The political left is getting wackier by the day. They are so fearful of a full, open debate that their attempts to silence opposing voices is becoming commonplace. Now, some of them are finally admitting publicly that they are against freedom in education. From Laurie Higgins:
A recent essay by Allison Benedikt appearing in the online magazine Slate makes the startling claim that all parents have an ethical obligation to send their children to—hold on to your hats and socks—government schools. Well, that’s a summary of her argument in somewhat more diplomatic and less insulting language. Here’s what she actually says:
You are a bad person if you send your children to private school. Not bad like murderer bad – but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad. […]
[…]
Whew, I’m relieved that Benedikt doesn’t find all those parents who send their children to Christian private schools to be the equivalent of murderers.A few thoughts about comrade Benedikt’s thoughts:
- Benedikt overestimates the power parents have. Public schools are more immune to parental influence than are private schools whose administrators realize that if they don’t respond efficaciously to parental input, they risk losing their students and the funds on which they depend. Public school administrators feel no such pressure.
- Conservative parents have virtually no influence on the way homosexuality and gender confusion are addressed in public schools since colleges and universities that train teachers are controlled by “progressives,” public schools are controlled by “progressives,” and conservative administrators and teachers are too cowardly to promote true intellectual diversity in the face of dogmatic “progressive” demands for censorship in the service of their ideological monopoly.
