Crackdowns on Student Advocacy

What do people claiming public schools are "indoctrination" camps really want?

Education writer Jennifer Berkshire recently tweeted that it was “[i]mpossible to overstate how much of Florida education politics right now— mandatory K-12 anti-communism curriculum, the push for conservative *classical* charters— is an attempt to reverse engineer kids so they won't be so keen on collective action”.

I think that observation is right on the money, though I wonder how sincere the proponents of this movement are about anything involving schools. In other words, do they truly want to change education in America, or do they simply want to use populist messaging to gain political power? Either way, this neo-McCarthyite educational policy has spread far beyond Florida.

In an echo of 1960s Southern Strategy scaremongering, far right groups and individuals like Chris Rufo are targetting “the institutions,” including universities. In practice, this means rooting out “DEI” programs (often left just as poorly-defined as “wokeness” or “CRT”), calling for the ouster of school leader…