by James A. Bacon
A horrifying percentage of Virginia public school children may be functionally illiterate, but never fear, Governor Ralph Northam has a new plan to help them. He has announced the formation of a task force charged with identifying “best practices” for implementing culturally and religiously inclusive school calendars and school meals.
“When our school environments reflect the history, values, cultures, and traditions of the communities they serve, our students are better positioned to learn and thrive,” Northam said in a press release.
Yes, you read that right. Northam is justifying the initiative on the practical grounds that it will help children “learn and thrive.”
I’m sure the kids are looking forward to eating pizzas, tater tots and nachos that have been rendered kosher and halal. But will they learn more? Put another way, is there any research that current nutritional standards inhibit children from mastering the three Rs? No, there isn’t — at least none was alluded to in the Governor’s press release.
The main non-Christian religions in Virginia are Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Of the four, three (Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism) are practiced mainly by immigrants from Asia. All other things being equal, one would predict that the deleterious effects of refraining from eating taboo foods and of skipping school for holy days would fall upon Americans classified as Asian.
But as we all know, Asians as a group outperform Whites, Hispanics and Blacks in their Standards of Learning (SOL) test scores. The pass rate for English is 89% for Asians — higher than the 85% rate for Whites, 67% rate for Hispanics, and 61% for Blacks. If culturally insensitive calendars and school food interfere with academic performance, Asian kids seem to have no problem dealing with the challenge.
There is a case for making reasonable accommodations for religious minorities, but it’s a values-based one. The needs of religious minorities should not dictate school policies, which are built around the needs of the majority, but they should be respected and allowances should be made when the views are genuinely held. (Sorry, no accommodations for adherents of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster). That’s exactly what the Fairfax County School Board has done, and I expect many others have as well. These issues are best dealt with at the level of classrooms, schools, and school districts.
The way for schools to become engines of “social justice,” as Northam purportedly desires, is to do what they were set up to do — teach kids how to read, write, calculate, communicate, and think clearly. The system is manifestly failing tens of thousands of children. Instead of fixing the real problem, Northam and Secretary of Education Atif Qarni are implementing a left-wing “diversity, equity & inclusion” agenda that chases will-o-the-wisp racism.
Let teachers, principals and school boards work out the religious accommodations, Governor, and focus the “best practices” on teaching kids to read.
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