Mitch Daniels and his top state education officials targeted an author and a university professor in an ideological purity-purge:
Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels pledged to promote academic freedom when he became president of Purdue University in January, but newly released emails show he attempted to eliminate what he considered liberal “propaganda” at Indiana’s public universities while governor.
The emails are raising eyebrows about Daniels’ appointment as president of a major research university just months after critics questioned his lack of academic credentials and his hiring by a board of trustees he appointed.
In a Feb. 9, 2010, email sent to top state education officials, including then Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett.
“This terrible anti-American academic has finally passed away,” Daniels wrote , referring to Zinn. “The obits and commentaries mentioned his book ‘A People’s History of the United States’ is the ‘textbook of choice in high schools and colleges around the country.’ It is a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page. Can someone assure me that is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history?”
Daniels’ concerns about Zinn’s book punctuated a sharp, rapid-fire exchange between the governor and his top aides.
Scott Jenkins, Daniels’ education adviser, was the first to respond to the governor’s question about Zinn’s book. He noted it was being used at an Indiana University course for teachers on the Civil Rights, Feminist and Labor movements.
“This crap should not be accepted for any credit by the state. No student will be better taught because someone sat through this session. Which board has jurisdiction over what counts and what doesn’t?” Daniels asked, three minutes after Jenkins’ note.
David Shane, a top fundraiser and state school board member, replied seven minutes later with a strategy directing Bennett and Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education Teresa Lubbers to review university courses across the state.
“Sounds like we need a cleanup of what is credit-worthy in ‘professional development’ and what is not. Who will take charge,” Daniels replied seven minutes later.
Shane replied that a statewide review “would force to daylight a lot of excrement.”
Just seven minutes later, Daniels signed off on it.
“Go for it. Disqualify propaganda and highlight (if there is any) the more useful offerings. Don’t the ed schools have at least some substantive PD (professional development) courseware to upgrade knowledge of math, science, etc,” Daniels wrote.
Daniels on Tuesday stood by his demand that Zinn be excluded from Indiana classrooms but said his request was limited to K-12, where the state has control of the curriculum.
“We must not falsely teach American history in our schools,” he told The Associated Press in an email. “Howard Zinn, by his own admission a biased writer, purposely falsified American history. His books have no more place in Indiana history classrooms than phrenology or Lysenkoism would in our biology classes or the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ in world history courses. We have a law requiring state textbook oversight to guard against frauds like Zinn, and it was encouraging to find that no Hoosier school district had inflicted his book on its students.”
Daniels is lying. Obviously. Reading his words, Daniels wasn’t worried about K-12 public school students being exposed to ideas that conflict with his far Right ideology. He was worried about teachers and college students who would go on to be K-12 teachers being exposed to ideas that conflict with his far Right ideology. Adults. Not children. That’s why he and his top education officials discuss “professional development” and “ed schools” and that’s why the creeps directed a “review” of courses offered in higher education. If Purdue accepts this completely disingenuous response they all need a remedial reading course.
Daniels is a leader in the “market-based school reform” corps, a lock-step, narrow version of “reform” that deregulates, dismantles and then privatizes K-12 public school systems. Teachers get crazy notions when exposed to anything outside abject market-worship.They might occasionally veer from standardized test prep or (God forbid) form a labor union. Daniels and his education team also sought to silence a critic of their market-based public education approach:
In a separate round of emails, Daniels called for an audit of Little, who teachers at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Little was highly critical of Daniels’ education overhaul in internal emails and often critiqued the governor’s performance at public meetings. Daniels directed, in an April 11, 2009 , email that Little’s program be audited and potentially be cut out of state funding.
Then Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, is one of many national celebrities in school reform circles. Bennett was too far Right even for Indiana and voters threw him out but he landed on his feet and now directs efforts to deregulate, dismantle and then privatize Florida’s K-12 public schools. Might want to look at the emails in that state.
Is this how school reformers intend to prepare children who attend public schools for the “jobs of the 21st century”? By censoring ideas offered to current and future teachers and silencing critics of market-based school reform?
Scott S.
Is this how school reformers intend to prepare children who attend public schools for the “jobs of the 21st century”? By censoring ideas offered to current and future teachers and silencing critics of market-based school reform?
When all you know is Stalinism, then unpersoning is your only real strategy.
karen
While the children are allowed to go to school instead of working?
Kay
@karen:
I love how the reasonable centrist disappears when he’s indulging in a spit-flecked wingnut rant.
Those “education leaders” are quick to follow orders, too. Jesus. Did they even read the emails before agreeing? “Yes, sir!”
That must be all that “critical thinking” they talk about.
Alexandra
Sully once had a serious crush on Mitch Daniels.
Enuff said.
John PM
“His books have no more place in Indiana history classrooms than phrenology or Lysenkoism would in our biology classes…”
Interesting that he did not include creative design as an example of something that should not be taught in biology class. I wonder why that is?
Gex
I haven’t been deep in the threads lately. Have we already been told to go fuck ourselves over complaints about the autoplay video on the front page?
PeakVT
I still fail to see the logic of appointing a conservative (a reactionary, really, but let’s not quibble) to head an institution that has as its primary purpose the production of new knowledge.
eric
@PeakVT: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
eric
@John PM: this is all Exhibit A on why there is tenure, no matter its abuses and shortcomings.
Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS)
For the love of all that is holy, someone take that goddamn autoplay lewis black segment off the fucking front page! Just put it behind a “More” tag. This is fucking ridiculous!
/rant
boatboy_srq
@PeakVT: Because to the Reichwing this isn’t about “knowledge,” that nebulous thing that’s prone to revision, relativism, Scientific Method and other failings, but about “Truth.” And The Sum of “Truth” – new or old – can be easily derived from deeper investigation of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution (at least as far as the 10th Amendment), The Wealth of Nations and the KJB.
MomSense
@Kay:
“reasonable centrist” does not exist.
I am just beyond disgusted with these people. So they disagree with Zinn–well then they should compete in a “free market” of ideas and may the best ideas win. I think we should all start asking them constantly why they are so afraid of these ideas.
Omnes Omnibus
Are there history courses in Indiana where Zinn’s book is the sole text? I tend to doubt it. Most survey courses wouldn’t use it as a stand alone. In advanced seminars and graduate courses, it would be one of many books read and discussed. I really doubt that Daniels has any fucking clue how higher education works.
01jack
Do all you guys enjoy listening to that damn video again and again each and every time you come to the site? Is that really possible? Or do you just never actually come here?
RSA
@John PM:
When the Indiana senate passed a bill allowing for the teaching of creationism in public school classrooms, Daniels told a news station that he’d have to wait to see what the legislature did with it, rather than saying something comparable about the Bible having no place in Indiana biology classes…
Cassidy
I keep my sound muted just for this reason.
MomSense
@01jack:
This doesn’t happen to me. What video is it?
Scott S.
@Cassidy: I use Flash Block for the same reason. It’s got ways of shutting all that stuff down.
GregB
These pricks must have secretly taken classes on the expedient application of Stalinism. They have that shit down to a science.
Hunter Gathers
Forget it, Kay. It’s Indiana. Most of the state would sell their children into slavery for tickets to the Brickyard and a visit from someone who once saw Larry Bird.
gnomedad
@Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS):
Nicely meta.
Steeplejack
@MomSense:
It’s the Lewis Black video in the post “I Love This.”
Bulworth
Daniels is a major league ass-clown. I feel sorry for the good folks at Purdue.
Davis X. Machina
It’s all vaguely familiar to any medieval historian, only with pedal-to-the-medal capitalism where scholastic theology used to be.
Except we don’t burn the heretics. EPA sub-10μ particulates regulation won’t stand for it.
Joey Maloney
Yes. SATSQ.
The Moar You Know
The “school reformers” know that the American jobs of the 21st century will be at McDonalds and in the exciting world of pizza delivery. When you have that mindset, it’s pretty irrelevant to teach anything save for propaganda that reinforces the power of the slave state.
Roger Moore
@PeakVT:
This. The biggest problem is that Movement Conservatives don’t really buy into the idea of new knowledge in the first place. They think everything worth knowing is already in the Bible, so all that education is just about putting that knowledge into people’s heads. They don’t really get the importance of new knowledge and the role of education in developing it.
DFH no.6
I hate fascists and all their works, and oppose any ideological “purging” of academia or orienting any public education along a narrow rightwing line, including this singling out and attacking of Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”.
And I would guess that Omnes Omnibus is correct that it is unlikely that Zinn’s tome is the sole text for any course in Indiana.
There is a good reason for that.
Zinn’s book is generally not considered in the discipline of History (my favorite subject, though I am very much an amateur) to be a particularly good book of history.
It is not nearly as bad as Daniels describes it, but it’s place in courses of instruction would be as one of a number of books of history.
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
I’m hoping it’ll get more attention now that they’re “reforming” higher ed. Apparently, no one gives a shit about kids and teachers in K-12. Purdue probably has a high-profile board, right? Powerful people?
Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS)
@Cassidy: some of us also do stuff like listen to music and surf at the same time. It shouldn’t be my responsibility to steer just from post to post or mute my sound because JCole can’t shut off the autoplay, or put it behind a “More” tag.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Yep, it seems to me that the conservative concept of education is learning Approved Things. Critical thinking, original research, and the like just don’t enter into it.
Kay
@Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS):
Okay, I did that. Did it work?
Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS)
@Kay: THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Ah, the sweet blessing of a silent front page!
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought he’d privatize the university. I suppose the ideological purity test is necessary to the “private sector” school idea. They don’t like “for profit” so they’ve re-branded. It’s “private sector” now.
schrodinger's cat
@Alexandra: Sully is usually devoid of judgment when it comes to his political crushes, wasn’t Ryan his blue eyed boy for a while?
Tokyokie
@Roger Moore: Although I agree with you that movement conservatives don’t accept the concept of new knowledge, I think the process by which they get there is a bit different. All that’s worth knowing is that which they already believe, all of which advances their financial, social and/or political position. The Bible is then cherry-picked to buttress that which they already accept. Thus they are able to arrive at such seemingly incompatible positions as the Bible being the inerrant word of God, but its prohibition on shellfish consumption can be ignored, or being “pro-life” while supporting the death penalty.
It’s an extraordinarily narcissistic worldview, but I’ve been approaching conservative “thought” from this perspective for a while now, and it has never failed to yield an accurate analysis.
Sadly, it also gives results like those we are seeing in Indiana.
burnspbesq
Zinn’s work is crap, but there’s no reason why college students shouldn’t be allowed to figure that out for themselves.
wuzzat
@Bulworth:
I don’t. It’s not like Daniels won Purdue in a lottery or something. They fucking hired him, because the majority of Hoosiers are terrible people who think this sort of thing is okay. It’s how Mitch kept getting elected in the first place.
I feel sorry for the not-batshit minority of Indiana residents who are stuck there for one reason or another and have to deal with the prevailing attitude of “that Mitch Daniels sure knows his stuff.”
MCA1
Curious – who is this Zinn guy, and how/why does his work send Mitch Daniels around the bend, exactly? I mean, those are some extremely strong comments questioning the academic’s basic honesty. Is there some legitimate debate out there about Zinn’s work in terms of its integrity, or is it simply that he reports the world through a lens that some people just can’t stomach? It just strikes me as notable that Daniels doesn’t go off railing about how he thinks some theory or another doesn’t wash with his conservative point of view, but rather that Zinn “purposely falsified American history.” Or is all that just a cover, or perhaps he copes with competing ideas he finds discomforting by labeling them false and propogandist? I would think that if this Zinn character were really the hack Daniels claims, he’d have been discredited long ago within the academic world.
At base, this is all stupid – you’re going to fly into a rage and make staff and state employees go waste hundreds of hours trying to make sure potential teachers aren’t even aware of an academic strain of theory that might inform their teaching? That does sort of epitomize the reactionary approach to education, though: There’s a right answer, it’s on the test, everyone should be teaching to it and God help us if we fill the minds of our teachers and then our kids with curiosity or differing perspectives.
Jack the Second
@The Moar You Know: There are only four jobs in the future of America, music, movies, microcode, and pizza.
rikyrah
I knew you’d be on this Kay.
thank you.
Davis X. Machina
@Jack the Second: The first doesn’t pay, the second doesn’t hire, the third one is hard — and the demand is overstated.
How big an economy can you support based on everyone delivering pizza to his neighbor.
James E. Powell
Is this how school reformers intend to prepare children who attend public schools for the “jobs of the 21st century”?
Probably yes, but the real goal is to prepare children who will be passive and obedient citizens of the New America of the 21st century, the one that is only sort of a democratic republic.
Origuy
It’s been a few years since I read Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, but it has a definite left-wing viewpoint. I don’t know of any facts he got wrong, though. There are plenty of textbooks that have a conservative slant.
Ben Cisco
You got the 2 and 1 transposed there.
boatboy_srq
@Davis X. Machina: Maine has been bleeding jobs for over half a century, since the textile mills started relocating Southward. They have no idea how to attract employers: the last big employment “boom” went bust when Pease AFB closed and Portsmouth NS scaled back. Take a look at what happened to Shape Optimedia and G. H. Bass and you’ll see. The businesses that survive do so because a) there’s tourist dollars to be made, or b) they’re the only game in town (UNUM).
Kay
@Davis X. Machina:
I used to think you were over the top in “there will be a few flagship public universities preserved for the top students and the rest will be training academies” but I now believe you are right.
That’s exactly what happened in Chile with this model of “school reform.” CATO used to trumpet the Chile model, until the giant public protests there, then no one in “school reform” in the US talked about Chile anymore.
Amir Khalid
@Origuy:
Same here. I got the impression that A People’s History was a book to read after getting one’s bearings in American history from some more comprehensive source(s).
Kay
@Amir Khalid:
Here’s the real objection:
That word that starts with “L” is the problem here.
Capri
@wuzzat:
Daniels was selected by the Purdue board of trustees. The trustees are appointed by the governor – who was Daniels at the time. Not only that, all but 2 donated to Daniel’s campaign prior to being appointed as trustees.
So there isn’t a lot of “will of the people” going on here.
The tell on Daniels is coming soon. Right now, the trustees are deciding if (and how big) a raise he should get for his first 6 months at the helm. His big claim to fame has been freezing tuition, which he did by cutting costs, including freezing salaries. A big, fat raise will pretty much confirm that he’s the tone-deaf, wing nut grifter many believe him to be.
Original Lee
Zinn’s book is one of the supplemental texts for Original Daughter’s AP US History class next year. Purdue University was on our list of schools to look at, but now I think we can just cross out any public college or university in the state of Indiana. I’m appalled that Purdue, a school many of my family attended and were well-educated at, is sliding into the wingnut cesspool.
ETA correct grammar.
Villago Delenda Est
@John PM:
That line is a great example of pure projection.
Mnemosyne
@Tokyokie:
Writer Anne Lamott put it a slightly different way to the same conclusion: You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
Michele C.
@Kay: and “public private partnerships,” which means we hide behind public while funding with private and obeying private’s goals.
Villago Delenda Est
@boatboy_srq:
Sorry, boatboy, but The Wealth of Nations is on that list only because the Reichwing hasn’t bothered to read it.
Marx was inspired by it. Smith has these radical notions that paying workers well will result in greater wealth for all. And that is the problem. They don’t way the rising tide to lift all boats. Only the yachts. The others can drown.
Citizen_X
Yes, that’s right, ex-Governor: professional development for history and English teachers should focus on math and science. Idiot.
Having an anti-intellectual grifter like this as President of a major research university is a disgrace. I would like to see a nationwide movement, headed by academics and Purdue alums, to get him tossed out. He has demonstrated that he has no business being in academia in any higher capacity than some typical ex-pol adjunct teaching position.
Davis X. Machina
@Citizen_X: You don’t actually need history and English. STEM will save the world.
indycat32
@Kay: I’m a bit late to this discussion, but Daniels appointed 8 of the 10 members of the board of trustees who hired him, so I’m pretty sure they knew exactly what they were getting, and approved.
Villago Delenda Est
The second clause is not supported by the first. Unless you’re Mitch Daniels, and presenting American History through any lens but that approved by J. Pierpoint Morgan constitutes purposely falsifying Amercian history.
By Mitch Daniel’s standards, obviously any view of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as simply serving as stenographers for Jesus is “falsified American history”. To include the no religious test clause, which must have been snuck in by some satanist agent (James Madison, I’m talking about YOU!) and no one noticed it.
gene108
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, they like “original research” as long as it furthers the right-wing agenda, which is how books like the Bell Curve get published, as well as most of the disinformation from right-wing think tanks.
Villago Delenda Est
@Villago Delenda Est:
Hmmm…should be an “other than simply serving as stenographers” in that last post.
My bad, didn’t catch my poor phrasing while the edit window was still open.
I’ll go sit in the corner now.
Tyro
@burnspbesq: I find it amusing how academic historians are always really pissed off at Zinn. I have never been sure why.
Basically, he wrote a book that serves as a text presented as part of an American history class that says, “Ok. American history is usually presented like this, but if you look at the sources and other texts, it could just as easily be presented like this.” And people loved it and it became a great part of the teaching materials in American history classes and as a popular history. And there was something about what Zinn wrote that other historians saw as somehow unseemly.
Felonius Monk
@PeakVT:
The answer to this question is very simple. While governor of Indiana, Daniels packed the Board of Trustees of Purdue with his cronies. Then when his term as the gov. ended, they picked him (as was the plan all along) to be the new President of Purdue. Absolutely disgraceful. I’ve thought about sending back my diploma.
catclub
@Davis X. Machina: “STEM will save the world”
Or destroy it, it may be a race.
boatboy_srq
@Villago Delenda Est: They haven’t read the KJB either, or they wouldn’t have problems with “do unto others”, “render unto Caesar,” “blessed are the peacemakers,” “eye of a/the needle” and whole books of other stuff contradicting their positions. Doesn’t mean they won’t continue trying to use it as a reference.
MaryJane
@Mnemosyne:
Really? I kind of like Ann Lamott and hope she didn’t lift that from Susan B. Anthony.
“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
Omnes Omnibus
@MaryJane: Good artists borrow; great artists steal.
johnny aquitard
You can get a good inkling of what conservatives are up to by what they accuse others of doing to them.
Such revisionism, indoctrination and censorship are what they themselves wanted to do all along to everyone else, they just couldn’t find the moral justification for it.
“Why,” say conservatives, “we’re only leveling the playing field! Balancing the liberal bias! It’s only fair!”
Villago Delenda Est
@boatboy_srq:
Aye, that goes without saying. The red letter editions are remarkably unread by that crowd.
RaflW
I know it’s been asked and answered, but yes, Kay, what Daniels wants is exactly what bogus school reformers want: an ignorant and malleable electorate that is fighting over scraps and thankful to the overlords for the occasional oops where said scraps manage to hit the floor.
BlueSkies
@burnspbesq: In which way are you using “crap” when you say that Zinn’s work is crap? Serious question. Was he inaccurate factually or do you just think his conclusions drawn from agreed-upon facts are “crap”?
You’ve been asked this several times on this thread. Would you care to withdraw the comment?
wuzzat
@Capri:
No, “the Will of the People” put Mitch Daniels in the governor’s mansion for two terms. The will of the Powers That Be at Purdue put Mitch Daniels, the guy who is best known for such things as declaring war on the GSA and selling IN’s toll roads to Australia, in charge of Purdue. As such, my sympathy for Purdue is limited to those students that started in 2012 or 2013. Everyone else is either on their way out or knew what they were getting into.
DFH no.6
@BlueSkies:
burnspbesq may not have responded yet, but let me if I may.
As I commented earlier in this thread, Zinn’s book is generally considered in the community of historical scholars to not be a particularly good book of history (though it has a lot of company in that regard, even among many or maybe even most history textbooks used in our secondary schools).
I don’t think it sinks quite to the level of “crap” as burnspbesq put it, but it’s not actually a rigorously-researched book of history using primary sources (it lacks footnotes of any kind, for instance) that enjoys significant peer-approval amongst historical scholars.
Quick examples of “why” it’s not well thought-of:
Zinn’s conclusion, for instance, that African-Americans did not widely support – were even widely hostile to – America’s effort in fighting WWII, based on a few anecdotal accounts found in one secondary source. This is quite a claim about a fairly important historical topic that fits Zinn’s avowedly left-leaning approach but is based on the thinnest of evidence (and not backed up by more substantive research which I believe shows Zinn to be in fact dead-wrong).
Zinn often approaches history with yes/no, black/white, either/or questions that have the sole correct answer he’s looking for, instead of demonstrating the ambiguity and nuance that actually existed (and that serious historical scholarship requires be shown).
Again, not “crap” (as, say, Zeitgeist is) but neither is it the “real” history “the Man” has been keeping from us.
Maybe someone who’s a real credentialed historian could chime in, but that’s my amateur historian take (and my understanding of the problem history scholars have with Zinn).
RSR
I emailed this to Kay, but I’ll post it here as well-
http://zinnedproject.org/about/
About the Zinn Education Project
The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the use of Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States and other materials for teaching a people’s history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. The website offers more than 100 free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and reading level. The Zinn Education Project is coordinated by two non-profit organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.
low-tech cyclist
I realize this thread has been dead for a week and a half, but Kay, have you seen the latest on this Bennett guy?
I swear, if there are any of these ‘school reform movement’ stars who haven’t turned out to be frauds, I’ve missed it.