If you’re a parent pooling your resources with other parents to hire a private teacher for your children during the pandemic, you must be a white supremacist.
That’s seriously what Denver’s Board of Education implied with an open letter to parents last week that discouraged them from setting up such “pods” on the grounds that low-income minority families might be left out.
“We are deeply concerned about the pods’ long-term negative implications for public education and social justice,” read the letter written in the passive-aggressive tone known so well by school bureaucrats. When you see the word “social justice” used anywhere in earnest, it’s a sign that you’re about to be bullied into lowering your standards or giving up what’s yours.
In the case of the Denver School Board, it wanted parents to give up what they believe is best and most practical for their families.
“We know that Denver has a history of school segregation brought on by the white flight and more affluent families from the district,” the letter continued. “While today our student body is as diverse as ever, our schools and communities suffer from segregation. We fear that further flight will exacerbate academic and opportunity gaps among our children.”
The board was saying, in other words, that parents who choose to set up a learning pod could be engaging in segregation.
The real issue is power and money. The letter goes on to note that for every child who is withdrawn from a public school in Denver, the district will lose close to $11,000, which could eventually mean fewer jobs at the government education facility.
Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos took notice of what was happening in Denver.
She said in a statement sent to the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that parents who might set up learning pods were “clearly threatening to ‘the system’ and the steady flow of taxpayer dollars to it.”
She said the school board had “made known, via a very shrill communication, their position that ‘pods’ would foster ‘segregation’ and that parents should just stay out of the way by ‘keeping people employed who also know what they’re doing.’”
Or, more true in this case, keeping them employed in spite of what they’re not doing.
You were warned when the phrase “social justice” appeared.
