Why Public Schools are a Lost Cause

September 10th, in the Year of our Lord 2022

Imagine you're a newly minted conservative public school board in Red State.  You want to curtail the woke agenda and save kids from gender reassignment in public school.  You're even working with a sympathetic superintendent at the local district.  Here's what you face…

At the first school board meeting, the board demands that the school quit teaching "diversity, equity, and inclusion" in the schools and stop with sexual orientation indoctrination and "medical care."

Superintendent:  Sorry, all of our schools are accredited by Cognia, and they require that ‘The educational program includes experiences to promote global awareness and anti-racism, as well as an understanding of diverse cultures, power and lifestyles.’  It also requires that we promote social and emotional learning and supply health services.  Lifestyles and health services, of course, by federal law, now include transgender ideology, so we have to teach that.

Board Member:  Well, let's find someone else to be accredited by!  

Superintendent:  Sorry, the regional accreditors, like Cognia, are in the state statute.  They have an exclusive lock on our state. Besides, all regional accreditors, nationwide, include this language.

Board Member:  So we have to change the state code to remove regional accreditation?  

Superintendent:  That, and dozens of administrative rules that govern sports, school events, buildings, funding, and the general compulsory education statute.  They all require "regional" accreditation-- they have ever since the compulsory education laws were put into effect 100 years ago.  Further, if our schools don't have regional accreditation, our state colleges will not accept their diplomas.  And they lose out on scholarships at other colleges.

Board Member:  Well then, let's contact the accreditor and ask them to change the standard.

Superintendent:  I've talked with them.  They are required to apply that standard in order to get federal money, and to be recognized by the body that approves them.  So is our school. We're dependent on it at every level. 

Board Member:  OK, so we have to change state statute to eliminate the requirement for accreditation by Cognia.  That is going to take time, and it's out of our control.  What can we do right now?  Let's at least stop school counselors from telling kids to get surgery for trans dysphoria.

Superintendent:  Well, the counselors are licensed.  That licensing requires that they provide that advice to students.  And, they keep it confidential from parents.  And, they must promote the LGBTQ agenda.

Board Member:  What!  How do we change that?  

Superintendent:  We can't.  It's in state code that our counselors are licensed.  Counselors are licensed by the American School Counselors Association or the American Association of State Counseling Boards that governs our board here in Red State.  They require that counselors offer trans surgery counseling.

Board Member:  Well, at least stop our teachers from indoctrinating kids about all of this stuff.

Superintendent:  That's not going to happen.  All of our teachers were licensed and trained at the colleges in the state that have been promoting the Progressive agenda for the past 30 to 100 years.  It's baked in.  We can tell them not to, but it's the air they breathe.  All an edict from the school board will do is double their resolve to do it off the books.

Board Member:  What about you and your administrators?

Superintendent:  All of us are licensed.  I'm a licensed administrator and your kid's teacher is licensed by the state.  We have to be licensed to be employed in Red State schools.  That's another legislative issue.  And, our licensing programs require certain “sensitivities” to the woke agenda.  To go against these risks our careers.

Board Member:  Let's change that!

Superintendent:  That's governed by the state board of education.  We can't change that.  Besides, any attempt to change accreditation or licensing, or drop them, is always met with accusations that we're "lowering the standard" and leaving "no accountability."  

Board Member:  Aren't we, the board, and the parents the "accountability"?

Superintendent:  Not in the eyes of the professional class who govern our schools.

Board Member:  OK then, what if we just retrain the teachers!  

Superintendent:  The way you do that in education is through CEU's, or continuing education units.  Those are granted by a variety of training organizations that are Progressive.  Good luck getting them to retrain anyone-- they're the ones doing the training of Progressive values in the first place!  Besides, the department of education sets the standards for CEU’s, and they get those from a national organization that, you guessed it, is an NGO with an agenda you would not like.

Board Member:  Well, we can certainly do something about the textbooks.  Teachers will at least have to use books without all that indoctrination.

Superintendent:  The state board of education approves textbooks.  Besides, there are only a handful of publishers, and those publishers don't offer such neutralized texts.  All of them contain transgender ideology because many blue states require it.  Since the same text may be used in dozens, if not all 50 states, all the texts conform to the blue state requirements.  In Florida, the state legislature forbids the use of a bunch of these books in Math. Good luck finding alternatives.  If you're talking about social studies you'll need even better luck. There are no alternatives.

Board Member:  I saw that we have rainbow unicorn books in our libraries.  And, there's the drag story hours.  We need to get those out!  

Superintendent:  That's been tried.  The books that get removed are replaced by more subversive but subtle titles.  Librarians have their own licensing, which, you guessed it, has a code of ethics written by the Progressive power structure.  And, the state law requires we allow equal access to our public libraries, so kids go there for the drag story hour.  

Board Member:  OK, well we need to show we're doing something.  We'll pass a resolution that no DEI or trans teaching happens at our school!

Superintendent:  Yes, that would be fine.  Resolutions really don't change anything, but at least it seems like you're doing something.

Thus ends another chapter in the well-intentioned school board takeover.   The game is rigged.

So, what's the solution?  Deregulate the schools.  Quit playing the progressive's game.  Get out, and into a private classical Christian school or home school or pod school. The ACCS offers its own independent version of each of these supporting roles-- accreditation, teacher certification, endorsed texts, etc. --but we do it very differently.