ARE PROFESSORS BEING NEUTERED?

 

I've been a day laborer, janitor, night watchman, store clerk, barber’s apprentice, U.S. Army officer, seventh-grade teacher and, for forty-six years, a professor. I was married for over half a century. Together my wife and I raised two children to happy, productive adulthood. Ultimately, she was torn from my side by 17 years of ever-progressing Parkinson's Disease. But despite my lifetime of experiences, years of advanced study, several books, almost a hundred articles, plus ofer 40 years of teaching, I was obliged to submit to anonymous "course" evaluations by puerile undergraduates, semester after semester. 

Had I been required to evaluate my professors as an undergraduate, I would have been certain someone had taken leave of their senses. Clearly, evaluation was the professor's job, NOT mine ! Nowadays, students are not asked, but required, to evaluate their betters! I can't imagine a better way to foster an ill-advised sense of entitlement.

The Barber's Cat

 Perhaps my sense of place was more well developed than most adolescents because I apprenticed in my Dad’s barbershop. It was in Altoona, Pennsylvania — then, one of the world's largest railroad centers. The shop was heavily populated by no-nonsense men who helped make the Pennsylvania the "Standard Railroad of the World." Many were also veterans of W.W. II and/or Korea. 

This was a demanding environment for a 14 year old and I soon learned to keep my opinions to myself. Early on I once chanced a remark, only to have a case-hardened customer say I reminded him of the barber's cat: "Full of piss and wind." That remark provoked shop-wide laughter. Thereafter, I kept my opinions to myself.

Now let's get back to these so-called "course" evaluations. When our college's administration imposed them, they claimed it would help them better measure course effectiveness. Previous administrations (dating back over a century) had never tried anything remotely like this. Probably because they thought students were generally incapable of delivering fair, mature, accurate appraisals — especially if they'd just earned a bad grade. 

The Provost foolishly tried to smooth our brows by pointing out that these "course" evaluations would also support fairer tenure and promotion decisions. This despite previously assuring us that this process was solely meant to evaluate courses, not professors. 

"Money Makes the World Go Around"  

I think introducing these "course" evaluations in college after college was not primarily inspired by a desire to measure course effectiveness, but to try to deal with a collegiate financial crises. For instance, like many colleges at that time, we were experiencing a shortage of applicants. That meant management was focused on the diminishing cash flow. And that required, among other things, keeping present "customers" satisfied. 

The most expeditious way to achieve that was grade inflation. Make grading easier and you retain more students. But that retention tactic could never be openly encouraged. But by introducing these so-called "course" evaluations, faculty could be coerced to cooperate for their own reasons. Chiefly, that inflating grades generally boosted the professor's "course" evaluation scores. 

Want "students" to rate you highly? Give them better grades than they deserve. So grade inflation was a win-win for spooked school administrators as well as professors who wanted good evaluations. What was lost in this Devil's bargain was fairness. Fairness for students who were actually doing quality work; and fairness for professors who stuck to reasonable standards. Both got screwed. Still another long term casualty was the value of the school's diplomas. Although that was less noticeable.

Anonymous Denunciation

"Course" evaluations were completly anonymous. Students were sternly instructed not to sign their names. This anonymity encouraged students to down-grade any professors who demanded diligence and the discomfort of serious thought.  

And students knew who graded them. Professors could only guess. So none of ever knew if a bad evaluation was retribution from some class-cutting dullard, or an honest evaluation from a student whose opinion mattered. 

A particularly humiliating finale topped off this process. On the last day of class, we professors were told to just distribute the evaluations, then leave the room.  Students might, or might, not collude once the professor we were gone. Anyway, when finished students placed their completed evaluations on the front desk to be collected by the last student finishing. He or she then sealed them in the provided envelope, and delivered the sealed packet to the department secretary. Professors were not to touch them until they were officially returned to us some months later. Clearly, we weren't to be trusted.

Excommunication

The collected evaluations were perused by a succession of administrators, then, months later, returned to us. We were to review them, benefit from the feedback, bind them for future reference, and record summative statistics on a spreadsheet. Those statistics would prove critical in any future tenure or promotion hearings.  They were the equivalent of our professorial batting average. Except hits can be reliably tabulated. They either are or they aren't. Our "hits" were recorded by dozens of self-interested umpires.

A "Tenure and Promotion Committee" conducted the inquisition ultimately determining a tenure or promotion candidate's fate. Chaired by the Provost, this committee was staffed by thoroughly house trained faculty, appointed by a similarly cooperative "Committee on Committees." I once asked the  Chair of the Committee on Committees why, in spite of my years of satisfactory service, I had never been selected to serve on this critical committee. She explained that I was "insufficiently attentive to administrative intent." This woman, by the way, was exquisitely sensitive to it. In consequence, she soon became Dean of Arts and Sciences.

Anyway, this Committee on Committees  was very powerful. They were, in effect, the Inquisitors. And the professor being examined was not even permitted to appear at his or her own inquisition. Representation was provided by their Department Chair who might or might not like the candidate.  Should a candidate have weak statistics, or should the Provost jesuitically hint disapproval, the candidate's chances were doomed. 

Predictably, professors were denied any opportunity to evaluate their chair, their dean, the provost, or the president. I once asked our new Dean, the same lady with remarkable sensitivity to administrative intent, if faculty would ever be afforded the opportunity to grade her and her superiors? I stressed that professors were obviously better qualified to evaluate administrators than immature. inexperienced youngsters were their professors. She muttered uncomfortably that this would be decided at some future date. That date, of course, turned out to be never. 

Administrators know allowing professors to evaluate them will result in their disempowerment in the same way "course" evaluations disempower faculty. Moreover, at least at my college, professors were also expressly forbidden from initiating any communications with members of the board of trustees.  

A Final Word 

"Course" evaluations effectively disempower professors. They commonly are introduced during times of low enrollment to keep bodies in seats and help balance the budget. In the short run, this buys time. In the long run, it is the road to ruin. 

How many institutions of higher education are doing this right now? Far, far too many. What will it yield? Inferior education and embarrassingly incompetent graduates. Is there any way to forestall it? Not really. The law of supply and demand is at work and the results are not happy ones. 

Enough said.  

HUMBUG ABOUT SCHOOLS OF THE FUTURE?

 

Sixteen years ago an editorial in the New York Times promised that in schools of the future: "students will use free internet applications to complete their classroom assignments on school-issued laptops that also substitute for text books," "educators will track students' academic growth with sophisticated software that allows them to better tailor lessons and assignments to each youngster's achievement level, "parents will use instant messaging to chat with teachers about their child's progress."

In a few schools all of this has been realized and more besides. But in many others a fundamental limitation is nullifying it all. What is this limitation? It's the kids, their parents, and the world they're growing up in. 

Youngsters still have to buy into schooling before technology can even begin to transform their schooling. And kids with all sorts of education-stultifying problems weren't buying into schooling before the advent of digital technology, aren't buying into it now despite the promise, and won't buy into it in the future. Similarly their parents have to be capable of at least mediocre parental performance. Many aren't. And, lastly, the neighborhood surrounding every school seeps in and greatly influences the educational process. regardless of the technology employed. 

This is especially true of schools that most urgently require transformation. Schools in our inner cities. Technology hasn't and won't transform these schools. They haven't become more successful delivering instruction. They aren't doing better communicating with parents or fostering their interest. And, with rare exceptions, they remain the same educational wastelands they were before the advent of the digital age.

Here is a brief tale that illustrates the point. A teacher I know well was trying to teach in a Philadelphia inner city middle school that was, indeed, technologically impoverished. Through some miracle one solitary classroom was equipped with brand new computers at every desk. One morning while classes were changing, two adolescent boys began chasing one another around the computer rich classroom. Soon they were leaping from one desktop to another, trampling keyboards and kicking over computers. Perhaps the boys had that intent before they even started chasing. We'll never know. In any event they wrecked utter havoc. There was no money to replace or repair the damage. The computerized classroom was defunct before its promise was even beginning to be realized. Why? Non technological problems triumphed. 

The two vandals were never positively identified, much less dealt with. Disorder was so rife in this school that this particular destruction just blended into the chaos. Whatever promise the new computers offered was lost to all. Students could not, as the Times article promised, "use free internet applications to complete their classroom assignments" had they even wanted to. Worse still, kids who actually wanted to complete their assignments were in relatively short supply. On nice days as many as a third of the youngsters were either hours late reporting for class, or failed to show up at all. And if a youngster did complete assignments they often attracted unwelcome attention from their worst classmate.

So far as teachers being able to "track student's academic growth with sophisticated software that allows them to better tailor lessons and assignments to each youngster's achievement level," that's not just impossible now, it will be in the future — at least at the secondary level. Teachers there are trying to teach upwards of 150 kids spread over five different periods, each with 30 or so kids. Keeping track of all 150 is impossible now and will be in the future. In fact, it will remain impossible so long as we organize public education on a factory-like, mass production basis in order to make it affordable. And we're not about to stop that economizing because tax payers, particularly those without school-age children, are already fed up with school taxes.

When it comes to "parents using instant messaging to chat with teachers about their child's progress," that pipe dream requires their parents to have the necessary technology, interest, sobriety, time and freedom from the thousand and one problems that poverty, broken homes, drug addiction, alcoholism and imprisonment brings. Good luck with that!

What is one to make of all this? That schools and school kids do NOT exist in a vacuum. The world surrounding the school intrudes into each classroom, mirroring the situations in which the school is submerged. IF those situations are dysfunctional so far as schooling is concerned, no amount of technological innovation is going to save that school from the consequences. If the school is submerged in a neighborhood of affluence, safety and functional families technological innovations only widen the gap.  

 

For more detailed realistic considerations of educational issues such as this, visit newfoundations.com AND/OR newfoundations.net

THE LIMITS OF INDOCTRINATION: old-time nuns and "woke" professors

"I just tuned them out."

A worried Israeli émigré  to America once confided to me that her daughter’s Modern Middle East History professor — Jewish, but very woke — consistently condemned Israel. The mother worried that her daughter, born and raised in Israel, would come to despise the land of her birth. 

I opined that most students of college age long ago learned to discount disagreeable instruction. For instance, I know a woman who experienced 8 years of  relentless Catholic schooling conducted by 1950's era, take-no-prisoners nuns. Still, she remained largely ignorant and disregardful of Catholic doctrine." 

I asked her how she preserved her ignorance and indifference. She explained that when she questioned what was being taught, she was either ignored or reproached. Lacking adequate answers, only silence or hostile suppression, she quit listening. "Eventually, I just tuned them out!" she said. The result was triumphant ignorance of the "one true faith."

When I pressed for specifics, the woman recalled being taught it was a grave sin to save the life of the mother, if it required sacrificing the life of her unborn child. Discomforted, she had asked Sister what if the mother has other children and a husband who loves and needs her? Her query was dismissed out of hand. The Church had ruled and that was that. She found this totally unacceptable. She also remembered being taught that babies are born infected with original sin. She thought that new-borns were obviously innocent. By this time, though, she did not ask any questions. But she was more determined than ever not to listen.

 

This is one way indoctrination falls flat. Done ham-handedly, it not only fails. but provokes obdurate opposition. For instance, when I was about ten or eleven I innocently asked my Sunday school teacher what happens when people die without ever even hearing of Jesus? (I was thinking of very remote areas, like New Guinea.) She replied, matter-of-factly, "They go to hell." I said that this did not seem fair. She replied by quoting John 14:6, in which Jesus reportedly says: “No man cometh unto the father but by me.” I said that still seemed unfair. She replied, coldly this time, that fairness had nothing to do with it. Adding that Sunday school was not a debating society. 

I did not attend class the next Sunday. Instead, I ended up at the local corner store. My 50 cent Sunday school offering bought me 10 illicit pinball games — not counting the free games I won. I played Sabbath pinball for several weeks until my mother found out. I thought I was in serious trouble. But when she heard what had happened to cause my absence, she granted absolution. Evidently she too thought it unfair for anyone to burn for eternity in hell on an ignorance rap. Eventually we both quit going to that church. Indoctrination can backfire. 

Professors, teachers, parents and the general public tend to overestimate the durability and effectiveness of instruction. In my 46 years as a professor I taught thousands of undergraduates; and I was repeatedly astonished by how little of what they had “learned” they actually remembered. Many, for instance, found it impossible to simply convert their raw test score, say, 39 correct out of 50, to a percentage. Yet they'd ""learned" that in middle school. Similarly, most could not identify the combatants in World Wars I or II. Only a handful knew the decade of the Great Depression. Many could not find China on an outline map. One thought that France was our northern neighbor because, “people speak French up there.” Another opined that Heinrich Himmler must be the chap who invented that life saving maneuver for people choking on food. 

That famed lifesaver, Heinrich Himmler

These kids were college sophomores who easily mastered complex social media applications and could identify every single Kardashian. Yet most of them demonstrated little applicable knowledge of what is typically taught in school. 

Worse, transforming these "students" instrumental interest in merely passing tests into an intrinsic interest in knowledge itself was very difficult. At times it seemed like trying to make a dog happy by manually wagging its tail. 

In my experience, undergraduates, accustomed to forgetting almost everything they have "learned," are not easily influenced by a biased lecturer. Unless, and this is important, the content of the lecture fulfills one or another of the psychological needs adolescents typically have. 

For instance, the need for certainty and self-esteem. Here they are very susceptible to the indoctrination of"Woke" professors who feed them a steady diet of theory that validates narcissism, entitlement, resentment and a sense of moral superiority. Lots of youngsters go for that!

I doubt my 46-years of experience with academic amnesia and disinterest is unusual. This is precisely why university administrators would rather fight rabid pit bulls barehanded than require undergraduates to pass a core subjects knowledge test as a condition of graduation. Merely mentioning such a procedure puts most of these educational "leaders" at risk of a myocardial infarction.

How is any of this pertinent to our émigré mother’s worries? Well, given the perishable nature of most school taught knowledge, it is unlikely that this politically correct pedagogue is going to convert her Israeli-born daughter to an anti-Israel stance. To be sure, his impassioned denunciations of Israel will probably motivate at least some students to admire Hamas. When in a mob they may enthusiastically shout "From the river to the sea!" But, even then, they are unlikely to be able to identify either body of water, or to hold on to that view when it's no longer a popular way to appear righteous. 

Yasser Arafat

Is it proper for professors to conduct class in a one-sided manner? Of course not, when the issue is multi-faceted. But it’s not like these students are living in regimes where only one point of view prevails. And it is only in societies where just one point of view is permitted and all others silenced under penalty of death or imprisonment, that indoctrination is likely to succeed in the long term.

Yes, it is true that one-sidedness does prevail in some college departments where "woke" has become the official religion. In fact in some colleges the administration actually tolerates, even endorses, this new dogma. 

Whenever this  atmosphere prevails and competing voices are silenced, that is when our Israeli expatriate mother should start worrying. So should the rest of us.

Are we there yet. Has "woke" indoctrination replaced reasoned discourse? Have competing voices been silenced.  In some academic departments, especially advocacy studies, the answer is "yes." In those right-thinking hot houses education has been smothered and indoctrination taken over. Professors have become Judas priests, the department has morphed into a Frankensteinian seminary, students have been converted into dogmatic true believers, and education has become a joke.

 

PROGRAMMATIC DEFINITIONS ARE TRECHEROUS: here's why

 

Here is a classic programmatic definition: "Abortion is murder." Why? Because if you accept the definition, you necessarily accept the program of action that goes with it. What program of action? Redefining induced abortion as an act of murder. It is NOT murder anywhere in America. Not even in states where abortion is outlawed after a certain term of pregnancy. 

"Abortion is murder" does not mirror ordinary usage. As evidence let's look at the two key words, "abortion" and "murder." The Medical Dictionary explicitly defines abortion as: termination of pregnancy before the fetus is viable. In the medical sense, this term and the term miscarriage both refer to the termination of pregnancy before the fetus is capable of survival outside the uterus. The term abortion is more commonly used as a synonym for induced abortion, the deliberate interruption of pregnancy as opposed to miscarriage, which connotes a spontaneous or natural loss of the fetus. 

The Oxford Dictionary of English defines "murder" as: the unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by another. Of course, then, for abortion to be murder a fetus has to be thought of as a human being. But among theologians there is substantial disagreement on that matter.  Even the early church fathers thought that it was more wrong to abort a fully formed fetus than one that wasn't.  

t

Pope Francis declared abortion to be a "crime" even though in the United States, and in other Western nations, it isn't. So the Pope's definition is programmatic. If we accept the Pope's definition, we embrace the Roman Catholic program of action that is embedded in it. Redefining abortion as the capital crime of murder. 

Clearly the Pope's definition violates ordinary usage. Abortion is not a crime, at least not until a certain duration of pregnancy has passed. Nor do polls evidence a majority of Americans agree with the Pope that it is an "absolute evil." The Pope's violation of ordinary usage - and popular consensus - is what makes his definition programmatic. And that istroublesome because this linguistic maneuver delegitimizes debate and stifles discussion. 

Accept the Pope's definition and we need not wonder if a girl who has been raped by her father should have the option of abortion. If she and/or her mother choose that course of action, no matter how desperately they choose it, she/they are, by the Pope's definition are murderers who have chosen an "absolute evil." And, according to the Pope, this would be true even if the abortion were performed before the embryo was still and embryo - much less capable of independent survival outside the womb.

The practical force of programmatic definitions is that their acceptance has consequences far exceeding mere linguistic preference. Accept Pope Francis's definition, for example, and there is no room for argument or contrary evidence. The choice has been made for us. 

A handy, though by no means infallible, method of identifying programmatic definitions is the presence of adjectives such as “true “ or “real.” For example, "A true conservative is one who ...". You can fill in the rest. But those who offer programmatic definitions do not necessarily intend to deceive or slip us a linguistic Mickey. They might well believe that the meaning they propose is the only “true” or “right” one. 

Sincerity and good intentions, however, are not enough. To avoid being programmatic, definitions must mirror ordinary usage, stand against contrary evidence and surmount informed disagreement. Mere assertion will not do.

TESTING THE CANDIDATES: spotlighting the unqualified

 

Here we shortly after the presidential election and a lot of us could still use more actual information about the candidates. We could easily add more vital information in future elections. Offer each candidate the opportunity to take a battery of standardized tests on subjects such as the U.S. Constitution, Federal law, American history, basic economics and climate science, then publish each and every one of their scores. Should they refuse to take the test, make their refusal VERY public.

Donald Trump would have had to take such a test battery and have his scores made public knowledge OR publicly turn down the opportunity. Kamala Harris also would have the same opportunity to take them, have her scores reported or publicly decline. My guess is well-qualified candidates would take the opportunity while ignorant blowhards and clever bullshitters would not. Voters could still choose those who decline, to be sure, but their refusal would provide voters with useful information.

Why not require such tests? Because the Constitution sets the criteria for candidates and such an additional requirement would necessitate a Constitutional amendment. But we certainly could offer each candidate the opportunity and make the offer very public. It would function much like the debates. Except that bullshit doesn't fly on an objective test.

A professional testing corporation such as the Educational Testing Service to devise these tests. It's fun to imagine possible questions. I'm imagining serious questions involving knowledge relevant to future duties. But I can't resist adding a few that I would like to ask:

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Given an enormous federal budget deficit, which of the following would be best?

a. borrow still more money 

b. cut taxes for the middle class 

c. cut taxes for the super rich 

d. spend only what is taken in 

2. If an attractive female intern offers oral sex, a male public official should: 

a. quickly agree before she changes her mind 

b. make sure she doesn't keep the dress afterwards

c. politely decline 

d. ask her what she means by "sex." 

3. Should our schools decide to emphasize “good character,” the best person to exemplify such character would be: 

a. J. Edgar Hoover 

b. Richard Nixon 

c. Bill Clinton 

d. none of the above 

4. If a terrorist attack on the U.S. originates in country A, the best U.S. course of action would be to: 

a. turn the other cheek 

b. invade country C 

c. invade country B 

d. none of the above

5. The Second Amendment is predicated on the necessity of :

a. self-defense

b. maintaining a well-regulated militia

c. preserving a viable small arms industry

d. none of the above 

TRUE FALSE:

6. With the exception of James Buchanan, every U. S. President played par golf

7.  Mexico is actually paying for "the wall," but in small, discreet installments

8.   James Madison, the man behind the US Constitution, barred any and all Christian elements from that document.

9.  During the Trump administration, Denmark really did have Greenland up for sale

 

10. The Bill of Rights contains a total of 12 rights

Alright, enough of this whimsy. We might also want to test all potential appointees to key administrative offices. These could be required by law. Attorney General or Secretary of Defense, for example. The tests would be keyed to the anticipated areas of responsibility. For instance, every aspiring state Secretary of Education would have to pass the same battery of tests required of aspiring teachers. If we use Pennsylvania as a model, for example, the candidate would have to pass separate NTE tests in Reading, Writing, Listening Skills, Mathematics and Principles of Teaching and Learning. We might also want to add a content specialty test in their college major -- aspiring secondary educators have to take one of these. We could even also require standardized tests in Elementary Education Content and Curriculum. After all, officials in the Department of Education tell teachers at every level what to do. 

 

Of course, in any test of aspiring politicians or potential office holders, cheating will be an especially significant problem. Safeguards are absolutely required. At a minimum we must have different forms of the test in order to eliminate would-be candidates from copying each other's work. We also must put the tests under the tightest possible pre-use security.  Remember we're usually dealing with would-be politicians and their minions!

That, in broad outline, is the plan. But it needs filling in. That’s where you can help. Tell us what you think. Should aspirants for and holders of public office take standardized content area tests? If so should we also measure wisdom, rectitude, practical knowledge, sexual predilictions, or what? Additionally, should we test just once, or test longitudinally every year that the person is in office? (Longitudinal testing has the obvious advantage of measuring whether or not the subject is learning while “serving” and/or declining mentally) 

 You might like to suggest specific test items. They need not be multiple choice or true/false as exemplified in this commentary. Any type of questions typically found on standardized tests are welcome. Short answer, etc, Rush your comments and suggestions to the Worm Turns Foundation. org, or post them here. 

P.S. I also suggest asking them to publish their college transcripts. These folks are asking to be hired by us. So it certainly is appropriate to look into their academic record. (Donald Trump threatens Penn with legal action if they ever release his.)

 To examine like issues, see articles at www.newfoundations.com 

2ND RATE TEACHERS: a national necessity

 

During the Obama administration Arnie Duncan, the Education Secretary, repeatedly charged that the nation's teacher preparation programs were second-rate. He said they attract inferior students and weak faculty. He added that colleges and universities use teacher prep programs as "cash cows," bleeding off the revenues they generate instead of investing in their improvement.

There's some truth in all of that. But at the same time Secretary Duncan was making these charges, he was praising alternative quickie routes into teaching. He had a novel "let's make it tougher by making it easier"strategy. Logic demands that if teacher education lacks rigor, it should be made more rigorous. Yet Duncan's favored quickie routes did the exact opposite. And he cheered on his boss for doing even worse. Obama, had the cahonnes to officially classify untrained interns as "highly qualified teachers." Why on earth did he do that? To make employing them as teachers (something California was doing a lot of) compliant with the No Child Left Behind Act. 

Had Duncan really been concerned about strengthening teacher preparation he would have declared war on weak state certification requirements, publicly denounced quickie routes into teaching, and shamed colleges and universities that exploit teacher education as cash cows. Moreover, had he really cared, he would have demanded the abolition of undergraduate teacher certification programs in favor of  professional graduate schooling modeled on the training that has been so successful in dramatically boosting Finland's educational ranking. He did the opposite.

Since Duncan things have deteriorated still further in teacher education. Given lousy teacher working conditions and whale feces low morale, it's little wonder that the pool of would-be teachers has shrunk dramatically. No one but a saint, and they are very scarce, is going to put a lot of effort into becoming a teacher when they'll likely end up underpaid, under-appreciated, scapegoated by conscience-free politicians, attacked from both the political left and right, "led" by weathervane administrators, and pilloried by ungrateful parents anxious to blame others for their own incompetence? No, unless these conditions change, it will be necessary to further reduce the requirements for entry into teaching. The nation's schools urgently need replacement cannon fodder because of the present short supply. 

Will this situation change during either a Trump or Harris presidency? Not likely. Trump, the founder of that film flam "Trump University," daily evidences life-long immunity to schooling. (Penn still owes us a an apology for gifting him that M.B.A.) And Harris evidences no concern whatsoever for improving teacher preparation, much less teaching itself. So let's just settle down and expect the worst. 

For more on Duncan go to: http://www.newfoundations.com/Clabaugh/CuttingEdge/Tinkering.html

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION? it's humbug and here's why

Teachers are urged to practice "multicultural education." They're piously told that their classroom should be a rainbow where kids from multiple cultures each add a complimentary color. Advocates of this fashionable approach, such as Professor Sonia Nieto, author of the popular Affirming Diversity, claim that "cultural, ... differences can and should be honored, respected, and used as a basis for learning and teaching." 

That is utter humbug because this prescription is based on two obviously false assumptions. First, that all cultures are compatible one with the other. They aren't.  Second, that all cultures incorporate the tolerance this rainbow requires. They don't.

 For instance, members of cultures little influenced by the enlightenment are likely to view the very concept of multiculturalism as totally unacceptable. Indeed, as a damnable heresy. Consider the Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam. (The retrograde dogmatic religious sect dominating Saudi Arabia and promoting their intolerance via vast amounts of oil money on religious education throughout the Muslim world.) Wahhabi true believers divide the world between the good guys who subscribe to their version of Islam, and Godless heretics or non-believers. And how do the Wahhabi deal with those who differ? They silence them. And if they must be flogged, jailed, even liquidated, to achieve that silence, so be it. Such intolerance makes it impossible to include their brand of Islam in the process of multicultural education. 

Is the Wahhabi brand really that intolerant? In 2004 a Saudi royal study group found that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.'  Embarrassed by such a finding, high ranking Saudi officials promised to eliminate the cited intolerant dogmatism from their curriculum. Years later, however, when the Washington Post analyzed "reformed" Saudi religion texts they found the self-same, intolerant preachments.  

Let's imagine Professor Nieto teaching in Saudi Arabia and following her own multicultural prescription. Envision her openly affirming the value of all religious view points. What do you think her fate would be? And before deciding, consider that in 2005, a Saudi teacher who cautiously suggested that Jews and the New Testament could be viewed positively, was not only fired, but sentenced to 750 lashes and sent to prison. (He was eventually pardoned, but only following intense international protests.) If Professor Nieto actually "affirmed diversity" in a Saudi classroom  she would doubtless suffer for it. And since this cultural backwater is extraordinarily misogynistic and Professor Nieto is a woman, a severe outcome would be especially likely.  

Is Saudi Arabia unique? Is it an island of intolerance in a tolerant world? Of course not. Religious and related cultural intolerance is so common in our world that tolerance is often a novelty. And this is especially true when believers subscribe to any religion that asserts that it, and only it, commands THE truth. 

And keep in mind that cultures often define themselves, in part, by their rejection of, hatred for, and possibly aggression toward, at least some other cultures. Palestinians rarely love the Jews. Armenians have serious reservations about the Turks. The Irish routinely have a less than cordial attitudes toward the English. And let's not expect Native Americans to be grateful to the "white man" for ethnically cleansing them from most of the continent. Cultures often clash as they compete for limited resources. As Simon and Garfunkel sang years ago: "The whole world is festering with unhappy souls. The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch. And I don't like anybody very much!"

Here is another example of the foolishness of multicultural education, at least as Nieto describes it. Should a teacher actually set out to affirm diversity when confronting another culture's practice of, say, hating and persecuting homosexuals? (Some cultures even put them to death!) Such murderous intolerance doesn't blend well in any cultural rainbow. What about pre-marital sex. That's pretty common. But an Iranian couple accused of enjoying each other were sentenced to be buried up to their necks in sand, and stoned to death. Should any American teacher affirm that kind of diversity? 

There are cultures, or at least subcultures, that condone selling one's own daughter into prostitution, throwing battery acid in the face of girls who merely want to go to school, killing one's sister for "dishonoring" the family, hiring amateurs to carve out the clitoris of little girls with razor blades, forbidding female inclusion in a last will and testament, assigning women second rate legal standing, ad naseum. Should such differences be accepted, respected, and used as a basis for learning and teaching? Of course not. Yet teachers are advised to mindlessly affirm diversity.

America is something of a cultural salad.  And that is an American strength. But that doesn't alter the fact that adding some ingredients will render this salad indigestible. Specifically the primitive intolerance, coercion and religious support for cruelty and violence that characterizes some cultures. ISIS is an example. That's a culture we tolerate at our peril. Yet advocates of multiculturalism either pretend such cultures don't exist, or foolishly throw their arms around them. 

At bottom, Nieto style multiculturalism is just more of the simple-minded happy talk that plagues educational discourse. Enough of this shallow, ill-considered nonsense! Teaching the nation's children is far too serious to treat such wooly-headed drivel as anything other than nonsense. It's way past time to get serious, not merely solemn, when considering educational policy!