Education in Crisis: Part III

As the California Judge H. Walter Coskey noted In Part I, "A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare," The question then is who decides what defines citizenship and what exactly are the citizens patriotic and loyal to.

Studies indicate that a left wing bias dominates the teaching profession and we have all heard anecdotes of bias in colleges and universities which are far from being a forum for a diversity of ideas. As one study notes, “They are virtual one-party states, ideological monopolies, badly unbalanced ecosystems. They are utterly flightless birds with only one wing to flap. They do not, when it comes to political and cultural ideas, look like America," (Chow) So if we expect that the cultural ideas promoted by the public school system should reflect our history and culture for the good of society what then is the goal of the reconstructionists? I’ll let them explain.

The Transformation of Society
Ultimately, the goal of multicultural education is to contribute progressively and proactively to the transformation of society and to the application and maintenance of social justice and equity.

This stands to reason, as the transformation of schools necessarily transforms a society that puts so much stock in educational attainment, degrees, and test scores. In fact, it is particularly this competitive, capitalistic framing of the dominant mentality of the United States (and increasingly, with the "help" of the United States, the world) that multicultural education aims to challenge, shake, expose, and critique. This is precisely the reason that it is not enough to continue working within an ailing, oppressive, and outdated system to make changes, when the problems in education are themselves symptoms of a system that continues to be controlled by the economic elite.

One does not need to study education too closely to recognize that schools consistently provide continuing privilege to the privileged and continuing struggle for the struggling with very little hope of upward mobility. "Informal" tracking, standardized testing, discrepancies in the quality of schools within and across regions, and other practices remain from the industrial-age model of schools. Only the terminology has changed -- and the practices are not quite as overt.

Educators, educational theorists, researchers, activists, and everyone else must continue to practice and apply multicultural teaching and learning principles both inside and out of the classroom. We must not allow the knowledge that most people working in schools are well-intentioned to lead us to assume that our schools are immune to the oppression and inequity of society. We must ask the un-askable questions. We must explore and deconstruct structures of power and privilege that serve to maintain the status quo.

In a sense, multicultural education uses the transformation of self and school as a metaphor and starting place for the transformation of society. Ultimately, social justice and equity in schools can, and should, mean social justice and equity in society. Only then will the purpose of multicultural education be fully achieved.

As you can see, the rhetoric of the multiculturalist educator is nothing more than a repackaging of Marxist dogma. As Marx wrote, “The Communists have not intended the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.”

This is not to say that teachers are a monolithic group whose goal is the programming of students into leftist automatons bent on undermining two centuries of American political culture. Of all the professors I have encountered the last two years many, but not all, adhere to this agenda to various degrees but are usually subtle in their approach. You can see it in the direction that debates or subject matter is steered while attempting to appear objective, while others make the occasional snide aside in lecture that gives a snapshot into their ideology. Only once did I have a professor that openly stated that “We (the U.S.) suck!”

The multiculturalist/ reconsonstructionist agenda is contrary to the purpose of education as envisioned by men like Thomas Jefferson who believed that if Liberty was to be maintained citizens must be educated in republican ideals. I would guess that this philosophy is also contrary to what most people would expect from the education system. If only they knew.