BlackLivesMatter turning on Woodrow Wilson would be really funny, if this weren't such an ugly symptom of our sad political and intellectual decline.  The little Maoist thought-police are busy eating their progressive parents... that part is hard not to smile at.  Progressive faculty are now cowering in fear of the monsters they created, but are too invested in their delusions to ever see a way out.  Don't look to the universities to solve the problem. They have for too long been the source of the problem.

"We demand a public conversation,” the [BlackLivesMatter] demand says, “on the true role of freedom of speech and freedom of intellectual thought in a way that does not reinforce anti-Blackness and xenophobia" (from the article, emphasis mine)

I love how they attach conditions to freedom of thought, conditions which they have made clear, that only they are allowed to define. (At one University a well-meaning white student requested permision from the University to use the designated "free speech" area to hold a short demonstration against racism.  He was almost immediately terrorized the Black Student Union for not getting their permission first and he was hounded until he appologized for his afront.  Like Mao, they are big into public shaming.)

It is important to note that these angy, infantile screamers are making demands that are not amendable to reason nor open to civilized debate.  And the implications of that thought are scary.  To even discuss their demands with them is to sanction the lack of logic that is so blatant as to stand as a denial of any need to be coherent, much less logical.

The only good thing about this lunacy is that it's becoming so visible across the nation.  It is now obvious to everyone who can turn on a TV, that our centers of intellectual greatness are dead and dying.  The bad thing is that abandoning centers of higher learning is not a viable option since civilization needs some way to transmit our real knowledge and skills to the next generation... otherwise we drop into the black hole of a dark age.  So, the question remains, how do we take the educational institutions back?

Jules,

Absolutely!  Long term that is clearly the only cure for the idiocies we see around us, in Washington, and on the campuses.  100% private educational systems....  and hopefully with a rational, objective approachs to the teaching of critical thinking and the transmission of knowledge to the next generation.

Luke,

There was a Marxist, in Italy, in 1923 who was upset that socialism was so slow to spread.  He decided that the problem was that Marx only targeted history, politics and economics.  That it was all of the rest of the traditional belief systems that were indirectly linked in with Capitalism and stopping any attempts to get socialism voted in.  He, and a group of other academics saw that the culture was a large number of different belief systems loosely knit together and decided that these things had to go to make room for socialism to be accepted. 

They started to go after religion, Christianity in particular, traditional sexual mores, nearly all things traditional,, and pushed to gain a greater separation between generations.  This group joined together at the University of Frankfurt, in Germany and formed what ended up being called the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory.  The rise of Nazism caused them to leave for Geneva in around 1934, then by 1935 they moved into Columbia Unversity in New York.  They were stilled referred to as the Frankfurt School.  And Critical theory has since spawned concepts of diversity, ethnic studies, Women's Studies, and political correctness.  It is applied in sociology, psychology, history, political science, philosophy, journalism, art, etc. and it has spread over the last 80 years or so to most colleges. 

I don't refer to it as "Critical Theory" but as "Cultural Marxism" but it isn't taught like that at all.  It is taught as if the particular concepts (e.g., diversity or social justice, were self-evident values and they are woven into whatever the class is).   The idea is to kill all things in the existing culture to make for a more fluid, perhaps chaotic, culture that will be enthusiastically supported by newer generations - those who, unsuprisingly, are more open to Marxist ideas like social justice, redistribution, centralized control of all things, collectivism and identity politics.

Sorry, Luke.  I should have read what you wrote more carefully. 

Yes, your description of a break in the skin leading to an infection was excellent.  I don't think it should be approached as a conspiracy theory (which some do), or as a problem we have only because we have so many public schools, but rather that we weren't as strong, philosophically, as we should have been in the universities.  Marxism was already in some of the departments of the many universities, just not this Cultural Marxism.  I see the spread not as a plot type of thing, but more of an evolution sort of thing (not unlike a spread of a virus).

Freedom isn't always enough.  We have a free press, which is often a stupid press.  The cure is never less freedom, of course.... but smarter consumers.

Jules, I'm interested in how you'd apply your results-oriented thoughts at a micro level.  What might that look like in the real world, for say a fifth-grade student in a private elementary school?  :-)

DD I think it is absolutely crucial to focus on the development of critical thinking at this age.  Children's minds are like voracious vacuums.  Their neural pathways are VERY elastic at this age so the more that a teacher can instill a method of building concepts upon already learned concepts in a methodical and rational way this will lay the foundations for making future learning smoother and deeper.  

Case in point is something rather interesting that happened to meeee when I was in grade 4.  I was very pigeon toed and underwent an extended stay in the hospital to correct it.  At the school there in the hospital the teacher had very few students.  She taught us our lessons and pretty much allowed us to do our lessons at our own pace.  I was there from November until April.  It was the closest thing I ever had to private school. 

When I went back to my regular school I literally had nothing to do.  I was so far ahead in my lessons that for two months I had NOTHING to do.  Instead of allowing me to continue and advancing to the next grade the public system let me rot for the rest of the year....

I believe from this early experience that public education is so dumbed down and "tall poppy syndromed" that it should be abandoned.

Deanna, please consult Homeschooling for College Credit for additional ideas.

The book is useful for all parents and not just homeschooling ones.

I think school as it exists today is a giant waste of children's lives.  Learning should be on demand as a person realizes he needs to learn something in order to attain a self determined goal.

Sure, if one wants to become an engineer then that could benefit from having a formal educational background in math, science, and technology.  Or doctor then science.  Introductions to Austrian Economics and Indivualist goal based human ethics would help people make better choices for themselves, no matter their political/class/race/religious allegiances.  Basic reading, writing, and math are all easily self taught with cheap and readily available materials, accelerated with having a person around to answer questions.  Self defense and self ownership are essential and completely ignored by the established controllers.

Obediently sitting around in class with half or more of the students/subjects not fully engaged while being presented with information that is not expected to be useful in the short to medium term future  (if ever)...  the pace of learning useful knowledge and abilities is almost at a standstill.