Author Archives: Sheila

The Right’s Educational Agenda

As regular readers of this blog know, Morton Marcus and I recently co-authored and published a small book on the women’s movement. (If you haven’t purchased it, I really wish you would…) We discovered that–despite our very different preoccupations–we work together well, and we’ve been considering another project, this time, an examination of educational privatization–aka the voucher movement.

But researching the consequences that most concern us ranges from tricky to impossible. There’s plenty of research demonstrating that privatization has failed to deliver what proponents promised: better test scores. Researchers can access that sort of data; many have, and the results are pretty straightforward–which is why voucher cheerleaders now talk about parental choice rather than improved educational outcomes.

We have another concern: that vouchers facilitate and encourage the polarization of the polity, undermining civic cohesion at a time when increasing population diversity makes civic unity both more difficult and more important.

The research problem is what academics call “self-selection.” Even if we were able to test the thesis that graduates of private, mostly religious voucher schools emerge less civically knowledgable or more religiously biased or more prone to misogyny, etc., there would be no way to attribute those outcomes to the schools; the likelihood is that parents choosing such schools considered those outcomes to be a feature, not a bug.

I ran into a similar roadblock several years ago; I’d hoped to research the effects of the built environment on social capital. Did people living in gated communities have measurably different connections to, or interactions with, other people? Again, the “chicken and egg” issue confounded me: it was likely that most people who chose to live in those gated communities already had similar levels of social capital.

We may or may not develop a data-driven analysis of the anti-democratic results of school privatization. We both recognize that our public schools are far from perfect–years of neighborhood segregation, among other things, created huge differences between schools. Some of the charter schools that were initially intended to be more innovative public schools have become indistinguishable from private academies. And not all parents who place children in a private or charter school are doing so in order to indoctrinate their offspring (or protect them from Black or Brown classmates).

That said, many of these schools are teaching a very Whitewashed American history.

One recent report traces the sharp, Rightward turn of a new breed of Charter schools.

NPE identified hundreds of charter schools, predominantly in red states, that use the classical brand or other conservative dog whistles to attract white Christian families to enroll in the school. From featured religious music videos to statements that claim they offer a faith-friendly environment, these charter schools are opening at an accelerated rate, with at least 66 additional schools in the pipeline to open by 2024. While some of these schools, such as the Roger Bacon Academies, are long-standing, nearly half of the schools we identified opened after the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Hillsdale College is a small, conservative Christian college that has long been noted for far-Right indoctrination, and it is one of the most influential organizations pushing these charters.

The small conservative Christian college in Michigan has become a major player in Ron DeSantis’s Florida; as the report says, “Tug any thread of Florida’s present education policy, and you will find this small Michigan college at the other end.”

Hillsdale’s president Larry Arnn was tagged by Donald Trump to head his short-lived 1776 Commission, charged with creating nationalistic history curriculum (a version of which is now offered by Hillsdale). He has made the occasional misstep, as when Hillsdale’s charter move into Tennessee was stalled after Arnn was caught saying that “teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

Hillsdale works through its Barney Charter School initiative as well as providing its classical curriculum to member charters at no cost. In some cases, as with the Optima chain in Florida, the charter may be operated by a for-profit charter management firm (in the case of Optima, both the charter chains and the charter management organization are owned by the same person). The report found that among this new wave of conservative charter schools, the percentage of those operated by for-profit charter management companies is twice that in the charter sector as a whole.

Not every charter that advertises a classical curriculum is Rightwing; here in Indianapolis, Herron High School is an admirable example–and proudly public. But the morphing of charters into Rightwing indoctrination academies continues to gather steam.

I’m convinced that this movement endangers American democracy–but convincing data proving my hypothesis isn’t likely to emerge until Americans are living with the very undemocratic results.

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Good News For A Change

Over the past few years, I have become increasingly convinced that the death of traditional newspapers is at the root of much–if not most–of America’s polarization and anger. It isn’t just the dearth of local news, damaging as that is. The deeper problem is fragmentation.

As I used to tell students in my Media and Public Policy classes, “back in the day,” when large majorities of city residents got their news from the same newspapers (and from the local television newscasts that largely got theirs from local newspaper reporters), they occupied a similar civic reality.Even if they bought the paper for the grocery coupons or the sports scores, and merely glanced at the headlines, they shared a common information environment.

That shared environment is the loss that has most deeply cut into local civic cohesion and civic participation. So–although I have cheered the recent entry of new local media sources–I realize that those new resources don’t solve the fragmentation problem, even assuming that people who don’t currently get much local news learn about and access them. (I do worry that the availability of these resources won’t penetrate the consciousness of those who don’t share the nerdy preoccupations of people like me.)

All this is by way of explaining why I was thrilled to read the following:

A nonprofit group dedicated to rescuing local newspapers from either collapse or private equity pillaging is buying 22 local papers in Maine. The National Trust for Local News, founded just two years ago, will purchase five of the state’s six dailies and 17 weeklies from a private company called Masthead Maine owned by Reade Brower, who made his money in direct mail. (How one guy managed to get control of all the important newspapers in a state is a story for another day.)

As we all know, daily newspapers became less profitable with the rise of the Internet. That loss of profitability led private equity operators to swoop in and buy thousands of local newspapers. They saw a way to profit by “paring staff and news coverage to the bone.” Since then, the venerable (and rapacious) Gannett chain was bought by GateHouse, “one of the most predatory of the private equity outfits, which took over the Gannett name.”

The result has been the aptly-named “ghost” newspaper. (The Indianapolis Star is an excellent example.)

Local dailies and weeklies could actually turn a profit with well-staffed newsrooms if owners could be satisfied by returns in the 5 to 10 percent range rather than the 15 to 20 percent that was typical in the pre-internet era and that is demanded by private equity players. Despite the internet, local merchants still rely heavily on display ads, which are profit centers. And well-run local papers attract more display ads.

Since then, there has been a slowly growing movement to save the local press by returning it to community or nonprofit ownership. My friend and co-author Ed Miller has gone on to found an exemplary weekly, The Provincetown Independent, which has thrived at the expense of the GateHouse-owned Provincetown Banner, which has lost most of its staff and circulation. Between 2017 and July 2022, over 135 nonprofit newsrooms were launched, according to the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Another hopeful sign is that even by laying off staff and reducing coverage, private equity companies are not making the money they hoped for, so some of these papers are on the auction block and can be saved. Maine is not a typical case, since Reade Brower is a relatively benign monopolist and was willing to work with the National Trust for Local News.

According to the linked report, the Trust–which does not have a lot of its own money– employs a variety of ownership models and draws funding from a number of sources:

Its first major deal was in Colorado, where it now owns 24 local newspapers in that state in collaboration with The Colorado Sun. It has funders that include the Gates Family Foundation, the Google News Initiative, and the Knight Foundation. The MacArthur Foundation also recently announced a major initiative to save local news.

This is the beginning of a very hopeful trend to save priceless civic assets from predatory capitalism at its worst.

I never understood why those “predatory capitalists” didn’t understand that their approach ensured a death spiral. Newspapers sell a product: content. Did the Gatehouses and Gannetts not understand that consumers would respond to cuts in staffing, reflected in dramatic reductions of useful content, by discontinuing their subscriptions?

We need local news. And we need a shared source of local news. The National Trust for Local News seems to understand that saving local newspapers is the most efficient way to rebuild shared information resources.

That is very good news.

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What Is Rokita So Worried About?

Even before Donald Trump made it impossible for rational people to remain in the GOP, Indiana had more than its share of deeply problematic Republican officeholders. The office of Attorney General, especially, has often been occupied by ideologues and cranks. (I particularly remember the stories that lawyers shared about  “General” Sendak. And more recently, there was Curtis Hill, who hasn’t let his 3-month disbarment for inappropriate “groping” deter him from running for Governor.)

That said, it’s hard to identify an Attorney General more pathetic than the current occupant of that office. Todd Rokita is the “real deal”–if you define “deal” as unethical, monumentally ambitious, self-important and totally un-self-aware.

I’ve posted several times about Rokita, beginning when he was a Congressman accused of abusing his staff and more recently as he has relentlessly attacked the doctor who aborted a ten-year-old rape victim. Rokita accused her of failure to file paperwork, despite the fact that it took only a  cursory check to confirm they’d all been properly submitted.

Rokita  regularly falls over himself pandering to the  Hoosier MAGA crazies who oppose abortion, hate gays and want to outlaw “woke-ness” (which they can’t define.)

Being AG is a full-time job, but when Rokita first took office, he tried to keep (and hide) a lucrative side hustle (details at the link). Now, the Indianapolis Star has discovered that he requires lawyers working for his office to sign wide-ranging non-disclosure agreements.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s employees are signing nondisclosure agreements that could cost them $25,000 if they share personal information about the AG — an unusual policy for state office and one that sets him apart from almost all other attorneys general in the country.

The contract, which IndyStar obtained through a public records request, gives Rokita and his staff the power to decide what information counts as confidential. It covers “personal or private information” about the attorney general, his employees and their families.

State offices here and dozens of other states’ attorney general offices told IndyStar they don’t have their employees sign contracts like this. Rokita’s office stands by it, however, and says its employees “understand this requirement” before they agree to work there.

Rokita doesn’t want his own information to be public, but his privacy concerns don’t extend to anyone else. In a letter he signed onto last month, Rokita opposed a federal proposal to block state officials from accessing information on residents’ reproductive health care services obtained outside the state.

Experts who reviewed Rokita’s NDA said it raised concerns about constraints on free speech and about the public’s right to know about the conduct of public business.

“The (NDA’s) definition of ‘confidential information’ seems designed to shield public officials from scrutiny,” contract law expert Michael Mattioli told IndyStar. “And that’s an essential part of living in a well-functioning democracy.”

Rokita declined to be interviewed. Instead, an office spokesperson sent a statement: “For any professional or executive, signing an NDA is a conventional office practice that has worked well to protect clients and employees alike.”

I haven’t practiced law lately, but in my lawyering days, signing a non-disclosure agreement was unheard of–and when I asked friends who still practice, most confirmed that  it remains very unconventional.

According to the Star,

The contract essentially gives Rokita and the AG’s office control over what an employee can say, both during and after employment. The stated rationale is that the employee will be “privy” to information that could be protected by laws and state professional conduct rules.

Typically, when information is protected by professional conduct rules, professionals can be trusted to observe those rules. An NDA isn’t needed. As the Star correctly notes, state and federal laws already protect confidential information received by public employees.

But it doesn’t stop there. It says Rokita and his office ultimately have the power to decide what information fits the definition of “confidential.”

That includes “all material, non-public, information, written, oral, or electronic … that is disclosed or made available to the receiving party, directly or indirectly, through any means of communication or observation …” The category also shields “personal or private information” about Rokita and his staff.

No other Indiana State office requires NDAs, although several deal in as much “sensitive” information as Rokita’s. AGs in most other states haven’t found the practice necessary.

Rokita’s overweening ambition probably plays a role– his appearances on Fox News and a trip he took to the U.S.-Mexico border last year have been widely panned as “headline shopping.” Given Rokita’s appetite for higher office, the sort of disclosures that might emerge–his “side hustle” comes to mind–would be distinctly unhelpful.

One ethics professor found the contract a “reprehensible attempt to intimidate.”

Makes one wonder what Rokita’s so intent on hiding….

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Why The Right Won’t Win The Culture War

The term “culture war” is shorthand for the increasingly frantic effort of America’s White Christian Nationalists to turn back the clock–to return “uppity” women and Blacks to their prior, subordinate positions, stuff LGBTQ citizens back in the closet, and make it clear that respect for “religion” extends only to Christians (and really just certain Protestants).

The ferocity with which they are waging that battle can make our lives chaotic and dangerous. Bizarre accusations leveled at school boards and teachers are accompanied by voucher programs intended to destroy the schools that create a democratic polity; rogue Courts ignore longstanding jurisdictional rules in order to accommodate anti-gay religious bigotry; a contingent of Congressional mental cases has now gone beyond their effort to defund the FBI by refusing to fund the military if the Pentagon doesn’t eliminate what they call its “woke” policies.

Rational people are understandably depressed and/or frightened.

I don’t know who first uttered the phrase “this too shalll pass,” but it definitely applies to the culture warriors’ current eruption of fear and hate. What we are seeing is a tantrum triggered by subconscious recognition that the America they are fighting so hard to prevent is inevitable.

Why do I say it’s inevitable? Because it is already here.

A few months ago, I was asked to speak to a local church’s Sunday school class about anti-Semitism. It was a good discussion (they were members of a denomination that I categorize as actually Christian), and as I was leaving, a lovely lady stopped me to say she’d appreciated the conversation, because her grandchildren are Jewish.

She has a lot of company. A 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 42% of all currently married Jewish respondents had a non-Jewish spouse. (I’m obviously one of them–in case you were confused, Kennedy is not a Jewish name.) For that matter, the high rate of Jewish intermarriage is of great concern to the Rabbinate and to Jewish organizations; to the extent intermarriage reduces the number of people identifying as Jewish, we may disappear entirely. After all, there weren’t that many of us to start with.

Of course, it isn’t just inter-religious marriage. It’s also interracial and same-sex unions.

America is experiencing the demographic “mixing”that so terrified Southern slaveholders (at least, when they weren’t engaging in some of that “mixing” themselves, with slaves who couldn’t refuse…) The most recent data I could find from the U.S. Census Bureau was from 2019; at that time, about 11% of all marriages in the United States were interracial. Even more significantly, in 2021, according to Axios, approval of interracial marriage in the U.S. hit a new high of 94%, according to Gallup polling.

The article noted that the prevalence of intermarriage continues to increase. In 1967, when Loving v. Virginia was decided, just 3% of married couples were interracial. In 2021, Pew estimated it at 20%.

Numbers and percentages can change, depending upon the definitions used, but whatever the “accurate” percentages, the rate of demographic inter-mingling continues to rise, and to affect the social context within which increasing numbers of Americans live.

It isn’t just increased acceptance of opposite-sex intermarriage. A poll conducted by the Trevor Project found that two-thirds of American adults report personally knowing someone who identifies as gay or lesbian, and nearly two-thirds of them (62%) said they would be comfortable if their child came out to them as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.(Only 13% would not be comfortable–a huge change from past attitudes.) Approval of same-sex marriage is now at 71%.

Dobbs was also too late to re-stigmatize abortion. Researchers tell us that one in four American women have terminated a pregnancy at some point in their lives. Gallup tells us that 85% of American women support reproductive choice–and that 45% would impose no restrictions on the procedure.

We now live in a society in which a not-insignificant number of older White Christians have Jewish, Black, Latino or gay grandchildren. Some number of those people react by rejecting those grandchildren, but a larger number will fight for a world that treats them fairly.

It isn’t just our friends and families. Increasing numbers of Americans go to jobs every day where their colleagues and co-workers are “diverse.” We have doctors and lawyers and CPAs who come from backgrounds different from our own.–and increasing numbers of those doctors, lawyers and CPAs are female.

In short, the world has moved on, and most of us prefer its current contours to the bigotries and caste-like social structures of the past. The exceptions are very angry and very loud, and they can do a lot of short-term harm. But their time has passed–and the tantrums they are throwing are evidence that–deep down–they know it.

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Diagnosis And Prescription

In a recent opinion piece for the New York Times, David French shared his theory that the recent, astonishing number of sign-ups to Meta’s Threads occurred–at least in part– “because Elon Musk did to Twitter what Donald Trump did to America.”

Not that Twitter was so great before Musk acquired it–as French quite accurately notes,  understanding what Musk did to Twitter doesn’t require an exaggeration of Twitter’s virtues before Musk, “any more than we should exaggerate the health of our body politic before Trump.”

Even before Musk, Twitter had become a toxic force in American culture, so toxic that I wrote last year it might be beyond repair. The site lurched from outrage to outrage, and the constant drumbeat of anger and crisis was bad for the soul.
So, yes, when Musk purchased Twitter, it needed help. Instead, he made it worse. Much worse.

For all of Twitter’s many flaws, it was still by far the best social media app for following breaking news, especially if you knew which accounts to follow. It was also the best app for seeing the thoughts of journalists, politicians and scholars in real time, sometimes to our detriment. It wasn’t the American town square — there are still many places where we talk to one another — but it was one of our town squares. Twitter mattered.

French enumerates the numerous decisions that have made the platform much worse–decisions that rather clearly rested on Musk’s flawed understanding of its strengths and weaknesses.

French’s essay makes a point that is applicable not just to the marketing of a social media platform, but to policy–and for that matter, human decision-making–more generally. As he says,

The new right’s theory of culture and power is fundamentally flawed, and both Trump and Musk are now cautionary tales for any conservatives who are willing to learn.

According to French,

The new right’s theory of power is based on a model of domination and imposition, and it just doesn’t work. In the new right’s telling, the story of contemporary American culture is the story of progressive elite capture of the nation’s most important institutions — from the academy to big business to pop culture to the “deep state” — followed by its remorseless use of that institutional power to warp and distort American values.

And what’s the new right’s response to its theory of the left’s use of power? Fight fire with fire. Take over institutions. They tried to cancel us? Cancel them. They bullied us? Bully them.

The “cautionary tale” to which French alludes is actually pretty simple: in order to fix a problem, you need to diagnose it properly. Medical personnel understand that–duh!– if the disease being treated isn’t the disease from which you’re suffering, you won’t be cured. If a social dysfunction is rooted in X and policymakers insist upon addressing it by attacking Y, the likely result will just be additional dysfunction.

That axiom is simple, but of course, its application can be complicated. The actual roots of many social problems are complex. That said, a significant cause of America’s political divisions can be found in the wildly different diagnoses of the country’s problems offered by the GOP cult and by more thoughtful Americans.

The cult is convinced that America’s problems are rooted in a modernity that has discarded “tradition,” by which they mean the dominance of White Christian males. The cult’s frantic efforts to outlaw abortion and its attacks on efforts to increase diversity, inclusion and equity grow out of that diagnosis. The most recent example: House amendments to the bill funding the military– funding that passed only after the far Right attached provisions limiting abortion rights, gender transition procedures and diversity training in the armed forces.

When a diagnosis–an explanation of causation–is rooted in fantasy, the medicine prescribed is likely to make the condition worse. Gun violence won’t be ameliorated by making more guns available to “good guys;” the working poor won’t be helped by reducing taxes on presumed “job creators;” history won’t disappear if we pass laws against teaching it…

What happens when a sizable portion of the polity misdiagnoses reality–when the “medicine” imposed by people in power is exactly the wrong prescription? We’ve seen the result. As French put it, a government that needed reform “encountered a politician who broke far more than he built. A social media platform that needed repair was purchased by its most prominent troll. The results were predictable.”

We inhabit a complicated world. It isn’t always easy to locate the roots of our problems–but government by people whose diagnoses and prescriptions are  reliably simple and just as reliably wrong won’t cure what ails us.

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