Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish Articles at DanielGreenfield.org

Test scores in Minnesota hit a 30 year low under the former high school teacher. (Note to Subscribers: After the mailing list service I was using shut down, I was forced to switch to a new service. That's why this is the first email in a week. I've been trying my best to get this right, but if there are any issues with the email, please let me know.)   Gov. Tim Walz has made much of being a former high school teacher in his political campaigns. The DNC brought out former students of his on stage and the media has rolled out adulatory stories claiming that Walz’s time as a teacher will help him shape America’s education policy. The recent release of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) test scores for 2024 by Education Commissioner Willie Jett, a Walz appointee, were described by the Minnesota Star Tribune as “stagnant with only about half of students meeting or beating grade-level standards in math and reading.” The paper struggled to describe an empty glass as half-f

Campus antisemitism is a problem, but reports focus on the experiences of Jewish students rather than the identity of the perpetrators. Media reports hesitate to name anyone. Jewish organizations zero in on campus hate groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, but that only tells us so much about why antisemitism has become so widespread at certain universities. Brandeis University’s Center for Modern Jewish Studies recently conducted a survey asking college students about their views of Jews and Israel. And the results are revealing. 66% of students, the vast majority, did not hate Jews or Israel. While leftist students only make up 14% of overall students (less than the 17% who identify as conservative), they made up a full 43% of students who were hostile to Israel. The remaining 46% of those hostile to the Jewish State identified as “liberal”. Those activists associated with campus encampments and other forms of harassment are a small minority of leftist extremists who have u

The ‘Healthy Masculinity Club’ at a Portland high school is described as a “place for guys to not be guys” while the ‘Healthy Masculinity’ class at Montpelier High School in Vermont indoctrinates boys on “how traditional concepts of masculinity have harmed women.” The ‘Healthy Masculinity’ movement is a component of DEI, but it has attracted less attention and controversy than other ‘woke’ indoctrination programs that target ‘whiteness’ and teach racism or promote pornographic sexual identity programming. Nevertheless it may be even more destructive than all of the other high school DEI programs put together. Much like ‘whiteness’ courses, the premise of ‘Healthy Masculinity’ is that there is something wrong with being a man. A Call to Men, for example, defines masculinity as a ‘Man Box’ in which men are “expected to be strong, successful, powerful, dominating, fearless, in control, and emotionless” that men have to “break out of” to end their ‘toxic masculinity’. The Tucson Unified S

What would a city be like if the teachers’ unions didn’t just run the educational system, but the entire place top to bottom? To find out just pay a visit to the streets of Chicago. If you dare. When Mayor Brandon Johnson ran for office, the Chicago Teachers Union had made its pitch for its former “legislative coordinator” after putting millions into his campaign by promising that “if a teacher became mayor, we could build the city we all deserve.” It’s only May and 800 people have already been shot. The violence is so ubiquitous that the Cinco de Mayo parade had to be canceled due to gang violence along its route. But CTU members are building the city that they think they deserve with a demand for a $50 billion contract, the total tax receipts for the entire state, calls for average teacher salaries of $144,620, free abortions and thousands in funding for every illegal alien. With 45 days off the parts of the year they actually work, 9 forms of leave added to the 15 they already have

The Biden administration is on a hunt for systemic racism. Thus far it’s found systemic racism everywhere from the highway system to the military, but the one place it hasn’t looked is among the ranks of the teachers unions who provide much of its cash and its election foot soldiers. But new data reported by the New York Times shows that the pandemic school closures demanded by teachers unions were the single greatest act of systemic racism in 50 years. During the pandemic, members of the corrupt teachers union machine demanded school closures to “save lives”. Unwilling to do their jobs, they instead marched around brandishing coffins at political protests while warning that if they had to go and teach, everyone would die. Education was replaced with the Orwellian misnomer of “remote learning” which parents, students and honest teachers admitted was not actually teaching any of the students anything. And the newest data backs that up, showing that “in districts where students spent mo

Biden launched his 2024 presidential campaign with an ad attacking Republicans for keeping a book featuring a 10-year-old performing sex acts out of schools. “’Lawn Boy‘, one of the books shown in the Biden ad, includes lines like, “I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s ___ in my mouth.” According to Biden, whose administration had previously colluded to investigate parents rallying against sexualizing schoolchildren with graphic materials like these as domestic terrorists, anyone opposed to having ‘Lawn Boy’ in schools is a “MAGA extremist”. While that assault on parents was stifled, under Biden, the Department of Education is launching a new attack. Last year, the Forsyth County School District in Georgia pulled “ All Boys Aren’t Blue ” , along with 7 other books from middle school shelves. It brought back all the books except ‘Boys’. Now Biden is going after them. The Department of Education conducted a civil rights investigation accusing the school district of c

During the Black Lives Matter riots, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ endorsed police defunding. “Elements of our country’s law enforcement culture dehumanize some of the very people whose safety and wellness police officers are sworn to protect,” she falsely claimed. Two weeks ago, UC Berkeley called the police on a conservative truck protesting campus antisemitism and the “Jewish Free Zones” erected by elements of its law school. Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky had claimed that the university couldn’t take any action against the “Jewish Free Zones” enacted by student organizations even as he admitted that they would bar 90% of Jewish speakers. “That is their First Amendment right. I find their statement offensive, but they have the right to say it. To punish these student groups, or students, for their speech would clearly violate the Constitution,” he argued. That was in early October. In late October, Chemerinsky responded to a truck rented by a conservative group

The National Education Association was caught spending 9% of its budget on member assistance and 50% on various political programs. Teachers’ unions have become enormously powerful by turning their membership and their resources into assets for the Democrats. Democrats have generously returned the favor by negotiating favorable contracts and allowing teachers’ unions to dismantle the educational system, including shutting down schools for an extended period during the pandemic, eliminating standards in favor of promotion and turning a blind eye to sex abuse. While the shutdown of schools traumatized a generation, leading to increased suicide rates, loss of learning skills, social decline and even higher crime rates, school sex abuse is an ongoing crisis that targets a narrower population of abused students. That doesn’t mean that the damage is any less. A recent report reveals that nearly one school employee has been arrested a day on child-sex related charges. In just the last week,

Government institutions are in the business of making things worse in order to collect more money to make them better. We declared war on poverty and impoverished ourselves. After promising to fix homelessness, the streets are covered in needles and human waste. Nowhere is this truer than in education. Education results are inversely proportional to the amount of money spent on them. New York has the highest per pupil spending at $25,645 and the second lowest literacy rate in the country. Utah has the lowest per pupil spending in the nation and a 90% literacy rate. Good thing the education market is set to hit almost $2 trillion by 2025. At 10% of GDP, we will spend far more than China (4% of GDP) with much worse outcomes to show for it. But Educrats will claim that if we only spent 25% of our GDP, Johnny would finally be able to read. All that’s holding him back is that Chicago public school teachers with an MA only make $89,083. The American Federation of Teachers put out a stud