In Dover our current budget is $2.1 million over the tax cap. The bulk of the overage is due to a inadequate state funding to our school district. This while the state of New Hampshire gives out more than $24 million this year to support PRIVATE SCHOOLS in the form of school vouchers. It is my belief that school vouchers only further exacerbate the existing inequality in our education system.
By diverting funds away from public schools and towards private institutions, school vouchers ultimately benefit those who are already privileged enough to attend these schools. This leaves students in underfunded public schools at a further disadvantage, as they are left with fewer resources and opportunities to succeed. Or, in the case of Dover, an unfair burden on our local taxpayers.
Furthermore, school vouchers can also result in a lack of accountability and oversight in terms of how taxpayer dollars are being spent. Without proper regulations in place, there is no guarantee that private schools receiving vouchers will provide a high-quality education or prioritize the needs of their students.
The Republicans on New Hampshire’s House Education Committee voted in favor of FIVE different bills that would send millions more tax dollars into the ever-expanding sinkhole known as the school voucher program.
Since when is it “fiscally responsible” to expand a program that has been operating with virtually no public accountability or transparency and has produced no verifiable data to show that it’s having a positive impact on student outcomes?
The school voucher program was established with the express goal of offering “choice” to low-income students in public school, whose parents wanted a different option for them. In reality, three-fourths of the students who took vouchers were already attending private or home school without public subsidy – the only “choice” they made was to take free cash when the state offered it.
Over the past 2½ years, the program has spent a total of $45 million in taxpayer dollars on “educational service providers” (private or religious schools, for-profit “learning centers,” ski areas, summer camps ). Most of the people and entities being paid with voucher funds do not have to be vetted or accredited by anyone; they need not have any experience, training, or even criminal background checks; and whatever these vendors’ qualifications may or may not be is information unavailable to the taxpayers who are paying them. Nor are they required to make public any information about their students’ progress.
Last year $265,948 was spent on 705 tutors and tutoring services. Who’s to say a parent isn’t hiring a relative, even possibly one of her own children, to tutor a child? Are the tutors qualified? Are the rates we’re paying them reasonable? Are students showing up for the tutoring, and are they making appropriate academic progress? We, the public, have no way of knowing.
I believe that we should be focusing on investing in and supporting our public schools, rather than implementing a system that only serves to benefit a select few at the expense of the majority. Education is a right that should be accessible to all, and school vouchers risk further widening the gap between the privileged and the marginalized in our community.
My wife and I met at UNH and both graduated from UNH. We were lucky enough to be in a financial position where both our children also graduated from UNH. I have had a number of gymnasts I have worked with also attend UNH. It saddens me to see this institution which I love go down this path. The STATE of New Hampshire MUST fix the funding issue at the state’s colleges and universities. We are graduating our next generation into a huge debt.
I moved here from NY to attend UNH and I fell in love with the area and stayed. So many people are choosing to attend schools out of state because it is less expensive and they stay there.
“What is happening at UNH – draconian cuts on the one hand, budgetary obfuscation on the other – is absolutely not unique.” (Dennis Tangney Jr. | Getty Images)
This commentary was updated on Jan. 19 at 10:25 a.m. to clarify that layoffs happened at the University of Maine at Farmington. The story was also updated on Jan. 21 at 1:05 p.m.to remove a reference to UNH being under budget by $9 million last year. The university reports being $9 million under budget on tuition revenue for this year.
You may have seen the headlines this week: “University of New Hampshire to lay off 75 employees to help save $14M.” The headline conceals the true costs of these cuts, which are only the latest round in many during recent years. The university is also losing many talented, beloved professors who do not have permanent contracts and who are thus, in Orwellian parlance, being “non-renewed” rather than “laid off.” In an extraordinary and unreported move, the university is also shuttering its art museum.
It’s hard to believe that these cuts actually save that much money. The art museum is tiny, already operating on a shoestring, and might cost around $1 million, a tiny fraction of the university’s overall budget, which is somewhere around $900 million. But who knows, really? Because no one is explaining where the mandate to cut $14 million came from, or how that figure was arrived at. The university spokesperson, who is undoubtedly paid better than most professors, has declined to answer reporters’ questions about how much money these cuts actually save.
What is happening at UNH – draconian cuts on the one hand, budgetary obfuscation on the other – is absolutely not unique. Nationwide, small four-year colleges are shutting down. The big flagship state universities, long believed to be relatively secure, are eliminating the programs that make universities what they are – and that their states desperately need. The University of Vermont has cut majors including programs in secondary education; the University of Maine at Farmington laid off tenured professors in fields including philosophy and history; West Virginia University is on a slash and burn campaign against everything from world languages to mining engineering.
In his letter to the campus community, President James Dean cited two reasons for the cuts: “enrollments” and “employee compensation.” Those of us who have worked for decades in higher ed and who try to understand university management have been puzzling over the enrollment conundrum.
We now have more students than we have dorms to put them in, so how is it that enrollment is breaking the bank? We hear university officials citing the much-vaunted “enrollment cliff,” proposed by a demographer named Nathan Grawe, whose research is contested, to say the least. At the same time, we know that university credit ratings (and UNH’s is quite strong) are heavily dependent on promises about future enrollment. We know, too, that “enrollment management” has become a huge (and arguably shady) business within universities. How much is enrollment a genuine budgetary challenge, and how much is it something cooked up to keep the business-managerial class paid, and the rest of us scrambling and miserable?
As for “employee compensation,” here’s the thing. Education is in fact a human activity, with human costs. You just can’t replace all instructors with gig workers and apps. For years now, higher education has operated with a flexible pool of contract faculty that can be hired and fired at will, as budgetary or political whims dictate. That is doubly hard to stomach, when so much student tuition money is now given over to enrollment managers, public relations and marketing gurus, athletics coaches, and other ancillary personnel. Universities always find the money to pay those people. They also also find money to dole out to enterprise software companies, who sell the crummiest platforms for teaching, advising, and budgeting, all with the avowed intent of “streamlining operations.” Meanwhile, at UNH and at universities across the country, we have students sleeping in their cars, and instructors depending on food pantries.
Budgets are moral documents. For decades, the mantra in higher education has been, “Run the university like a business!” But truly, even Dunkin’ Donuts seems to understand that, at the end of the day, you need to pay the people who actually make the coffee. You need to have enough cups on hand for when customers actually show up. You even need a few festive holiday decorations.
We are fast moving toward a university that sells young people into debt without giving them the well-rounded experiences or skills that they need and deserve. The MBAs, lawyers, risk managers, and others who have taken over universities are running them into the ground. Perhaps, when we see a headline that says “UNH to lay off 15 Vice Presidents, Halt Executive Bonuses,” we can feel confident that “fiscal responsibility” is being practiced in earnest. Otherwise, it’s time for faculty and students to take their universities back.
Public education is one of America’s greatest superpowers.
It has paved the way for our nation’s astronauts and authors, engineers and musicians, nonprofit advocates and government leaders. At its very best, it opens doors of opportunity for Americans all over this country ― showing students they can achieve big dreams regardless of their race, place or economic standing ― creating a powerful foundation for our nation’s global leadership and competitiveness. That promise is what motivates me ― as the parent of two children who learned and grew up in local public schools, a lifelong teacher and now as secretary of education.
But as we commemorate American Education Week this week, we also know that our current education system has been falling far short of that promise for decades, failing too many of our students. That’s unacceptable. Our Raise the Bar: Lead the World agenda at the U.S. Department of Education calls for raising the bar for our education system to the level our nation needs if we want to lead the world instead of returning to the low bar of our education system as it was in 2019 ― by focusing on substance, not sensationalism, in education.
Here’s what that looks like.
Speaking as a parent myself, I know one of the first things you want to know as your children start their educational journey is if they are learning reading and math at high levels? Do they have a highly qualified teacher in their classroom who is trained in rigorous literacy and numeracy approaches? That’s why we need to invest in building up the teacher pipeline alongside tutoring, mentoring, after-school programs and other investments that can support students’ academic excellence. We have seen 28 states and Puerto Rico embrace registered teaching apprenticeships that provide student teachers with crucial on-the-job experience while getting paid. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have also increased teacher salaries ― absolutely critical if we want great teachers to join, and stay in, this profession.
As parents well understand, learning conditions also matter a great deal. If your child doesn’t feel safe or healthy, mentally or physically, it’s much harder for them to focus and learn. At a time when the surgeon general has called mental health the “defining public health crisis of our time” and about 1 in 3 high school girls has seriously considered suicide, there can be no serious vision for education that doesn’t make student health and mental health a top priority.
Under our watch, we’ve seen states and school districts leverage the landmark Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to hire more school counselors (resulting in a 43% increase in school social workers), build mental health clinics within schools and integrate mental health and wellness periods into school days. We’re working with states to ensure they can receive long-term Medicaid reimbursement that is available for school-based health and mental health services. So far, 25 states have done so.
As a parent of one student in college now and another graduating soon from high school, I also know from experience that a big question on your mind may be if your child will graduate from high school with great options for a rewarding life and career? Too many of our high schools are stuck in the broken model of the last century, designed around the narrowest of pathways: four-year college or bust.
It’s far past time to evolve our high schools so students have more options, not less, to pursue their passions and their careers. We see a future where every high school has a dual enrollment program with a local university so students can explore advanced college classes and gain credits ― alongside opportunities for workforce internships, credentials in high-demand skills, career-connected courses, college and career advising, developing multilingualism, and more.
It’s also why this administration has been fighting to fix a broken higher education system and make college more affordable and accessible ― so more students can take advantage of a college education if that is the right choice for them. College should not be a life sentence of debt. We are fixing that!
Some wonder why our educational agenda does not have the sensationalism of the shiny new top-down federal initiatives of the past that have come and gone. As a former teacher and school principal, I know that we do not need someone from Washington giving local districts more to do while parents and educators urgently address the academic and mental health needs of our students. What schools need is substance in those areas that we know work to improve student outcomes. That’s what we deliver with Raise the Bar: Lead the World.
If we can collaborate and invest at the federal, state and local levels in each of these areas ― academic excellence, learning conditions and pathways to college and careers ― we have the chance to dramatically transform public education in America for the better ― to raise the bar. That will position our nation to compete globally and lead the world for years to come.
We will do it.
We must do this in New Hampshire. An educated public is the only way we will continue to grow.
As Dover celebrates its 400th anniversary I am proud and excited to announce my candidacy for City Council representing Dover’s Ward 3. I have been a resident of Dover for more than 30 years and I am currently on the city’s ethics commission. Debbie Thibodeaux has decided to not seek another term. She has been our representative on the council for 10 years and is leaving some big shoes to fill!
I grew up in New York and then attended the University of New Hampshire where I graduated with a degree in History. My wife,Stephanie, and I opened up Atlantic Gymnastics Training Center in 1994 in Portsmouth before opening up a second location in Dover in 2004. Our two children both graduated from Dover High School and the University of New Hampshire.
As a business owner for nearly 30 years, I’ve seen the direct impact of policy decisions on students and their families. Whether it’s as global as COVID, or as local as whether our students have the resources at school and home to allow them to focus on success when they’re competing, I heard of the wins and losses in our community. I have worked with teachers, families, and other businesses to try to make Dover a community wherewe can work and live. As Dover continues to grow we need to work together to fund our schools and other city programs and services without pricing residents out of their homes.
In the gymnastics world, I have coached internationally for more than 25 years. I have lectured and taught courses through out the world on gymnastics technique, safety and risk management as well as ethics and good business practices. I recently returned from Switzerland where I was the Head Coach for the Swiss Senior National Team in Magglingen, Switzerland where I placed gymnasts at the Olympics and World Championships. I currently consult with Italian National Team members in Civitavecchia Italy, and will be visiting Ireland this fall to provide consulting services for the Irish Gymnastics Federation. Through gymnastics, I’ve learned – and taught – that you are going to make mistakes but you must recover! If you slip or stumble, you make corrections and keep moving forward. What works on the beam and bars works in life: you never stop doing the work to succeed. I want to serve Dover and keep our community moving forward as well.
As a parent and educator, I understand that educating our children is the foundation from which we build solid, strong communities. As a businessman, I know the importance of operational experience and fiscal responsibility. Dover has a bright and vibrant future; but that future must be carefully and thoughtfully built to preserve what makes Dover, Dover. We can be not just A place where families want to live and grow, but THE PLACE. I am excited about the opportunity to connect with members of our community and to ask for their support in November. It would be my honor to serve on the City Council of Dover representing Ward 3.
Tony Retrosi can be reached at Retrosi4Dover3rd@gmail.com or by phone at 603-512-8142
Recently the radical US Supreme Court has again slapped down Americans trying establish financial freedom. The reasoning behind it (although no HARM was ever shown) comes down to some people chose not to go to college so therefore would not be eligible for benefits. There are some people in my generation who do not feel it is fair that a portion of loans are forgiven to people today while they had to pay off their loans.
In 2020-2021 dollars, one year’s college tuition in 1963 cost just over $4,300. In 2020, it cost nearly $14,000.[1]
The total cost of a year of college was about $10,600 in 1963. In 2020, it was almost $26,000.Note Reference [1]
Across all types of schools, the cost of college has increased more than 143%, or 2.4 times, between 1963 and 2020.
Compared to other school types, four-year public colleges saw the steepest price hikes from 2000-2020, jumping from roughly $13,000 a year to over $21,000 annually.Note Reference [1]
Attending a four-year public college costs 64% more than it did 20 years ago.
Attending a two-year public college costs 59% more than it did 20 years ago.
Across all schools, tuition spikes are driving increases in the overall cost of college.
From 2000-2020, average tuition and fees rose by 69%, from $8,082 to $13,677 a year.
YES, education is expensive. But the cost of ignorance cannot be measured. Many people complain that schools should be more like training grounds to learn a subject. Schools should be a place where you learn to think and reason.
I had the joy or running into one of my former gymnasts while I was down in New Orleans for a convention. She is currently a History professor at Xavier University. When she told me about the debt she had been carrying for years I was floored. It was unimaginable.
Here is her story:
I Had All of My Student Loans Forgiven. You Might Be Eligible Too.
I’m not sure about the rest of you, but up until recently I figured I was going to die with my colossal student loan debt. It is possible I have fantasized asking someone to print out the details of the never-decreasing debt and send them along with me into the afterlife, just to be sure they attached to no one else. And I’ve become an expert at ignoring all the news swirling about the failures of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, or the veritable uselessness of $10,000 in loan dismissals. It was just all too depressing. Today, though, I am asking everyone who works in the worlds of non-profit, public sector, and higher ed, including ALL teachers, to tune in, even if just for a minute. There is a light – it is faint – but it’s there.
About 30 years ago I made a decision based on the best information I had – mind you, I was 17, but I was a good student, and, I thought, conscientious. I elected to go to the most academically prestigious university I had been admitted to – the University of Pennsylvania. I was pretty stubborn, so when I made that decision there was little that could have moved me, including the high price tag. Not even when my father handed me his income tax return and a blank FAFSA, instructing me that if I was going to take on that debt, I should learn to understand it. Not even seeing that my first year’s tuition, room & board, and fees would total just under $26,000, despite the fair bit it was reduced after Penn processed the FAFSA. I had firmly decided that the financial burdens would be worth the education and the prestige I would gain with an Ivy League degree, particularly given my parents had not gone to college themselves.
My four years at Penn were world-changing in personal and intellectual ways, helping me recognize my love for historical thinking and clarifying to me that despite being a first-generation college student I could pursue a PhD. Still, all that self-realization came at the cost of about $80k in student loan debt – a debt that alternately terrified me and pushed me to pretend it wasn’t there. For a few years after my B.A. I worked and paid off some of the loans as best I could with entry-level job salaries. A few years later, now in grad school at Tulane and feeling as thought it would be an uphill battle to ever pay that large sum off, not to mention realizing there was no way I would be able to do the required research to complete my doctoral degree without additional funds, I added to that abstract pile of loans multiple summers in a row to conduct field research. By the time I was done, the debt exceeded $100k.
Today, I have been teaching at Xavier University of Louisiana – a private, Catholic, HBCU – since 2008. Xavier salaries in the humanities fall at the lower end of our ranking below the 60th percentile nationally for IIA institutions. In these past 14 years I added to that debt – thank you credit cards – to finish my first book and generally uphold my scholarly agenda. For the first several years of teaching I continued to work as a bartender, as I had through much of my undergraduate and graduate experience, simply to make ends meet.
Around six years ago I was able to secure an annual base of research funding, which has allowed me, finally, to stop funding my own research (aka, my job) and start saving for a house down payment. I also discovered that, for reasons unclear to me, mortgage companies don’t count student loan in the same way as other debt. Since then I have been extremely lucky to secure several amazing research fellowships, travel extensively for my new book project, and buy that home. I was also just promoted to full professor which came with a substantial raise, although somehow it is the equivalent of a mentee’s starting salary as a TT assistant professor at an elite northeastern university.
Meanwhile my still-very-large student loan debt continued to loom over me. I assumed I would never pay it off, just keep making those monthly payments, which would only increase commensurate to any raises I received. In the decade and a half I paid on these loans, the total debt only increased. Being single and without children, my monthly payments sat at about 15% of my take home – which more or less squares with the statement that IDR plans cap out at 20% of discretionary income. I knew it wouldn’t transfer to anyone else when I died (phew) but I assumed I’d be paying that percentage or higher, depending on changes at FedLoan, until then.
This week that changed. Although I had enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program a decade ago (as soon as I heard about it, but several years after I had begun paying off the loans), I never thought the balance would REALLY be forgiven. I had heard all the horror stories of people enrolling in the program, being diligent about payments for the full ten years, then being summarily removed, no relief in sight. I was not optimistic, and I basically tried not to think about it, even pushing my enrollment date from my mind. But about a year ago, knowing that some reforms had been made in the program under Biden, I decided to face the music and see if I was close to the required 120 payments. I made a bunch of phone calls, refiled my employment verification, and waited.
Several months ago I got notification that, unfortunately, I had not yet made the required number of payments. I was only at 94. Although I knew I had made more than that, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to fight to get those “missing” payments recognized. Or that they just wouldn’t get counted, and we would continue this cycle forever. I added “call MyFedLoan” to my to-do list and proceeded to ignore that particular entry for weeks.
Around mid-May I got another notification from the federal student loan portal. When I finally clicked through to get the message (yes, it took several days because I assumed it was more frustrating news), I got this massive shock:
Congratulations! On Oct. 6, 2021, the Department of Education announced a change to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program rules for a limited time that allows you to get credit for payments you’ve made on loans that wouldn’t normally qualify for PSLF. As a result of this limited PSLF waiver (StudentAid.gov/pslfwaiver), we conducted another review of your Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) & Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF) Certification & Application (PSLF Form) and payment history. We have determined that you have successfully made the required 120 monthly payments in order to have all or a portion of your loans listed below forgiven.
Reading on, I saw my outstanding balance: $0. I was in total disbelief. Wanting human reassurance I called customer service, just to get them to verify out loud the information contained in the letter. Apparently, it really was forgiven. Over the past few days I’ve tried to process what this means to me. First, it gives me the smallest bit of hope that as a society we might be able to amend the way we finance higher education and begin to value the ambition of all students – not just the ones who want to go into finance. I would never have been able to see myself in the world of academia without pushing into that purportedly refined air and being told by my professors at Penn that I belonged there. Having my student loan debt forgiven means we might have a chance to continue diversifying the areas of professional life that have traditionally been gate-kept by money, power, and prestige.
However, it also means that 15% of my take home can now be put back into the economy in productive ways – whether that is in supporting organizations I care about, building my home equity, or even just saving for my retirement. I can also worry a little less about how I will finance that retirement, which is fairly important for a single, childless person, but also critical for opening up the profession to new, fresh generations of teacher-scholars.
I wanted to share my story because an astounding number of people do not know about this program. At lunch the other day with a half dozen university professors many of them had never heard of it, or only barely knew its general purpose. In the days since my letter I have told my story to multiple friends and colleagues; a shocking percentage assumed that the program didn’t apply to them because they worked at a private college or university, or because their loans are not being serviced by the federal government. Unless you work for a for-profit institution, you qualify. And even if your student loans are handled by private servicers you can consolidate under the government and get those back payments counted under the limited waiver, at least until October 2022. As public sector professionals and university leaders we must to be able to help each other with these issues, both for our collective good and to better press for an improved financial landscape for our students and future generations of public sector workers.
Every possible eligible person should get into this program now while this limited waiver is still in place. If you haven’t enrolled in PSLF and work for a 501(c)3, get signed up immediately. Send in your employment certification form and ask MyFedLoan for a count of your payments. Wait in the customer service queue on the phone to speak to an agent (I know, the worst, but really. . . ) and have them walk you through the steps to ensure you are enrolled and repaying through a certified program. If not, ask them to process the limited waiver and get on a certified repayment plan, consolidating your loans serviced by private companies with FedLoan if you need to. Recertify annually by sending in the employment form and regularly triggering the count. There are a number of good pieces online about how to be persistent in this process. But make it a priority over the next few months. This program has been failing for so long – we must take advantage of this window and get as much debt forgiven as possible.
Ultimately, as we know of late in truly embodied ways, how we value public sector and care-work is a matter of collective survival and yet it is woefully undervalued. If you work in education or the non-profit sector, you are using your education to help build a better society. You did not choose your career path because it was going to set you up for a comfortable life financially, but because you have a passion to care for others in some particular capacity. Isn’t that enough? Should we be saddled with this massive debt – for many of us a debt taken on at a time that such a thing was just what you had to do to “get ahead”? Wouldn’t it be better if we could reform the system so that we can train teachers and professors and social workers and non-profit leaders – and not have them always debilitatedly pondering how they will pay the bills? As an educator I want my students to be able to make decisions about their lives based on their skills, interests, and abilities, and matching those to potential career paths. I want them to consider work that contributes to a more just and humane society, no matter how they conceive it. What I desperately fear is that these decisions are becoming more and more dependent on whether and how much debt 17-year-olds think they might or might not be able to carry for the rest of their lives.
I believe we must continue to press for reform in the way this country deals with higher education financing. Opting out of college as my parents did is becoming an increasingly less viable choice. Even trade and specialized training schools are expensive, and we should be finding ways to allow more students access to university and jobs training, not less. We need to set our future generations up for success, not crippling debt or, worse, crippling (impossible) choices.
Reforming PSLF and forgiving student debt is a start, but we have so much more to do.
One litmus test by which a society can be judged is the ways it treats its young people. On the issue of firearms, the litmus paper has turned blood red.
Walking by my town’s elementary school, I observed the flag in front hanging at half-mast. On a poll nearby, someone hung three shining blue mylar balloons in memorial to the three beautiful nine-year-old students cut down by a shooter at Covenant Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee.
I thought then about the lives of the victims of this senseless and avoidable plague of gun violence engulfing the nation, affecting the young and old alike. I imagined what could have been possible for the victims whose lives had just begun and about the possibilities this shooter had deprived.
The perpetrators of this and similar crimes are the frontline perpetrators in an ongoing internal war on civility. They are aided and abetted by the legions of co-conspirators, legislators and other extremists who perpetuate the myth that any and all common-sense gun regulations infringe on their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
But what about our children’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? What about their rights to an education free from constant fears of being gunned down in their schools and communities?
What about all of our rights to walk down safe streets, to work in safe spaces, to shop and attend theaters, concerts, and community events without constantly looking over our shoulders for potential shooters who could take us out?
Legislators and some parents’ groups appear more concerned with banning books. But we must remember that dead youth can’t read books.
Legislators and some parents’ groups appear more concerned with barring discussions of Critical Race Theory, gender, and LGBTQ+ topics in classrooms.
But we must remember that dead youth can’t study anything. And they certainly can’t think about transitioning their gender, loving someone of the same sex, or using public facilities and playing on sports teams aligning with their gender identities.
I still have hope, though, in the youth-led firearms safety movement.
Demanding “Never Again,” “Enough Is Enough,” and “March for Our Lives,” and shouting “We Call BS” to the arguments against changing gun laws, a new generation of young people was launched into activism after a shooter’s bullets killed 17 and injured another 17 of their peers and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018.
Within a very short time, they have captured the imagination and admiration of those of us who have long hoped and fought for policy initiatives to bring an end to the senseless over-availability of firearms that kill tens of thousands of people annually in the U.S.
But as with all movements for progressive social change, a strong and powerful opposition stands in the way. Members of the conservative political Right, many of who represent the interests of gun manufacturers and their lobbyists, have long engaged in and are continuing to wage war against gun safety advocates, even when, especially when, these advocates are young people.
During this Trumpian-inspired Right-Wing cultural moment – within the context of declarations of “fake news,” “conspiracy theories,” “witch hunts,” and verifiable distortions and lies in reaction to anything and everything reported that goes against their agendas and “values” – the backlash to derail these new youth advocates by demeaning and impugning their integrity and motivation was predictable in its speed and ferocity.
People in the extreme crevices of the Right – through many of their supporters – accuse these young people of serving as pawns or co-conspirators of the Left’s anti-gun agenda, accusing them of being mere puppets who have been coached on what to say and how to say it.
On his radio show back in 2018, Rush Limbaugh called out the student activists: “Everything they’re doing is right out of the Democrat Party’s various playbooks. It has the same enemies: the N.R.A. and guns.”
Donald Trump Jr. joined in on the attacks of then-17-year-old David Hogg, one of the student leaders from Douglas High School, after Hogg criticized the Trump administration to protect his father, a former F.B.I agent.
Trump Jr. liked a Tweet referring to a YouTube video called, “Outspoken Trump-Hating School Shooting Survivor is Son of FBI Agent; MSM Helps Prop Up Incompetent Bureau.”
The Right also refers to Hogg and other student gun safety activists as “crisis actors.” During an interview following the shooting in 2018 with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Hogg responded to the charge: “I’m not a crisis actor. I’m someone who had to witness this and live through this, and I continue to be having to do that. I’m not acting on anybody’s behalf.”
With Douglas High School students observing from the balcony, Florida state legislators voted down, by a margin of nearly 2 to 1, a proposal to discuss the merits of banning AR-15 rifles in the state. In recent years, however, the movement has scored limited victories by lobbying state and national legislators to pass gun safety legislation, as meager as it has been. Other states have actually loosened gun laws, with many extending open and concealed firearms carry procedures.
And what are the emotional, physical, and educational tolls on students from preschool through high school who must endure continual “active shooter” drills, the “hardening” of schools with windowless classrooms, metal detectors, and armed guards on school grounds?
I asked this question to the 80 students in my undergraduate university class a day after the shooting at Nashville’s Covenant Elementary School. At first, they were surprised that I had suspended the scheduled discussion I had planned for that day.
I allowed a tense silence to continue for a few minutes until one student rather shyly raised her hand. She said that throughout all of those grade school years, with all the drills and the retrofitting of her school, no teacher or administrator had ever asked what students were feeling.
She expressed that “all of this had become so normalized. Like, we go to class, we go to the cafeteria for lunch, we go back to class, we have active shooter drills, we turn in our assignments, and we go to our afterschool sports activities.”
Other students then raised their hands across the room, all agreeing with the first student who spoke. Others nodded their heads in full agreement.
With young people of every generation, serious and terrifying events saturate their lives both at a distance and close to home.
My parents’ generation suffered from the Great Depression, illnesses like Polio, and the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust; the U.S. government sent my generation to fight and die in Vietnam as I witnessed the body bags of my friends return home. Also within my generation and all of those following, the AIDS pandemic became an unwelcome presence inciting fear throughout our world.
The current generation has been affected not only by the Covid-19 pandemic but also by this plague of gun violence that increases year after year.
To date, according to The Washington Post, there have been 376 school shootings affecting 348,000 students since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
We have to ask ourselves and our legislators whether any constitutional right is unbounded by gun legislation. We have to ask whether we love our young people more or less than we love AR-15 semiautomatic rifles – which the U.S. military developed as an effective killing machine used in the Vietnam War – and this so-called limitless freedom to bear arms.
I believe one of the litmus tests by which a society can be judged is the ways it treats its young people. On the issue of firearms, the litmus paper has turned a deep blood red.
A Tallahassee Classical School teacher showed a sixth-grade art history class a photo of Michelangelo’s “David” in all his glory, and that’s when everything went south.
Florence is one of my favorite cities. Beautiful architecture, beautiful art, an amazing history. There is something fascinating to watch at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Italy. The museum is home to Michelangelo’s marble sculpture of the biblical David, naked with a sling over his shoulder and a rock in his hand, preparing to battle the fearsome Goliath.
Upon entering the museum, you make a quick left, then an immediate right. Ahead, roughly 50 yards in front of you, stands “David.” From this point, these 50 yards away, you can stand and listen to the audible gasps of visitors as they first gaze upon the sculpture from this distance. It tells you two things: No photograph can do justice to seeing the real thing; the real thing is a stunning artistic achievement.
“David” is the height of classic Renaissance art culture, sculpted by the man who also painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which features biblical imagery of all kinds, both nude and clothed.
Michelangelo wanted to show the power of God in the empty hand of a young David, who would use a single rock to defeat a giant. Many called it a miracle. Nobody called it controversial, let alone pornographic.
The plan was to position the sculpture aside a series of prophetic statues some 90 feet above ground along the roofline of the Florence Cathedral, which is why the hands, feet and head are oversized. In perspective, viewed from below at that distance, the appendages would appear normal in size. But authorities at the time deemed the sculpture too magnificent to be that far from public view. Of course, the statue weighing 6 tons, made matters academic as it would have been nearly impossible to raise the sculpture to that height. Instead, it was placed at ground level in the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of government in Florence, for all to see. It stood there for nearly 400 years before being moved inside the museum where it is today. The story of how it was moved and then how it was incased in brick to protect it during WW2 is AMAZING.
Interestingly, David was viewed as a defender of civil liberties in Florence, an independent city-state threatened on all sides by more powerful rival states and the Medici hegemony. This defiance is expressed in David’s eyes, the statue situated to cast a cautionary glare toward Rome — an early version, perhaps, of the “Live free or die” concept.
But only in America is art controversial, particularly in conservative bastions like Florida. Each year since its opening in 2020, the Tallahassee Classical School would show a photo of “David” to a sixth-grade art history class.
This year, a controversy erupted. Three parents complained. In response, the school fired the principal, sent an apology letter to parents and held an emergency board meeting, where many parents condemned the firing.
School board chair Barney Bishop III insisted it was not a firing and that the principal resigned.
He’s full of it.
“We didn’t remove her,” he told Slate in a heated interview. “I went to her last week and offered her two letters. One was a voluntary resignation and another a letter that said if she decided not to resign, I was going to ask the board to terminate her without cause.”
Orwellian double-speak. Slice it any way you like, that was a firing.
Bishop may be on firmer ground in explaining that multiple concerns led to the principal’s dismissal, though he couldn’t elaborate for legal reasons.
But it seems there’s blame enough to go around.
School policy requires that parents receive written notice two weeks in advance informing them of any sensitive topics their child might be learning, “and they can decide whether it is appropriate for their child to see it,” Bishop said.
The letter was written, but the administration accidentally forgot to send it, according to the principal, Hope Carrasquilla, the school’s third principal in as many years.
“I made the assumption that the letter went out, and I didn’t follow up on it,” she told NPR.
“But honestly,” she added, “we did not have to send out a letter regarding Renaissance art.”
A third problem: While showing the image of “David” in all his glory, the teacher reportedly told the students, “Don’t tell your parents.”
“That’s a huge red flag!” Bishop said.
He has a point, though no one has spoken to the teacher in question, who remains employed.
But here is the fine point of it.
Bishop boasted on the one hand that “we teach the Hillsdale Curriculum. We teach a traditional Western civilization, liberal classical education.”
Yet he argued that parents should know what students will see, hear or discuss in class. The issue, he said, “isn’t whether children should see these pictures or not. Gosh, we’re a classical school. Why wouldn’t we show Renaissance art to children?”
Further on, he said, “Parents know what that curriculum is. And parents are entitled to know any time their child is being taught a controversial topic and picture.”
Just a minute. If parents know what the curriculum is, why do they need to be notified about any of it?
Didn’t the parents know this was a classical school and that their kids would see Renaissance art? Didn’t they know that would include nudity? Isn’t classical education a selling point? Sounds like it, the way Bishop tells it. How could these parents not know that, and if they didn’t know that, why did they enter their children in a lottery hoping their child would be selected to attend? (Students are admitted by lottery drawing.)
Bishop said it was a mistake not to tell parents what the kids would see. Maybe the parents made the mistake of enrolling their kids in a classical education curriculum without knowing what a classical education curriculum is.
It’s certainly worth asking the three complaining parents. Two of the parents complained because they received no advance notice about the lesson plan. The third complained that the image of “David” was pornographic.
“Parents choose this school because they want a certain kind of education,” Bishop told Slate.
Apparently not, pal. Yet he seemed to give parents greater credence than the teachers.
“The rights of parents, that trumps the rights of kids,” Bishop said. “Teachers are the experts? Teachers have all the knowledge? Are you kidding me? I know lots of teachers that are very good, but to suggest they are the authorities,” he told the Slate reporter, “you’re on better drugs than me.”
So basically, you’re saying the teachers you hire aren’t all that qualified to teach the subjects they’re hired to teach. Well, why the hell would I send my kid to a school like that?
Sure, let’s put a parent in charge who thinks the statue of David is pornographic. Clearly that parent is unaware that nude portrayals have been a common practice as far back as the Babylonians and Ancient Egypt. The Greeks associated nudity with the beauty, power and perfection of the gods. It had a similar symbolic meaning for artists during the Renaissance, who were inspired by a renewed interest in classic Greek and Roman culture.
But gaining that knowledge might require reading, a subject now under fire in Florida public schools.
Put it this way: If that parent were alive in 1504 when the statue of David was unveiled, were he to call it pornography, he’d be considered backward and ignorant, and be the laughingstock of Florence.
Tallahassee Classical is a tuition-free, taxpayer-funded charter school with some 500 students, 56 of which are in the sixth grade. Like many charter schools in the U.S., its curriculum comes from Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school in Michigan with ties to multiple far-right figures.
The undertones are disturbing. Hillsdale advocates its 1776 curriculum, which opposes factual teachings of history, including the 1619 Project, which explores the history of slavery, racism and the oppression of Black Americans in the U.S. The college played a crucial role in crafting Donald Trump’s “1776 Report,” which reputable historians have condemned as poppycock.
“We’re not gonna have courses from the College Board,” Bishop declared. “We’re not gonna teach 1619 or [critical race theory]crap,” echoing the suppressive policies pushed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who frequently consults the Hillsdale institution on educational issues.
“We agree with everything the governor is doing in the educational arena,” Bishop said. “We support him because he’s right. The whole ‘woke’ indoctrination going on about pronouns and drag queens isn’t appropriate in school.”
Yet, look who’s going woke over art.
Maybe the larger error in all this is the school’s failure to warn parents about the entirety of its curriculum before any of them entered their kid into the lottery system: “Caution: your children will see works of art featuring nudity.”
Gasp!
Or do one of those movie warnings. NNSFCP: Nudity not safe for close-minded parents.
Chances are those sixth-graders, with their cellphones and access to the fullness of the internet’s depravities, have seen far more graphic images than anything they saw in class that day.
A final but important point about nude depictions in classical art: The size of the male member on all these statues. (C’mon, you hadn’t noticed?) Unlike today, when “well-endowed” is typically equated with power and masculinity, the ancient Greeks and their artistic descendants never saw the phallus as a symbol of virility or manliness. Potency came from one’s intellect, reason and self-control.
I dunno about you, but the idea of putting a premium on intellect seems like an excellent lesson to associate with a discussion of “David.”
For a school founded in 2020, it’s ironic how many associated with it have so little vision, let alone wisdom.
My advice: Wake up and grow a pair. If you don’t know what that looks like, there’s this statue in Florence …
