Fear Of A (Brown And) Young Planet

It’s important to explicitly name what’s happening here: The Governor of Oklahoma is using taxpayer money to target public schools in a town which saw one of the worst instances of racial violence in American history & accuse them of breaking the law by teaching their own history https://t.co/sJp4SOeqjk

— Kendall Brown (@kendallybrown) July 7, 2022

Well, at least he doesnt want to defund the schools:

"I mean, it's kind of a combination of Human Rights Campaign, BLM, you know, Earth Justice League, whatever it is," Ingraham continued, conflating a union agenda with a government agency's work.

"But what it's not about is education and this is why I think, Terry, a lot of people are saying it's time to defund government education or at least defund it by giving vouchers to parents so they can say, 'No, we're not doing this anymore.' And I think that just has to happen. We have to stop funding this madness."

Since colonial times in America public schools, supported by taxes, have existed. In the mid-1800s states began to make public education mandatory. But as the religious right has grown in power, conservatives have tried to steer tax dollars away from public schools and into private and religious schools.

It's worth remembering that Laura Ingraham: a) just wants to stay relevant, especially since O'Reilly resurfaced

Screaming angry racist Bill O’Reilly, or as we know him now, the moderate wing of the GOP https://t.co/ah1B3WQkkL

— GrandchildSharpshooterHat (@Popehat) July 6, 2022

You thought I was kidding, didn't you? And since Tucker keeps sucking all the oxygen out of the media room:

There's no point to interviewing Tucker Carlson. https://t.co/el8QtDauxN

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) July 7, 2022

 b) FoxNews is almost exclusively the province of old people and hotel room tenants who still have cable TeeVee (believe me, the shrinking cohort of cable subscribers makes Joe Biden look like a young stripling).  So this appeal about schools is not accidental; nor is it being made to parents with kids in school (well, a few, but there are always a few crazies in any group). In the last school board election around these parts, the people most upset about CRT or what-have-you in the local schools were old people scared by political advertising and FoxNews (if not Facebook; or both/and).  They don't have kids in school (their grandkids may have kids in school in some cases), and they have no idea what's going on in schools.  But they hear about scary library books and "CRT!" teaching...well, they don't know what, but it's bad (AND THEY ARE NOT RACISTS!!!!!  Just ask 'em, they'll tell you.  Same people I knew as "not racists" in my childhood.  Funny how that lingers....).  And they are scared shitless, and they turned out to vote in record numbers, and now they are content (my finger on that pulse was NextDoor, which has gone dead on the threats of CRT and "liberals in the classroom.") and no longer flooding school board meetings or harassing school administration.

Because they chased the elephants away.  FoxNews is appealing to the same people.  And, especially the appeal to "defund the schools" and issue vouchers, isn't going anywhere, either.  Some state may try it, as Texas did decades ago.  They'll find the private schools that don't have sufficient oversight will take the public money and run.  With sufficient oversight you've just replaced one public school system with another, and that's a damned expensive proposition unless you give these "new private schools" the public school buildings, teachers, staff, resources, etc.  Private schools won't like having the oversight and administrative burdens of public schools, but if they take public money, that comes with it.  Accepting any student who applies comes with it, too (private schools thrive on their selectivity.  Even Harvard has to be careful how selective it is, because it takes federal monies for students.) So how many private schools are gonna take that money?  And the ones that do:  how much better will they be?

This is another example of looking for an enemy.  But again, when you find it, you have the problem of becoming responsible for what replaces it.  Old people don't want to worry about that (they're old, ya know), and parents of school children don't want the schools destroyed because the old people are ignorant and afraid.

I've seen that pushback start, too.  Nothing is ever as easy or as absolute as you first imagine it is.  No plan survives its first contact with reality. And these people don't have a plan.  They're just trying to keep cable subscribers, subscribing (FoxNews makes its money from fees, not advertising).