What Happened to my Four Children?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/26/22

            I have questions. Why did my oldest child Christy choose to mix public education and private education for each of her four children? Why has Christy’s younger sister Wendy chosen to home school her three children entirely? Why has their younger brother Jeff chosen to place his daughter in a private school? Why has their younger brother Reagan chosen private pre-kindergarten for his two small children?

            I ask this because Ole Dad was in public schools all of his life as a student and then as a teacher. That enjoyable journey of learning and teaching took place from 1950 (his first grade year) through 2021 (his last year to teach). Why, after being in public schools themselves and after expressing love and appreciation for their public school teachers, did my children not take the public school route for their own children? Where did I or the public schools go wrong?

            I believe I have answers. Those answers have little to do with their teachers but much to do with the culture in which and by which their schools were influenced. My twelve public school years as a student were from 1950 to 1962. Theirs were from 1975 (Christy’s first grade year) to 2000 (Reagan’s senior year). How different do you think the cultural influences on schools were during those two separate time periods?

            I believe I can illustrate the difference with a true scenario. It occurred at Wendy’s high school graduation in 1990. At Roswell Street Baptist Church my North Cobb faculty colleagues and I were lining up the seniors to march into the auditorium. Seeing Wendy across the way I walked over to her and asked, “Wendy, what did you enjoy most about high school?” Her quick smiling answer was “My teachers!”

“And what did you least enjoy?”  She answered with a frown, “The cigarette smoke in the girls’ restroom.” I will not hold up this single infraction as a symbol for all other educational ills. There are far more serious things than cigarette smoke in restrooms such as curriculum, discipline, student achievement, and the role of parents in their children’s’ education. However, little things unattended to can pile up and become big things.

As a matter of choice, my four children chose something other than public education for their children. Jeff’s wife Anna stated the following: “We wanted a school that presented a Biblical world view.” Notice she only said “presented,” not fostered. “For instance,” she continued, “I was taught in school that the earth evolved over billions of years and we wanted Saige to know there were other beliefs about origins.”  Anna also dispelled the argument that private school students don’t get a broad exposure to people different from themselves: “Saige’s school has a special program that reaches out to children of incarcerated parents and she attends school with them.” Our daughter Christy stated, “We wanted our children to have smaller classes, less influence from peers, and more welcomed parent involvement.”

Ah, “less influence from peers.” I observed long ago that the chief influence on teens in public schools is other teens. Teen culture, birthed by the American high school, has rendered adolescence dangerous. This cannot be blamed on teachers. Fault lies primarily at the feet of parents. It takes a strong family for teenagers to withstand the peer pressure of hundreds of other teens who surround them daily.

Schools can be blamed for certain things, however. If your local school board has been protecting your children from indoctrination on race and sexuality politics, be glad, because quite a few school systems throughout the nation are not so careful. Don’t take my word that public schools across the nation are indoctrinating students with Critical Race Theory, LGBT values, “preferential pronouns,” and transgenderism. Read the newspaper.

The momentum for school choice is undeniable. Covid has increased it. So has gender ideology that runs amok. For a century and a half public education has been the glue that held us together or, better put, it has been the pillar of American civilization. However, nationwide that pillar has been slowly crumbling. Cobb County’s good schools are not representative of the nation’s schools. Overall, public education has become uncontrollable. The countless influencers parents know nothing about – professional organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development – are only a few of  the powerful groups pushing progressive education.

What happened to my kids? They studied the matter, drew a conclusion about education’s future and decided “not with my children.” And I couldn’t be more proud of them.

 

Roger Hines

March 22, 2022

 

 

 

                                                Evaluating the Evaluators

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/12/22

            The lead editorial in this past Tuesday’s Marietta Daily Journal was music to many ears. It was titled, “Cognia due for a review of its own.”

             What’s Cognia? Good question. First of all it is one of those many prissy words/names, the likes of which are popping up everywhere for businesses of all stripes. Remember how we twisted up our faces when we first heard the name “Truist”? I mean, a baseball park and a bank  named “Truist”? There are other examples of facial-distorting names here and there, but you get the point.

             Cognia is the name of the private accrediting agency that either accredits or doesn’t accredit the school systems that employ it to evaluate their schools. As for the agency’s name, I’m just guessing that Cognia was chosen because it sounds like “cognition” or is perhaps a play on the educational expression, “cognitive skills.” Lord, I don’t really know. I only know that AdvancED and Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, two of Cognia’s former names, are fairly clear and don’t make you wonder quite so much what the organization does.

            Yes, the MDJ editorial struck a chord with me. First, it clearly stated the reason Cognia is in the news, that being its findings on Cobb’s public schools which it recently voided, but only after “school administrators lost hundreds of hours preparing hundreds of pages of rebuttals to Cognia’s original special review report.” Cognia’s findings came from an interim evaluation prompted by the Democrat members of the school board. Its report showed more concern for infighting on the board than on things that matter most such as student achievement. Has there ever been a school board that had no infighting?

            The editorial also claimed that Cobb County schools are “among the best; our students among the most well-educated; and the district among the most well run.” I can only testify that  I taught in Cobb County Schools for 32 years from 1971 to 2003. From working at three high schools and the central office I can say that my colleagues and superiors were the best that anyone could desire. Names like Kermit Keenum, Stanley Wrinkle, Larry Hinds, Betty Gray, Jim Traylor, Don Murphy, Roger Russell, Dexter Mills, Dale Gaddis, and Wade Scholes will dance around in my brain and heart for as long as I live. The same is true for fellow classroom teachers who stepped into administrative leadership like Corky Kell, Carole Kell, Grace Calhoun, Terry Poor, Stella Ross, Carla Northcutt, and Hilda Wilkins. Cobb’s teachers and administrators have been the finest of people and the finest of educators.

From all accounts, except for Cognia’s original ill-conceived “volunteer” assessment of the current board, current superintendent Ragsdale and his team are still carrying high the torch. I can assure you that school board member and former student of mine David Chastain is equipped to serve, by both intelligence and love for his home county. I hope Chastain still has that touch of benign mischief that helps people around him lighten up and have a good day.  I’m also immensely proud of former students Ashlynn Campbell, principal of Harrison High and Keith Hansen, head baseball coach at Allatoona High.

Since our schools are good, that necessarily means our county must be good.  Cobb County has always reminded me of my hometown of Forest, Mississippi. Forest was a forward looking place with political and community leaders who worked hard to affect the quality of life for everybody, even those out in the county. Its aristocracy was a friend to every commoner. They all knew and respected my tenant farmer father. Forest had its own separate school district and for reasons I don’t recall, bused in and educated quite a few county kids. Like my own hometown and county, Cobb County is still a good place and its schools reflect it.

What then should we make of Cognia and its recent stumble? The editorial, penned by Vice President of Content J.K. Murphy, addresses that too: “Cognia holds our schools and students hostage and Georgia taxpayers cough up the ransom. That, on its face, is wrong.” Murphy went on to tout the work of Senator Lindsey Tippins who has filed legislation that would “change how Cognia goes about its business.”

 There are things about public education generally that drive me nuts, but with the present majority of our current school board at the helm, I’ve no doubt common sense will prevail. Senator Tippins is good at fixing things. So let’s get back to mathematics, science, history, English, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson!   

 

Roger Hines

March 10, 2022 

           

 

                          Who said the World is Changing?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/5/22

            It’s 1939. After invading Poland on September 1, Hitler secures a Nazi victory within a month. Declaring war on Germany two days later, Britain and France would stand by for eight months before giving any substantial help to their European neighbor. It would be a full two years later before the United States came to Poland’s aid. Meanwhile, Hitler parades down the streets of Danzig celebrating his growing power.

            It’s 1954. World War II is only 9 years in the past. I’m 10 years old and my younger brother Carlton is 7, but Carlton is just as enrapt as I whenever our sister-in-law Antonia tells us about the evil Mussolini: “He no good. He the reason we must run for shelter from Amedicans and others who bombed Italy. My Pa-pa no like him. He glad that Italy finally turn against Germany.”

            It’s 2022. Men still love power, nations are still fighting each other, and America’s president wrongfully preaches that unity is the answer to everything. Thanks to Russia and debilitated Ukraine, we have been awakened from the assumption that ground wars are passé.  We’ve watched as, in a matter of days, political winds have blown our leaders from “Follow the science” to “You may now de-mask.” We’re told by educated people that boys can be girls and girls can be boys. With apologies to Thomas Paine, “These are the times that” … make us shake our heads in disbelief.

            The nation of Russia sits at the top of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China. Racially, Russians are westerners. Philosophically/politically, they are not. Like the history of so many Asian nations, Russia’s history is tyrannical, autocratic, and unspeakably disregardful of individual rights. Russia’s history is sad. For the 304 years that the Romanov family ruled, right up to the 1917 Communist takeover, approximately 90% of the Russian people were peasants. Lenin and Stalin certainly did not improve upon the Romanovs. Remember, theirs was a union of “socialist” republics.

 When poet Rudyard Kipling, who loved his adopted land of India, wrote “Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet,” he was faulted for guess what: racism. But Kipling was referring to the vast difference in how Easterners and Westerners think. Consider: did the United States lose the Vietnam War in part because Westerners are impatient and results-oriented while Easterners are more patient and willing to stick it out? Yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

As Ronald Reagan reminded us often, freedom is always one generation away from extinction. One reason for this is that too many people like goodies and ease. An abundance of college professors has pulled our youths toward leftist politics that decries capitalism and hard work and preaches income equality, free education, and a wholesale remaking of the economy to fight climate change.

Of the starving French peasants who could not buy bread, Queen Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution reportedly said, “Let them eat cake.” John Kerry, just after Putin started targeting Ukrainian citizens, stated he hoped that “after this Ukrainian conflict,” Putin would turn to fighting climate change. The more things change … the more the world’s elites reveal their scorn for the masses.

The mind of the tyrant doesn’t seem to change either. Long is the list of tyrants who have affected humanity for the worse. If the dawn of a new age of tyranny is upon us, it could well be because we just didn’t care enough about history to read a simple 10^th grade world history textbook, or to take Western Civilization seriously in college, or to read an occasional newspaper. Freedom requires a little bit of knowledge.

The former KGB colonel Putin, tagged by some as a KGB “throat slitter,” is a brute and his attack on innocent Ukrainian civilians has been brutal. When, oh when, will we hear from NATO or the European Union? European unpredictability hasn’t changed either.

Tyranny isn’t always initiated by brutes like Putin. Sometimes it comes from the globalists among us whether they wear the suit of the corporate CEO, the jeans of the tech company head, the robe of the college president, or the condescending smirk of the Hollywood actor. All enemies of freedom of speech, these players are using the ploy of the Genesis serpent and the spider who said to the fly, “Come into my parlor.” It is these tyrants, not the Putin type, who without guns wish to “transform” America.

Either way, tyranny is tyranny. It hasn’t changed.

 

Roger Hines

3/2/22