As a parent who made the sacrifice and pulled my kids from public school, we arrived at a private catholic school to find the situation worse. Why? Because private schools are accepting fed funding and state accreditation, so they have to comply with the SEL requirements, etc. parents - be vigilant! Know what you are up against. Then will sell you school choice and you will do a victory lap while the door to the hen house is wide open. I know how desperate you are for even the smallest win, but school choice is a wolf identifying as a sheep.
These battles have to be fought. Maybe it's hopeless, any government involvement in education will corrupt it totally. If so, our problems are much bigger than education. But then why are we even having a public policy discussion? In theory at least, government should be accountable to the people, and so government-regulated education should be accountable to what parents and communities want it to look like.
It’s heartening to see some people from a political persuasion that traditional has supported so-called school choice starting to wake up to what a Trojan Horse it really is, but latching onto far-fetched conspiracy theories to try to understand it isn’t helpful, that’s what got us in this mess to begin with. Lisa Logan is attempting to divert attention from the genuine home-grown motives of the American school choice movement towards a fantastical narrative of a nefarious UN by cherrypicking sentence fragments not just out of context of the sources, but out of context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I work in the sustainability field, know the SDGs intimately and she’s dead wrong.
Lisa Logan refers to a background paper titled “Regulating Public-Private Partnership, governing non-state schools: an equity perspective” which she presents as proof of the UN using SDG 4 “to get children all over the world to think in a very specific, “hive-mind” way.” She is being incredibly dishonest when she asserts that the authors are ‘lay(ing) out how public money funding private schools through school choice can be utilized ‘as the main policy option to tackle education inequalities resulting from private actors’ involvement in the provision of education.’” The full quote she cherrypicks from says “public regulation has recently emerged as the main policy option to tackle education inequalities, resulting from private actors’ involvement in the provision of education.” Logan is completely misrepresenting what the authors are talking about. The authors aren’t saying anything about public funding going to create or fund private schools, the authors are saying that regulation is currently being used to address problems created when private actors get involved in public education. Contrary to what Logan claims, the authors aren’t advocating a policy option, they are simply acknowledging the status quo.
The paper actually says the opposite of what Logan is trying to claim, instead of pushing for school choice, the paper warns of potential problems with involving private schools in the broad provision of education in a country, to whit: “Although the report considers that the involvement of private actors in the provision of education has some virtues [….], it also highlights the possible opportunistic behaviors of private providers in terms of student selection or information biases, as well as the underlying equity concerns.” And this is where it is critical to have some background understanding of what the SDGs are and why they were created. The SDGs were created for developing countries, the so-called “Third World.” The UN was recognizing the fundamental unfairness of industrialized countries, like the US, looking at the environmental problems we had created on our way to a high national standard of living, and saying “this place is a mess, everyone has to stop polluting” while the rest of the world is still way below our standard of living. The Sustainable Development Goals were created as a way for developing countries to develop a high standard of living for all their citizens in a sustainable way. If you look at all the other background papers in the collection that the paper Logan misquotes came from, they are all talking about poor countries in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, like the Cote d’Ivoire. Many countries like these lack broadly available public school infrastructure, and public-private partnerships are created to fill that need. However, for cultural reasons, private actors in these countries may only offer education to boys, or only to members of certain ethnic groups. The paper Logan misquotes is talking about how to fix these kinds of problems in these countries. SDG 4 really has nothing to do with industrialized countries like the US with well-established universally available public education.
So UNESCO is not the source of the School Choice movement in the United States, but Logan inadvertently reveals clues to the real source. Logan sets her sights on Social-Emotional Learning, claiming it is “Marxist” and equating it with “CRT” – two very well-debunked allegations. It was actually the American School Choice movement that manufactured the hysteria over “CRT”, SEL, and gender. “School choice” and voucher programs have always been a Trojan horse extremists have been constructing with the intent to siphon funding from public education to force it to collapse. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo, the architect of the strategy of elevating critical race theory from an obscure graduate-level academic theory into a major conservative talking point, said in 2022 “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust.” The strategy has always been to sow distrust of public schools by manufacturing outrage over lies about schools “failing” and “indoctrinating” students. Once enough people bought this Big Lie to be amenable to voucher programs, the decreased funding would make the “failing” part a self-fulfilling prophesy. Once public schools were truly failing anyone who could afford to put their children in private schools or homeschooling would have no choice but to do so, and public education would diminish in significance in American society.
In Alabama, there's a push to get a 'school choice' bill passed in this state. A group of us have begun aggressively opposing the measure. This article is excellent, and much appreciated. Having been 'in the battle' for freedom for many years, I've come to assume that whenever some new draconian measure comes to the forefront, to go search UN documents so see what they've written on the subject. Without fail the pattern has been the same that these things are planned and coordinated well in advance and yet people at the local level never even understand they're pushing the globalist agenda.
Lisa, what do you recommend? I agree that you’re being realistic, but I’m interested in solutions that avoid this trap. I don’t want my kid in any educational construct that favors government control. Is there model legislation that explicitly keeps the government out? Is someone working on solutions?
This is defeatist. I live in Arizona. I homeschool two kids. I'll take the money now, thank you very much, and tell government to go pound sand if they attach stipulation one to it. Just like I already have with for two years with Venture Upward funds. And about 75 percent of homeschool families I know will do exactly the same.
It's very weird that Logan keeps pushing this notion that it's either keep funding gender grooming globalist teachers or absolutely have the government ductating edication in your home. That's baloney. I'm glad for the warning about backdoor plans. But I'm doubtful of the "guaranteee" that taking money now means it's all over. I'll take the money and keep fighting. Thanks.
As a parent who made the sacrifice and pulled my kids from public school, we arrived at a private catholic school to find the situation worse. Why? Because private schools are accepting fed funding and state accreditation, so they have to comply with the SEL requirements, etc. parents - be vigilant! Know what you are up against. Then will sell you school choice and you will do a victory lap while the door to the hen house is wide open. I know how desperate you are for even the smallest win, but school choice is a wolf identifying as a sheep.
These battles have to be fought. Maybe it's hopeless, any government involvement in education will corrupt it totally. If so, our problems are much bigger than education. But then why are we even having a public policy discussion? In theory at least, government should be accountable to the people, and so government-regulated education should be accountable to what parents and communities want it to look like.
It’s heartening to see some people from a political persuasion that traditional has supported so-called school choice starting to wake up to what a Trojan Horse it really is, but latching onto far-fetched conspiracy theories to try to understand it isn’t helpful, that’s what got us in this mess to begin with. Lisa Logan is attempting to divert attention from the genuine home-grown motives of the American school choice movement towards a fantastical narrative of a nefarious UN by cherrypicking sentence fragments not just out of context of the sources, but out of context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I work in the sustainability field, know the SDGs intimately and she’s dead wrong.
Lisa Logan refers to a background paper titled “Regulating Public-Private Partnership, governing non-state schools: an equity perspective” which she presents as proof of the UN using SDG 4 “to get children all over the world to think in a very specific, “hive-mind” way.” She is being incredibly dishonest when she asserts that the authors are ‘lay(ing) out how public money funding private schools through school choice can be utilized ‘as the main policy option to tackle education inequalities resulting from private actors’ involvement in the provision of education.’” The full quote she cherrypicks from says “public regulation has recently emerged as the main policy option to tackle education inequalities, resulting from private actors’ involvement in the provision of education.” Logan is completely misrepresenting what the authors are talking about. The authors aren’t saying anything about public funding going to create or fund private schools, the authors are saying that regulation is currently being used to address problems created when private actors get involved in public education. Contrary to what Logan claims, the authors aren’t advocating a policy option, they are simply acknowledging the status quo.
The paper actually says the opposite of what Logan is trying to claim, instead of pushing for school choice, the paper warns of potential problems with involving private schools in the broad provision of education in a country, to whit: “Although the report considers that the involvement of private actors in the provision of education has some virtues [….], it also highlights the possible opportunistic behaviors of private providers in terms of student selection or information biases, as well as the underlying equity concerns.” And this is where it is critical to have some background understanding of what the SDGs are and why they were created. The SDGs were created for developing countries, the so-called “Third World.” The UN was recognizing the fundamental unfairness of industrialized countries, like the US, looking at the environmental problems we had created on our way to a high national standard of living, and saying “this place is a mess, everyone has to stop polluting” while the rest of the world is still way below our standard of living. The Sustainable Development Goals were created as a way for developing countries to develop a high standard of living for all their citizens in a sustainable way. If you look at all the other background papers in the collection that the paper Logan misquotes came from, they are all talking about poor countries in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, like the Cote d’Ivoire. Many countries like these lack broadly available public school infrastructure, and public-private partnerships are created to fill that need. However, for cultural reasons, private actors in these countries may only offer education to boys, or only to members of certain ethnic groups. The paper Logan misquotes is talking about how to fix these kinds of problems in these countries. SDG 4 really has nothing to do with industrialized countries like the US with well-established universally available public education.
So UNESCO is not the source of the School Choice movement in the United States, but Logan inadvertently reveals clues to the real source. Logan sets her sights on Social-Emotional Learning, claiming it is “Marxist” and equating it with “CRT” – two very well-debunked allegations. It was actually the American School Choice movement that manufactured the hysteria over “CRT”, SEL, and gender. “School choice” and voucher programs have always been a Trojan horse extremists have been constructing with the intent to siphon funding from public education to force it to collapse. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo, the architect of the strategy of elevating critical race theory from an obscure graduate-level academic theory into a major conservative talking point, said in 2022 “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust.” The strategy has always been to sow distrust of public schools by manufacturing outrage over lies about schools “failing” and “indoctrinating” students. Once enough people bought this Big Lie to be amenable to voucher programs, the decreased funding would make the “failing” part a self-fulfilling prophesy. Once public schools were truly failing anyone who could afford to put their children in private schools or homeschooling would have no choice but to do so, and public education would diminish in significance in American society.
In Alabama, there's a push to get a 'school choice' bill passed in this state. A group of us have begun aggressively opposing the measure. This article is excellent, and much appreciated. Having been 'in the battle' for freedom for many years, I've come to assume that whenever some new draconian measure comes to the forefront, to go search UN documents so see what they've written on the subject. Without fail the pattern has been the same that these things are planned and coordinated well in advance and yet people at the local level never even understand they're pushing the globalist agenda.
Lisa, what do you recommend? I agree that you’re being realistic, but I’m interested in solutions that avoid this trap. I don’t want my kid in any educational construct that favors government control. Is there model legislation that explicitly keeps the government out? Is someone working on solutions?
This is defeatist. I live in Arizona. I homeschool two kids. I'll take the money now, thank you very much, and tell government to go pound sand if they attach stipulation one to it. Just like I already have with for two years with Venture Upward funds. And about 75 percent of homeschool families I know will do exactly the same.
It's very weird that Logan keeps pushing this notion that it's either keep funding gender grooming globalist teachers or absolutely have the government ductating edication in your home. That's baloney. I'm glad for the warning about backdoor plans. But I'm doubtful of the "guaranteee" that taking money now means it's all over. I'll take the money and keep fighting. Thanks.