Governor Kate Brown has signed into law a bill that eliminates the requirement that students in the state’s public high schools be able to demonstrate basic ability in reading and math to graduate. This, it is said, will make things more “fair” for minority students.
Rick Hess of AEI has some sharp words for this policy here.
He writes, “To be blunt, too many grownups on the American left have thrown in the towel. Many of the same Democratic leaders who, just a few years ago, were cheering Common Core and Obama’s Race to the Top, now nod along as the woke fringe and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” officialdom insist that schools frequently serve as little more than engines of systemic racism. This line of argument turns out to be surprisingly convenient for Democratic officials, as it permits them to placate the woke base, back away from the kinds of demands that offend their teacher union allies, and suggest that the disappointments of grandiose school reform were a product not of their missteps or excessive faith in bureaucracies but of the public’s own moral failings.”
It’s obvious that the far-left now sees education as little more than an empty credentialing process that provides jobs for many of its supporters while instilling a host of “progressive” notions in the minds of students (if they’re paying any attention).
Parents who care will, I’m sure, start to exit Oregon’s public schools. The next move by the statists will probably be to make that illegal. It was just about a century ago that Oregon tried to compel all students to attend public schools, but the Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional in Pierce v. Society of Sisters. I wouldn’t be surprised if the education blob doesn’t try again.