But First, Cut the Green Wire

Andy Smarick, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joins a sleep-deprived Jonah in a discussion ...

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Andy Smarick, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joins a sleep-deprived Jonah in a discussion of schools in the time of COVID — all 14,000 districts’ worth. After nerding out over Supreme Court cases, civics, and badly misremembering an episode of M*A*S*H, Andy ends on a note of optimism while Jonah (hopefully) goes to get some sleep somewhere in Alaska.

Show Notes:

–Adrian Vermeule’s common-good constitutionalism

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  1. Avatar photo
    Barbara Rustad

    That segue into the ad for CarShield was absolutely Lileksian !!!!!!!

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    Kevin Johnson

    Another good one. A little jet lag is nothing compared to the permanent impairments so common elsewhere. I would like to share Andy’s optimism that indoctrination in schools is exaggerated by the right. When I see this indoctrination multiplying in the media, corporations, and even my botanical garden, I am worried that the indoctrination transfer from higher ed is accelerating through the rest of society. The “joke” about “commie schools” isn’t funny to all those losing jobs to ridiculous wokeness, or to the many, many more who must remain silent to protect themselves. With Trump poisoning the environment for reasonable push-back, I despair that the remnant is not enough. Young people will see through some BS, but the damage is cumulative, and real.

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    Angie

    I enjoyed it, I could tell you were tired...thanks for doing it anyway
    I promote you guys to everyone I think would be receptive...

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    CynthiaW

    Interesting discussion, but boy, one can tell Jonah's brain is fried.

    Outdoor classes in the South in August? Say WHUT?

    Of course, we do that in my homeschool: We call it "hiking" and "yardwork." *snicker*

    I hope you catch up on your sleep and have a nice visit in AK, Jonah.

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    Duncan Frissell

    My Remnant drinking game is "Jonah complains about his daughter's, expensive, Commie school." (I'm trying to cut back but it's good for several monthly imbibments.)

    Anyone wanting a non-Commie school, can use the search string "classical schools near me." Most will be Christian but then, I gather your daughter's school is Episcopal.

    You are a bit out-of-date on the availability of teachers and infrastructure for conservative schools. The three waves of alternative schools on the Right: the generaly evangelical Christian School movement starting in the late '70s, the Home Schooling movement growing in the late '80s, and the Classical Christian Movement starting in the mid '90s scattered the land with buildings and teachers.

    In central Dallas, for example, there are two recently opened Classical schools that have football stadiums on their campuses.

    As for teachers, note that any literate person can teach most K-12 subjects with minimal preparation.

    And the above doesn't cover homeschooling and online schooling. Since most Americans hold a Universal Library in their hands, education can be cheap or free, save in time
    And online education is the cheapest form of education after autodidacticism.

    The strong motivation of parents who hate the education offered at almost all public and private schools in America, has produced the innovations mentioned above. Most dramatically, are recent developments in online education including full class live classroom interaction, time shifting when neccessary, and remote proctoted testing.

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    Sandra Damron

    I agree with Andy's point about convincing young people to go into public service. I also have a pet peeve, which is that conservatives get all excited about supporting national candidates, but fall behind in supporting local candidates, at least financially. Tom Steyer famously threw money at Colorado legislature candidates, and succeeded in getting most of them elected because the Republican candidates simply couldn't compete financially. Walking blocks is great, but non-stop radio ads will get a lot more attention. If we want folks who can get some government experience, the state legislatures, the county commissions, the city councils are a good place to start. If you want to really make an impact on an election, help your local candidates. You'll benefit by getting their gratitude, and good access to those who run your city, county, and state.

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    Patti Scriffiny

    As a teacher I was naturally very interested in this podcast. Thanks for talking about it.

    Thanks to Mr Smarick for noting that there have been some pretty innovative changes in education in the past few months, even though remote learning has been full of significant setbacks. We were really unprepared- but I am hopeful the changes will force us to let some dumb things go.

    I did think of a couple of missing elements in your discussion. Are teachers as a group more politically liberal than the population at large? Yes, but we are often viewed as a monolithic group and that is a mistake. Getting a group of teachers on board with pretty much any agenda is herding cats. Wet cats. This is why when I hear theories about indoctrination into any set of ideas I roll my eyes. Is some group of teachers pushing that agenda you don’t like? Yes. Do they also have colleagues down the hall who address the agenda enough to avoid getting in trouble and then really do what they want, and do the kids see right through it? Yep and yep. That’s a good and bad thing, by the way. It is good when we are told to teach nonsense, which happens. Unfortunately, it also happens when we are told to do things like teach using evidence based best practices.

    One last thought on the idea you discussed about a lack of people with conservative mindsets becoming teachers: you will not recruit more conservatives into teaching without having some discussion of how the field is perceived. In 28 years in the classroom, I have had heard two fallacies about us. Either we are selfless martyrs and should be praised to the skies (mostly false!) or we are lazy do-nothings who can’t handle grownup jobs (sometimes true!). Guess which one I hear most often (not always) from conservatives? In my opinion, whatever it may be worth, we need to make it significantly harder to become a teacher so that teachers can have a higher social status and attract the very best to the field. We also need to raise both autonomy and expectations for the field.

    By the way, I’ve been waiting a long time to hear a high profile figure discuss education issues with an actual teacher- with respect to those who study education, they are still giving an outsider perspective. How about that for next time, Jonah?

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    Pastorfbt

    Yes it was GM, the Corvair had issues the first two years but ended up being a good little car.
    As to corporations turtling when under attack, any random sampling of commercials proves that point!

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  9. Aaron C.

    To Deneen's credit he's not nearly as supportive of Trump as Sohrab or Vermeule are. As Jonah mentioned, it's hard to take Catholic postliberals seriously when their arguments are combined with praise of Donald Trump.

    I'm told by my friend who would definitely know (he became a huge Deneen guy after taking his class at ND) there's actually a bit of intellectual daylight between Sohrab and Deneen, too. Deneen doesn't consider himself a full "integralist" but merely a "postliberal."

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    1. Jordan Henderson

      Didn't expect Integralists views to be compared to defense of pedophilia. Hard to have an open discussion when it's framed like that.

      I think the Integralists, especially Deneen, are warning that Classical Liberalism as your sole political driving paradigm undermine those and even more important values like family and community. We saw it in the French Revolution and I think if you are being honest, you can see it today.

      I certainly don't naively believe that we can adopt Integralism in the US tomorrow, but as things get worse we certainly should be open to discussion.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Thanks for the info on schools, conservatism, ideas, and law!

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