The Back-to-School Tips You REALLY Need: NRB’s Top 7 Manifestations of Education Bias
1. We Hate the USA
This is it: the grand-daddy of leftist indoctrination obsessions. anti-Americanism stems in large part, oddly enough, from the same thing that gives rise to patriotism in the rest of us: the fact that America isn’t simply one nation among many, a product of little more than geography, but that America is based on certain ideas and values cherished as timeless: universal moral truth, inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property over which the government has no just power, clearly limiting government’s power to safeguard freedom, and the individual’s responsibility for his own success and failure in most cases.
While conservatives pledge allegiance to the flag for exactly these reasons, leftists bristle at them due to their beliefs that no culture can truly be greater than any other and that America’s founding principles are little more than artifacts of the past that today impede the advent of their dream society.
In today’s classroom, anti-Americanism generally takes the form of emphasizing slavery, imperialism, and intolerance in America’s past (as if the rest of the world is somehow immune to these ills), highlighting economic inequality, war, and alleged intolerance in our presence (as if any other nation on Earth has achieved paradise), and looking down upon the idea that America has any uniquely good qualities, or has been a significant force for good in history.
More egregious examples include, but are not limited to, telling seventh-graders American flags are offensive, turning events honoring students who join the military into anti-war rallies, and banning American flag t-shirts on days when the flags of other nations are being celebrated. And if you happen to be a teacher who does appreciate his country and would like his students to do the same—say, by giving them links to such controversial, partisan websites as the Arlington National Cemetery—your job just might be at risk.
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The number of ways that public education betrays and lets down America’s children is simply staggering, demanding an aggressive, comprehensive campaign of reform at the national, state, and local levels. Unfortunately, today’s crop of politicians shows little will or interest in taking such a stand. The good news is, there are abundant resources available to help you prepare your kids for the worst, such as the numerous books David Horowitz has written on the subject, the Freedom Center’s comprehensive online guide to the Left, Discover the Networks, and powerful defenses of America’s true historical record, such as Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About America (excerpt available here). The key is parental vigilance. Tragic though it may be that we can’t even take for granted the quality of our children’s schools, we have no other choice.
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Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College. He also writes for the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online.
