COMPULSORY LEFTIST INDOCTRINATION ON THE WAY AT UNIV. MICHIGAN

If parents and students are right to be alarmed by the results of recent national tests that show U.S. schoolchildren falling behind Latvia in math scores and doing even worse in science education, then they will really be puzzled by the latest initiative at the University of Michigan: requiring that all students take a mandatory course on gender and sex. The same people who brought you racial preferences in college admissions, "hate speech" codes and mandatory courses in race and ethnicity now want another official captive audience so they can hector their charges about "oppressive" heterosexual dominance, homophobia, male harassment, "antiquated" religious beliefs about sex, and the usual laundry list of liberal enthusiasms. Students who might refuse to take the course cannot graduate.

Behind this effort is a small group of students who call themselves the "Gender and Sexuality Requirement Committee," who gathered about 1,000 signatures over the past year. A proposal was then presented to the University's College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA), with the idea that the course would be taught primarily by the faculty of the women's studies department. The next hurdle involves making a formal pitch to the LSA curriculum committee later this semester, the first step to getting approval by the entire LSA faculty.

Proponents of this scheme tip their hand when they indicate that their preferred faculty to teach such a course would be that of women's studies, possibly the most politicized department at the university. A haven for "feminist scholarship," women's studies course descriptions make no bones about where their objectives and politics lay: "The course does not merely provide analyses of women's oppression, however, but suggests strategies for ending that oppression." Or "This course will also encourage students to consider ways in which [the] texts both reflect and participate in the construction of sexuality, sexual identity, gender, and desire." The proposal declares that such a course "will create new dialogues, challenge hegemonic discourse, break taboos and stigmas, and open up realms of communications among all students."

Given that 60 percent of Michiganders voted to ban gay marriage in the recent referendum, it would seem that courses that tub-thump for liberal sexual mores would go against popular opinion. Not to worry, says the student committee co-chair Catherine Malczynski, "We think [these things] are very important today and that people should be educated on, [sic] like they are educated on race and ethnicity." But after the gay marriage vote, striking a note of pessimism, she added, "it showed a lot of homophobia and that people might not be willing to do this."

If Tom Wolfe's scathing indictment of out-of-control sex on college campuses in his new book, "I Am Charlotte Simmons," is close to the truth, it would seem that the kind of course recommended by the student committee might make the problem worse, since conventional morality doesn't seem to be part of the approach. Rather, course advocates seem transparently only to want to shape student attitudes about gender and sex issues, to get them to think like they do. They assume, mistakenly, that because some might not, then they are wrong. Making such a dubious course mandatory is just a more convenient yet heavy-handed way to wield their ideological club.

I suspect that if such a course were offered simply on a voluntary basis, it would wither on the vine from lack of interest. One can only speculate whether the instructors would demand congruity with their views for successful completion of the course.

In a national educational environment where overall student achievement is comparatively low, and where most students (and their parents) must cough up considerable sums of money to get an education and prepare for their future careers, it seems highly questionable that they should be burdened with a course with little actual academic substance, and motivated by those only wishing to proselytize. It's high time that colleges and universities get out of the attitude-shaping and indoctrination business, and pretending that they are "promoting diversity," "widening their knowledge" and other pious, empty and specious claims.

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IT'S NOT ONLY CALIFORNIA THAT TURNS OUT ILLITERATE HIGH-SCHOOL GRADUATES

Milford, Connecticut at present allows people to graduate from High School who once would not have been allowed to progress beyond third grade

The Board of Education signed off Tuesday on a much-heralded plan to make reading the next graduation requirement for the city's high school students, designating the Class of 2009 the first to be subject to the new rules. The decision allows Associate Supt. of Learning Larry Schaefer to form a task force that will explore how the new standard could be implemented at Jonathan Law and Foran high schools. The group will be comprised of city educators. Schaefer's committee will report its recommendations to the Board of Education, which will vote to either accept or reject the criteria.

Board Chairwoman Joan Politi, R-1, said the majority of the board members felt the new requirement would improve learning while helping the district deliver on its "performance promises," a set of educational goals that serves as a mission statement for Milford Public Schools. "The board understands that reading is essential to lifelong learning and is in conformance with our performance promises," Politi said.

The only official of the 10-member board who declined to vote on the proposal was Ronald Funaro, D-2. Attempts Wednesday to contact Funaro were unsuccessful. Last month, Funaro was one of at least two board members who questioned why the district was focusing on high school reading when such learning problems existed in the middle schools, too. "We are talking about teaching reading in high school. When did we miss it in elementary school? When did we miss it in middle school?" Funaro asked at the Dec. 14 meeting.

More here





Fighting Against Intellectual Corruption

Bruce Thornton at VDH Private Papers has a great discussion of the just-released on-line guide by Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) on Free Speech on Campus (www.fireguides.org). FIRE has been working tirelessly to protect the free speech rights of students caught up in the repressive intellectual atmospheres of many university and colleges these days.

Universities are vocal in their assertions that they are protected spaces nurturing of "free inquiry," "academic freedom," "diversity," "dialogue," and "tolerance," and that they welcome all views, no matter how far from the mainstream. The prospective student is led to believe that, as the Guide puts it, "Regardless of your background," college is "the one place where you could go and hear almost anything-the one place where speech truly was free, where ideas were tried and tested under the keen and critical eye of peers and scholars, where reason and values, not coercion, decided debate."

But when the sometimes impressionable and naive freshman actually arrives on campus, he or she finds a different reality. The student quickly learns that "America's colleges and universities are all too often dedicated more to indoctrination and censorship than to freedom and individual self-government." The loudly lauded ideals of "diversity" and "tolerance" in fact often camouflage a rigid orthodoxy that only the most confident and assertive of young adults are likely to challenge.

In true Orwellian fashion, "In order to ensure 'diversity' and 'tolerance,' [the university] will censor and silence those who are different or independent."

This is sad, but true. Having spent a good portion of my intellectual life on campus, I have witnessed firsthand how "diversity" works in practice-- and it ain't a pretty picture.

As the Guide puts it, quoting John Milton,

"If any institution on earth should be 'the mansion house of liberty,' trusting in 'a free and open encounter' of truth and error, it should be higher education in a free society." It is a sad indictment of our intellectual corruption that higher education has taken the lead in attempting to make sure that "free and open encounters" occur only within strictly defined and ideologically biased parameters. But it is heartening to know that organizations like FIRE are actively fighting to make colleges and universities live up not just to their own ideals but also to the fundamental values of our republic.

Yes.

(Post lifted from Dr. Sanity)

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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