Defending Public Education

Jeff Swensson is a veteran educator who has ser4ved in public schools throughout the Midwest. He is the co-author or author of six books that focus on instruction, curriculum, leadership, finance, student learning, and contemporary issues in traditional public education.

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Table of Contents

Prologue

Introduction: Just Look Inside This Book and You Will See…

Section One—Balance?

Chapter 1: About Teeter-Totters and Educational Choice

The History of US Education Is its Topography

Parents and Caregivers

A Small Piece of Democracy

Chapter 2: The Common Good

The Rule of Law

About Free Market Education

About-Face in the Marketplace

Chapter 3: The Best Interests of…

Informal and Formal Education

Who Knows Better What Are Best Interests?

Closely-Held Beliefs Know Best Interests

Networks Know Best Interests

Partisanship Knows Best Interests

US Education Knows Best Interests

Following a Long Arc to Best Interests

Disrupting the Arc

It’s Not Education, It’s Shopping!

Buying Best Interests: Boutique-Ideology

Chapter 4: Partisanship

The Way Things Were Is the Way They’re Supposed to Be

When Enough Is Enough

The Fly in the Ointment for Partisanship: Learning

Where Learning Thrives

Partisanship Can’t Function

Repairing Function: One-Faith Education

Repairing Function: Push-Back Against the Arc

The CRT Straw Man

Adult-Centric Education

Partisans Recoil

For Partisans, the Present Is Downright Scary

Certainty About What There Is to Fear

Partisans Can See Clearly Now

Chapter 5: I See These Threats Looking at Me

Intellectual Autonomy

Compelling State Interest

The Outside-World

Partisanship Accommodations

Down a Fear-Filled Rabbit Hole

To Restore Partisanship in US Education

Chapter 6: Revolt of the Likeminded

No Likeminded Parent Left Behind

Limiting the Universe of Discourse

Rejecting How to Think and the Common Good

The Art of the Straw Man

Orthodoxy Trumps Majority Rule

Section Two—Deus Ex Machina in the Script for Partisanship

Chapter 7: Preemptive Censorship

Oh Where, Oh Where Has Thinking Gone?

Discriminatory Thinking, Anyone?

What If Preemption Doesn’t Work?

Chapter 8: Anarchic Dissent

Anarchic Dissent Is as Partisanship Does

The Ideological Foundation of Anarchic Dissent

Public Dissonance

Public Dissonance on Behalf of Parental Rights

Anarchic Dissent: Ideological “Demo-Day”

A Six-Pound Partisan Sledge Hammer

A Twelve-Pound Partisan Sledge Hammer

The Granddaddy of All Partisan Sledge Hammers

The Anarchic Dissonance of “Liberty”

Saving Public Education by Destroying It

Chapter 9: Rights and US Education

The Exclusive Rights of Partisanship

The Right to Perpetual Winning

Standardized Testing: Brass Knuckles in Partisan Boxing Gloves

The Right to Determine Losers

The Right to Defund Losers

The Right to What-to-Think

The Right to Dumb-Down Learning

A Circular Bill of Rights: Partisanship’s Gift to Education

Section Three—The Foes of Traditional Public Education

Chapter 10: Partisan Education

More to Ideology than Meets the Eye

Partisan Education: A Transactional Relationship

Transactional Relationships Are Exclusionary

A Pox on the House of Intellectual Autonomy

The Ethos of Partisan Education

Partisan Education: What Is Right and What Is True

Orthodoxy: Limitless or Limited?

Weaponizing Partisan Education

A Retreat from Conscience

Commitment to Preemption

Retreating Is “Winning”

Money: The Partisanship Weapon for Choice

Just How Much Does All This Cost?

Section Four—Religion, Courts, the Feds, and Public School

Chapter 11: Evolution—The Faithful Sound the Alarm

Faithful Partisanship, Evolution, and Learning

What Science Says

Alarming Court Decisions

Whose Faith for Public Education?

Putting Faith in the Courts

Chapter 12: Schools and Rights—Burdens, Exposure, and Compulsory Conduct

A Two-Prong Test

When Public Education Meets the US Constitution

The US Supreme Court and US Education

The First Amendment

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier

Board of Education v. Pico

The Third Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment

Chapter 13: To Reform or Not to Reform?

The Destination Is Reform. Are We There Yet?

I’m Free to Be Me and You’re Free to Be Me

Partisans Are the public

Partisan Things Are Not Public Things

When Reform Is Not Partisan

The Amish and Reform

In the Aftermath of Yoder

Hasidic Communities and Reform

In the Aftermath of Yeshiva Education

The Compelling Interests of Partisanship

SEL: A Fear-Inducing Bogeyman

The Unheralded Resource for Partisanship

A Comeuppance for Partisanship

Section Five—US Education: Journey or Destination?

Chapter 14: The Compass Rose: Purpose

The Journey of Constitutional Democracy

The Journey of Civic Respect

The Journey of Citizenship Education

The Effects of Citizenship Education

Necessary Neutrality

Balance-as-Equity

The Journey of Open Futures

The Journey of “We” in the Common Good

Chapter 15: To Defend Public Education—Good Dissent

Good Dissent and Public Things

The Role of Good Dissent Is the Role of Public Education

Section Six—Across the Great Divide

Chapter 16: The Chasm

“Self” Government…or…Self-Government

Static-Balance…or…Precarious-Balance

Universal Singularity…or…Government that Works

Chapter 17: Critical Questions

Question #1: Is Social Reality Fixed or Unfixed?

Question #2: Is Liberty Constraint or Coercion?

Constraint and Coercion in Partisan Education

Constraint and Coercion in Traditional Public Education

Question #3: Does Education Assume a Value of Justice?

Epilogue