by J Christian Adams | NewsRealBlog.com | April 9, 2011
By now, everyone knows what is really happening on campus and in academia. David Horowitz has exposed and publicized the radicalization of American universities. He speaks about “how radical professors indoctrinate students” and has written a book about the same. A giant sign hanging on the University of Southern California school for teachers tells me that his efforts are successful – for no longer are some universities hiding their radical tendencies. Indeed, they now openly recruit “radical” students! Higher education could have saved Mr. Horowitz a lot of work had they opened up like this decades ago.
This sign hangs on the USC Rossier School of Education.
Radicals, provocateurs, instigators, revolutionaries, all needed. No word on whether applicants to the University of Southern California must demonstrate they know how to make Molotov Cocktails. The rhetoric at their website echoes the sentiments in the sign:
“We prepare and develop educational leaders who are change agents.”
The school focuses on urban education. The mission:
“is to strengthen urban education locally, nationally, and globally. Educators in urban areas face a unique set of challenges, including poverty, density, mobility and immigration, strained social conditions around housing, healthcare and crime, and cultural and linguistic diversity. Urban education takes place within many contexts including pre-kindergarten through high school, in human services, higher education, and workplace settings.”
Educating from prekindergarten, government services, through to the workplace? What, no Telescreen provided? Keep in mind most of these “radicals” and “change agents” will be employed by a government eventually, probably with teacher collective bargaining rights.
How does USC plan to transform urban education? As the sign says, they need “change agents” (preferably “radicals,” their words) to “address the complex educational and social issues facing urban communities.” Rossier isn’t waiting around. Professors at the school recently briefed Congressional staff in Washington. One professor testified to Congress about “institutional and cultural barriers to broadening the participation of students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.” Another professor spoke on how federal funding should be used to “increase Latino participation” in these degree programs. One doctoral student at Rossier, described her interests:
“I now spend a great deal of time exploring the ways in which the institutional environments of community colleges, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and other MSIs shape opportunities in STEM education for Latinos, African Americans, and other historically disadvantaged students. I also seek to understand how minority-serving institutions serve as spaces in which students of color can explore and embrace the intersection of their racial, cultural, and science identities.”
Of course centralized planning is part of the “change.” The Dean of the College recently wrote: “We need the federal government to chart a new course aimed toward specific standards and outlined by accountability. Education reform is larger than grades or test scores; it is how we will create a new foundation for our country.” It is always a good idea to stop and pause when you hear phrases like “a new foundation for our country.”
To USC Rossier’s credit, much of the mission assumes that the urban government run education system has failed. What replaces it is the question. The signs however, especially the ones hanging on the school, are not good.
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