Your Must Read Article On Government Schools

But, Really, It's About Much More

In the wake of the California recall that wasn’t, with Californians overwhelming voting for more and more woke self destruction, there have been numerous critiques of the Elder campaign, explaining why Elder was the wrong guy at the wrong time. In a stunning article today, Larry Sand reveals how those critiques are simply out of touch with human reality--without once mentioning Elder:

UTLA President Confirms The Union’s Marxist Mission

The bulk of L.A. students are not proficient in math or English, but they reportedly know the difference between a riot and a protest.

The simple fact of the matter is that Californians were given a clear choice between more woke Branch Covidian progressivism--for the masses, not the rulers--and a simple hope that it might be possible to challenge the status quo that is ruining people’s lives. Is it possible, some might ask, that the status quo is so corrupt as to justify such a move? The answer is, Yes, and Larry Sand reveals just how evil that status quo is:

In a stunningly revealing exposé in Los Angeles Magazine, United Teachers of Los Angeles president Cecily Myart-Cruz told the world what many of us already knew—that her primary concern is advancing her Marxist political agenda rather than educating children. The in-depth piece has received much media ink, notably her comment about pandemic-related learning loss. When asked about how her union’s insistence on keeping L.A.’s schools locked down for over a year may have impacted the city’s k-12 students, Myart-Cruz responded, “There is no such thing as learning loss. Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.” She went on to say that “learning loss” is a “fake crisis marketed by shadowy purveyors of clinical and classroom assessments.”

The reality is different--as any fool would know in advance--and the numbers prove that, bad as the schools may be, learning loss in the absence of open schools is real.

McKinsey & Company reported in July that the impact of the pandemic on K–12 student learning was significant, “leaving students on average five months behind in mathematics and four months behind in reading by the end of the (2020-2021) school year.” … They add that blacks were especially hard hit, and that high schoolers have become more likely to drop out of school. They also report that “the crisis had an impact on not just academics but also the broader health and well-being of students, with more than 35 percent of parents very or extremely concerned about their children’s mental health.”

Re-electing Boy Gavin is guaranteed to continue more of the above, because neither he nor any other Dem will buck the government teachers union. Indeed, that certainty is exactly what led the former Dem Senate majority leader, Gloria Romero, to endorse Elder: It’s About The Schools, Stupid! 

Here’s what the LA teachers and their union were up to during the shutdowns:

While school districts all over the state were scrambling to augment online learning, UTLA, with Myart-Cruz in charge, bullied the Los Angeles school district, insisting that teachers should not be forced to teach remotely for more than four hours a day, the fewest hours of the five largest districts in California. The union, needless to say, also demanded that teachers get a full day’s pay.

At the same time, UTLA released a 17-page “research paper”—or, more accurately, a manifesto—in which the union larded up their occasional coronavirus concerns with sweeping political demands, including Medicare for all, a wealth tax, a millionaire tax, defunding the police, guaranteed housing, financial support for illegals, a moratorium on charter schools, etc.

Sand calls out Myart-Cruz’s race baiting “white privilege” rhetoric, quoting unhappy LA parents, such as an Hispanic mom from South LA:

“It’s not just a race (issue). It’s about the children and the generation. They’re all getting dumber.”

How much dumber? That’s actually quantifiable:

On the 2019 NAEP, the “nation’s report card,” just 9 percent of blacks in LAUSD scored proficient in 8th grade math, compared to 12 percent of Hispanics and 51 percent of whites. In 8th grade reading, blacks again scored at a 9 percent proficient level, while 14 percent of Hispanics, and 47 percent of whites were proficient. But as long as the students know the words insurrection and coup, their illiteracy and innumeracy are not an issue for Myart-Cruz.

What’s behind those numbers? Well, it’s just possible that it reflects the appalling lack of involvement of the government teachers themselves. Sand writes:

When Myart-Cruz was elected president of UTLA in February 2020, less than one sixth of L.A.’s 33,000 teachers voted, and she wound up garnering 69 percent of the 5,300 teachers who cast a ballot. The runner-up in the election, Marisa Crabtree, who stood in stark contrast to Myart-Cruz—suggesting that the union focus more on solving classroom problems than politics—garnered just 11 percent of the vote. What jumps out here is teacher apathy. It seems that some 28,000 non-voting L.A. educators are just fine paying over $1,000 a year in dues to a Marxist-led organization.

Can you imagine the mentality of the 5/6 of LA teachers who couldn’t be bothered to vote for the union leadership? These are people who, one is supposed to believe, are dedicated to teaching children and young people--the future hope of the nation. With so much at stake--politics v. education in the schools--could they really not care enough to vote? Was the bottom line simply their pay check and as little work as possible? Work--not a vocation. The answer is yes.

But, then, what does this say about Californians generally--and, in fairness, this applies to most other Blue states. Stupid is as stupid does. How do you explain people who vote--or don’t bother voting--to maintain these types of school systems? Are they stupid or actually evil? Is there some other alternative that I can’t fathom?

I’m sure that if you polled people generally they would tell you that schools are for learning the basics, the 3 ‘Rs’, and they probably understand that that’s not happening for large numbers of kids. We know that across the country parents are up in arms. Yet, given an opportunity to do something about breaking up the system that is failing their children, these people … re-elect Dems who are in the pay of the education establishment and the government teachers unions. Does that sound like beating your head against a brick wall while expecting to cure your headache? But if the alternatives here are insanity, stupidity, and moral corruption--not caring about education and children’s futures--what does this tell you about where American society has arrived?

At bottom, I maintain that these problems stem from a failure of faith and the resulting lack of public leadership. Godless people elect godless reps, and we see the results. We see the results in all aspects of life, but what we’re seeing in education is especially appalling because of the palpable evil of doing this to kids. It’s not much more complicated than that, but the cure isn’t easy.