Many of us received a mailer from the Rita Montoya campaign that conveys her concern about the anti-Semitism plaguing the county’s Jewish students and how she will address it.
History is a powerful teacher. That’s why Rita Montoya will fight to implement mandatory Holocaust education in our schools, and use the power of knowledge to combat hatred.
Nope, knowledge does not combat hatred. Everyone knows about the human misery in Yemen, Iran, Burma, Ukraine, Russia, and China, yet the student walkouts in our county have been only against Israel. Depending on who teaches the subject, Critical Race Theory is all about delivering knowledge that fosters hatred. Eliminating anti-Semitism through “knowledge” failed somewhere around the time of Alexander the Great, so there’s no need to hope for a different result in 2024.
MCPS students already have two units of Holocaust education, and that knowledge hasn’t prevented attacks against Jewish students. Why would anyone think adding more units will mitigate the problem? Furthermore, at some point Holocaust studies crowd out other subjects that are at least, if not more, important.
It’s not the students that we’re talking about, though. One teacher I know acknowledged that children are children, and they can engage in hurtful behavior without understanding what they say or do. That’s unfortunate but acceptable—we are all human. What’s less acceptable is that a confirmed anti-Semitic DEI teacher, Sabrina Khan-Williams, was temporarily suspended and then re-instated. What lesson does that tell us about the anti-Semitic atmosphere in the schools? It’s not OK for students to draw swastikas on desks, but it’s OK for the teachers to do so on their Twitter accounts.
Let’s look at Ms. Montoya’s endorsements. As of this writing, she’s secured the support of the teachers’ union, the association of retired teachers, Progressive Neighbors, Latino Democratic Club, and Delegate Jheanelle Wilkins. With all the well deserved respect due these organizations, none of them are stakeholders in the Jewish students’ welfare. In fact, an endorsement from the teachers’ union should be handled as if it were toxic waste: the union didn’t protect teachers from a sexual predator, it allowed Monifa McKnight to cash out severance pay, it protects an enormous and non-productive administrative staff, and it even entertained (and tabled) a “cease-fire now” resolution. Someone who has the teachers’ union’s endorsement cannot be trusted on any matter, certainly not anti-Semitism.
I could be all wrong. We already have the names of several MCPS employees and local residents who are openly anti-Semitic. Following Ms. Montoya’s proposal, let’s expose them to 20 hours of Holocaust studies and see if their attitudes change. If that experiment is successful, I’ll be door knocking for Ms. Montoya.
For the Jewish students suffering in the MCPS schools—at the hands of students, teachers, principals, or administrators—the way out is school vouchers. That applies also to all the students in failing schools, all the Moslem (and Ethiopian, and Christian, and conservative, and Latino, and otherwise not interested) families who want out of forced LGBT studies, all the teachers feeling threatened by superiors or bureaucrats, and anyone else who is a victim of our pricey yet decaying public school system.
(Some of the comments in this post were inspired by tweets on X.)
