ENFORCING SOCIAL JUSTICE
NEW YORK POST
Editorial
November 9, 2005
The nation's schools of education have long been bastions of left-wing nuttiness. They teach aspiring teachers that there's no such thing as truth and that students should "construct" their own knowledge from the world around them. They demonize such awful "traditional" ideas as having kids memorize names and dates and become familiar with the Western canon.
Now an organization that accredits teachers colleges wants to make this implicit leftist indoctrination explicit: It is pushing schools to evaluate students on their commitment to "social justice."
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education accredits 602 colleges of education - about half of the country's teachers colleges. In 2000, it introduced new standards for aspiring teachers, including the concept of "dispositions" - that is, measuring would-be teachers not just on their classwork, but on their "beliefs and attitudes" toward values such as "caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility and social justice."
A group of conservative academics who argue for traditional approaches to teaching, the National Association of Scholars, is trying to head off the assault. Last week, the association filed a complaint with the federal Education Department (which recognizes the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education as a certified accreditor) of violating the aspiring teachers' First Amendment rights.
They seem to be on solid ground.
In Washington state, a 42-year-old would-be teacher, Edward Swan, expressed conservative views in class - and was ordered to sign a contract affirming his commitment to social justice, or face expulsion.
And, as reported by The New York Sun, Brooklyn College's School of Education has also been busy coercing its students into the cause of social justice, through intimidation in the classroom and retaliation against those who won't play along.
This is simply wrong.
The feds need to fix it.
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