Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson: the course we should set for education in North Carolina
Editor’s note: When advance copies of N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s book “We Are the Majority!: The Life and Passions of a Patriot” were released last month, a passage about what should be taught in schools caused an uproar. Within days Robinson attempted to clarify statements from the book. Here is the passage on education, published with permission:
Education isn’t about whitewashing history. It’s not possible to teach history without talking about the bad things that happened. We must look at the impact that slavery had on our economy, social structure, our government, and the dreadful effects that it had on the people themselves. We have to look at how odd it was that a nation built on freedom had slaves.
We need to stop demonizing people based on their color, and we need to stop telling people that they are victims based on the color of their skin. We need to start telling them that they are Americans, and the way we as Americans overcame these injustices was by using our unique system of government. That’s what conservatives are trying to get taught. We aren’t trying to hide anything. We don’t want to whitewash anything. We want to teach the real story, and the real story is this — yes, we had injustices, but we overcame those things together.
We can still do that.
Teachers can get to the great issues of our time and philosophy of life later. If they teach kids how to read, they teach kids how understand information and how to consider concepts. If they teach kids how to write, they teach kids how to communicate. If they teach kids math, they teach kids to think logically and scientifically. This is what elementary kids want and need, and it is all that they truly need. Every activity in school, including art, music, and other activities, should be directed toward that goal.
Of course, children will succeed at different levels, but the expectation and concentration should be to allow children to ascend to the highest level that they are capable of. We don’t need to dumb things down; we need to smarten them up. The way to do this is to demand proficiency in reading, writing, and math in grades one through five. In those grades, we don’t need to be teaching social studies. We don’t need to be teaching science. We surely don’t need to be talking about equity and social justice. I’ll say it again: we need to be teaching kids how to read, how to write, and how to do mathematics.
If I were totally in charge of education, that’s the course I would set in North Carolina. Even though I sit on the state school board now, I would get rid of it. We need to have one entity, one person, where the buck stops. Right now we have at least three: the school boards, the state superintendent of education, and the local school systems — and none are truly answerable to the others.
We need for one entity to be in charge of education in the state so that when the legislature has questions and concerns, they can go to that single institution and expect to influence the way education is done. They could ask one person, “What in the world is going on? Why and how is this happening? How are you going to fix it?” Right now in North Carolina — it’s a mess. The buck needs to stop with somebody.
