Social Justice First, Education Second

​The organizations with the most influence over K-12 public education in Nebraska have declared social justice to be more important than education. Skeptical?
 
Here is the mission statement of the Sherwood Foundation, which funds the omnipresent Nebraska Loves Public Schools: “The Sherwood Foundation promotes equity through social justice initiatives enhancing the quality of life in Nebraska.”
 
The Strategic Planning Committee for the NSEA (Nebraska’s state teachers’ union) recently announced their preliminary goals, and the first one on the list is, “NSEA will advance a culture of social justice by improving educational opportunities for ALL students and building respect for the worth, dignity and equality of our students, our profession and public education.”
 
The Lincoln Public Schools websites features Social Justice Artwork, Social Justice Themed Research, and numerous links to speakers and workshops about social justice.
 
Is “social justice” just a popular catchphrase? Is it really more important than academic success, as these organizations hint that it might be?
 
What is social justice? Here’s a dictionary definition:

It sounds fine on the surface, but let’s think about it. In order for wealth, opportunities, and privileges to be distributed in a society, there has to be a person or a ruling class to do the distributing. Someone—or a group of people—must decide who gets what. In other words, social justice is the advocacy of authoritarianism.
 
Why would the key players in a public school system place the advocacy of authoritarianism above academic achievement? And what are the long-term consequences of doing so?
 
The “advancement of social justice” that the teachers’ union is so keen on seems to be working. A freshman English class at Lincoln High School recently read Animal Farm, and somehow, some students came away from the experience “identifying as Communist.”
 
It’s not surprising that groups like the NSEA and Nebraska Loves Public Schools want to teach our youth that an authoritarian system is best. After all, these groups behave like authoritarians. For example, the Nebraska public school system works like a monopoly—it doesn’t have any competition from vouchers, charter schools, or tax-credit scholarships. And yet, Nebraska Loves Public Schools is pouring millions of dollars into a campaign advertising our taxpayer-funded, government-run public schools. Why? It’s the same thing totalitarian dictatorships do to keep their people from uprising; they simply have to convince them that they truly want the only option available to them.

Nebraska Loves Public Schools billboard

Nebraska Loves Public Schools TV Spot

Soviet Poster from the 20's: "All workers choose the Soviets!" Sovfoto via Getty Images

​And what about the NSEA and the LEA (Lincoln Education Association)? The LEA’s motto is “One Message. Many Voices.” Besides being very creepy, this motto strips its members of individuality. They must walk lock-step with the union, just as these organizations want your children to walk lock-step with their social justice agenda. Authoritarianism never changes. The above propaganda poster encourages all workers to choose the Soviets. One message. Many voices.
 
What are the long-term consequences of embracing the authoritarian social justice agenda instead of embracing true academics?
 
The Lincoln Education Association gives it to us straight: One message. Many voices. But who gets to pick the singular message? And how brave will your children have to be to attempt to deliver a different message of their own? Without a solid academic education, will a different message even occur to them?
 
This is one of the many reasons school choice matters. Parents want their children to be prepared for as many opportunities as possible, and solid skills in reading, writing, math, science, history, and languages prepare them. Would you like your child to be a critical thinker as an adult? Would you like her to make decisions for herself instead of simply submitting to the propaganda she sees on billboards, on TV, on her colleagues' t-shirts, and even at the movie theaters where she's paid $12 for hard-earned entertainment? (These are some of the places where Nebraska Loves Public Schools has paid for placement of their propaganda.)

If so, choose a school that places academics above social justice. And if this isn't currently an option for you, get on the phone and call your state legislator. Our state legislators are the ones who have the power to make school choice legal in Nebraska. Most other parents in the country have the option to send their children to tuition-free schools that place academics above social justice. Why not Nebraska?

If these organizations are really concerned about justice, and if they want to improve "educational opportunities for ALL students," then they will support school choice. They will want minority and low-income students to have the same opportunities as the wealthiest children in Nebraska. But they don't want that. And our sad statistics reflect their wishes. That's why our achievement gap is one of the worst in the country. You can see in this report, that our 8th graders have a larger black-white achievement gap in mathematics than the 8th graders in every other state in the country. And the current best solution for decreasing the achievement gap--charter schools--has been vehemently denounced by our states' teachers' unions and districts. Ostensibly, opposing school choice is the very reason for the existence of Nebraska Loves Public Schools. Their propaganda is destroying the chances for academic success of thousands of minority children in Nebraska.

So clearly, social justice has nothing to do with improving educational opportunities for ALL students. In fact, if the 8th grade math statistics mean anything, social justice is anything but just.