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Comment by consumer451 | Hacker News Reader

The reason to fight against university education was laid out plainly in the 2012 Texas GOP platform. While not directly related to TFA, it clearly shows the reasoning to limit aspects of education.

> Yes, you read that right. The party opposes the teaching of “higher order thinking skills” because it believes the purpose is to challenge a student’s “fixed beliefs” and undermine “parental authority.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2012/07/01/texas-go...

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This is a gross distortion. 2012 Texas platform did not oppose the concept of higher order thinking skills, it opposed a specific pedagogy Higher Order Teaching Skills, which was displacing knowledge based learning. Reasonable people can disagree on which works better, teaching low order skills first, or high order skills first.

Here is the exact passage, so everyone can make up their own mind.

> Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012Pl...

Yes, they are opposing a type of modern educational program, not the concept of thinking skills. If you are familiar with elementary school curriculums, they are opposing Everyday Math or Illustrative Mathematics and supporting memorizing multiplication tables.

https://illustrativemathematics.org/math-curriculum/k-5-math...

> challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

What about that passage?

Can you explain to me what "fixed beliefs" means?

This is one the lesson plans that was a trigger at the time. It is a typical constructivist pedagogy.

https://web.archive.org/web/20141023181930/https://api.ning....

Fixed beliefs are things like America is a good nation. You should teach the whole of history, good, bad and ugly, but stop trying to make kids reinterpret everything through modern political lenses

I'm sorry, what exactly is wrong with the lesson plan in that link? Can you please be very specific, such as citing passages?

You should try doing the work first instead of demanding others to teach you.

Why did you just go into rude and offensive mode?

I looked at the linked doc, and did not find anything objectionable. I cannot read other people's minds, so I am not sure what you are asking of me.

Are you saying that you cannot point me to what you are talking about in that lesson plan, to prove your own point? I am supposed to magically make your point for you? This is not how any of this works.

What is objectionable is the high opportunity cost. You could actually be teaching history. It is fine if you like the listen plan, but it is wrong to characterize people who think knowledge based learning is better as limiting education.

> Can you explain to me what "fixed beliefs" means?

Probably some blend of religious and moral values, political and civic beliefs and cultural views towards divisive issues.

Religion was my partial read for "fixed beliefs" as well. I have been alive for quite some time now, and the major battle for the young mind in the US was regarding evolution vs. literal biblical interpretation. This is the reason for charter schools, destroying the U.S. Department of Education, and much more. Those "fixed beliefs" are very fragile when exposed to new information.

I think it is a side note on the charter schools issue. The main driver is terrible standards and discipline in public schools. There is a reason atheists are putting their kids in charter schools too, and even religious schools.

I hear you, solid point looking at the current state of public education. The next question is: why is our public education system so lacking?

My recollection is that ever since science started to counter strict religious teachings, a significant portion of the country stopped trying to improve the public education system, and instead began to undermine it.

> ever since science started to counter strict religious teachings, a significant portion of the country stopped trying to improve the public education

The Scopes Monkey trial was in 1925 [1]. The issue has been divisive for longer than American public education started failing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_trial

Sure, but look at this chart. It took a few generations for it to really take effect.

https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/q7gqms/usa...

IMO it started with no child left behind, and a wave of public sentiment and legal precedent that places the worst performing and behaving students above the majority.

I have a teacher friends who have to deal with students attacking them. One had a student break their hand and they could not suspend or expell them. Imagine trying to teach a class under such conditions.

> it started with no child left behind

FTA: "As controversial as it was, No Child Left Behind coincided with increased school performance, especially for those at the bottom."

That is not mutually exclusive. First, you can absolutely sacrifice the median to improve the average. Second, I was pointing out when I think it started. One hypothesis is that the negative impacts of no child left behind and similar programs were initially mitigated/compartmentalized by the heavy academic tracking used at the time. My understanding is that much of this has changed over time with a reduction in number of tracks.

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