Inside a Public School 'Social Justice' Factory

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Hardly justice for anyone. I feel sorry for both students and teachers who have to suffer under such things.
For decades, the public schools of Edina, Minnesota, were the gold standard among the state’s school districts. Edina is an upscale suburb of Minneapolis, but virtually overnight, its reputation has changed. Academic rigor is unraveling, high school reading and math test scores are sliding, and students increasingly fear bullying and persecution.
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Increasingly, families who are serious about education are leaving the Edina schools. For example, Orlando Flores and his wife pulled their son—an academic superstar—out of Edina High School in his senior year to escape its hyper-political environment.

Flores, who fled a Marxist regime in Nicaragua as a child, had this to say: “Years ago, we fled Communism to escape indoctrination, absolutist thinking and restrictions on our freedom of speech. If we see these traits in our schools in America, we must speak out and oppose it.”
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Black Lives Matter - Washington Examiner

www.washingtonexaminer.com www.washingtonexaminer.com
 
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Who could blame parents for pulling their kids out of a Marxist re-education camp? The whole curriculum sounds like it’s intended to increase racial divisiveness and class warfare.
 
I know. Look at this reading list from that 11th grade English class.

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

The Crucible (Arthur Miller)

The “Isms”

Puritanism: The Crucible (Arthur Miller)

Rationalism: Selected writings by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and others

Romanticism: Selected writings by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe, and others

Transcendentalism: Selected writings by R. W. Emerson, H. D. Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and others

Realism: Selected writings by Mark Twain, Jack London, and others

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)

When the Emperor was Divine (Julie Otsuka)

The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry) and Fences (August Wilson)

The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien)

Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer)

I mean, come on! Catcher in the Rye? What do we want… A generation of Holden Caulfields? Plus they curse swears!
 
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That’s my sarcastic point. It isn’t outrageous or out of the ordinary.
 
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All education is indoctrination. It is a question of what you’ll be indoctrinated into. I’d oppose this insane indoctrination.
 
I definitely oppose it. And it’s not just happening at one school.
 
That’s a great reading list! I’m a college English professor, and if my kids had actually read all those in high school I’d be thrilled. Few do.
Given the article, I’m surprised it is not merely “identity politics:” reading across the board. It is in some schools.
Otherwise, I deplore what is happening to school districts like Edina, a wealthy suburb. Unfortunately, it is not an isolated case.
 
As Social Justice is a foundational doctrine for Catholics, it would be wonderful if secular Public Schools embraced it!

Sadly, this article is from a blog/website that has a very hardcore US Republican bias. Take it with a boulder of salt.
 
This is indoctrination. Period. Political parties are not the issue, the content is.

"Another parent:
"We’re tired of them trying to indoctrinate our children to believe what they believe rather than teaching critical thinking and actual course work. We’re tired of our kids coming home feeling defeated because their beliefs are forbidden at school and they will be ostracized if they speak out. We’re tired of our kids telling us that all they hear in LA and other classes is that white people, especially white men, are bad, over and over. We’re absolutely sickened when our son tells us that he is labeled a racist, sexist and rapist — yes, a RAPIST — because he is a white male."
 
“The Edina school district’s All for All plan mandated that henceforth “all teaching and learning experiences” would be viewed through the “lens of racial equity,” and that only “racially conscious” teachers and administrators should be hired.”

Not so many years ago, the ideal was to be ‘color blind,’ treating all races the same. No more. Now racial identity and racial consiousness serve to stir up tensions.
 
TheLittleLady said:
As Social Justice is a foundational doctrine for Catholics, it would be wonderful if secular Public Schools embraced it!

Sadly, this article is from a blog/website that has a very hardcore US Republican bias. Take it with a boulder of salt.
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But what they’re doing at the school isn’t social justice. Stuff like what’s happening there tar the term ‘social justice’.
There’s no justice when students, especially those who are from disadvantaged backgrounds, are deprived of a real education and skills that are needed in an advanced economy. What these decision makers have done is essentially ensure disadvantaged kids not only become unable to climb the social ladder but also knock them down.
 
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The goal of the Radical Left is to create conflicts. Identity Movements and related propaganda are flooding public schools. But it is no longer about reality, but what certain groups identify as important indoctrination programs to serve their own ends. Which amounts to a twisted view of reality. The Prison Industrial Complex needs more inmates.
 
The article says things started going downhill in 2013. Yet thiscurrent report shows Edina High School is still one of the best in Minnesota. There is no sign of a decline in academic performance. This article gives no support for its claim of an academic slide. It looks like another opinion from someone who doesn’t like the way the school is handling racial equality issues.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
There is no sign of a decline in academic performance. This article gives no support for its claim of an academic slide. It looks like another opinion from someone who doesn’t like the way the school is handling racial equality issues.
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I’m not sure if we’re comparing the same things. Your link shows one school but the article cites the performance for the entire district. Though some of the data in the article matches the data for that one school.
The result of all of this? Four years into the Edina schools’ equity crusade, black students’ test scores continue to disappoint. There’s been a single positive point of data: Black students’ reading scores—all ages, all grades—have slightly increased, from 45.5 percent proficiency in 2014 to 46.4 percent proficiency in 2017.

But other than that, the news is all bad. Black students “on track for success” in reading decreased from 48.1 percent in 2014 to 44.9 percent in 2017. Math scores decreased from 49.6 percent proficiency in 2014 to 47.4 percent in 2017. Black students “on track for success” in math decreased from 51.4 percent in 2014 to 44.7 percent in 2017.

The drop was most notable at the high school level. Math scores for black students in 11th grade at Edina Senior High dropped from 31 percent proficiency in 2014 to 14.6 percent in 2017. In reading, scores for black students in 10th grade at Edina Senior High dropped from 51.7 percent proficiency in 2014 to 40 percent in 2017.
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Based on the descriptions, the policy is bad. It doesn’t focus on helping African-Americans and identifying what the underlying problems are. It’s too focused on the vague problem of white privilege.
For example, let’s say, if white families can afford tutors to help their struggling children outside of school, what can be done to help black families have access to academic help outside of school or some form of it at the very least? My made-up example is looking for a solution to a specific problem.
 
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JimG said:
Not so many years ago, the ideal was to be ‘color blind,’ treating all races the same. No more. Now racial identity and racial consiousness serve to stir up tensions.
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I would never be hired to teach there because I believe in racial equality, not intersectionalist racialism. I believe in treating each child exactly the same, hold them to the same standards of academic performance and ethical behavior.
In other words , “the content of their character.”
 
ATraveller said:
I’m not sure if we’re comparing the same things. Your link shows one school but the article cites the performance for the entire district.
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I saw no citations in the OP. I only saw unsupported claims. OK, I’ll make an unsupported claim too. There is no significant slide in academic performance as compared to the rest of Minnesota in the Edina district as a whole. I live right next to Edina in Hopkins I have not heard any such thing.
Based on the descriptions, the policy is bad. It doesn’t focus on helping African-Americans and identifying what the underlying problems are. It’s too focused on the vague problem of white privilege.
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This is opposing the policy on ideological or philosophical grounds, which is OK as long as that is the stated basis. But the opposition is not based on objective fact. At least not on any fact with a cited source.
 
Okay, families are filing a lawsuit. Maybe that will get some balance.
 
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