve our traditional values, we must examine how we arrived where we are today, fighting culture conflict within our own families. While President-elect Trump addresses education on the federal level, our communities must tackle these issues locally at the same time. We can celebrate our public victories against Bud Light and Target, but if the battles for the hearts and minds of our young people continue inside our schools, we may snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
According to Pew Research, the U.S. ranked an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science on the most recent international academic achievement studies survey taken in 2015. We currently spend more per student than almost any other country to achieve those discouraging results. Why are we fighting to preserve such a spectacularly failing institution while the world sprints past us? Because school is good. That’s the resounding mantra we all ingested.
Schools are where we all learned to trust the experts, especially the educators, so it’s nearly impossible to repudiate the efficacy or validity of our “factory schools” and teachers. Despite our reluctance, analysis of the problem demands transparency and candor.
First, for decades, schools have coached pupils (us) to believe that their highest goal is college prep and career readiness (read: money). Where decades ago we believed in entrepreneurship, integrity and independent innovation, now culture holds that the only way to the money is the institutional road. It’s no wonder parents would sacrifice their children on the school’s altar! Save the schools or my child will not succeed! As parents see the blatant lies in our schools, the pornography, the abject ignorance, and the abysmal academic performance, belief in that ultimate fiction has recently (finally) been unseated, and we can (and should) criticize our schools.
The Marxist principles of the teachers’ unions directly contradict traditional American values, but with their market stranglehold they can afford to ignore our condemnation. Inflicting their evil dogma on impressionable minds is their second incentive to preserve their institutions. We are now in a race to see who converts the culture first. If we, however, continue submitting our children to their indoctrination, we will soon reach the tipping point where our own offspring will vote down the Second Amendment and for a surveillance state. And while laws may countermand the Marxist mantra, many ideological teachers don’t heed the law.
Enter the school choice debate. On the surface, government funds following the child makes sense. The parents can vote with their feet and their dollars. But financial infusions typically inflate costs, negating the value of injected money. Further, government intrusion disrupts honest brokerage: in the case of education, it will oust any educational endeavors unwilling to subject themselves to government scrutiny – which would be the only authentic players in the game. Universal school choice (read: single-payer education) would kill innovation, putting us right back to where we are now.
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The future is uncertain, and foundational transformation is the only way to prosper. That’s why Trump has floated tax credits for families with school-aged children. This might afford them more flexibility to raise and educate their children without the strings of government forcing its ideas on them.
The most radical idea in education is reverting to first principles — training the student to teach himself. This is how education used to work, before we began our modern “factory school” experiment. It is how the founders – those geniuses who devised our representational republic that so few of our citizens currently acknowledge – became educated.
The education revolution begins with the recognition that it doesn’t take an “expert” to train a child to be an adult; parents should do that.
Parents want a better route forward for their families and their children’s futures, and home education offers that pathway. Most parents are smart enough to be their child’s teacher. Indeed, the parent’s level of schooling is not reflective of academic outcome for the homeschooled child. Ultimately, all wisdom is self-taught and children need wisdom more than they need to drill math facts, memorize dates, or learn about lubrication.
Many parents still feel enslaved to the system, brainwashed to conform by its past self-proclaimed glory. The new learning model, however, is independent of what any woke “educators” recommend, and for good reason. Independent-minded parents choose home education instead, to foster in their children a devotion to truth, appreciation for wisdom, and the love of freedom.
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Sam Sorbo is an education freedom advocate. A successful Hollywood film actor, producer, and writer, Sam took a step back from her career to homeschool her three children. She has authored numerous books, including her newest releases: “Parents’ Guide to Homeschooling“ and “Christmas 40 Days Devotional,” with husband Kevin Sorbo.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.