Public Education Is Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Public Education Is Between a Rock and a Hard Place

I appreciate the feedback and viewpoints many of you shared in response to my blog post, Public Education: Battle Lines are Being Drawn. THANK YOU!

 

It is my belief that only by coming together through meaningful debate and dialogue can we reach consensus on what teaching and learning is to be and its role in society and civilization. With the “why” defined, then the next steps are to design the processes, policies, procedures, and desired outcomes, along with identifying the means to financially pay for it. In short, define the purpose of public education, discern what does not work, rise above the current discourse, look over the horizon, and envision what could be and should be. Comprehending this means realizing that public education in its present state is between a rock and a hard place.

Showing what is possible in the future 

helps us better deal with what’s hard in the present.

                                                                               George Couros  

                                                                                   @gcouros

Against the backdrop of everything happening in our world today, it is hard to look objectively at public education, particularly in the United States. As I have said, family, relationships, religion, public education, commerce, business, industry, and governance, once the bedrock of society and civilization, are now being reflected upon, questioned, and evaluated. Factoring in political polarization, recent Supreme Court rulings dealing with abortion and gun rights, emotion, not logic, is engaged. There is this feeling of chaos as we struggle to realize that change is happening.

Chaos Is a Condition of Growth.

Chaos can be described as a human feeling of disorder and confusion. This happens when there is a deviation from predictable behaviors or outcomes. These deviations occur because of interactions, experiences, or breakthroughs of new knowledge, resulting in changing context, condition, or outcome. “The destruction created by chaos is necessary for the creation of anything new.” (Leadership in the New Science, Wheatley. P. 119)

 

Within the theory of chaos there are underlying patterns, interconnection, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, and fractals, all moving toward self-organization. Great emotion is generated in struggling to recognize emerging norms and let go of old predictable behaviors and outcomes,

 

As we try to apply 20th century industrial system thinking, morality, and beliefs to new 21st century conditions, dispositions, and realities, many are experiencing extreme disorder and confusion. What was and what we have always done does not fit with what is and what needs to be done. For some, these feelings of disorder and confusion are causing great angst and fear; for others, excitement and hope. These powerful emotions of angst, fear, excitement, and hope, felt in chaos, are generating the human energy which will result in change and transformation.

 

“Life seeks order but uses messes to get there.”

                                           Margaret J. Wheatley

 

Margaret Whitley’s book, Leadership in the New Science. Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (1999), identifies many emerging themes and conditions for navigating through chaos. Her belief is that historical thinking on leadership and system design is based on mankind’s understanding of science. Mankind’s previous thinking of cause and effect, linear, top-down driven, supported by data and charts, defined the world by lines and boxes. The presumed result for society was predictability and order. The coming of new knowledge in technology and science, now accelerating exponentially, is stressing long held beliefs, causing disorder and confusion. For many, it is difficult to let go of what was and seek new because no one has had to do it for many generations!

 

The Butterfly Effect and Chaos

Part of chaos theory is the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. Think of throwing a large rock into a pond and it sends out ripples across the water, hitting against the shore, creating intended and unintended consequences. This illustrates the complexity and interconnectedness of the world. 

 

Rick Smyre, in his book, Preparing for a World That Does Not Exist - Yet (2016), identifies minute localized changes within a complex system as “weak signals.” He states that few people notice these weak signals or recognize their potential for disruption and challenge to the status quo. They do not see the waves of change coming. So instead of catching the wave and surfing, society, as well as public education, are now gasping and struggling to catch up.  

 

Multiple Weak Signals Hitting At Once.

Technology, relationships, the environment, and systems of governance are some of the weak signals that are now emerging, causing chaos. The result is that of mankind experiencing stress as we move from stability to instability and from order to disorder. Historically, mankind would have addressed each of these separately, but the reality today is that all of these are connected and interdependent, and need to be responded to collectively. 

Technology

Cell phones, computers, social media, the Internet, and other technologies are connecting mankind together in never before seen ways. This interconnectedness is contributing to the stress, disorder, and confusion of not only current institutions and organizations, but also communities and individuals. It is redefining quality of life, work, business, and industry.

 

Relationships

The decline of organized religion, specifically Christianity, revisioning of family, and definition of oneself is impacting societal morality. Multiple generations living and working together at the same time each have their own beliefs on relationships and family. Nostalgic relationship patterns of grandmas and grandpas married for life conflicts with mom and dad patterns of divorce, and young adults living together or just “hooking up” dilutes the ideals of commitment and intimacy. With relationships being redefined, unacceptance is generating judgment, guilt, anxiety, and fear. Empathy and tolerance seem to have slipped away. All of this is contributing to the disorder and confusion, and subsequently impacting schools and public education. 

 

Environment

Besides technology and interpersonal weak signals, the mistreatment of Earth resulting in climate change, is now sounding alarm bells. From earthquakes to droughts to sever storms, flooding, tornadoes, and hurricanes, Mother Earth is showing symptoms of alarm and sickness. These weak signals must be realized and responded to.

 

Governance

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed.”

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

 

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, 1787

 

The creation of systems, governances, policies, and laws is necessary for the establishment of societal predictability and stability. In the United States, the Declaration of Independence and Preamble to the Constitution provided the rationale of why governments need to exist, and from the consent of the people, the power and authority to govern. Political polarization and the demonization of political perspectives is exasperating, creating fear, paralysis on reaching consensus, and impacts the ability to govern. This discourse is also reaching into classrooms and schools. 

 

With technology integrating into every aspect of life, the question of relationships and how we interact with one another, the impact of Earth’s climate change, and the interpretation and operation of governance are all contributing to the chaos and instability. Each of these weak signals is fluid, flexible, not yet fully defined, but building in energy. The ability to navigate in these conditions, see the interconnectedness, and realize the possibilities needs to be instilled in all, especially the youth. Public education, or some other system of learning, could be the connective tissue that empowers students to access, discern, and manipulate knowledge, and create new knowledge to solve real world problems. The ability to adapt, learn, unlearn and relearn, as conditions and context change, is crucial to the survival of mankind.

 

Public Education is Between a Rock and Hard Place.

Those within the public education system, the teachers, administrators, and school board members, are in a no-win situation. Emerging weak signals are coupled with the design flaws of an educational system that was designed 100 years ago with the goal of conformity; going to college, entering society, and participating in the consumer society are stressing.

 

Public education today equates learning to prescribed amounts of time and sorts students by age, and was not designed to individualism, personalization, or differentiated instruction. Student academic achievement is measured by high stakes, standardized tests, with letter grades - A, B, C, D, F - assigned by a percentage of content memorized. Assessment of student learning is dependent on the student’s ability to recall facts and not necessarily mastery or application of content. The ability to think and apply knowledge is not evaluated. High achievement is recognized, and students are sifted into winners and losers. Dissatisfaction and criticisms are growing with public education.

 

For some time now, in numerous books, articles and social media, school reform and the purpose of public education have been the focus. Books like The Battle for the American Mind (Hegseth and Goodwin, 2022), Unshackled, Freeing America's K-12 Educational System (Bolick and Hardiman, 2020), and Unschooled. Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside The Conventional Classroom (McDonald, 2019), as well as articles in Education Week such as What is the Purpose of School? (September 2021) detail the shortcomings in public education. The Public Broadcasting System documentary, School of the Future (2016), shared evidence-based instructional techniques, addressed how students learn, stay motivated, and get engaged, and envisions what schools could look like based on up-to-date scientific research. From all this, nothing much has happened. Public education continues to resist change and remains in its silo. The voice and energy of the dissatisfied are growing.

“The indoctrination of our children’s minds is happening as early as preschool.”

Parents: Get Back In the Fight. Do Not Outsource The Raising of Your Children,

Cissie Graham Lynch, Decision Magazine (2022)

 

In the United States, most everybody has had an experience of school and learning, and yet when asked, cannot articulate why they learned what they learned. To go forward, we must let go of the myth and memory of public education, and discern today’s mission and purpose for public education, and simultaneously, determine how it is to be funded.

 

Defining the why, designing a flexible system of learning to accomplish it, and figuring out the means to pay for it, will move public education away from the rock and the hard place it is now in.

A Safe and Secure Environment for Teaching and Learning, Are You Ready For 2022-2023?

 A Safe and Secure Environment for Teaching and Learning, Are You Ready For 2022-2023?

Just weeks ago, the 2021-2022 school year ended, punctuated in violence by the school shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. This horrific tragedy left the Uvalde community, as well as the rest of the United States, traumatized. Did the school district plan and create a School Safety and Security plan? Yes. Did the school district practice what to do in the event of an active shooter? Yes. Yet with all this planning, resources, and preparations, kids were not kept safe.

As far as school shootings go, the Uvalde school shooting is not an isolated event. As reported by Education Week, July 7,2022: “There have been 27 school shootings this year. There have been 119 school shootings since 2018, when Education Week began tracking such incidents. The highest number of shootings, 34, occurred last year. There were 10 shootings in 2020, and 24 each in 2019 and 2018.”

 

Echoing from Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, and now Rob Elementary, is the thinking that it is not a matter of if a shooting will happen at your school, but when?

 

21st century Risks and Threats

Schools are not exempt from all that is happening in society today. Gun violence, political polarization, and global pandemics are some of the conditions generating fear, anxiety, and depression. All of these are adding to the expectations and responsibilities of principals, teachers, support staff, superintendents, boards of education, and community stakeholders to keep kids safe and well while at school. The landscape of public education is now different.

 

For school leaders, school boards, parents, and community stakeholders, school shootings are just a part of all that must be considered in creating a safe and secure environment for learning. Traditional risks and threats have evolved from “trips and falls” and physical plant security, to now include cybersecurity, mental and physical health, and wellbeing. Optimizing teaching and learning by providing positive working conditions for school staff and students now requires new thinking, procedures, and policies. Old thinking is no longer viable.

 

How did we get here?

My safe and secure school experiences began as an Iowa high school social studies teacher, with fire and tornado drills, practiced twice a year. Moving into administration, it then included school bus evacuation. Before the Columbine High School shootings, as a middle school principal in a high-needs school district, we recognized the benefit and secured grant funding for a school resource officer to be assigned to the building. At the time, this was unheard of. A uniformed, armed deputy sheriff in a school, to many educators, was considered as unnecessary. I received criticism for not having control in my school. After the Columbine shootings, the criticism stopped, and many asked how I was able to make it happen!

 

As a high school principal, and later as a superintendent, safe and secure school expectations grew. Updated planning through lessons learned from school shootings grew to include building evacuation to a secure site, parents’ reunification with their children, and how and what to communicate to parents and community stakeholders. As I look back now, it’s interesting to note that after-action long-term mental health care was not part of the operational planning. 

 

When the school district I led as superintendent became one of the first in the nation to go “one to one,” that is to provide all students grades 6-12 a digital device, new dimensions of school safety and security were discovered. Cyber security needed to be added.

 

Preparing to be a school principal, and later as a superintendent, school safety and security was only briefly covered by college preparation classes. Specifically, as a superintendent, priority one was student academic achievement, then the dreaded “Bs” of buildings, budgets, boards, and buses. School safety was important, but instead of it being the first thing, it was but one of many.

 

I would venture to say my peer superintendents in Iowa, Tennessee, and those I connect with through social media nationally are all very much concerned with safe and secure schools. Like it was for me, it’s hard to stay abreast and keep the entire district, and all employees, diligent and engaged. It is important to note that those who choose to go into teaching, and those who go on to be become principals and superintendents, have a much different mindset and disposition than professionals in security and law enforcement. One is nurturing and trusting, the other observant and questioning. Both are needed to keep students and staff safe.

 

Preparing for the Unimaginable and Unpredictable.

As was illustrated in Uvalde, even with planning and preparation, a breakdown and human error can be tragic. The Education Risk Intelligence Center (ERIC) and the Center for Educational Leadership and Technology (CELT) understand this.

Beginning with the COVID lock down, I have been fortunate to work with these two organizations in developing processes and procedures to build capacity with school and community stakeholders to enhance school safety. ERIC’s focus on Risk Intelligence, and CELT’s work creating an Educator’s Holistic Perspective on School Safety and Security complement each other. Implementing them together will enhance the learning environment

Risk Intelligence

From the ERIC website, Risk Intelligence is described as “practices that go before, along with, and beyond risk management. Whenever there is a concern for safety and security, there is also the necessity of risk intelligence. Risk intelligence is an antidote for excessive fear and doubt. Organizational strategists apply risk intelligence when discussing integrative systems.  It belongs in any conversation about improving readiness, reliability, resilience, agility, governance, compliance, strategy, value creation, well-being, and leadership.

“Risk intelligence is a school district’s shared knowledge about the effects of uncertainty, combined with the essential language, skills, and tools it chooses to help achieve better outcomes.” 

This means that throughout the district, in every school, classroom, lunchroom, or on the bus, all staff think holistically about the effects of uncertainty, have a shared language abouts risks, can articulate them, and understand expectations and actions to mitigate them. This is the essence of a Risk Intelligence mind set.

 

CELT: Educator’s Holistic Perspective on School Safety and Security

CELT has been working for several years to define the landscape, stakeholders, conditions, and dispositions to address the threats and vulnerabilities to the learning environment. The result is the Educator’s Holistic Perspective on School Safety and Security.

CELT’s Comprehensive and Integrated School Safety process is a holistic approach that engages stakeholders and service providers to create a safe and secure learning environment. With school safety and security at the center, it builds out through the domains of Social and Emotional (red), Digital (light blue), and Physical (dark blue). Resources and stakeholders are identified in the red boxes and connected to the target creating a framework. Utilizing and leveraging technology as the connective tissue between the framework domains, school safety and security can be enhanced, monitored 24-7, and have the potential to be proactive instead of reactive.  

Here come the students

The beginning of the 2022-23 school years is at hand and the question to be asked is, are you totally ready? I know firsthand what all goes into the start of a new school year, and the excitement, anxious energy, and last-minute adjustments that need to be made. Teachers have attended pre service workshops, worked in their classrooms, and had back-to-school night open houses. Principals have worked with custodial staff all summer long for this moment, hired staff, met with the superintendent and district office personnel, and are ready to go. Bring on the students!

 

The thing is, in all the preparations, has school safety and security been a focal point? Do all staff members recognize, understand, and think about the risks and dangers they will face with school in session? Have the physical plant and grounds been inspected? Do all the security cameras work? What is the process for controlling visitors' access into the building? Are student and staff information kept digitally? Is network infrastructure secure? How will student and staff dealing with stress generated outside the schoolhouse door be monitored and how will they be supported? Ready or not, the school year begins.

 

School safety and security is foundational to a healthy learning environment and place for employees to work. Creating and maintaining this in society today is a challenge. It requires focus, constant conversations, and deliberate actions. ERIC and CELT have done the research and have ready-to-deploy staff development and tools. Like you, they want to make a difference. I very much recomend visiting and reviewing the CELT and ERIC websites. Reach out and connect with them.

Educating our young people is foundational to our freedoms and civilization.

Have a wonderful school year. Good luck and blessings to you all.

Public Education: Battle Lines are Being Drawn

We are now 22 years into the 21st century, experiencing a global pandemic and political polarization, and navigating inflation. Change was happening before, but in the post-COVID world, it has accelerated. As I stated in my July 6, 2022, Growth Rings post, “Family, relationships, religion, public education, commerce, business, industry, and governance, once the bedrock of society and civilization, are now being reflected on, questioned, and evaluated.” Factoring in recent Supreme Court rulings dealing with abortion and gun rights, it is hard to discern whether we are in a time of chaos or growth.

Public Education is in the Crosshairs
Author and futurist Rick Smyre, in his book Preparing For A World That Doesn’t Exist -Yet (1988) talks about “weak signals.” These conditions and actions represent new thinking that has not yet gone to scale or become mainstream. They are the prequels to what society will become. Those who notice and embrace “weak signals” and can adapt to them become the creators and innovators, and benefit socially, emotionally, and economically. Those who cannot become filled with confusion, frustration, and fear as they hold on to outdated mindsets and what once was.

Citizens of the United States have, or are, losing faith and confidence in the public school system. It is my observation that public education in the United States has, for the most part, been extremely slow to embrace weak signals and now finds itself struggling to adapt and respond. Parental dissatisfaction and concerns have been ignored or not addressed. The current educational system was not designed to provide individualized, personalized, and differentiated instruction for all students. The current system is unable to adjust to the students; students are expected to adjust to the system.

Access to the new norms of 21st century technology, ranging from video conferencing to artificial intelligence, to wireless handheld digital devices, to robust, affordable, reliable, internet access, has created a condition of haves and have-nots, depending on your zip code. Author Michael Soskil, writing in Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Standing at the Precipice (2018) - “We are now entering an unprecedented time in human history. Increasing computer power along with ubiquitous Internet connectivity will change the way humans live, work, interact and relate to each other.”

It has been my observation and experience that crucial conversations that include these emerging societal conditions have not been happening within the walls of school and districts, but they are happening outside the walls.

Battle Lines are Being Drawn

Two distinct, polarized groups are now emerging regarding public education: those who want to keep public education as it was and is, and those who want to take it down. Both sides are passionate about their positions, and as of today, neither side is willing to engage in meaningful conversations. Historical public education, K-12 plus higher education, feels berated, threatened, and in many ways insulted that their past practices are being questioned. Parents, business, industry, and large swaths of society, feel public education has lost its way, gone rogue, and is not empowering young people with the skills to read, write, think, be creative, and have imagination. They believe that the moral compass is not being developed and that historical public education is ignoring, or not even acknowledging, the discourse. “The Dissatisfied” are organizing, planning, raising funds, becoming politically active, and preparing for an insurgent war to retake public schools. The battlelines are being drawn.

The Dissatisfied

“Neither of us is an academic with a PhD. But we are Americans, working to preserve the right to share what we have learned. This book offers an explanation for our nation’s biggest problem while it finds a path forward rooted in our smallest citizens... Perhaps it takes flawed regular guys to find something that was there in front of us, but no one seems to see” -

Battle For the American Mind. Uprooting a Century of Miseducation,

Pete Hegseth with David Goodwin (2022)

Writers Peter Hegseth and David Goodwin and their book, Battle For the American Mind. Uprooting a Century of Miseducation, are in the camp of dismantling K-12 public schools and their call for action is undeniable. They see “the struggle is not military, but instead political-cultural. We are not looking to topple our government, but instead to defeat the monopoly of government-run schools – and the leftist unions occupying power.... we increase our control and build an alternative educational model... we regroup and reorganize while weakening the control and legitimacy of our foe, and finally we replace their power structure with reconstructed schools based on freedom and faith.” Their book gives their diagnosis of how public education has been hijacked, and the game plan for dismantling and replacing it. Like the tactics used to overthrow Roe vs. Wade, their followers are holistically, strategically, and politically planning for a three-phase insurgency. The war is underway.

The ranks of The Dissatisfied continue to grow and they will be the focus, as well as the pushback (or lack thereof), from established K-12 public education in later posts. My goal with this post is to begin to describe the most extreme Dissatisfied and to awaken K-12 public educators to the clear and present danger.

Both Peter Hegseth and David Goodwin attended public schools, and by all accounts, have lived successful lives and strive to be contributing members of society. In their book they share their faith, and like me, claim Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior. They acknowledge that neither one has had professional training in education, teaching, and learning, and their observations and perceptions of public education are from “the outside looking in.”

Mr. Goodwin’s professional career is in the technology industry. He helped to found The Ambrose School in Boise, Idaho, serves on the board of directors, and is the editor of The Classical Difference magazine. Pete Hegseth is a nationally-known author, co-host of Fox and Friends-Weekend, host of numerous Fox Nation documentaries including The MisEducation of America, served in Afghanistan as a senior counterinsurgency instructor, and is the father of seven children.

What’s Wrong With Public Education As It Now Is?

Authors Hegseth and Goodwin raise many good points, some of which I agree with, but I respectfully disagree with their conclusions and action steps for change. The rhetoric of their book is combative and suggests that there is, and has been, beginning in the 1900s, planned, organized, and implemented action to highjack education by leftwing, progressive Democrats with Marxist leanings. Hegseth and Goodwin label all public schools as government-run monopolies, controlled by teacher unions, that hold students captive for 16,000 hours, with the sole purpose to indoctrinate them away from a Christian lens on life to an agnostic one.

Their thinking develops around the concept of paideia, meaning the ideas, presumptions, beliefs, affections, and ways of viewing and understanding life. Prior to the 1900s, education was aligned in the Western Christian Paideia (WCP) developed through classical Christian education. Christian education teaches students to think well, to speak well, to write well, and to discern what is true, good, and beautiful, all while cultivating their knowledge and devotion to God through Christ. Hegseth and Goodwin put forth the idea that over the last 100 years, progressives have successfully moved America in a different direction. 

The authors use this as an illustration of the divergence of thought. (p.54)

Western Christian Paideia (WCP): A lifelong search for greater meaning in life
American Progressive Paideia (APP): Search for a job.

Western Christian Paideia (WCP): Seek Wisdom
American Progressive Paideia (APP): Seek Facts

Western Christian Paideia (WCP): Study History and Classics
American Progressive Paideia (APP): There is nothing worth knowing that wasn’t just thought of.

Western Christian Paideia (WCP): Teach the application of reason.
American Progressive Paideia (APP): Preach the acceptance of indoctrination.

Western Christian Paideia (WCP): There is a divine order, revealed in Christ.
American Progressive Paideia (APP): There is humanist anarchy

Western Christian Paideia (WCP): Strong-spirited citizens who are better together.
American Progressive Paideia (APP): Weak-spirited citizens who better serve the state.

In that the concepts and their thinking have merit, the unanswered question, once the “war” is over, how will this be made operational to meet the needs of all kids? They do not address how their strategies will meet the needs of diverse students from different social economic classes and learning styles. Many details are missing.

Be that as it may, there should be no question that Hegseth, Goodwin, and their growing legion of followers, are committed to the cause of recasting American education aligned with classical Christian education, grounded in a Western Christian Paideia. As they see it, “It is a battle. A war – a war over correct ideas. And our goal is to win back every single hour of the 16,000 hours in which our kids are educated, from kindergarten to high school graduation. The classroom is the battlefield, the hearts, and minds of our kids the prize. The very survival of the American Republic, and the greatness of Western Civilization, are at stake. And right now, we are losing.” (p. 219)

The Guerrilla War
The Battle For the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation calls for action now. The book identifies, for The Dissatisfied, the tactics and strategies for waging an insurgency to overthrow public education. The Dissatisfied understand this will take time, but they have their playbook and game plan, and are on the move.

Phase 1 calls to organize, prepare, plan, build cells, recruit new members, and establish a covert network. This is happening now in earnest. COVID and distant learning energized parents and gave them insight into what is being taught in classrooms. Dissatisfied parents are connecting, organizing, attending school board meetings, questioning curriculum, and establishing local and national networks. The book encourages that “Individual schools, the Association of Classical Christian Schools, thought leaders, pastors and media personalities need to spread the word – not just about problems, but about the solutions staring us in the face.” (p.231) For The Dissatisfied, this is a return to an educational system founded on the Western Civilization Paideia (WCP). They are becoming politically active at the grassroots, national level, and are building momentum.

Parts of Phase 2 are happening now, too - targeted sabotage, delegitimizing attacks and establishing a parallel structure. The upcoming election cycle has conservative Republican candidates attacking public schools as being woke and indoctrinating children to hate America. Their propaganda, that beginning in elementary grades, schools are teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT), the 1619 Project, and gender identity, and do not have the ability to keep kids at school safe from bullying and gun violence. Their objective is to disrupt and for “parents, over time, to develop an ‘ick factor’ when it comes to their view of public schools.” (p.232) This tactic is not only working with parents, but also contributing to the mass exodus of teachers leaving the profession. The Dissatisfied are succeeding.

Phase 3 is conventional warfare that achieves political objectives and destroys the enemy and is on the horizon. The Supreme Courts now has a conservative majority. The Congress is balancing a 50-50 split. Charter schools, vouchers, educational saving accounts, homeschooling, and parent choice are now challenging funding for public education. At the state and school board level, parents are engaged and running for elected office. All this is happening and it seems that public education is oblivious. There is a great awakening happening.

Refugees
As I reflect on my 40+ year career as an elementary teacher, high school teacher, principal, superintendent, union president, and teacher contract negotiator, as well as college instructor, I have experienced the American education system and agree with The Dissatisfied that things need to change. The system is broken but it would be unfortunate that a “war” would need to be waged to facilitate change. I am afraid the victims in this, as with all wars, will be the children.

I do appreciate and value the work done by the authors and thank Mr. Hegseth for his service to our country. Their book, amplified by FOX News, is planting seeds with millions of Americans. 

Public Education must take notice.