In recent months, almost daily I see the following commercial or another similar to it aired for a program called “No Kid Hungry.” Actor Jeff Bridges is the spokesperson:
Every time I see the above donor plea to help feed children in a school setting, my first thought is, “What about the federal free school lunch and breakfast program?” In fact, until 2025-26, schools and school districts serving low-income students can actually offer breakfast and lunch “at no cost to all enrolled students without collecting household applications” through the USDA Food and Nutrition Service’s Community Eligibility Provision.
Why don’t the school(s) in the commercial offer free meals to their students?
I’ll go one better: What school is actually being represented in the above No Kid Hungry commercial? In the version featured in this post, two adults are interviewed, each given a vague title– “teacher” and “principal.”
Teacher of what and where? Principal where?
The first individual is “Sonia Shaw, school principal”:
For some reason, the No Kid Hungry video does not identify Shaw as the principal of Miles J. Jones Elementary School, part of Richmond Public Schools in Richmond, VA. Miles J. Jones is a Tile I school… wait for it… that already offers free breakfast and lunch to all students. From the Miles J. Jones website under “school meals”:
Meals, foods and beverages sold or served at schools meet state and federal requirements based on the USDA Dietary Guidelines. All meals, foods and beverages are prepared and served by qualified child nutrition professionals. We provide students with access to a variety of affordable and appealing foods that meet the health and nutrition needs of students.
All students are eligible to receive a healthy breakfast and lunch at no charge each day of the school year. No further action is required of you. Your children will be able to participate in these meal programs without having to pay a fee or submit an application.
In the No Child Hungry video, Shaw simply states, “If we want to take care of our children, then we have to feed them.”
True. But these kids are already being fed at school, so why, exactly, this commercial plea for money?
No Kid Hungry offers “Principal Sonia Shaw of Richmond, VA,” “a big thank you” on its Facebook page:
By using Shaw in its commercial and not fully identifying her association to a Title I school already offering free breakfast and lunch to its students, No Kid Hungry is deceiving the viewing public in its quest to solicit donations (“Your gift of just 63 cents a day– only 19 dollars a month… will help provide healthy meals and hope…”).
In this commercial, No Kid Hungry also uses a child and her brother to entice donors. Without mentioning Title I school ability to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students, the producers of the No Kid Hungry commercial use these words, spoken by a child identified as “Victoria, 9 years old”: “Like if these programs didn’t exist, me and AJ, we wouldn’t probably get lunch at all.”
If Victoria and her brother AJ attend Miles J. Jones Elementary in Richmond, VA, the same school as “Sonia Shaw, school principal,” then these children are already being fed breakfast and lunch every school day compliments of the taxpayer-funded, federal school breakfast and lunch program’s Community Eligibility Provision.
The No Kid Hungry video also includes “Chele Miller, teacher,” who is Chele Miller, math and science teacher, also at Miles J. Jones Elementary, Richmond Public Schools, in Richmond, VA.
In the No Kid Hungry ad, as viewers watch children eat, Miller says the following: “If you’re coming in hungry, there’s no way you can listen to me teach, do this activity, work with this group. So, starting their day with breakfast and ending their day with this big, beautiful snack is pretty incredible.”
A big, beautiful snack at the end of a school day is incredible. And if No Kid Hungry wants to advertise that it supplies end-of-day snacks, that’s great. (By the way, our Title I high school offers to provide students attending after-school clubs a free snack provided the number of students is more than just a handful.) However, for No Kid Hungry to use Miller’s words to lead viewers to believe that her Title I school isn’t already feeding its students twice a day at no cost to students or their families is grossly misleading.
Let us now take a gander at the FY2021 tax form for the nonprofit that operates the No Kid Hungry program, Share Our Strength. (Even though its website address ends in “org,” No Kid Hungry is not its own organization.)
The Share Our Strength leadership are definitely not going hungry.
In FY2021 (July 2021 to June 2022), Share Our Strength reported receiving $85M in contributions and grants, down from $144M in FY2020. Share Our Strength ended FY2021 with net assets/fund balances of $97M.
As for Share our Strength’s numerous leadership making a rather comfortable living off of misleading commercials, FY2021 total compensation was as follows:
- William Shore, founder, exec. director: $496K
- Thomas Nelson, president and CEO: $507K
- Jessica Sherry, Sr. VP, chief financial officer: $234K
- Julie Chen, Sr. VP, general counsel: $243K
- Amy Zganjar, St. VP, development: $258K
- Charles Scofield, Exec. VP: $331K
- Courtney Smith, Sr. VP, pro. research, innovation, impact: $201K
- Debbie Shore, Co-founder: $293K
- Diana Hovey, Sr. VP, corporate partnerships: $286K
- Diane Clifford, Sr. VP, constituent development: $236K
- Elliott Gaskins, St. VP, development: $233K
- Jill Davis, Sr. VP, chief resource/dev’t. growth officer: $334K
- Lisa Davis, Sr. VP, No Kid Hungry program: $318K
- Pamela Taylor, Sr. VP, chief communications officer: $279K
- Richard Kostro, Sr. VP, chief information officer: $274K
- Serena Williams, Sr. VP, chief people officer: $315K
- Stacy Roth, Sr. VP, organizational planning/strategy: $245K
- Adrienne Allen, Sr. VP, MD (managing director), No Kid Hungry program: $183K
- Jennifer Dirksen, national director, champion engagement: $176K
- Andrea Hoefling, managing director, development: $194K
- Laura Washburn, managing director, strategic communications: $193K
- Tracee Sanders, MD (managing director), human resources: $197K
The 22 individuals listed above were paid $6M in total compensation to lead an organization of 338 employees.
Note also that at the bottom of the No Kid Hungry donation page is the disclaimer that donors cannot earmark their donations specifically for the No Kid Hungry program and instead are actually funding “Share Our Strength’s comprehensive strategies and initiatives….”
Among Share Our Strength’s “strategies and initiatives” is to offer itself as a middleman between schools and communities and those federally-funded meal programs that it cannot bring itself to feature in its misleading No Kid Hungry commercials. Some excerpts from the “program accomplishments” section of the Share Our Strength FY2021 tax form (sorry for the caps; this is straight from the doc):
WE PROVIDED FREE EXPERTISE AND RESOURCES ON HOW TO HARNESS FEDERAL WAIVERS AND EMERGING REGULATIONS AND NAVIGATE PANDEMIC-RELATED CHALLENGES LIKE SUPPLY ISSUES AND RISING FOOD COSTS. …
WE SUCCESSFULLY ADVOCATED FOR PASSAGE OF LEGISLATION WHICH ALLOWED FOR THE EXTENSION OF NATIONWIDE CHILD NUTRITION WAIVERS THROUGH THE SUMMER OF 2022 AND THE 2022-2023 SCHOOL YEAR, AND WE WORKED TO BRING THE THRIFTY FOOD PLAN, THE MECHANISM USED TO CALCULATE A TYPICAL FAMILY’S “FOOD BASKET” SNAP BENEFITS, IN LINE WITH TODAY’S REAL FOOD COSTS. …
WE ALSO CONTINUED TO GROW OUR EFFORTS FOCUSED ON CONNECTING KIDS AND FAMILIES WITH FOOD AND FINANCIAL RESOURCES OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL. WE PROVIDED GRANTS TO CHILDCARE CENTERS, HEALTH CARE CENTERS, AND OTHER COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS WORKING TO ENSURE MORE CAREGIVERS OF CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 6 HAD ACCESS TO FEDERAL NUTRITION PROGRAMS AND OTHER FOOD RESOURCES. …
WE ESTABLISHED A PARTNERSHIP WITH THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS (AAP) AND SUPPORTED 7 STATE AAP CHAPTERS AND THEIR EFFORTS TO HELP PEDIATRICIANS SCREEN FAMILIES FOR FOOD SECURITY DURING WELLNESS VISITS AND CONNECT CHILDREN AND FAMILIES WITH WIC, SNAP, AND COMMUNITY NUTRITION RESOURCES. …
WE PARTNERED WITH THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HUMAN SERVICES ASSOCIATION AND SUPPORTED THE EFFORTS OF SIX STATES AND LOCALITIES TO STREAMLINE DATA SYSTEMS WITH THE GOAL OF INCREASING ENROLLMENT IN BENEFIT PROGRAMS LIKE SNAP AND WIC. TO TACKLE THE ROOT CAUSES OF POVERTY, WE LAUNCHED WORK CENTERED ON HELPING ELIGIBLE FAMILIES RECEIVE CHILD TAX CREDIT BENEFITS BY LEADING TARGETED OUTREACH….
I suppose it is hard to justify being a nonprofit that pays a slew of senior VPs and others $6M in annual compensation if notable portions of “program service accomplishments” involve connecting others to (and advocating for) existing federal programs.
But No Kid Hungry/Share Our Strength, do feel free to call my bluff and focus commercial ads on connecting schools with those existing federal programs instead of shaping a misleading narrative that children are attending school without food unless No Kid Hungry donors provide it.
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School voucher programs allow public money to be used to cover private school tuition. Perhaps “cover” is not quite right in even most instances; “subsidize” is the better word, and that right there presents an equity problem: If the school voucher does not fully cover tuition, then the program automatically advantages those families that can cover any balance after accounting for supplemental financial assistance offered by some private schools.
Of course, there is also the challenge of paying for auxiliary expenses, which, again, leverages the “haves” over the ‘have nots” when it comes to attending a private school using public money.
Many proponents of school vouchers speak of choice for lower-income students and their families (see here and here, for example). However, regarding college enrollment and degree attainment, even pro-reform Education Next acknowledges that lower income students with some resources fare better than those severely disadvantaged:
The voucher intervention we study did have its intended effects—but only for students from disadvantaged families that nonetheless had a certain amount of material and cultural capital. Our findings point to the limitations of half-tuition vouchers to promote college enrollment and graduation among the least-advantaged students, as well as their potential value for those with access to greater fiscal and cultural resources.
Most school voucher programs cannot alleviate the reality that “a certain amount of material and cultural capital” matters when it comes to school vouchers for private education.
But what about school voucher programs that pull out the stops regarding low-income requirements and just make voucher money available to virtually all households to some degree, say, like Ohio did with its EdChoice program in June 2023?
Well, first of all, it should come as no surprise that by November 2023, the Ohio school voucher program was $15M over budget, as WOSU reports:
The expanded EdChoice Voucher program not only expanded eligibility to every Ohio child to receive at least some money to pay for a private school tuition, but it also increased the amounts available to scholarship recipients.
Any family making up to 450% of the federal poverty level – or $135,000 for a family of four – can get an EdChoice expansion voucher for private school, with families making more money getting less. EdChoice vouchers for students in kindergarten through 8th grade increased from $5,500 to $6,165. For high school students, vouchers went from $7,500 to $8,407.
In other words, Ohio school voucher finances are being stretched to stair-step-incorporate more families not lower-income and certainly with “material and cultural capital” that outdoes that of families of four who cannot touch $135K a year.
What a boon for the Ohio private schools, many of which are now encouraging (and even requiring) their applicants to tap into Ohio’s EdChoice funding, as the January 2024 Propublica reports:
For years the program, EdChoice, targeted mostly lower-income students in struggling school districts. Now it is an entitlement available to all, with its value decreasing for families with higher incomes but still providing more than $7,000 annually for high school students in solidly middle-class families and close to $1,000 for ones in the wealthiest families. Demand for EdChoice vouchers has nearly doubled this year, at a cost to Ohio taxpayers of several hundred million additional dollars, the final tally of which won’t be known for months.
That surge has been propelled by private school leaders, who have an obvious interest: The more voucher money families receive, the less schools have to offer in financial aid. The voucher revenue also makes it easier to raise tuition.
“The Board has voted to require all families receiving financial assistance … to apply for the EdChoice Program. We also encourage all families paying full tuition to apply for this funding,” read the email from the Columbus Jewish Day School board president. …
For decades, Republicans have pushed, with mixed success, for school voucher programs in the name of parental choice and encouraging free-market competition among schools. But in just the past couple of years, vouchers have expanded to become available to most or all children in 10 states: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and West Virginia. … Many of the expanded programs are experiencing high demand, which voucher advocates are taking as affirmation of their argument: that families would greatly prefer to send their children to private schools, if only they could afford them.
… But much of the demand for the expanded voucher programs is in fact coming from families, many quite affluent, whose children were already attending private schools. …
In Ohio, the effects of the move toward looser eligibility in recent years was clear even prior to last summer’s big expansion: Whereas in 2018, fewer than a tenth of the students who were newly receiving vouchers that year had not attended a public school the year before, by 2022, more than half of students who were new to EdChoice were already in private schools.
Don’t miss the pressure on Ohio’s private school families to access EdChoice money:
At St. Brendan’s the Navigator, on the other side of the Columbus beltway from the Jewish Day School, the missive arrived on the last day of July. The letter, signed by the Rev. Bob Penhallurick, called the expanded vouchers a “tremendous boon to our school families and Catholic education across Ohio” and said that all families were “strongly encouraged to apply for and receive the EdChoice scholarship.” He noted that, depending on their income level, families could receive up to $6,165 for each child — nearly covering the $6,975 tuition. “Even a small scholarship is a major blessing for you, the school, and the parish,” he wrote.
And then he added, in italics, that if a family did not apply for the vouchers, “we will respect that decision,” but that “supplemental financial aid from the parish in this case will require a meeting” with either himself or another pastor at the school.
The message to St. Brendan the Navigator parents: In order to be considered for other financial aid, one cannot automatically choose to forego tapping into the state’s taxpayer money, even on principle.
Let’s do another school pressure campaign featured in the January 2024 Propublic article, one that is more direct:
At Holy Family School near Youngstown, the directive arrived a few days later, on Aug. 3. “As you are aware, ALL students attending Holy Family School will be eligible for the EdChoice Scholarship. We are requesting that all families register their child/ren for this scholarship as soon as possible,” wrote the school’s leadership. And then it added in bold: “It is imperative that you register for EdChoice for each of your students. We are waiting to send invoices until your EdChoice Scholarship has been awarded.”
In an interview at the school, Holy Family principal Laura Parise said the push to apply for EdChoice had succeeded. “One hundred percent of our students are on it,” she said. “We made it that way — we made our families fill out the form, and we’re going from there.”
Parise said that some families had been reluctant to apply, but that the school told them that if they did not do so, they could not qualify for any of the school’s discounts from its $5,900 tuition, such as the ones Holy Family offers to second and third children from the same family. If parents still needed additional help beyond the vouchers, they could request it.
So, there’s the choice for parents whose children may have even already attended Holy Family: You must apply for state money before any other discounts will be offered, even multiple-child discounts.
On its face, it looked to me as if Ohio’s private school parents were of their own volition driving up the numbers of EdChoice applicants already attending private schools. According to Propublica, this is not the case.
It is Ohio’s private school administrators pressuring their students’ parents to run for the money– money, mind you, which is over budget and surely benefiting Ohio parents and students who have financial and cultural leverage at the expense of those who do not.
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In June 2020, Yale University temporarily suspended its ACT or SAT score requirement for first-year admissions:
In response to the widespread disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Yale Office of Undergraduate Admissions will temporarily suspend its requirement that first-year applicants submit results from the ACT or SAT.
The change will be in effect during the 2020-2021 admissions cycle for applicants to the Class of 2025.
Yale continued its test-optional admissions policy for the Classes of 2026 and 2027, with the latter admission process yielding the largest applicant pool in Yale history, as reported in March 2023:
Yale’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions has completed its review of first-year applications and offered admission to 2,275 of the 52,250 students who applied for the Class of 2027. The newly admitted applicants will be joined by an additional 54 students who were admitted during the 2021-22 admissions cycle but opted to postpone their matriculation for one year.
…
Students admitted to the Class of 2027 represent 50 states, the District of Columbia, four U.S. territories, and 78 countries. They will arrive at Yale as graduates of more than 1,500 secondary schools, and their intended majors include 82 of Yale’s undergraduate academic programs.
This year’s pool of applicants for first-year admission was the largest in the college’s history — nearly 5% larger than the previous year, said Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid. Since 2020, the first-year applicant pool has grown by nearly 50%, a shift Quinlan attributed to Yale adopting a test-optional policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As for the incoming Class of 2028, on February 22, 2024, Yale announced that it will once again require standardized test scores for first-year admissions; however, in addition to ACT or SAT scores, Yale admissions will accept other standardized test scores, including the Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) scores. Quinlan notes that reinstating the test score requirement could help combat admissions bias against lower income students since such students are also more likely to attend schools that lack the perks of schools in higher-income areas, including advanced courses and “enrichment opportunities” that only further serve to, as Quinlan notes, have “the effect of advantaging the advantaged”:
Yes, students with greater resources earn higher scores on average, but they also benefit from advantages in every other element of the application. Our whole person review process allows us to consider every piece of the application, including testing, in the context of a student’s high school, neighborhood, and household.
Our research and experience with tens of thousands of applications over the past four years have demonstrated that when an application lacks testing, admissions officers place greater emphasis on other elements of the file. For students attending well-resourced high schools, substitutes for standardized tests are relatively easy to find: transcripts brim with advanced courses, teachers are accustomed to praising students’ unique classroom contributions, and activities lists are full of enrichment opportunities. A policy that results in increased emphasis on these elements, we found, has the effect of advantaging the advantaged.
For students attending high schools with fewer resources, applications without scores can inadvertently leave admissions officers with scant evidence of their readiness for Yale. When students attending these high schools include a score with their application — even a score below Yale’s median range — they give the committee greater confidence that they are likely to achieve academic success in college. Our research strongly suggests that requiring scores of all applicants serves to benefit and not disadvantage students from under-resourced backgrounds.
As for the decision not to simply return to ACT and SAT scores as the only standardized scores accepted for admission, Quinlan notes,
During our four years of considering roughly half of our applicants without ACT or SAT scores, we found that subject-based exams such as AP and IB can add valuable evidence to our committee discussions, just as ACT and SAT do. We also have new data from the Office of Institutional Research on the predictive power of these exams.
The second reason is simply that the world has changed, and the ACT and SAT are now less central to many students’ college application processes. Most selective colleges remain test optional, and some — including the entire University of California system — are now “test-blind.” We do not want to disadvantage or disqualify applicants who have not had the ACT or SAT as part of their planning for college.
Finally, we are in a dynamic moment for standardized testing. There are efforts to design and roll out new tests, and there is more energy for developing alternatives to the SAT or ACT than ever before. Although our research on the predictive power of the four tests we will accept next cycle is compelling, I like that our policy is flexible by design and can easily accommodate future additions to the list of required scores.
For more information regarding Yale’s revised admissions policy, see “Standardized Testing Requirements and Policies” and “Testing Policy Announcement.”
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One of the stunning features (not a bug, mind you; a feature) of contemporary politics is the ability for many who call themselves “Christian” to justify decidedly unChristian behavior as suitable so long as it leads to some desired political outcome.
In his book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, Christian author Tim Alberta writes of his encounters with many such folk. They know they are playing a game with truth and goodness– and they are just fine with doing so.
In chapter 16, after detailing the 2022 House race between former NFL player Herschel Walker and minister Raphael Warnock (a race in which the issue of abortion was front and center, and in which Walker faced multiple allegations of having pressured women he was involved with to have abortions), Alberta reflects upon the impact of the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade via the Dobbs decision— and how the associated, “single-issue” voting ultimately prompted opposite results because, disconnect and hypocrisy.
From pages 307-310 (links added for additional context):
Consider the pro-life cause. Millions of evangelicals idenfity as single-issue voters, having formed their political sentience around stopping what they see as the moral atrocity of killing unborn babies. After fighting for two generations to overturn Roe v. Wade, evangelicals heralded the Dobbs ruling in June 2022 as deific validation of the efforts put forth– and the compromises made– to end the scourge of abortion. Some went out of their way to mock Christian leaders who had preached any modicum of partisan restraint. William Wolfe, the ex-Trump administration official and avowed Christian nationalist, blasted Russell Moore, David French, and like-minded evangelicals who had opposed Trump’s candidacy in 2016. “Will they admit they were wrong?” Wolfe tweeted. (Schneider’s note: It seems that Wolfe deleted a lot of his post-Dobbs tweets, as one realizes here and here, for example.)
But the ruling didn’t end the scourge of abortion. The Dobbs case certainly changed the landscape of abortion policy in America, but not in the ways people like Wolfe had envisioned. Once a controlled and regulated medical issue, abortion became a wild-west patchwork of policies in the aftermath of Dobbs. Some red states rushed to ban the procedures entirely. But many more blue and purple states, now liberated from any overarching federal framework, pursued laws that made Roe v. Wade look conservative by comparison. On Election Day 2022, the citizens of six states voted on ballot measures that would shatter old precedents by dramatically increasing access to abortion. All six measures— including three in Republican-dominated states– ended in defeat for the pro-life side. The fifty-year campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade had succeeded, and the result was more abortions in America.
Winning elections does nothing to woo persuadable people. Confirming Supreme Court justices does nothing to convert skeptics. The evangelical movement’s exercise of raw political power was doomed to fail even as it succeeded. According to Gallup, in early 2023, the number of Democrats who supported looser abortion laws had reached an all-time high. No surprise there. But that same poll also showed a historic number of Republicans supporting looser abortion laws. The trend line was devastating for the pro-life community: Republicans now supported liberalized abortion laws at rates higher than Democrats did just two decades earlier.
How could this have happened? One explanation is that too many evangelicals have taken the path of least resistance. Holding up signs is easy. Posting on Facebook is easy. Voting for a candidate is easy. But providing sustained support to babies and their mothers– by donating disposable income, by volunteering for long shifts at that clinic in a rough part of town, by considering adoption of a newborn with fetal alcohol syndrome– is much, much harder. Not every pro-life advocate has the capacity to do these things, of course, and that doesn’t make their beliefs any less sincere. Plenty of pro-life advocates have done these things and will continue to do them. Yet none of these people– and I’ve known hundreds of them– would argue that their efforts are anywhere close to the scale necessary to change the American public’s heart on this issue. None of them would pretend that the sum total of these grassroots efforts is remotely proportional to the raw political engagement surrounding abortion rights. It’s worth wondering how different this debate might look half a century later had millions of single-issue voters invested in something other than electoral politics as a solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancy.
There is nothing inherently wrong with legislative engagement. People of faith should advocate on moral grounds for the betterment of their fellow man. But politics are one tool to help construct a movement; politics are not the movement itself. Slavery would not have been abolished by bumper stickers and annual marches with hashtags. The struggle for civil rights was powered by people who were unrelenting in their on-the-ground activism, who toiled in the trenches without reward, who did dangerous and unpleasant work with humility and grace. These fights were waged block by block, city by city, to rally public consciousness to the cause. There were no shortcuts in legislating a more just society. More often than not, winning a political battle first requires winning the public argument.
The pro-life movement has not won the public argument– and, arguably, it hasn’t really tried. The message of abortion as a moral evil, as an affront to the loving God who made humanity in His own image, has proven curiously ineffective. Why?
For one thing, that message seems wildly inconsistent with the politics otherwise practiced by those who claim the “pro-life” mantle. If one is driven to electoral advocacy by the conviction that mankind bears the image of God, why stop at opposing abortion? What about the shunning of refugees? What about the forced separation of babies from their mothers? What about the hollowing out of programs that feed hungry kids? What about the lifelong incarceration of nonviolent offenders and the wrongful execution of the innocent? What about the Darwinist health-care system that prices out sick people and denies treatment to poor people and produces the developed world’s highest maternal mortality rate? What about the fact that, in 2020, guns had become the number-one cause of death for children in the United States? Surely even the most devoted anti-abortion advocate could spot the problem when Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former Trump press secretary who was running for governor of Arkansas, declared,“We will make sure that when a kid is in the womb, they’re as safe as they are in a classroom.” Indeed, America set another new record for school shootings in 2022, and the evangelical movement was silent.
The other problem with the pro-life message: the messengers. Can we really expect Americans to take lessons on virtue from a president who brags about grabbing women by their vaginas? Can we really expect voters to entertain the argument of unborn lives having inherent dignity coming from a man who lies about having ended unborn life himself? Evangelicals can rationalize all this– going on about “binary decisions” and the “lesser of two evils” until they convince themselves it’s true– but the unwillingness to demand and enforce a higher standard has sapped their arguments of moral urgency.
…
Donald Trump promised a transactional relationship with evangelical voters: He would give them pro-life policies in exchange for their unconditional support. That transaction went through, but the receipt isn’t pretty. Abortion rates spiked during his presidency. The celebration that accompanied topping Roe v. Wade was short-lived. In 2022, for the first time in memory, Democrats were the single-issue voters when it came to abortion, turning out in historic numbers to support abortion rights. It proved to be decisive, swinging dozens of competitive races against the Republican party. The only thing more predictable than this crushing defeat of the pro-life movement was its immediate scapegoating by Trump himself.
“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the midterms,” the former president wrote on social media.
It was, Trump insisted, the “abortion issue.”
As of this writing, I am just over halfway through Alberta’s book, which is chock full of interviews, exchanges, and confrontations with, and reflections on, influential evangelicals, including many charlatans but also including those who have been blackballed for the genuinely caring for others and for confronting hypocrisy among their fellows.
It’s a fascinating read, worthy of my posting twice about it. (My first post can be found here.)
If you’re going to be a Christian, don’t be a hypocris-tian.
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On January 29, 2024, Teach for America (TFA) announced that its current CEO, Elisa Villanueva Beard, will resign from her post in 2025:
After 25 years of service to Teach for America (TFA), chief executive officer Elisa Villanueva Beard announced that she has decided to step down as CEO in 2025. Villanueva Beard will continue to serve as CEO for the next 18-24 months until a successor is chosen.
Interestingly, the announcement also included the dress-loss-as-a-win “clear sign of impact” that “This school year, over 2,200 new Teach For America teachers entered classrooms across rural and urban America.”
The truth is, 2,200 recruits is not much higher than the TFA “15-year low” of roughly 2,000 recruits as reported in Chalkbeat in March 2022. In fact, TFA recruitment peaked in 2013 and has been in general decline for the past decade, with the “2,200 new teachers” in 2024 notably below the 2, 900 recruits even 17 years ago, in 2007:
In 2013, Villanueva Beard became co-CEO of TFA along with Matt Kramer. Kramer resigned as TFA co-CEO in 2015, leaving Villanueva Beard as sole CEO.
In 2015, recruitment was just over 4,000, down from 5,300 in 2014, which was down from almost 6,000 in 2013….
Under Villanueva Beard, TFA’s annual recruitment had never again breached 4,000. The closest it came was almost 3,700 in 2018.
Billing themselves as “teachers” or “educators” based upon a fleeting couple of years of K12 classroom experience, TFA alumni have been responsible for promoting corporate education reform (and promoting TFA itself) for decades. They may, for example, climb the TFA ladder for a while until they are politically placed in positions of influence over education policy and finances, including as local or state superintendents or as advisors to politicians or as politicians themselves.
One market-based, education reform darling is the charter school. As the June 2019 ProPublica notes, TFA is an established promoter of charter schools, which often lack public accountability for how they spend taxpayer money, among other issues:
When the Walton Family Foundation announced in 2013 that it was donating $20 million to Teach For America to recruit and train nearly 4,000 teachers for low-income schools, its press release did not reveal the unusual terms for the grant.
Documents obtained by ProPublica show that the foundation, a staunch supporter of school choice and Teach For America’s largest private funder, was paying $4,000 for every teacher placed in a traditional public school — and $6,000 for every one placed in a charter school. The two-year grant was directed at nine cities where charter schools were sprouting up, including New Orleans; Memphis, Tennessee; and Los Angeles.
The gift’s purpose was far removed from Teach For America’s original mission of alleviating teacher shortages in traditional public schools. It was intended to “generate a longer-term leadership pipeline that advances the education movement, providing a source of talent for policy, advocacy and politics, as well as quality schools and new entrepreneurial ventures,” according to internal grant documents. …
Another major donor to both Teach For America and charter schools is the Doris & Donald Fisher Fund, created by the founders of The Gap. In 2009, the fund gave $10 million over five years “to continue Teach For America’s role as a pipeline of teachers and leaders in the charter school movement,” according to an internal agreement.
In 1994, two Teach For America alumni founded the Knowledge is Power Program, now one of the nation’s largest charter school networks. As chief executive of the KIPP Foundation, Kopp’s husband, Richard Barth, has overseen the network’s expansion.
As of 2012, a third of KIPP’s teachers were Teach For America corps members and alumni. KIPP did not provide more recent figures. “You look at the percentage of the principals and teachers at KIPP and it’s clear that it’s a pipeline,” Kopp said.
As school superintendents and state education directors, TFA alumni have pushed to expand charters. In 2011, former corps member John White became superintendent of the state-run Recovery School District, which oversaw most of New Orleans’ schools. He’s now the state superintendent of education. Over the same period, charter schools in the city and across the state have proliferated. The last traditional public schools in New Orleans are set to close or begin a transition to charter control by the end of the year, and by 2022, all of the city’s schools will be charters.
Cami Anderson, a Teach For America alum and former employee, was a key adviser to Cory Booker in his unsuccessful 2002 campaign for mayor of Newark, New Jersey. In 2011, when Booker was mayor, she became Newark’s superintendent of schools. She reorganized the district, which led to mass layoffs of public school teachers and an increase in charter enrollment.
Under Teach For America alum Kevin Huffman, who served as Tennessee commissioner of education from 2011 to 2015, the number of charter schools there doubled. The state’s current commissioner, Penny Schwinn, was also a TFA corps member. In Washington, D.C., two charter-friendly Teach For America alumni have led the district over the past decade: Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson.
Eric Guckian, a former Teach For America corps member, headed the organization’s North Carolina chapter, and he later pushed for more charter schools as a senior adviser for education to the state’s governor. He said propelling TFA alumni into positions of power was always the plan.
TFA is a powerful education reform organization. With almost $500M in total assets in 2022, TFA has networked for decades to keep the money rolling in.
However, TFA’s weakness is that it is dependent upon multiple (and increasing) thousands of recruits volunteering year after year to spend two years teaching in K12 classrooms despite overwhelmingly graduating with four-year degrees in majors outside of K12 education.
That business model is just not holding up– certainly not well enough to support numerous TFA officers drawing annual compensation of $250K to $500K. Here’s a sampling of that fat that needs (apparently even more) trimming, from 2022, complements of ProPublica. Note the exits of several of the six-figure folks and how much compensation many garnered without even working close to 12 months. (The TFA tax year here is from 06/01/21 to 05/31/22):
In January 2023, Chalkbeat reported that TFA planned to cut its staff by roughly 25 percent come June 2023. In 2016, TFA cut its staff by 15 percent. In 2016, Villanueva Beard said that the layoffs would enable TFA to be “leaner and more nimble.”
What has not been cut over the years– what has not become “leaner and more nimble”– is Villanueva Beard’s own salary– which continued to increase despite the trend of falling recruitment:
- 2022: $492, 586 (plus $40, 928 in “other” compensation)
- 2021: $485,291 (plus $40,490 in “other” compensation)
- 2020: $478,737 (plus $39,929 in “other” compensation)
- 2019: $465,477 (plus $38,699 in “other” compensation)
- 2018: $451,807 (plus $42,029 in “other” compensation)
- 2017: $421,650 (plus $41,180 in “other” compensation)
- 2016: $392,529 (plus $36,957 in “other” compensation)
- 2015: $373,146 (plus $28,990 in “other” compensation)
- 2014: $342,134 (plus $27,116 in “other” compensation)
- 2013: $276,725 in total compensation
Here’s some more top-exec plum: In 2013, 2014, and 2015, co-CEO Matt Kramer was drawing roughly as much or more than Villanueva Beard. Also, in 2013, TFA founder Wendy Kopp was paid $447,405 in total compensation, and that for being “CEO until 02/28/13” (tax year: 10/01/12 to 05/31/13) and continuing as board chair.
So, nonprofit TFA is willing to pay its CEOs fantastic (and increasing) salaries year after year, not only in the face of continued decline in recruitment but also despite experiencing its expenses exceeding its revenue in eight of the last ten years (rounded to millions; from Propublica):
- 2013: Expenses: $189M; Revenue: $196M; Net Income: $7M
- 2014: Expenses: $357M; Revenue: $331M; Net Income: -$26M
- 2015: Expenses: $376M; Revenue: $300M; Net Income: -$75M
- 2016: Expenses: $328M; Revenue: $303M; Net Income: -$25M
- 2017: Expenses: $287M; Revenue: $273M; Net Income: -$14M
- 2018: Expenses: $284M; Revenue: $264M; Net Income: -$20M
- 2019: Expenses: $288M; Revenue: $324M; Net Income: $36M
- 2020: Expenses: $289M; Revenue: $274M; Net Income: -$15M
- 2021: Expenses: $259M; Revenue: $252M; Net Income: -$6M
- 2022: Expenses: $270M; Revenue: $221M; Net Income: -$49M
Spending more than one takes in means dipping into savings, which even for TFA with its hundreds of millions in total assets, cannot go on forever. However, the bigger question for TFA is how to keep the donor money flowing when it cannot seem to do the same with its annual recruits.
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MSNBC’s Joy Reid hosted Moms for Liberty cofounder, Tiffany Justice, on January 19, 2024. Moms for Liberty has appointed itself as right-wing library book police. I only saw the last few minutes of the interview, right as Reid was questioning the morality of policing cofounder, Bridget Ziegler.
I wanted to preserve the interview and make the content more easily accessible to readers, so I transcribed the entire 12 minutes that can be viewed in this 12-minute video:
The transcription was challenging since both Reid and Justice often talked over one another. What readers find below is my best effort to accurately parse out the words of both interviewer and interviewee.
I also added a few links by way of background information for readers who might wish it.
–BEGIN INTERVIEW–
Reid: LGBTQ parents and parents of LGBTQ kids, so, they have parental rights.
Justice: Every parent, Joy. Every parent means every parent has a fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children.
Reid: And liberal parents? Do liberal parents have those rights, as well?
Justice: All parents, Joy.
Reid: So let me, let me point you to some statistics. Because the question becomes, then, who gets to decide what all kids get to read. The Washington Post took a look at about a thousand plus book challenges that were filed, and they found that they were filed, nationwide, by just eleven people. Each of these people brought ten or more challenges against books in their school district. Together, these serial filers constituted six percent of all book challengers, but they are responsible for sixty percent of filings. In Florida, Tampa Bay Times: They found that roughly of 1100 complaints filed in Florida since July 2022– we’re talking about more than 700 in just two counties– Escambia in the western panhandle and Clay County. Together, those are less than three percent of the public school enrollment; 600 of those complaints– two people. Why should thirteen people get to decide what books tens of thousands of children get to read?
Justice: Well, I’m thinking it’s probably because those thirteen people saw what some of the content was in those books, I mean, explicit, graphic, sexual content. And I’m happy to talk about some of that content if you, if you’d like to.
Reid: Well, this is the question again: The books that are being banned, I want to give you just a… hold on, hold on a second…
Justice [interrupts]: Well, no, Joy but I want to be clear. No one’s banning books. Write the book; print the book, publish the book, put the book in the public library, sell the book, right? We’re talking about a public school library. Children don’t have unfettered access to the internet at school. I did a FOIA, a records request, and a, and a, and a, I wanted to see what kinds of internet sites are banned in schools– we’re gonna talk about banning, right? And, and, the subject matter in the books that moms are concerned about are the same things that kids don’t have access to on the internet. So, it just feels very hypocritical, right? No, why is no one out there protesting for, you know, “free the internet” in schools?
Reid: Let me, let me give you an example of some of the books that have been removed from shelves as a result of the activities of organizations like Moms for Liberty…
Justice [interrupts]: We’re not going to talk “like Moms for Liberty.” We’re going to talk specifically Moms for Liberty.
Reid [interrupts]: But hold on, hold on, no, no, no, and Moms for Liberty, absolutely…
Justice [interrupts]: So, just, I’m happy to have this conversation with you, Joy, but we’re going to be specific [Reid: Absolutely. Absolutely.] about the actions of Moms for Liberty chapters.
Reid: One hundred percent.
Justice: I can’t be responsible for the actions of every single parent in America, right?
Reid: Oh, sure. Sure. But your organization is the lead, you are the leading organization that’s doing this. You have chapters all over the country, and other organizations are following your lead. And Pen America has listed– they have posted— the list of books that have been removed from shelves as a result of these activities. Let me just read you a couple of them. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Maus— which is a book about the Holocaust, a graphic novel. Gender Queer, a Memoir. All Boys Aren’t Blue. Beloved. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Washington. Ruby Bridges Goes to School. Slaughterhouse Five. The Color Purple. Forever by Judy Blume. I could go on. These are books that are not only popular; in some cases, they’re classics. Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. Let me give you an example of one…
Justice [interrupts]: Wait. I’d like to answer your question.
Reid: Sure. Please do. Yeah.
Justice: So, you just mentioned a list of books. And so, Moms for Liberty doesn’t have like a national book list. There was never a list of books that we put out and said, “Parents, be concerned about these books,” right? We didn’t do it because we want our parents to be effective advocates. [Reid: Um hm.] So, when moms are going into the libraries in the schools, when they’re seeing what their children have access to, when they go to speak to the superintendent, or the principal, they have accurate information, right? They’re effective advocates…
Reid [interrupts]: Where do they get their information from?
Justice: You can just go online to a, a catalog in your children’s library.
Reid: You’re right– without reading it.
Justice: You can see what is available.
Reid: What is, look, what is– one moment– what is booklooks.com?
Justice: A, a, I am aware of a website called booklooks.com where parents can go and see some of the books that other parents are concerned about.
Reid: Booklooks.com has been used in Florida extensively in counties like I used to live in, I lived there for fourteen years. [Justice: Okay.] Counties like Broward, counties like Clay, counties like Escambia. Moms for Liberty activists are using booklooks.com, and it’s essentially a “Cliff’s Notes” for books. [Justice: Yeah.] So you go through without even having to read the book. I’m a just hold it up so our audience can see what it looks like. This is the one for All Boys Aren’t Blue, which is one of the books that Moms for Liberty…
Justice [interrupts]: Everyone should go and see the content in this book. That’s such a good idea, Joy.
Reid: And so, what happens is, you can do keyword searches and find certain keywords…
Justice [interrupts]: Like “rape”?
Reid: And you can find cer–.. sure.
Justice: And “anal rape” or “dildo”? Those types of words?
Reid (nods): You can find all sorts of… wait, wait, wait. Let me finish. [Justice: Sure.] I’m going to give you time to answer, but I’ve gotta ask you first.
Justice: No, yeah. Ask the question first.
Reid: So, what you find is, they keyword that you find– the “N” word– anything– words like you just used– you’ll get out-of-context passages from the book, and then, based on that, Moms for Liberty members are going to places like Broward County school board meetings, reading out-of-pass– out-of-context passages from these books, and then demanding that the school board remove them.
Justice: So what’s the question?
Reid: That is the way– the question I’m asking is, what is the expertise that you have and other Moms for Liberty advocates have (Justice smiles and lightly laughs) to decide that an award-winning book like All Boys Aren’t Blue isn’t appropriate for students to read?
Justice: What a, what a tragic story of a young man who is anally raped by his adult family members. So you have incest, rape, pedophilia. Joy, you said you’d let me answer [Reid: Sure.] so I’m going to answer for you.
Reid: Please do.
Justice: In what context is a strap-on dildo acceptable for public school? Just, let me, I mean, that’s my question to you. [Reid nods.] Tell me what the context around the strap-on dildo or the rape of a minor child by a teacher…
Reid [interrupts]: Hold on a second…
Justice [interrupts]: No, no, no. We’re talking about public school…
Reid [interrupts]: No, no. One moment.
Justice: All right.
Reid: So now you’ve asked me a question [Justice: Sure.] so now, I’m going to answer it.
Justice: Okay.
Reid: Well, who is the main character? What’s the name of the main character in All Boys Are Blue?
Justice: You’re asking me right now?
Reid: You just gave me very specific information about this book, so you’re presenting yourself as somebody expert.
Justice: It’s to the main…
Reid: The main character in the book?
Justice: The main character is the author.
Reid: What’s his, what’s his name?
Justice: George, I believe, is his first name.
Reid: Because you’re giving me very specific information that is projecting yourself as an expert.
Justice: You’re asking me to remember the name of an author. The name of the author doesn’t, [Reid: The name of the author is a specific name.] Joy…
Reid: Here’s my question. Here’s…
Justice: We’re talking about strapping…. You didn’t answer my question.
Reid: No, no, no. I’m going to answer it.
Justice: That’s great. I would love to hear that.
Reid: Absolutely. Well, I, I’m interviewing you. You’re not interviewing me. So let’s just make sure it’s a conversation, okay?
Justice: Okay. That’s correct.
Reid: So, what I’m saying to you is that as you are not an expert, in this book…
Justice [interrupts]: I don’t have to be an expert to know that dildos aren’t appropriate for public school…
Reid: Hold on. No, no, no. Hold on a second. One moment. One moment. This book is a full-context story, as you said, of the author’s experience. Why is it your right, or Moms for Liberty activists’ right, to say that a parent who wants their child to have access to this book, which gives a personal experience of this author, that they– why doesn’t a liberal parent, for instance, or a parent of an LGBTQ kid, why don’t they have a right for their child to just have access to this book? Why is it your right to say they can’t?
Justice: So, again, we’re talking about incest, rape, and pedophilia…
Reid [interrupts]: Each parent, each parent…
Justice [interrupts]: Joy, you said, Joy, you said you would let me answer.
Reid: One more moment. No, no, no. Each parent has to decide what is appropriate for their child to read. So, I want you to answer. [Justice: So let me tell…. Right.] So, I’m going to ask you one more time. What is your right to tell a parent who wants their child, who might feel seen by this story, [Justice: Oh, my gosh!] why don’t they have the right, why don’t they have the right as a parent, to say, “My child can have access to this book”?
Justice: If a child feels seen by the story, that means that they have been, uh, the victim of a predator. That means that they have either been raped by a family member, they, they’ve experienced, um, rape [by someone]…
Reid [interrupts]: And your proof of that is what? What’s your proof of that?
Justice: You just said that the child feels seen by this story. [Reid: No, no, no.] So, what I’m saying, Joy…
Reid [interrupts]: No, no, no. You’re now making assumptions.
Justice: No, Joy…
Reid: Let me give you You don’t, now you’re…
Justice [interrupts]: But if a child has been raped, we should do a lot better than put a book on a library shelf.
Reid: Now you’re literally creating a story behind a child that you don’t know. Let me show you a form. This is a form that can be obtained in Broward County, Florida. [Justice: Okay.] I’m going to show it to the audience, and then I’m going to show it to you. This is called an [Justice: May I see it?] Yeah, please. (Hands Justice form.). [Justice: thank you so much.] It’s called the opt-out form. [Justice: Okay.] An opt-out form would allow any parent– because you said you are in favor of parental rights.
Justice: I am.
Reid: It would allow any parent to opt out of their child being able to take books out of the library without their parents’ permission [Justice: Okay.] so that Moms for Liberty, why not advocate that every school in America have an opt-out form so that a parent who doesn’t want their child to access a book like All Boys Aren’t Blue, that they can make that choice because each parent— including a liberal parent, a black parent, a parent who wants their child to read a book about African American history– that they get their rights…
Justice [interrupts]: We want all, we want children to read books about African American history.
Reid: Why not just opt out for yourself rather than tell other parents what they can and cannot have their children read?
Justice: First of all, I think what you’re talking about here is a wonderful step in the right direction. Um, we should be having conversations about this, this is about local control. A lot of these decisions are made at the local school board level. [Reid: Uh hm.] And that’s where these decisions should be made. And there should be vibrant conversations [Reid: Sure.] about what’s happening in our public schools and what kids have access to, Joy. However, maybe we could just put all the books with all the graphic sexual content– the dildos…
Reid [interrupts]: You’re not just, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…
Justice [interrupts]: The rapists, [Reid: Excuse me.] let’s do it, [Reid: Excuse me.] let’s do a back room, let’s put a curtain up in the library like they used to do in video stores.
Reid [interrupts]: Excuse me. First of all, hold on. The books that Moms for Liberty…
Justice [interrupts]: Remember when we were little, and you used to go to the video store?
Reid [interrupts]: The books that Moms for Liberty…
Justice [interrupts]: And they put those books…
Reid [interrupts]: The books that Moms for Liberty…
Justice [interrupts]: …those videos with pornography behind the curtain.
Reid [interrupts]: The books that Moms for Liberty. I know that you, I have seen, I have seen…
Justice: We could do just that at the public library.
Reid: I have seen tapes of what Moms for Liberty does [Justice: Does that sound appropriate?] and you all go into school board meetings, and you read graphic stuff.
Justice: Joy, this is a disingenuous conversation.
Reid: No, it’s not. Beloved…
Justice [interrupts]: There is, America used to understand that there is something called “age appropriate content”…
Reid: Beloved… right. And here’s my question again [Justice: We have ratings on movies.] again. Again. (Justice smiles.) Ruby Bridges Goes to School is on the list of books that Moms for Liberty (Justice shaking her head.) has attempted to have removed.
Justice: Absol– Absolutely not.
Reid: It absolutely is. (Justice is shaking her head.) Let me ask about the people who are making the decision for other parents because you have not answered yet why a liberal parent or an African American parent can…
Justice [interrupts]: We have parents who are dem(unintelligble) members of our organization.
Reid: no, no, no. But you’re still trying to make decisions for all the kids. Here are some of the parents that are filing, or some of the, the, your advocates. [Justice: Uh hm.] Bridget Ziegler, the Moms for Liberty cofounder, the wife of the recently-ousted Florida Republican Party chairman, Christian Ziegler, who allegedly was involved in threesomes, same-sex threesomes. Um, Mrs. Zeigler was, was removed from the school board at which she was a leader. You’ve had…
Justice [interrupts]: She wasn’t removed from the school board. (Note: As of this writing, Ziegler is still listed as a member of the Sarasota School Board.)
Reid: One moment. Okay, you have Lauren DePaola. Um, she was making book ban requests in Alachua County, but then records show that she and her husband didn’t live there. They’d sold their home in that county. Keri Blair in Tennessee, who was, um, arrested for property theft charges after allegedly stealing from Target, skip-scanning in Target. Why should those three people get to make decisions about what other children should be able to read, other parents’ children should be able to read?
Justice: Do you know that I served as a school board member form 2016 to 2020?
Reid: Are you going to answer my question?
Justice. Yeah, I’m going to.
Reid: We don’t have an endless time.
Justice: Joy, I’m going to answer your question, but I need you to understand that when I was an elected representative, I would sit on that dais, and how dare I, sitting there as an elected representative, judge a parent when they would come to the podium to speak and advocate for their child because as we started this conversation, we’ll end it. Every parent has a fundamental right to the upbringing of their children…
Reid [interrupts]: And so, a parent, so, let’s make sure that we can end on…
Justice [interrupts]: And I would not stand in judgment, Joy…
Reid [interrupts]: Let us, a point of agreement…
Justice [interrupts]: …about a parent’s education level…
Reid [interrupts]: If a parent…
Justice [interrupts]: …their sexual orientation…
Reid [interrupts]: One moment. One moment. If a parent…
Justice [interrupts]: …their race, their religion…
Reid [interrupts]: If a parent…
Justice [interrupts]: That is not what America is about.
Reid [interrupts]: Ms. Justice, I’m going to ask. I’m going to ask my question, Ms. Justice. Mrs. Justice.
Justice: Yes, ma’am. Thank you.
Reid: That’s fine. If a parent believes that their child should be able to read Ruby Bridges…
Justice [interrupts]: We believe that parents, that children should be able to read Ruby Bridges. She’s an American hero.
Reid: Then how can Moms for Liberty insist that the school board take that book away and then say that a parent who wants a child to be able to read it must purchase it? That’s essentially putting a tax on parents who want their children to read the book. Your kids get to have books for free that you agree with, but children who want to read– or parents who want their children to read books you don’t like– have to purchase it. That doesn’t sound fair.
Justice: Joy, did you know that in the city that we’re sitting in, only a quarter of children are reading on grade level?
Reid: That’s a great point. That’s a great point.
Justice: And so, while we’re having this conversation, about books and libraries…
Reid: That’s a great point. That’s a great point…
Justice: Things should be happening. We should be talking about literacy rates and the fact that America’s kids are not learning how to read, and we should be having vibrant conversations about what books should be in libraries.
Reid: Absolutely.
–END OF INTERVIEW–
For a few minutes of debriefing, readers are invited to view this 5-minute follow-up discussion with Reid and MSNBC’s Ali Velshi and Susan Del Percio:
_______________________________
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In an apparent effort to placate white fear and fragility, Louisiana State University (LSU) has “scrub[bed] diversity statement from its website, rename[d] inclusion office” and “videos from campus speaker series on racism have been taken down,” as the January 05, 2024, Louisiana Illuminator reports:
LSU has renamed its Division of Inclusion, Civil Rights & Title IX and dropped diversity language from its website. …
LSU’s Division of Inclusion, Civil Rights and Title IX was a new creation under Tate. He merged the Office of Diversity with the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX. Tate oversaw a national search for its initial vice president and ultimately gave the role to former Entergy executive Todd Manuel, who has no previous higher education experience.
Spokespeople for the university have not yet responded to multiple requests for comment about what prompted the change.
Also removed from LSU’s website was a webpage for a lecture series at the Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs entitled “Racism: Dismantling the System” that some conservative legislators opposed. Videos for the series that were previously posted on YouTube are now no longer available.
January 05, 2024, happened to be the last day for one Louisiana governor, and Monday, January 08, 2024, the official first day of the next.
As the Louisiana Illuminator also points out, one can use Internet Archive to view LSU’s now-deleted diversity statement and archived evidence of other related LSU website sanitations.
The rest of this post is a journey into the archives before and after LSU’s diversity and inclusion (DEI) erasure.
We begin with information available on December 09, 2022:
Proceeding to January 11, 2023:
Office of Diversity and Inclusion still on website as of October 22, 2023… December 15, 2023….
Sure enough, by January 05, 2024, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion link (Under “About Us”) is redirected to “Division of Engagaement, Civil Rights and Title IX.” (Use this January 01, 2024, archive to see the January 05, 2023, redirect.) No more talk of an Office of Diversity and inclusion.
On January 04, 2024, the “Our Commitment” section was still available as part of “About Us,” including “Diversity and Inclusion” link:
Also on January 05, 2024, the entire “Our Commitment” section was missing (apparently for at least part of the day):
Here is how “About Us” looked on January 06, 2024:
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (or DEI) has become one of the latest far-right Republican boogeymen bandwagoned by Louisiana’s GOP leadership.
The timing of the LSU website DEI scrub is no coincidence.
Louisiana’s next governor, former Louisiana attorney general Jeff Landry, was sworn in on Sunday, January 07, 2024.
__________________________
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I am in the process of reading Tim Alberta’s newly-released book, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. Alberta, a staff writer for the Atlantic and former chief political correspondent for Politico, is the son of a Presbyterian pastor and identifies as a practicing Christian who is not “seduced by the cult of Trumpism” but who wonders about how, for example, “Polling showed that born-again Christian conservatives, once the president’s (Trump’s) softest backers, were now his most unflinching advocates.”
In his book, Alberta attempts to answer, “Why?” by interviewing a number of perplexed pastors and Christian leaders, attending Christian/political events and interviewing key players, as well as examining some of the history behind evangelical institutions and their leaders.
As a practicing Christian, I am interested to read Alberta’s discourse; in August 2021, I left my church, in short, because I could not see praying for guidance for elected leaders and for recovery of those dying of COVID even as church leadership openly defied the governor’s then-reinstituted mask mandate. I realize this illogical, defiant schism is part of a greater problem in the American evangelical church in general, and I am not willing to mix my worship of Christ with the taint of the likes of Tucker Carlson.
As of this writing, I have not finished reading Alberta’s book, and even if I had, there is no way for me to discuss all of what I have read thus far in a blog post. So, what I hope to do is offer some thought-provoking excerpts from the book, just to offer my readers some food for thought. In some cases, I have added links so that readers could peruse some of the back story to which Alberta alludes.
On page 11, Alberta pointedly reflects on his background:
This was the ecosystem in which I was raised: the son of a white conservative Republican pastor in a white conservative Republican church in a white conservative Republican town. My dad, a serious theologian who held advanced degrees from top seminaries, bristled at this reductive analysis of his religious tribe. He would frequently state from the pulpit what he believed an evangelical to be: someone who believes the Bible is the inspired word of God and who takes seriously the charge to proclaim it to the world.
From a young age, I realized that not all Christians were like my dad. Other adults who went to our church– my teachers, baseball coaches, friends’ parents– didn’t speak about God the way that he did. Theirs was a more casual Christianity, a hobby more than a lifestyle, something that could be picked up and put down and slotted into schedules.
On pages 23 to 25, Alberta discusses politicians’ wielding of scripture, including how the words of Jesus were “never conducive to stump speech”– and were apparently of negligible consequence in the evangelical embrace of Donald Trump:
Having spent the previous decade covering the Republican Party, in Congress and on the campaign trail, I could hear a Bible verse coming before it formed in the candidate’s throat.
They would use scripture to make the case for capitalism (Proverbs 13:4: “A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied”) and to legislate against ablortion (Psalm 139:13: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb”) and to mobilize the faithful for the culture wars (Isaiah 5;20: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil”).
All these examples, and the great majority of what voters would hear from GOP politicians, came from the Old Testament. That never struck me as a coincidence. Jesus, in His three years of teaching, talked mostly about helping the poor, humbling oneself, and having no earthly ambition but to gain eternal life. Suffice it to say, the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount (“Blessed are the meek… Blessed are the merciful… Blessed are the peacemakers”) were never conducive to stump speech. This isn’t to suggest that the Old Testament passages are somehow backward or illegitimate; many of these writings, timeless in their wisdom, have shaped my own views of the world. I just always found it strange that these Christians relied so infrequently on the words of Christ.
It was during Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, and his four years in office, that this reliance on Old Testament language became troubling.
There was justifiable alarm among many Christians when Trump clinched the GOP presidential nomination. The immorality of his personal life aside, Trump had spent his campaign inciting hatred against his critics, hurtling vicious and ad hominem insults at his opponents, boasting of his never having asked God’s forgiveness, and generally behaving in ways that were antithetical to the example of Christ. … For decades, the religious right had imposed exacting moral litmus tests on public officials, taking particular glee in tormenting the forty-second president, Bill Clinton, whose duplicity and womanizing allegedly made him unfit for office. Godly character, they had told us, was a requirement when it came to running the country. Ignoring the sins of Trump was not a sustainable approach.
Instead, they employed a novel strategy: Evangelical leaders embraced Trump’s shortcomings. …
This was a clever way to cover all bases: Whether or not Trump believed that Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate, the spotless lamb who was sacrificed for the sins of the world then raised from the dead three days later– and really, who could know what was on the candidate’s heart?– he was an agent of the Almighty, born for such a time as this, ordained to fight on behalf of God’s people and their shining city on a hill.
The danger of this rhetoric, deployed by people who knew better, is that it dovetailed with the most pernicious theological and political intuitions of those who did not. …
By the time Trump declared his candidacy in the summer of 2015, dscending an escalator that would be the envy of Aaron’s golden calf, the twin narratives of “America at the abyss” and “Christianity in the crosshairs” were ubiquitous within evangelicism. Trump instinctively understood this. Surrounding himself with faith leaders who split their time between church pulpits and Fox News greenrooms, Trump set about catering to the panicked masses of American Christendom.
Much of what I have read thus far concerns Liberty University founder and Moral Majority leader, Jerry Falwell, Sr., and his scandal-ridden heir, his son, Jerry Falwell, Jr. Pages 54 to 59 concern the elder Falwell, including his sales and marketing shrewdness:
Born into a frontier family of bootleggers, alcoholics, and athiests, Jerry laymon Falwell was hardly the prototype for a preacher. … Then, one Sunday morning in 1952, three years after his father’s death, Falwell joined a group of friends at Park Avenue Baptist Church. … The only remarkable thing about Falwell’s story was that… his own conversion was utterly dull. …
He was a people person, an extrovert who loved to schmooze and argue and persuade. He was also a born salesman. Despite his youthful aversion to churchgoing, Falwell constantly overheard radio programs echoing around his mother’s house… and found himself fascinated by the market dynamics at play. … In 1956, Falwell started his very own congregation in Lynchburg, calling it Thomas Road Baptist Church, and began airing his own local radio show. Within months, he had broken into an experimental new medium for his profession, television, airing his Sunday sermons on WLVA, Lynchburg’s ABC affiliate.
…Falwell’s media savvy proved a differentiator. His congregation swelled from thirty-five at the first service to more than eight hundred one year later. … By the mid-1970s, Falwell’s “Old Time Gospel Hour” was shown on more stations throughout the United States than any single telecast.
… Falwell preached “separatism,” the idea that followers of Christ are distinct, set apart…. He frowned upon civic activism and expressly denounced political entanglements. …
Falwell and his congregants could afford to forget politics: he had launched his ministry during an idyllic age for the white American Christian. …
In truth, Falwell had never been apolitical. Back in 1958– just his second year of pastoring– Falwell denounced the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954, saying “the devil himself” was pushing integration and that “the true Negro” did not want it. (“What will integration of the races do to us?” Falwell asked his all-white congregation. “It will destroy our race eventually.”) As the years went on, Falwell was selective– but hardly silent– with his partisan punditry. He aligned himself with Senator Joe McCarthy, alerting his flock to the risks of communist infiltration. He chastised [Dr. Martin Luther] King for having “left wing associations.” Although he would later retract his comments about segregation and race– calling it “false prophecy” and welcoming Black families to his church– Falwell’s trajectory was bending inexorably toward the flag-waving figurehead he would become. By the mid-1970s, there was no use trying to separate politics and theology. In fact, Falwell realized, combining the two might be the way to save both the country and his upstart college.
…
In this moment, Falwell saw opportunity. He had limited the college’s reach by stressing its fundamentalist roots and regional identity. In 1975, with the bicentennial approaching, Falwell considered a change. Inspired by a friend, Arthur DeMoss, a multimillionaire businessman who’d founded the National Liberty Corporation… Falwell undertook a makeover of the school’s image. Lynchburg Baptist College became Liberty Baptist College(…later… Liberty University). The school’s colors changed from green and gold to red, white, and blue. With Olympiad undertones… Falwell stressed the school’s motto, “Training Champions for Christ.” …
To understand the long-unfolding crisis at Liberty– an institution known less today for charity and Christian disciple-making than for corruption and Republican kingmaking…. In the heart of campus… students are greeted with a wall-length inscription from Second Corinthians:”…where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty.”
But according to Falwell Jr…. there was no double meaning intended.
“It had nothing to do with theology. It was a marketing thing. My dad was appealing to a sense of patriotism that was big in Christianity at that time,” he told me.
The younger Falwell added, “‘Champions for Chris’ was just a tagline. It wasn’t a vision for the university.”
Pages 64 to 72 include details on the Moral Majority:
In June 1979, Falwell took a brief leave from his revamped “I Love America” tour– it was now playing at state capitol buildings from coast to coast, earning huge crowds and enormous revenues– to meet with a group of prminent conservative activists. Among them were Howard Phillips, a free-market advocacy wonk and Jewish convert to evangelicalism, and Richard Viguerie, a campaign strategist who had perfected direct-mail technology as a means of mobilizing Christian voters. The organizer was Paul Weyrich, a Catholic journalist turned political insider who in 1973 had cofounded the Heritage Foundation, which would become Washington’s leading conservative think tank. Each of these men had effectively abandoned the Republican Party in the aftermath of Watergate, hoping that a descendant of purer ideology would supplant the GOP. But that romanticism now gave way to reality. … They needed to engage an untapped segment of voters. They needed to galvanize fundamentalist Christians. They needed Falwell. …
… These men had come to Lynchburg wanting Falwell to be more than just a missing cog in their new politcal machine. They wanted him to be its leader.
When the discussion turned to tactics– they would target Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, even conservative atheists, an evolution of the co-belligerent construct– Weyrich told Falwell there was a “moral majority” of Americans on their side. Falwell glanced over at his staff.
“That’s the name of our organization,” he said.
…
Amid this circus, some of Falwell’s students grew uneasy. For most of its first decade in existence, Liberty had adhered to those old-school separationist instincts. Even as the school’s president entertained bigger and more worldly ambitions– even as he began packaging the cross with the flag, often quite literally– there had been no apparent overhaul of the teaching or campus culture. Yet that was beginning to change. The enrollment spike following Reagan’s election brought a wave of politically crazed young conservatives to campus. This influx demanded a hiring spree, and some of the folks Falwell brought in, particularly for administrative positions, were partisan cronies he’d met through his burgeoning Republican network. …
In May 2007… Jerry Falwell Sr. died of a heart attack inside his office on campus. He was seventy-three.
The latter years of Falwell’s life had been forgettable. … Ever since he disbanded the Moral Majority in 1989– sensing, rightly, that he’d lost sight of his responsibilities as a pastor– Falwell had been eclipsed by a new generation of Christian culture warriors.
And now, for Falwell Sr.’s successor, Falwell Jr. From pages 79 to 82:
Even before he became ensnared in a love triangle with his wife and a Miami pool boy, Falwell seemed intent on testing the limits of his invincibility.
In June, after Trump had clinched the Republican nomination for president, Falwell trveled to New York City to introduce him to a meeting of some five hundred evangelical influencers. No longer a mere supporter, Falwell embraced the role of pitchman. He joined the likes of Franklin Graham in vouching for Trump’s character and integrity, helping the man who’d once joked on Howard Stern’s radio show about sleeping with his own daughter to forge an alliance with America’s leading Christian conservatives.
Later that day, at the top of Trump Tower, Falwell was euphoric. Recalling his father’s unlikely alliance with Reagan and how it reshaped American politics, Falwell exchanged hugs and high-fives and toasts, celebrating the ways in which history was repeating itself. Indeed, some of the parallels were striking. But certain things had changed. When they took a photograph to document the occasion, Trump stood in the middle, flanked by Falwell and his wife, Becki. Thumbs went up. The camera flashed. Falwell tweeted the photo to his sixty thousand followers. There was just one hiccup: Lurking over Becki Falwell’s left shoulder, framed in gold, was a cover of Playboy, graced by bow-tied Trump and a smiling brunette covered only by his tuxedo jacket. Forty years after his father had singled out the magazine as a symbol of civilizational decay, Falwell posed in front of it, beaming shoulder to shoulder with a man who had appeared in a soft-core porno flick (and who, one-upping the adultery Jummy Carter confessed to committing in his heart, engaged in the real thing, including with a Playboy model and an adult film actress).
For Falwell to be embarrassed by the photo would have required a capacity for embarrassment. The ensuing years would suggest that no such capacity exists. With Trump performing the part of strongman in the White House, Falwell doubled down on his own tyrannical instincts. He continued to crack down on the student newspaper to the point where its former editor felt compelled to publish an expose in the [Washington]Post. He enraged the student body by defending Trump’s abhorrent response to the white nationalist march in nearby Charlottsville, Virginia, saying he was “proud” of the president for being “bold” and “truthful.” He turned the school into a satellite location for the Conservative Political Action Conference, disseminating ad hominem insults and deranged conspiracy theories throughout campus. He accelerated a pattern of overt self-dealing, as documented by journalist and Liberty alumnus Brandon Ambrosino, channeling tuition funds into projects that benefited friends and family. He eliminated programs (in the case of Philosophy, an entire department) with a supposedly liberal bent, and funneled more money into political projects. He launched a campus think tank in partnership with Charlie Kirk, the firebrand activist and president of Turning Point USA, calling it “The Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty.” He denied tenure to faculty– forcing professors to work on one-year contracts, the surest way to keep people in line– and required anyone affiliated with the school to get hs personal approval before speaking with the media. He ordered police to remove and evangelical pastor who’d visited Liberty to meet with students organizing a protrest of Trump, and threatened the pastor with arrest if he returned.
The school is no stranger to totalitarian rule; administrators had long used its ultra-strict and preposterously detailed honor code, “The Liberty Way,” to control the student body. (Dancing, among other activities, remains banned on campus to this day.) What felt different about this crackdown was that it coincided with flagrant misconduct by the university president himself. Falwell’s personal behavior had become a constant source of campus gossip. He was frequently witnessed slurring his words and smelling like alcohol. Word got around that he was fond of making jokes about his genitals. At one point, his weight ballooned noticeably; then, with the apparent help of hormore supplements, he cut up his figure, and began acting with an even more reckless aggression. In one incident captured on video— that Falwell himself inexplicably posted to Instagram– he hit a campus gym and asked two attractive female students to climb onto a bench-press bar that rested on his lap before proceeding to perform a series of pelvic thrusts, the intended sexual nature of the act registering on the girls’ faces.
How did Falwell get away with this behavior? The question seemed answered easily enough: Liberty was thriving by every outward metric, with assets listed at $2.6 billion in 2017, an increase of 900 percent from when he had taken over a decade earlier. (That number would soon surpass $3 billion, tangibel evidence, in the interpretation of so many people affiliated with the school, of God’s favor being shown.) Falwell was rightly seen as a developer extraordinaire– the Donald Trump of Lynchburg, if you will– having poured billions of dollars into constructing a modern, state-of-the-art campus that now stretched across seven thousand acres….
Yet there existed another explanation for Falwell’s survival, something just as obvious if perhaps less observable. The reason nobody confronted him– some combination of donors, administrators, trustees, Executive Committee members– is that many of them were just as complicit in the school’s broken culture. In my conversations with Falwell, this was the one thing that rang true: His father, short on money and desperate to turn his faltering school around, had cut corners by hiring people who “got stuff done” but weren’t necessarily good managers– or good Christians. The older Falwell never bothered to upgrade the university’s personnel; even as Liberty grew into a juggernaut, it was still run by the same cast of third-string operators who couldn’t get hired at most community colleges.
“I should have fired everybody in the top leadership the day I walked in– from the vice presidents on down– and hired everybody new,” Falwell told me. “You see, my dad didn’t have the money back then to hire people who were honest and competent. So, he typically had to choose, one or the other. And those are the people who were still around when the school became prosperous.”
The “pool boy threesome” involving both Falwell and his wife Becki is what apparently finally drove Falwell to resign in August 2020 as Liberty University’s president. In September 2020, the university paid Falwell $2M, or two years’ worth of his base salary. In March 2023, Falwell sued Liberty for $8.5M in retirement benefits that Falwell says the university owes him.
Let me add the great irony of corrupt Falwell saying he should have cleaned up:
One does not fire birds of a feather. Nor does one hire them in the first place.
People excuse the seemingly inexcusable because they are at home with such behavior behind closed doors.
It is the one who opens the door– the one who sheds light, who exposes the lie– who poses the threat. That’s the one who must be blackballed, targeted, scapegoated, and removed, goodness and truth be damned.
I could go on. I’m reading about Russell Moore and his exit from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) after “Years of low-intensity conflict within the SBC had given way to vicious infighting, and Moore was at the center of it. Because of his push for an open-aired reckoning on racial tensions in the denomination and for church-sanctioned concealment of sexual abuse– never mind his vocal denunciations of Donald Trump“…”He was on the wrong side of the culture wars that were consuming the church” (page 89).
Just a wee bit more on Moore:
For most of his life, Moore had belonged to a tribe that considered itself special, superior, singularly blessed. Moore wasn’t just any old Christian; he was a Southern Baptist. Not anymore. He had ditched that identity– an identity that once meant everything to him, an identity that was central to his worldview and sense of self– because it had become a barrier to his true identity. I had to ask: What took so long?
I’ll close this post with a zinger from pages 196 and 197, which include Alberta’s pointed reflection regarding his experience at the 2022 Road to Majority conference in Nashville:
Th[e] compartmentalization of standards is toxic to the credibility of the Christian witness. many evangelicals have come to view politics the way a suburban husband views Las Vegas– a self-contained escape, a place where the rules and expectations of his everyday life do not apply. The problem is, what happens in politics doesn’t stay in politics. Everyone can see what these folks are doing. Just as you might stop taking marital advice from your neighbor if you saw cell phone footage of him paying for prostitutes and cocaine in Vegas, you might stop taking spiritual guidance from your neighbor if you saw him chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” at the Capitol Building.
An extreme example? Perhaps. But bankruptcy– spiritual and otherwise– happens slowly and then all at once. In 2016, Christians condoned their preferred candidate talking on the “Access Hollywood” tape about grabbing women by their vaginas, because the election was a binary choice and the Supreme Court was at stake; by 2022 Christians walked around wearing “Fuck Joe Biden” on their chests because in politics the rules of decency, never mind the maxims of Christianity, do not apply.
Mic drop.
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The secret to living like Jesus is in developing the discipline of judging self before others and looking at others through the filter of my own need for God’s mercy and grace.
If I do this, not only do I save myself from the harmful action of harsh, critical finger-pointing; I also find that my desire to point my finger in the first place is substantially if not completely neutralized within my own heart– and has been replaced by a kindness for others fostered by genuine humility.
Jesus never set out to put the human race in its place.
Instead, he put himself in the place of the human race.
Consider how the right-wing condemnation, callousness, hypocrisy, and finger-pointing would be turned on its head in states, state houses, OBGYN offices and even libraries around our country if would-be morailty police actually put the following words of Jesus into practice:
The problem with those who seat themselves as morailty judges is that many do not even consider that their viewpoint is skewed (skewered?) by the lack of awareness or biased excusing of their own flaws and faulty motives.
Through their foolishess, they hurt others badly through the chaos they create.
Creating self-righteous chaos is not, never was, and never will be Jesus’ way.
Don’t miss this: The woman could not be “caught in adultery” without a partner, but the religious set apparently let him off of the hook as there is no man being accused alongside this woman. Consider also that Jesus challenges the accusers to deny their own “plank,” if you will, but his challenge traps them into declaring themselves equal to God if they try to deny their own “plank.” Too, note that Jesus directly addresses the woman as a person in her own right, worthy of dignity despite her inferior cultural value as a woman, first of all, and as a wmaon engaging in a prostitution system that can only flourish because the men in that culture enabled it. Finally, do not miss the realiuty that telling the woman to “leave her life of sin” had nothing to do with forgiveness– Jesus had already said he did not condemn her– but everything to do with her coming to value herself.
In other words, Jesus valued this woman, and her wanted her to take her own value to heart.
Imagine if “take your own value to heart” became the revised, right-wing platform.
However, that can only happen if each individual’s first priority becomes dealing with his or her own planks.
If harshess and hypocrisy (and even perhaps bad press?) seem to follow you all the days of your life, then you are setting yourself up to dwell in the house of unacknowledged planks and the lie that is “right-wing Jesus” forever.
Merry Christmas, and may God enable us all to lower our pointing fingers and prioritize honestly reckoning with ourselves first.
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I am encouraged by the recent kerfluffle over the almighty standardized overtesting that is occurring across America as such is featured in this December 03, 2023, Politico piece,“‘A Bizarre Coalition’: Red and Blue States Weigh Big Changes to Testing Requirements.”
The piece focuses on goings-on surrounding “strict standardized testing and graduation requirements” in Florida, New York, and Louisiana.
If one offers even a cursory consideration of the legislative novelties foisted upon America’s K12 classrooms in recent decades, the red-and-blue “bizarre coalition” noted in the Politico title is not all that bizarre. Indeed, “coalition” of red and blue has introduced a lot of chaos into American education, including the pinnacle test-and-punish legislation, No Child Left Behind (the reauthorization of which was abandoned by Congress in 2007 because by then NCLB was seen as a political liability).
Red and blue also stood behind Common Core. Republican lawmakers were for it until they were against it, but former Florida governor and 2015 presidential hopeful Jeb Bush held onto Common Core but avoided calling it by its “poisonous” name on the 2015 campaign trail. “Rebrand” became the name of the game. Both national teachers unions accepted money from the Gates Foundation to promote it, then turned. Regarding Common Core backlash, Democratic secretary of ed Arne Duncan blamed “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”
And charter schools: Still bipartisan despite rampant fraud and waste of underregulated taxpayer money (including embezzlement, wire fraud, corruption, graft, and scandal after scandal).
So, yeah, the “bizarre ” as it concerns modifying state standardized overtesting comes in the form of surprise at officials’ once sold on standardized testing even considering scaling back the testing.
The supposed reason for common standards and the NCLB-reworked, appendaged testing was to make students “ready for college and careers” and to make the US “globally competitive.”
Obama’s Race to the Top was little more than federal funding doled out for a Common Core fizzle.
Of course, at the official release of Common Core in June 2010, no one saw a pandemic coming ten years down the road, and it takes no test scores to know that the US has exceeded expectations for 2023 as concerns the state of our post-pandemic economy. And here is another important point: Nations worldwide must balance international competition with international cooperation.
It must be both.
I have yet to read any expert research crediting standardized testing in schools as contributing to post-pandemic economic recovery, for better or worse, for that matter.
I suspect that some of the Republican softening on standardized testing might reflect the rift in the party as moving away from the education agenda preferences of the likes of George and Jeb Bush. What’s fashionable now is the far-right purge of library books.
The library book purge central force is facing its own bad press as the Florida Republican power couple, Christian and Bridget Ziegler, are apparently living lives that are making the morality policing of Moms for Liberty, group that the Zieglers fiscally and politically enabled, difficult to carry off.
You know you’re in a bad spot when the phone video of you (top-ranking conservative fire-breather) having sex with a woman who is not you wife (but whom your wife also had sex with in a previous three-way) is the best way you have to counter the rape charge brought by that woman. And you stiff-neckedly refuse to resign from your conservative perch. And so does your wife.
Now that’s bizarre.
I’m not for library-book-purging zealots. But if such misplaced zeal must exist, may it continue to shake and weaken the hold that standardized overtesting has on the American classroom.
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