What is in the blockquote below is from this February 18, 2007 diary
It is my contention that if we lose the battle over public education, it will be that much harder to prevent a fundamentalist takeover of our nation. That fundamentalism may not be specifically religious - in fact many of those driving the process may well use religious terminology as a cover for far more selfish motives, although there are indubitably those who seek to hasten the final parousia - in this our religious fundamentalists have much more in common with certain strands of Islamic thought than they do with most of historical Christianity.
What is clear is the unwillingness to allow in education alternative interpretations of reality, of "truth" whatever that might be. The very idea of of a child-focused approach to education, of invoking the natural interest of the child is abhorrent to many driving our educational policy. For some this abhorrence IS religious - the natural interests are seen as sinful and need to be driven out by competent (religious) authority. It is also seen in terms of the unwillingness to value individual differences, that is, students whose ability to demonstrate understanding and learning is not easily measured on convergent thinking multiple choice items. It is further seen in the understanding (or lack thereof) of the role of teacher. For all the rhetoric about highly qualified, or in the terms used by the Aspen Commission of highly qualified EFFECTIVE (as measured by student test scores) teachers, we see a narrowing of what is measured, and a restriction of teachers to stray in instruction from that which is specifically measured. Remember that in Kansas the state school board was not going to prohibit teaching evolution, merely remove it from the testable content in the hopes of using the tests to drive (control) what was actually taught (an effective approach where there are punitive sanctions, whether for students, teachers and/or schools based on results of those tests).
It is legitimate to discuss whether there should be some core level of learning we wish all of our students to have (although since we do not impose those standards on non-public schools and those who argue for religious and/or homeschooling often argue on the basis of a right to a different approach to learning), but this core level should not be so extensive as to exclude the ability of teachers to develop the interests and skills of all of their students.
As I reread this today, I remain absolutely convinced that if we lose meaningful public education we will lose democracy as we have known it.
We have been losing public education.
Which is why we have to keep fighting back.