This is from last year, but I kept thinking about it and only had it up on Facebook. I don’t want to rely on social media for things I might want for posterity, so I’m throwing up a quick blog post. This is relevant because Pike Township in Marion County is fighting a Hillsdale charter school that Carmel successfully excluded.
“Teachers are dumb. Give us some tax money and let us teach your kids.”
Last summer, in Tennessee, video surfaced of Hillsdale’s president showing the contempt he has for teachers. From the article:
Among Arnn’s provocative remarks:
- “The teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”
- “They are taught that they are going to go and do something to those kids…. Do they ever talk about anything except what they are going to do to these kids?”
- “In colleges, what you hire now is administrators…. Now, because they are appointing all these diversity officers, what are their degrees in? Education. It’s easy. You don’t have to know anything.”
- “The philosophic understanding at the heart of modern education is enslavement…. They’re messing with people’s children, and they feel entitled to do anything to them.”
- “You will see how education destroys generations of people. It’s devastating. It’s like the plague.”
- “Here’s a key thing that we’re going to try to do. We are going to try to demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it.”
The article also said Arnn said “teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”
The “Valor” charter school trying to take root in Pike Township is a Hillsdale affiliate.
“Here’s a key thing that we’re going to try to do. We are going to try to demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it.”
I am coaching 13 relatively smart eight and nine years olds in soccer for one hour by myself. No not anybody can do it, one and a half hours is my limit. I’m positive a large amount of the population wouldn’t last a hour even while teaching their favorite subject with a class full of kids or even worse inner city high school students.
As always you have strong arguments for your position, Doug. I went to the article you linked to and the arguments against this charter school were not impressive and even downright wrong.. One neighborhood activist suggested that this charter school would cater to white students and discriminate against African-Americans. In Indiana, charter schools cannot select their students and charter schools on average have a higher percentage of minority students in this state than the traditional public schools. Opponents would be better off making arguments that have merit such as the ones you outline in this column.