Speaking Of Teaching ...... In A Survey Of 1000 High School Seniors , Only 8 Percent Could Correctly Identify Slavery As The Cause Of Southern Secession
Are our teenagers irredeemably ignorant? Or are teachers, perhaps particularly in 'Dixie' , failing to impart the hard truth to the young?
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The Teaching Tolerance project began in 1991, according to its website, "to reduce prejudice, improve intergroup relations and support equitable school experiences for our nation's children."
The report includes the "dismal" results of a new, multiple-choice survey of 1,000 high school seniors — results that suggest many young people know little about slavery's origins and the government's role in perpetuating it. Just a third of students correctly identified the law that officially ended slavery, the 13th Amendment, and fewer than half knew of the Middle Passage. Most alarming, though, were the results to this question:
Which was the reason the South seceded from the Union?
a. To preserve states' rights
b. To preserve slavery
c. To protest taxes on imported goods
d. To avoid rapid industrialization
e. Not sure
Nearly half blamed taxes on imported goods. Perhaps, the report's authors guessed, students were confusing the Civil War with the Revolutionary War.
How many students chose slavery as the reason the South seceded?
Eight percent.
"Slavery is hard history," writes Hasan Kwame Jeffries in the report's preface. He is an associate professor of history at The Ohio State University and chair of the Teaching Hard History Advisory Board. "It is hard to comprehend the inhumanity that defined it. It is hard to discuss the violence that sustained it. It is hard to teach the ideology of white supremacy that justified it. And it is hard to learn about those who abided it."
The problem, according to the report, is not that slavery is ignored in the classroom or that teachers, like their students, don't understand its importance. Many clearly do. The problem is deeper than that.
The Teaching Tolerance project surveyed nearly 1,800 K-12 social studies teachers. While nearly 90 percent agreed that "teaching and learning about slavery is essential to understanding American history," many reported feeling uncomfortable teaching slavery and said they get very little help from their textbooks or state standards. The report includes several powerful quotes from teachers explaining their discomfort, including this from a teacher in California:
"Although I teach it through the lens of injustice, just the fact that it was a widely accepted practice in our nation seems to give the concept of inferiority more weight in some students' eyes, like if it happened, then it must be true. Sometimes it gives students the idea to call black students slaves or tell them to go work in the field because of the lack of representation in textbooks. So when students see themselves or their black classmates only represented as slaves in textbooks, that affects their sense of self and how other students view them."
And this from a teacher in Maine:
"I find it painful, and embarrassing (as a white male) to teach about the history of exploitation, abuse, discrimination and outrageous crimes committed against African Americans and other minorities, over many centuries—especially at the hands of white males. I also find it very difficult to convey the concept of white privilege to my white students. While some are able to begin to understand this important concept, many struggle with or actively resist it."
Jackie Katz, a history teacher at Wellesley High School in Wellesley, Mass., says student discomfort is a big challenge when talking honestly about slavery.
"When you bring up racism, kids start getting really defensive, thinking that they're to blame," says Katz. "To feel comfortable, you need to have a really good classroom climate, where students feel that they're not being blamed for what happened in the American past, where they don't feel shame about it. It is 100 percent not their fault that there is racism in this country. It will be their fault if they don't do anything about it in the next 20 years."
This defensiveness from students does not surprise Ibram X. Kendi, a professor of history at American University and author of the National Book Award-winning Stamped From The Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas In America .
"Saying that the deadliest conflict in American history was fought over an effort to keep people enslaved conflicts with students' sense of the grandness of America, the grandness of American history and, therefore, the grandness of themselves as Americans," says Kendi.
Beyond this discomfort, the report lays out several key "problems" with the way slavery is often presented to students. Among them:
- Textbooks and teachers tend to accentuate the positive , focusing on heroes like Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass without also giving students the full, painful context of slavery.
- Slavery is often described as a Southern problem . It was much, much more. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, it was a problem across the colonies. Even in the run-up to the Civil War, the North profited mightily from slave labor.
- Slavery depended on the ideology of white supremacy , and teachers shouldn't try to tackle the former without discussing the latter.
- Too often, the report says, "the varied, lived experience of enslaved people is neglected." Instead, lessons focus on politics and economics, which means focusing on the actions and experiences of white people.
States and textbook-makers deserve considerable blame for these problems, according to the report. The project reviewed history standards in 15 states and found them generally "timid," often looking for slavery's silver lining; hence a common preference for coverage of the abolitionist movement over talk of white supremacy or the everyday experiences of enslaved people.
"State standards we looked at are simply confused," says Maureen Costello, the director of Teaching Tolerance. "We celebrate the heroes who escaped slavery long before we explain to children what slavery was."
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I'd like to be able to eavesdrop on a US history course in some high schools when the subject of the Civil War era comes up. I'm sure some of the spin, particularly in the red states, is fascinating.
Considering that most teachers, including those in the "red states", tend to be liberal and Democrat, you would expect them to give the incorrect spin to history. The liberals and leftists and the Democrats had no trouble with trying to hold down the freedom and civil rights of blacks before and after the Cvil War...up into the early 1960's, and you know what happened then. Lincoln was not about to let the United States devolve into two separate factions, so the major cause of the war was preserving the Union...ending slavery was not a major concern at the start, but came up later during the conflict.
To my recollection, every state in the confederacy specifically cited the risk that slavery would be abolished as the reason for rebellion. The states’ right at issue was the “right” to enslave people and that right was based on white supremacy. On that basis, the south seceded and the north went to war to prevent it because secession would destroy the union. So slavery was the cause. It is what it is. Why students aren’t taught history in history class is a legitimate concern.
Slavery was the cause of the war. Lincoln was an abolitionist and SC succeeded because of that fact that he was elected. His statements during the Lincoln Douglass debates are proof. There was no point in freeing the slaves until it became obvious that the Union army would win the war.
At the time the democratic party was held together by economic ideas but there were deep splits over civil rights issues. The northern democrats were pro-civil rights, and it was the southern conservative Democrats (Dixiecrats) that opposed civil rights. Those Dixiecrats became independent after the 1964 Civil Rights Act and then they joined the GOP during the Southern Strategy.
"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." - Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens March 21, 1861
I think that pretty well sums up the cause of the civil war in their own words, not sure why they don't have all kids read this speech as part of American history.
Well too bad Lincolns later statements , that if keeping slavery preserved the union , he would do it , if getting rid of slavery preserved the union he would do that too. he also proposed if the slaves were freed, that they be sent back to Africa to a new country called Liberia, one for former slaves.
Also keep in mind that the emancipation proclamation happened midway through the war in 1863 not at the beginning , and only freed those slaves in states that had rose up in rebellion, the rest of the country that still was loyal to the union that had slaves kept theirs , and that the 13th amendment wasn't adopted until sept 1865, five months AFTER the wars end and Lincolns death. matter of fact the LAST state to ratify the 13th , was New Jersey , and that happened in the 1990s or early aughts. NJ wasn't a confederate state.
Lincoln if nothing else , was a politician . slightly lower than lawyers ....oh wait he was one of those too....he took a step down .
Lincoln believed in ending slavery but he didn't support equal rights for blacks.
I imagine there are many differences from state to state-- even from school district to school district.
Growing up my parents were not well off financialy (to say the least!) but when they moved to a new house when I was very young, one of the prime consideratios was that they wanted it to be in a good school district. I distinctly remember that what was taught about the Civil War (as you Yankees call it) was that it was about slavery. AltjhoughI would imagine that varies from district to district.
But I think one of the problems is that most people are, in fact, pretty ignorant.
You'd have a hell of a time trying that John. Most States have abandoned the requirement for taking high school level history or government. The same has happened at the college level. The only department at the college level that has been hit harder is the foreign language department. I know that you were trying to make a political point with this particular survey, but the correct answer should have been "E", and it should have read, "All of the Above". Slavery was a primary reason that the South seceded but it was not the only reason.
It wasn't slavery itself that was the cause of southern secession, it was fear of other states, particularly the northern states, forcing their views on the southern states that caused the secession. What started the Civil War was South Carolina's desire to control Fort Sumter and lack of patience towards getting that control. At the time of the Civil War, the southern states did not have the population that the northern states had. At that time, slaves were counted only as 3/5ths of a person for the purposes of Representation in the House and towards Electoral vote amounts per state.
At the time of the secession of South Carolina (the first state to secede), there were 22 Senators that were guaranteed to vote in favor of maintaining slavery as these were the Senators from the 11 states that would eventually secede and form the Confederate States of America. Another 44 Senators would be from states that stayed with the Union, so the vast majority of these 44 would actual vote to eliminate slavery should any such legislation make it to the floor of the Senate. Now, some of those 44 might have voted in favor of maintaining slavery; but it was guaranteed that eventually there would be a ban on slavery at some point in the eyes of the southern states. They did not have the population nor the numbers in the Senate to maintain slavery indefinitely. These fears caused them to secede, but peace was still possible. But, that peace was thrown out when South Carolina fired upon Fort Sumter; but Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee were part of the Union at that time and still decided to secede.
"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." - Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens March 21, 1861
The Vice President of the Confederacy would disagree with you Tom.
Did you read the declaration of secession from South Carolina, you know the first state to secede? You are conflating that with the founding of the Confederate States of America, the two are separate as the Confederate States of America were formed after South Carolina seceded and the reason for secession was not because of slavery; but fear of the northern states forcing their values on the southern states.
"The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation." - South Carolina's Declaration of Secession.
South Carolina seceded because the Northern States were refusing to return escaped slaves and had passed laws that allowed them to deny requests for slaves to be returned. It was a States right issue, the Northern States right to deny Southern slaveholding States the return of what they considered "their property". They claimed the Northern States had violated the constitution by passing such anti-slavery laws. So you can keep trying to deflect reality if you want, but it's always been about slavery.
Don't be obtuse. The values being forced on the southern states by the northern states was denying them the right to own people as slaves.
We all understand what "states rights conservatism" means. The southern states still refuse to see the other races as equals. Women are not equal to men in their eyes and Hispanics are not equal to whites. Non-Christians are not to be treated as equals and neither are LGBT. White conservatives would be very happy to return to 1850, as long as they can keep modern roads, Fox News, fast food and internet porn.
Stop projecting. I'm stating historical reality. You are trying to conflate that with actual support for slavery, which is not my argument. My argument is based on actual arguments for secession by the states that seceded. I grew up in Pennsylvania. I approach history as unbiasedly as possible and definitely will turn Devil's Advocate when I see historical inaccuracies. Most people never really dig into the roots of the secession movement or the causes of the Civil War, they only see a single issue: slavery and base their arguments and knowledge only on that. Any sort of secession has more than one root cause as shown by the various statements in the Declaration of Independence. One of those causes is almost always a perceived abuse of power by the primary government, another is a change in culture or a desire to change the culture, and another is an attempt to stop meddling by some other government of equal status within the country, and a whole mess of other reasons. To ignore them and whittle the issue to a single cause or reason is foolishness in the extreme.
Why are you trying to ignore this? The US Civil War was about ending slavery.
Did you also miss this from South Carolina's declaration to leave the union?
No, the Civil War might not have occurred, if South Carolina had not wanted control over Fort Sumter. They opened fire, they refused to try to get a peaceful solution. Before that we had only a situation where states left the Union over their disagreements with the Federal government and the northern states. Slavery was an undertone until after the Emancipation Proclamation and even then that only applied to territory that the US took by force from the CSA and to the states of the CSA. Slavery was legal in the north until AFTER the 13th Amendment was ratified in December 1865, which was 8 months AFTER the Civil War was ended.
You really should try and keep such abominable and frightening ignorance to yourself.
Although I think children should be taught accurate history, I can understand how the teachers need to be careful in how it’s presented. Nobody would be particularly proud to be descended from a slave and bringing it up could be humiliating to black children.
Of course it’s brave for a white man to ride into battle, willing to be killed to defend his cause (even if the cause is white supremacy), and we have plenty of statues to commemorate it. However, it’s at least as brave for an uneducated defenseless black woman to rise up from the dust and demand that she be treated as a human being. Heroes come in all forms and all should get respect.
It doesn't get left out so as to not hurt those descended from slaves, it's often left out to protect those descended from the slave owners.
To preserve states rights which included the right to own slaves.
Slavery was the central issue, it really was the entire reason the war took place in the first place. You can say states rights all you want, but what you are really saying is a state's right to be a slave state. No matter how you spin it the south was fighting for slavery.
I think that would carry more weight if there weren't states that were active members of the Union where slavery was legal, until after the war was over.
I am just going off the words of the Confederates themselves, you know, where they flat out say slavery is the reason, they really don't make it much of a mystery.
I think everyone can agree that Slavery was a core issue for the war , but it was not the only core issue .
if the northern states had honored extradition from abolishionist states of what was then considered , legally property , things might have been different , if the slave states had not pushed for every abolishionist state added a slave state was to also be added , things might have been different . If the industrialized north had not imposed import tariffs on imports after the agragarian south started selling their cotton and other commodidties due to price fixing by northern industries, things MIGHT have been different .
yes , every seccession document of the seceding states , contains a mention of the issue of slavery as a reason , but most historians agree from available records , slave owners in the seeded southern states only made up 3% of the entire southern population, and of that 3%, <1% owned more than 100 slaves or more , 2 of the largest slave holders with 500 or more a piece , were in Charleston , and New Orleans working the docks , and both of them , were free black men.
slavery was but one cord of the core wound around a central core as I have pointed out , showing that all the multiple choice answers were correct, but they missed the actual core that they are all wound and woven around, and at the core , is mans greed.
And that is most likely closer to the truth .
The percentage of who owned slaves and where and why is simply immaterial to the question of what caused the war.
Also, the preponderance of reputable Civil war historians pretty overwhelmingly agree that the disposition of slavery was the proximate cause of the Civil War. Secession proceeded exactly upon the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency, for the reason that Lincoln was a known opponent of slavery , particularly as regards it being allowed in any new states in the west, but there was also the fact that Lincoln was in the Republican Party, which was known at that time to be hostile to slave owning interests.
And as many people now understand when "states rights" is brought up by southern apologists as an alternate explanation for secession, what was meant by "states rights" was the right to own human beings as property.
And of course they can not be wrong , right? or just teaching to a test and winnowed down multiple reasons down to a single one?
we have been down this road a few years back when we first met john , and agreed to disagree, I will leave it there , but I will continue to point out those "OTHER" factors skipped over when teaching to tests, that would explain why , 97 % of a population base in the southern states , that DIDNT own a single slave would fight to leave the union.
as I pointed out above in my first post , the main cause at the heart of it all was mans own greed , on both the northern and southern positions. and that is basically what I told my kids when they studied it in school and grandkids in the future , answer what they teach for the test, but be smart enough to do your own research and you will find what is true. so you will be arguing this same argument until the day you die.
How many more years will pass before conservatives understand that the dog whistle of racism known as "states rights conservatism" ended at Appomattox courthouse?
We have our Constitution because the origional document The Articles of Confederation put too much power in the hands of the states and that made the country ungovernable because the federal government lacked the power to solve problemns.
It will most likely continue as long as any state feels that the federal government has overstepped its bounds , its still happening today , take the disagreement between the feds and cali , on immigration.....so the fight about states rights , the 10th amendment is still very much alive and well and will be for a good long time , I view that fight as another of those checks and balances people seldom know about or how to use now a days.
The 10th is too vague to be meaningful. It also doesn't take into account the US Civil War. The individual states have the right to enact legislation but only until the federal government acts, such as via Congress or the Supreme Court.
I will disagree with that it is too vague , might be to those that do not understand common English.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
means unless the constitution directly gives the federal government a certain power , it does not have that power.
nor prohibited by it to the States,
that would mean if the constitution does not say that a power is not given to the respective states and they are not prohibited from exersizing a said power the states can do so.
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
That goes along with that second part, if it is not prohibited to the states , the power to create the laws is reserved to the state or the people .
another way to look at it is because of the 10th , and its restrictions on the federal government , they needed to create other amendments that prohibited certain actions on the parts of the states that curtailed the states ability to run willy nilly with such things as slavery , jim crow laws , literacy tests for voting , and the such , because the states do have even with many amendments , the rights on how their laws are dictated and how voting actually happens within their borders, the reconstruction era amendments , curtailed the states , by being ratified and becoming part of the constitution itself.
I also think you mean , until the congress , or executive branch create an act or law , executive order in the case of the president , all the USSC is suppose to do is use the constitution , and the restrictions and powers it contains and determine if any act law or order in question , does not violate what the constitution contains.
The 10th Amendment if understood with a literalist interpretation would prevent the government from functioning because anything that the federal government does would be claimed to be a violation of the 10th Amendment. We would not have the internet, federal highways, NASA, standardized time, radio or TV frequencies, Medicare, Social Security or even the railroads. None of those were mentioned in the first 9 amendments or the Constitution itself.
We couldn't pay the bills because the 16th Amendment could be claimed to be a violation of the 10th. The Constitution doesn't lay out a plan to collect taxes.
BTW,m Why do conservatives like their own posts. It is assumed that you agreed with what you wrote, so why do you also have to like it?
I didn't and don't like or vote up my own posts , I see one like and that came from sean tracy .
and you are forgetting 2 other clauses that come before the 10th , the commerce clause , which gives the federal government control to regulate commerce that crosses state lines, which is where most if not all federal gun laws come from even though the 2nd forbids such on the federal level and would answer why the feds can regulate to make things happen such as highways , the internet , and so much more. the second clause you forgot , is the supremacy clause , when the federal and the state entity both have jurisdiction ( powers granted by the constitution) and the orders , laws or acts conflict, then the supremacy clause states that the federal entity has right of way so to speak , their edict stands before the states does that is why states cannot outlaw abortion , because the feds say it is legal and constitutional , but that does not mean that the states cannot regulate or restrict, as long as one is still available somewhere within their jurisdiction.
From discussions with my daughter (she was a teacher but gave it up out of frustration) and now raising my grandkids, schools only teach to the "test". Whatever the all knowing bureaucrats have demanded. You want kids to learn, keep them home and get a copy of Mcguffey's Reader. Teach them how to work through problems of all kinds. Teach them how to research answers.
Is it the kids fault, not really, they only regurgitate what they have been taught.
"Saying that the deadliest conflict in American history was fought over an effort to keep people enslaved conflicts with students' sense of the grandness of America, the grandness of American history and, therefore, the grandness of themselves as Americans," says Kendi.
It may be that America isn't as 'grand' as we are always told.
Steve,
There are 600,000 men who died prematurely who might dispute that. If some white men held slaves, a lot more white men died to free them. That's what makes America great.
And hundreds of thousands died defending slavery..It works both ways TTGA.
Just as many died on the other side. What does that say?
This nation of America was not 'found' by the Anglo-Saxons only. It was also found by the Roman Catholic Spanish, the French (who knows what they were, they didn't give a damn about religion really) and the Dutch to a smaller extent. All of them found it worthy to destroy the lives of those who opposed their desire for hegemony.
No, I don't think America has such a grand history as was taught to me.
The New York Times Review of Books, supposedly one of the bastions of intellectual American life, recently botched the basis for the term "Trojan horse" recently. Basic cultural literacy has been destroyed. So it's no surprise Americans don't understand basic American history, it's simply no longer emphasized in schools. The left has controlled education in this country since the 1970s, this is the fruit.
It is liberals that support education. You don't see liberal states using 20 books for a class of 35 students. Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Kansas, and West-By-God-Virginia are conservative states.
Liberals support state-paid college and vocation training beyond 12th grade. Conservatives oppose that idea and support charter schools that weaken public education by privatizing it.
First I wasn't discussing education spending, rather control of how students are educated and what they are taught. As I said, liberals dominate the education system and have for 40 years, at least. That said, education spending has risen astronomically since the 1970s and the results have been terrible. It's not a question of money.
The proof is in the pudding, as this survey and countless other studies demonstrate. American students graduate without a basic understanding of American history, let alone western civilization. But their self esteem is good!
If liberals so control public education ten why is it the conservative state of Texas often determines what textbooks other states can buy because they buy in such quantities that their own opinions determine what books get published and are available to others? Why are privatized charter school so popular if liberals control public education when they underperform public schools, with a few exceptions? John Kasich (R) opened the door for charter schools in Ohio but now it is public knowledge that they are billion dollar fraud and many students cannot function because of the almost non-existent education that they received. How do you tell a kid that they must repeat that last 2 years of school before they can rejoin a public high school
Ohio had a long-standing and serious problem of how to fund public schools in rich and poor areas on an equal basis. What Kasich has done to our public schools with his charter school idiocy has made that serious problem minor in comparison.
If liberals controlled education we wouldn't have 90 days off in the summer and Howard Zinn's book would be used as a US history textbook. Conservatives scream whenever that book is even considering being used as a college textbook. My college prof could only mention that book in passing because there were people who would protest if it was listed on the syllabus.
Inflation has risen in the past 40 years if you haven't noticed and taxes have been cut for the benefit of the rich.
TEAbags would be in the streets with pitchforks tied to their Hoverounds if this was the mandatory US history textbook.
Speaking Of Teaching ...... In A Survey Of 1000 High School Seniors , Only 8 Percent Could Correctly Identify Slavery As The Cause Of Southern Secession
The South seceeded?
Interesting-- I've never knew that!
/sarcasm... (???)