[sitetest]

Dear RobbyS,

You're kinda wandering around in this post.

You originally said:

“No, the Catholic schools are also dominated by this. Anytime you hire a certified teacher, you get someone trained to be a public school teacher.”

What you're saying here (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the same problems that afflict public schools afflict Catholic schools because Catholic schools hire “certified teachers.” I pointed out that, at least in Maryland, private schools (Catholic and non-Catholic alike) don't have to hire folks certified to teach in public schools, and pointed to an example - my sons’ high school.

Now you're saying that the problem is not that the Catholic schools hire certified teachers but rather that there are not many private schools and thus are not free of progressive views. I think that's a bit of a non sequitur. There are, first of all, lots and lots of private schools. But it's true that enrollment at private schools is small compared to that of public schools.

But many private schools DON'T HIRE certified teachers, generally, in order to avoid many of the pitfalls found in public schools. THAT'S PART OF THE REASON WHY THEY'RE PRIVATE.

As to “progressive views,” I'd say that the faculty and staff of my sons’ school roughly looks like the rest of the United States. There are heart-on-the-sleeve liberals, and tough and determined conservatives. There are folks whose politics are rather muddied. One teacher is a rock-solid Republican, conservative Catholic, wouldn't vote Dem for dogcatcher. Ironically, his father, someone I've known for nearly 30 years, is a social-justice sort of Catholic, liberal as the day is long. But we're ALL Catholic, ALL Knights of Columbus, and ALL part of our school's family.

It's just not so cut-and-dried.

Among faculty members are socialist Quakers who still have BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) bumper stickers on their cars to folks who strongly supported Ron Paul, and have only grudgingly come around to the “liberal” Romney.

At least around here, this isn't terribly unusual in private schools.

Next, you jump to a discussion of “top private schools,” and talk about making them attractive. I'm not sure what that has to do with being liberal or progressive. Many parents send their kids to private schools on the assumption that these schools will be DIFFERENT from the public schools. One possible difference for which folks might be looking might be in the area of political correctness, which is strongly tied to progressivism and political liberalism.

In my region, there are certainly very good private schools that are seen as very progressive. There are also very good private schools that are not seen as politically progressive or liberal.

But I live in a region that's pretty darned liberal - the Archdiocese of Washington. In a way, it's surprising that there are ANY schools in this area that aren't very liberal in their focus. Not because of the progressive virus run amok in the teaching profession but because MOST FOLKS IN THIS REGION ARE LIBERAL, whether they're teachers or not.

I imagine that if I visited private schools in southwest Virginia, I'd find even fewer liberals teaching in these schools.

Then you jump to a discussion of Harvard, one with untrue and/or outdated stereotypes. Not sure what that has to do with my original point, which is that many private schools in my area just don't hire certified teachers, or even folks with education degrees.

sitetest

[RobbyS]

What exactly is American education? What is there that pulls it all together, its underlying principles, those which are followed with few exceptions by American schools at every level. No. One is that education is a state function. That every school, whether it be privately owned or operated by a church or owned and operated by a government entity is at bottom an agent of the state. Another is that it must be a democratic education. Democratic in the sense that John Dewey used the term more than a hundred years ago, which is to fit each person where he.she belongs in that society. That society is conceived as totally secular. Secular is some ways like France is secular. But I think we must remember that Dewey, like Marx, starts with Hegel, but then goes his own way, rejecting idealism for something like Pierce’s “Pragamaticism” but which he finally calls instrumentalism. The purpose of the school is to serve as an instrument of the state.

Now sixty years ago, it was a common topic among Catholic educators to worry about the influence of Dewey in public education. The protestant influence in the schools had ebbed away and been replaced by a thinking that was not Marxist but admiring of its sociology. That is one reason why Catholics as well as Protestants were alarmed when the Supreme Court outlawed prayer in the public schools. An accommodation had been reached, where the school district was overwhelming Protestant, say as in Alabama, then the “tone” would be Protestant. In Massachusetts, another school district might as well have been a parochial school. Where there was a mixture, then the tone was something like liberal protestant/liberal Jewish. Since the decision secularism, owing so much to Dewey’s philosophy, and already found in many districts, has became dominant in the great majority of districts.

This was much furthered by the federal education act of 1965 which was a kind of final solution to the question of government aid for Catholic schools that had been a factor since the Catholic insurge around 1850. It was also furthered by the rage of ecumenicalism after Vatican II. I submit that from that point on, what had distinguished Catholic education from others went away very quickly. Just about as quickly as the teaching nuns. Land O’ the Lakes was a sure sign of this development. Bill Buckley described what had happened at Yale in the book that brought him to prominence. Catholic educators who ling had lamented that OTHERs thought of Catholic colleges as no better than upgraded parochial schools, now decided to go down that same path. What should,in their opinion, to distinguish them from other universities? Well, as little as possible. Likewise the Catholic schools that were not shut down by the dioceses after they lost their cheap labor. They would become like the private schools, or “better”public schools. Well, pretty much all this has happened. There is not a nickle;’s worth of difference between Georgetown and Harvard. Ditto the Jesuit Higb school in my area and the toney high school in High Park.