CURMUDGUCATION: Christopher Rufo and the End of Public Education

CURMUDGUCATION: Christopher Rufo and the End of Public Education: This is going to be a long post, but I think it's an important one. We're seeing an escalation in education policy discussion goals,...

Extremists Are Using Lies to Undermine America’s Public Schools:

  We Need to Take a Stand

BY RANDI WEINGARTEN AND JONAH EDELMAN

APRIL 29, 2022 2:12 PM EDT

Randi Weingarten is President of the 1.7-million-member American Federation of Teachers and Jonah Edelman is the CEO of Stand for Children

Just as extremists have used the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election to undermine American democracy, far-right advocates of privatizing public education are using Big Lies to undermine public schools. Supporters of public schools must see these ugly attacks for what they are and take a stand against them.

In a recent lecture at ultra-conservative Hillsdale College, culture war orchestrator Christopher Rufo detailed the strategy for replacing public education with a universal voucher system. “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust,” Rufo explained. Earlier in that same lecture, describing how to lay siege to institutions, he noted the necessity to create your own narrative and frame and advised his audience they “have to be ruthless and brutal.”

Rufo and other dark money-funded extremists follow a consistent playbook for attacking public schools.

First, they concoct lies, smears and distortions that stoke fear and anger, such as that eight-year-old white students are being taught to hate themselves because they are responsible for slavery, and that kindergarten teachers are grooming five-year-olds.

Next, these falsehoods are spread on social media and by Fox News and the click-driven, controversy-obsessed mainstream media.

Finally, extremist state politicians champion cookie-cutter bills provided by those same national voucher backers to “solve” the manufactured “outrage,” often under the banner of “parents’ rights.”