This blog and post are prepared by Lowell Smith in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Crow Wing County GOP BPOU, The State or National Republican party.
July 2023 Edition
July 2023 Edition
Hello fellow Republicans. I hope my new monthly blog serves the following purposes: First, to drive traffic to our GOP website. Second, that it energizes the readers to exercise their rights to vote Republican and drive a long-term effort of having Republicans elected at all levels of Govt.
I felt my first post would be over something I am most comfortable speaking to, that of education of our children. All parents want the same thing, excellent quality education for their children and effective and efficient school boards.
My additional care as a Republican is wanting our children taught traditional American values. If local school boards cannot provide this, then our tax dollars should follow our children. School choice leads to competition and efficiencies that return better results.
If you know me, you are aware of my educational pedigree and as I progressed through my Masters and Doctorate courses, I encountered only radically progressive ideas about education. One concept is the ideology of critical pedagogy (this can be gender, race, or any other group).
This socialist ideology builds on the thoughts of Paulo Freire in that society and traditions should be kept from molding our children. We should encourage our children in school to remake society. This ideology is why we see so much politics creeping into our classrooms. I am an educator and observe what we do, and I see this ideology at the least substandard, and self-consciously radical and destructive to our society. Education should be to ensure our children are able to take their place at the forefront of science, technology, business, or trades, not to be social justice warriors.
Progressives like to prattle on about safe spaces and correct use of pronouns. We want to keep Shakespeare, Algebra, Biology, and critical thinking skills in our classrooms. I want to see teachers empowered to dole out consequences to kids who undermine the learning environment.
I was fortunate to sit and participate in our local school boards strategic planning process and what I found from the student representatives was enlightening and filled me with some hope for our future. The students’ main concerns with the school were first providing increased discipline in the classroom and second ensuring increased academic rigor and job training opportunities.
Lack of discipline is the result of administrators, teachers and activists who embrace the “no cash bail” progressive policies. If a student misbehaves and disrupts the class, teachers feel that they have no recourse to discipline. The classroom is just chaotic.
This view is based on the thought that all discipline is some form of a long standing past injustice and oppressive. Never mind that many of the students want to go to school and learn something. This insanity will lead our school to be no different than the crime rates in NYC or California. Education cannot happen if our classrooms are in chaos, no matter how much we invest in curriculum, teachers, or anything else.
Taking up for teachers, I have spoken to many and work with teachers on the right side of the political spectrum. We always speak in whispers after looking to who may be lurking in the shadows. We have all realized it is not worth the professional and interpersonal pain of speaking our minds. Picking fights with fellow staff and administrators creates a backlash to the conservative teacher of, “creating an unsafe learning environment”. Wonderful way to stifle free speech and exchange of ideas.
The above liberal behavior, political philosophy and movement, exalts their progressive idea of our nation above the individual. The “state knows best” and can regulate all our problems away, we just need more bureaucrats. Think of this progressive idea that stands for a centralized autocratic government (government as a parent), headed by a dictatorial leader (national election reforms to keep one side in power). With the result of severe economic and social regimentation (how about this inflation?), and forcible suppression of opposition (cancel culture). Lastly, substitute our historical religious beliefs with the new religion of “climate change”.
Simply put, this is the Webster’s dictionary definition of fascism but funny how we Republicans are labeled as such when the other side is trying to implement this.
Since CRT has become a four letter word, the left is now pushing a new agenda of Social-emotional learning (SEL) and has been billed as a transformational tool that will propel students to greater academic achievement and personal fulfillment. Proponents of SEL call for focusing less on academic content and knowledge in schools, and more on student attributes, mindsets, values, and behaviors.
It is perfectly fine for you as a parent to mold your child’s values, morals, and beliefs but it is entirely unacceptable having a government vendor or unqualified public-school official implement an SEL curriculum based on a new type of education model that is not tested and fully accepted. Dr. Karen Effrem, M.D., who co-authored a SEL study states “Given the uncertainty around diagnosis and treatment of mental or emotional problems, even by highly trained physicians, the SEL movement runs the risk of further increasing the trend toward dangerous over-diagnosis and over-medication of American school children.”
So, we know the education system is broke but how do we attempt to fix the educational system? We need to sweep in conservatives with sound educational goals at the local level of each school board. Most school boards will have multiple openings this coming election cycle. Read the voters guides, see who has endorsements from Minnesota Parents Alliance, Moms for Liberty, or local parents’ group, in our area it would be Brainerd Families Unite on Facebook.
If you are thinking about running for school board, be realistic. Do not run “just to see how it goes.” You are hurting the solution and not helping solve the issue. This last election egos got in the way and resulted in a diluted conservative candidate pool and progressives-maintained control of the board. The other side only ran one candidate for each open slot. We need to be smarter and check our ego. Support those conservatives running by volunteering to door knock and get out the vote. Talk to your neighbors about why our children are important.
After taking control, we need to repeat what the Democrats did after they took control of all three branches this last election. We need to advance on many fronts at the same time, effectively and quickly. Focus on policies and procedures that prioritize academic achievement, not social justice. We are not the MN Department of Health and Human Services, you were not elected to please the teacher’s union and their national psycho agenda against academic rigor, family values and for that even capitalism.
New school boards should focus on what we know about high performing districts that being genuine academic achievement through state and locally developed academic standards, assessments, and curricula — rather than classroom content of dubious academic value based on pop psychology.
As the saying goes, the children are our future. COVID peeled off the veil of what our children are being taught. We as parents and citizens need to have the strength to politically fight for our local values and the future of our children.
I felt my first post would be over something I am most comfortable speaking to, that of education of our children. All parents want the same thing, excellent quality education for their children and effective and efficient school boards.
My additional care as a Republican is wanting our children taught traditional American values. If local school boards cannot provide this, then our tax dollars should follow our children. School choice leads to competition and efficiencies that return better results.
If you know me, you are aware of my educational pedigree and as I progressed through my Masters and Doctorate courses, I encountered only radically progressive ideas about education. One concept is the ideology of critical pedagogy (this can be gender, race, or any other group).
This socialist ideology builds on the thoughts of Paulo Freire in that society and traditions should be kept from molding our children. We should encourage our children in school to remake society. This ideology is why we see so much politics creeping into our classrooms. I am an educator and observe what we do, and I see this ideology at the least substandard, and self-consciously radical and destructive to our society. Education should be to ensure our children are able to take their place at the forefront of science, technology, business, or trades, not to be social justice warriors.
Progressives like to prattle on about safe spaces and correct use of pronouns. We want to keep Shakespeare, Algebra, Biology, and critical thinking skills in our classrooms. I want to see teachers empowered to dole out consequences to kids who undermine the learning environment.
I was fortunate to sit and participate in our local school boards strategic planning process and what I found from the student representatives was enlightening and filled me with some hope for our future. The students’ main concerns with the school were first providing increased discipline in the classroom and second ensuring increased academic rigor and job training opportunities.
Lack of discipline is the result of administrators, teachers and activists who embrace the “no cash bail” progressive policies. If a student misbehaves and disrupts the class, teachers feel that they have no recourse to discipline. The classroom is just chaotic.
This view is based on the thought that all discipline is some form of a long standing past injustice and oppressive. Never mind that many of the students want to go to school and learn something. This insanity will lead our school to be no different than the crime rates in NYC or California. Education cannot happen if our classrooms are in chaos, no matter how much we invest in curriculum, teachers, or anything else.
Taking up for teachers, I have spoken to many and work with teachers on the right side of the political spectrum. We always speak in whispers after looking to who may be lurking in the shadows. We have all realized it is not worth the professional and interpersonal pain of speaking our minds. Picking fights with fellow staff and administrators creates a backlash to the conservative teacher of, “creating an unsafe learning environment”. Wonderful way to stifle free speech and exchange of ideas.
The above liberal behavior, political philosophy and movement, exalts their progressive idea of our nation above the individual. The “state knows best” and can regulate all our problems away, we just need more bureaucrats. Think of this progressive idea that stands for a centralized autocratic government (government as a parent), headed by a dictatorial leader (national election reforms to keep one side in power). With the result of severe economic and social regimentation (how about this inflation?), and forcible suppression of opposition (cancel culture). Lastly, substitute our historical religious beliefs with the new religion of “climate change”.
Simply put, this is the Webster’s dictionary definition of fascism but funny how we Republicans are labeled as such when the other side is trying to implement this.
Since CRT has become a four letter word, the left is now pushing a new agenda of Social-emotional learning (SEL) and has been billed as a transformational tool that will propel students to greater academic achievement and personal fulfillment. Proponents of SEL call for focusing less on academic content and knowledge in schools, and more on student attributes, mindsets, values, and behaviors.
It is perfectly fine for you as a parent to mold your child’s values, morals, and beliefs but it is entirely unacceptable having a government vendor or unqualified public-school official implement an SEL curriculum based on a new type of education model that is not tested and fully accepted. Dr. Karen Effrem, M.D., who co-authored a SEL study states “Given the uncertainty around diagnosis and treatment of mental or emotional problems, even by highly trained physicians, the SEL movement runs the risk of further increasing the trend toward dangerous over-diagnosis and over-medication of American school children.”
So, we know the education system is broke but how do we attempt to fix the educational system? We need to sweep in conservatives with sound educational goals at the local level of each school board. Most school boards will have multiple openings this coming election cycle. Read the voters guides, see who has endorsements from Minnesota Parents Alliance, Moms for Liberty, or local parents’ group, in our area it would be Brainerd Families Unite on Facebook.
If you are thinking about running for school board, be realistic. Do not run “just to see how it goes.” You are hurting the solution and not helping solve the issue. This last election egos got in the way and resulted in a diluted conservative candidate pool and progressives-maintained control of the board. The other side only ran one candidate for each open slot. We need to be smarter and check our ego. Support those conservatives running by volunteering to door knock and get out the vote. Talk to your neighbors about why our children are important.
After taking control, we need to repeat what the Democrats did after they took control of all three branches this last election. We need to advance on many fronts at the same time, effectively and quickly. Focus on policies and procedures that prioritize academic achievement, not social justice. We are not the MN Department of Health and Human Services, you were not elected to please the teacher’s union and their national psycho agenda against academic rigor, family values and for that even capitalism.
New school boards should focus on what we know about high performing districts that being genuine academic achievement through state and locally developed academic standards, assessments, and curricula — rather than classroom content of dubious academic value based on pop psychology.
As the saying goes, the children are our future. COVID peeled off the veil of what our children are being taught. We as parents and citizens need to have the strength to politically fight for our local values and the future of our children.