Author: murrayof

I have read the January 29th, 2025 executive order titled “Ending Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.”

It prints out at 10 pages. The image that comes to mind when I recall reading it is a firehose of mud. It is a mess that provides something for people supportive of the president’s agenda to work with, and therefore advances their cause. 

When people stand up to it in the courts, some judges might be sympathetic to the president’s assertions. 

Many judges will not be. 

It’s hot garbage. But that doesn’t mean it is unimportant or ineffective in advancing the admistration’s goals. It gives their odious ideas some foothold within the government. And even more significantly, it frightens a group of people who generally trend toward a rule-bound relationship with authority: teachers and administrators.

The executive order is filled with vague concepts. Here’s a snippet: “‘Patriotic education’ means a presentation of the history of America grounded in: an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles.” Most people capable of a little bit of thought would concede that there are aspects of the history of the U.S. and its founding that reflect these positive qualities, and aspects that most certainly do not. And therefore, there is no way to be accurate and honest without including the less ennobling parts of the United States’ history and founding. 

Furthermore, at what point could anyone determine with clarity that an educational approach is not sufficiently “grounded” in accuracy, honesty, unification, inspiration, and ennobling characterization, all at the same time? It would be nearly impossible to make such a determination. 

And this is but a snippet. When you analyze the text, it starts to make zero sense very quickly. 

The president’s power to declare these rules is very unclear. The proclamations are largely impossible to understand or implement. And, they likely run afoul of teachers’ and students’ First Amendment protections.

Adding yet another layer to the nonsense, the president’s administration is trying to simultaneously increase and decrease federal control of education. -One one hand insisting on these proclamations, on the other hand seeking to dismantle the very federal agency that exerts influence on education in the U.S.

I am firmly in the “do not comply in advance” camp, as recommended by Timothy Snyder in On Tyranny (2017).

This can be hard for some teachers, who run classrooms where rules and authority play a central role. What I say to teachers and administrators is: The president is not your supervisor. There may come a time when your actual supervisor gives you instructions that you don’t want to follow. At that point you will need to decide whether you will comply. That might be very difficult. You will confront that moment if it arrives. But again, I ask you not to comply with your anticipated ideas about what will be asked of you, in advance of that moment.

Anxiety is anticipation, and our power to anticipate is one of our great strengths as humans. But we start to lock ourselves in a miserable position when we behave as if events we anticipate with anxiety are already occurring. We must not do this to ourselves or our schools. And, if we are opposed to this attempt to limit the freedom and efficacy of teachers, we must not cede ground so easily.

References

Snyder, T. (2017). On tyranny: Twenty lessons from the twentieth century. Crown