Ken Abramowitz
The failure of our educational system today is evident on the streets of our cities, where teenagers and young adults, the product of our schools, are rioting under the banners of “political correctness,” “racial justice” and “social justice.”
As we look at education in the United States today, there are many “flashing red lights” that make it clear how badly it has failed our children. It promotes “politically correct” narratives that have corrupted the culture that has made America an example to the world.
There is an enormous ideological gap between the political messaging of the left and that of the right. How did this gap get to be so great?
Over the years, “political correctness” has been allowed to influence the minds of American students, so that for many of them, it is the only prism through which they see life. University professors have been exposing their students to alien, anti-American ideologies and promoting them rather than analyzing them critically.
There are four major causes of this national education fiasco:
1) After nearly 60 years of lawsuits by atheist and socialist plaintiffs, sympathetic judges have consistently ruled to remove our Judeo-Christian culture and God from public schools.
2) Once God was removed from public education, we allowed the schools to be intellectually and spiritually undermined by communist, socialist and Islamist narratives, which disparage our country and teach our children to disrespect it.
3) We have allowed our universities to impose a culture of diversity, based on color and gender, even as they have effectively banned diversity of thought. We have stopped teaching our children the important lessons of history and government, the proper construction of English, and, most important, the discipline of critical thinking. And we are now using the K-12 classrooms to teach them social/racial justice, gender identity, LGBT history, and, in some states, comprehensive and explicit sexual education.
4) A 2016 study found that out of 7,243 professors at 40 leading universities, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 3,623 to 314, or by a ratio of approximately 12-1. A 2017 study in “The American Sociologist” canvassed 479 sociology professors and discovered that while 21 percent considered themselves “radical” only two percent considered themselves “conservative.”And according to a 2018 report from the National Association of Scholars, 39 percent of top-tier liberal arts colleges had zero registered Republican professors. The imbalance is striking and it is affecting our children.
How do we fix this educational mess that has created two distinct narratives, one that supports the values of the Constitution and one that questions its fundamental validity?
It is time to create a student’s “Bill of Rights” to protect students (and the future of Western civilization) before it is too late:
1) All elementary-school students must have the right to attend the school of their choice.
2) All elementary school students must have the right to learn from books published by U.S.-based publishers, without foreign ownership that could inject a view of America inconsistent with our constitutional values.
3) Every student has the right to a teacher who supports the principles of the U.S. Constitution.
4) Every student has the right to a curriculum consistent with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, as well as the basic principles of education. This includes an unbiased and critical approach to history, civics, language (including English), literature, American culture and the foundations of critical thinking.
5) All students have the right to be graded on the merits of their work, free of any political pressure from teachers.
6) Colleges and universities cannot accept financing from any foreign country, just as foreign political contributions are forbidden.
7) No school can infringe on the freedom of speech of any student. At the same time, there should be zero tolerance for racist, anti-Semitic, or anti-Christian incitement.
8) No student groups should be allowed official recognition on campus if they do not support the values of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
9) At least 33 percent of placements for professors and administrators must support the values of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Colleges/universities will have four years to comply. Afterwards, they will be deemed political entities and will lose their tax exemption and government subsidies.
10) All university students have the right to know what percentage of students in their designated major manage to get job offers after graduation and at what average salary level.
The U.S. education system is corrupt and is not giving our children the education that they deserve and that the nation needs. It is time for a bold reconstructing.
Ken Abramowitz is the president and founder of SaveTheWest.
