Editor's note: This is the third of a multi-part series on the role of DEI in the decline of public education

Previous parts in this series described the systems in place to hold back excellence. The result of all this is crystal clear: workers and students will lower their effort levels to match those at the lowest level. Teachers and employers will adjust their grading and performance reviews to hide differences -- first to satisfy the ideologues, and then to hide the declining output.

It gets worse. The instruction doesn’t just decline as student effort declines, which would happen naturally -- why should a teacher break themselves trying to get performance out of students who are just not motivated? But there are now many teachers who are products of the college indoctrination mentioned above, who are motivated to pass on their poisonous ideology by teaching that the country is systemically racist and corrupt, and that the youth must join and support them in tearing it down. They instruct that there is no need to work or act responsibly because the system is rigged and they will fail anyway, and since all of the younger generation will probably die of climate change within their lifetimes, there really isn’t any reason to do anything but destroy everything. This indoctrination takes the place of instruction in the sciences, languages and arts that was previously practiced.

Again this is only a subset of teachers. But they exist, they are teaching, and this poisoning of the dreams and the self-worth of the youth is the most vile thing I have seen in my life.

It gets even worse. The equality demanded does not just apply to performance. It also applies to behavior.

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In previous times, students who were disruptive were removed from the classroom so as to not interfere with the learning of the rest. They were put in more controlled environments as either detention or instruction with a higher teacher to student ratio and more control of behavior. If they were found to be a physical danger to others they were suspended or expelled. Now, these corrective measures are not allowed if there is any appearance that they are affecting one identifiable group of students more than other groups, particularly when that group is identifiable by race.

So students have learned that if they can claim racial discrimination they can not only demand grades above what they have objectively earned, they can get away with any level of destructive behavior because if there is any indication that a school is punishing, detaining, suspending or expelling members of one race more than others, lawsuits will follow and compliant judges await to award damages. These damages flow to the parents of the destructive student, awarding the very parental failure that created the problem and incentivizing other parents and students to act destructively in order to reap monetary reward.

The tools available to those who would practice this destructive plunder are intentionally increased. In the most recent years, gender identification has joined race as a class which can be discriminated against. The Portland (Oregon) Public Schools bargaining agreement reached after the one-month teachers’ strike of November 2023 requires school officials to consider a disruptive student's race, gender identity, and sexual orientation when crafting that student's disciplinary plan. That plan "must take into consideration the impact of issues related to the student's trauma, race, gender identity/presentation, sexual orientation...and restorative justice as appropriate for the student." Restorative justice calls for the aggressor and the victim to be both treated as victims, virtually eliminating consequences.

The new disciplinary policy also eliminates mandatory suspensions for students who threaten or harm others—now, those students may only be removed from their classroom, not from school altogether.

So now all a kid has to do is claim minority status on the basis of gender ideology, and they cannot be punished or excluded no matter what. They can choose not to work and can engage in any behavior whatsoever, without consequence.

Kids will be kids, and they will take advantage of this. Not all of them, but enough to ruin it for the others.

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The result is that not only have students learned that extra effort will not be rewarded with better grades and low effort will not be met with failing grades, and not only have their minds been poisoned with an apocalyptic ideology, they have learned that they will get away with previously inexcusable behavior from swearing at teachers to destroying property and up to and including actual physical violence. So they yell, swear, turn over furniture and destroy the learning environment for the other students who do want to learn and for the teachers who just want to teach. The teachers become weary of trying to control kids in their classes when they know their efforts will not be followed by corrective measures by the administration, and slowly accept the chaos as the new norm or leave the teaching profession.

The declining test scores are only the canary in the coal mine.


--Bill Dewey

Post Date: 2024-05-22 12:44:52

Last Update: 2024-05-22 19:32:03