Back When...

“Back when the United States was a democracy” is not a phrase that most Americans have ever hoped to use, but unfortunately the past thirty years has seen the United States slide down a slippery slope from democratic governance to corporate oligarchy. The oligarchs, both named (such as billionaires David and Charles Koch) and unnamed, have managed to create an America in which, like the old saw, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The wealth gap between rich and poor is now worse in the United States than in most of the developed world. A university study* this year concluded that government policies reflect the desires of the wealthy. The authors believe “that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.”

Who knew during the Red Scare of the 1950s McCarthy era that the Republican Party would become a far greater danger to American democracy than communism? But now that Republican politicians are openly bought and paid for by corporate oligarchs, the United States is well on its way to being merely a democracy by tradition but not in fact. “Conservative” is a meaningless term in that so-called conservatives actually conserve nothing but are bent on the destruction of democracy by every means, from blatant propaganda paraded as news to a mix of legislative action and strategic inaction (witness the current do-nothing 113th Congress on track to pass the fewest substantive pieces of legislation of any congressional session in the past half-century).

Education is a key tool by which radical rightwing, anti-democratic policies are promoted and set in place. The first major effort in this regard was to undermine public education. That effort can be pinpointed to 1983 and the Reagan era “big lie”: A Nation at Risk. In spite of decades-long debunking of this commissioned government report, the message that America’s public schools are failing has persisted, giving rise to successive, largely ill-conceived waves of school “reform.” The report was the opening salvo of what has become endless war, largely promulgated by radically “conservative” Republicans on public schools. Short of an absolute takeover, it has been sufficient merely to sow chaos, to keep schools, teachers, parents, and students off balance and having to respond to rolling assaults, such as every-changing standards and a seemingly endless barrage of mandated tests. All the while, public money for schools is being siphoned off to line corporate pockets, whether in the testing industry or the charter school industry.

Average citizens have been hoodwinked—intentionally set upon by unscrupulous pundits, politicians, and policy makers, all of whom are robbing them blind, literally, as well as robbing average Americans of a prosperous, forward-looking future in a truly democratic nation. While there is still time, though full recovery will take generations, it is essential for parents and educators to reclaim their schools and for American voters to reclaim their democracy—by whatever means necessary. Currently there is a groundswell of opposition to the vast testing movement that has undermined teaching, damaged students and teachers, and stolen public school funds for private gain. This resistance movement needs to be nurtured and to spread. It is a wakeup call that everyone who cherishes this country must hear.

*Gilens, M., and B.I. Page. (2014, April 9). Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Pre-publication. Subsequently published in Perspectives on Politics 12(3): 564-581.

The Tea Party and Civic Education

Make no mistake: The Tea Party is not Republican. It is a separate, anti-democratic, anarchist faction. The characterization is mine, although at least the first part is broadly shared. According to a Pew Research study*, “47% of the public says they think of the Tea Party movement as separate and independent from the Republican Party, while somewhat fewer (38%) say it is a part of the Republican Party, and 14% do not offer an opinion.” Even among the rank and file, “more Republicans view the Tea Party as a separate movement from the GOP (51%) than as part of the Republican Party (32%).”

In terms of civic education, the Tea Party provides examples of how radicalism can derail democracy. Tea Party initiatives deform our otherwise nearly universal understanding of democratic governance for the common good. Some of this faction’s actions undermine the ideal of the common school as an entity, and most Tea Party initiatives contribute to students’ misunderstandings and confusion about how American democracy is supposed to work. But there are some useful lessons to be learned in all of this.

Every political party is composed of an informal coalition of relatively likeminded individuals and groups. However, the coalition of the Tea Party and the Republican Party more closely resembles the type of coalition found in parliamentary democracies. Governing parliamentary coalitions often are composed of parties that, under other circumstances, would not share the same room. If the Republican Party, as some of its members aver, is operating from a “big tent” philosophy, then the Tea Party is setting fire to its corner of the canvas.

As bad examples go, the recent cliffhanger over government funding was a doozy. Tea Party radicals essentially held the Republican Party, the federal government, and, by extension, the American people hostage to the point of forcing a government shutdown in an attempt to defund what amounted to a small portion of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare). In so doing, Tea Partiers cost U.S. citizens and businesses billions ($24 billion according to Time), rather ironic considering the Tea Party platform is all about decreasing taxes, saving people money, and saving people from “big government.”

The government shutdown, any defensive rhetoric to the contrary, was wholly driven by this radical faction. Consequently, support for the Tea Party has declined. However, because the Republican Party has embraced, at least putatively, its radical rightwing brothers and sisters, the GOP has been tarred with the same brush. This does not bode well for midterm elections, where Republicans are likely to face stiff opposition in all but the most ardently conservative districts.

A couple of civics lessons in this national debacle should not be lost. (It was a debacle, though it could have been a greater one—with even more dire international consequences—had not a last-minute deal been brokered.) First, obstruction is not governance. The exercise of democratic governance requires finding common ground in pursuit of the common good, not clinging obstinately to an ideology with citizens, nation, and world be damned. Second, holding the nation hostage in an attempt to force on everyone the faction’s narrow ideology ultimately is a counterproductive strategy. In our democracy, fortunately, wiser, or at least more moderate, heads eventually prevail; and radicalism harms not only the larger society, and often the people in support of radicalism, but also the radical cause itself.

In Federalist No. 10, James Madison addresses the dangers of factions. Now might be a good time for students both young and old to read or reread this brief.

While conventional wisdom is that the Republican coalition cannot succeed without pandering to the Tea Party faction, it might also be a good time for thinking conservatives to rethink that position. By cutting loose the Tea Party, mainstream Republicanism might be revived by drawing back into their “big tent” those moderates who have defected rather than be held hostage by radicalism. This would not be a bad thing. It might well provide a lesson in how to reposition a party using reason in place of ideology.

* “Tea Party’s Image Turns More Negative,” Pew Research, October 16, 2013.

Common Core A-Comin'

On the heels of the Republican National Convention comes an interesting perspective on the Common Core State Standards, courtesy of Education Week. In an article dated August 30 and titled, "Common Core State Standards Dividing GOP," author Alyson Klein opines that conservatives are divided broadly into two camps. One camp embraces the Common Core Standards, as evidenced by a majority of Republican governors whose states have signed on to the standards among the total of 46 states—including Indiana—and the District of Columbia.

However, another camp sees too much of a federal stamp on the Common Core State Standards, with some members deriding them as "Obamacore." The standards, developed jointly by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association, get a mixed review even among the inner circle. Writes Klein, "Tom Luna, the Idaho superintendent of public instruction, and the president of CCSSO, rejected the idea that the standards were cooked up by the feds, saying he was part of the state-level conversations at their inception." On the other hand, Klein quotes Luna as saying, "If it [the standards] ever becomes a mandate, Idaho would be the first state to get out."

The GOP platform generically embraces "high standards" in education but is silent on the Common Core. "Still," writes Klein, "some state lawmakers—including Sen. Mike Fair of South Carolina, an attendee here—are trying to get their states to dump the standards, or at least delay their implementation."


Readers who have not already done so might want to explore the official Common Core website at http://www.corestandards.org.