Public school and schooling stands as perhaps the last best bulwark against the complete capture of public institutions by private, anti-democratic, theocratic, elite capital. That makes education an inevitable target.
There is lots of nonsense that places schools in the crosshairs: masks, vaccines, CRT, "sexualizing children" and what-the-actual-fuck genital mutilation.
The "war on woke" makes the test scores/failing schools battle seem positively old-fashioned.
It's almost always about money, of course, as privateers turn curated culture-war outrage into opportunities to divert public money into private pockets.
But lately I've been more and more concerned about powerful elite actors and the deliberate destruction of public education because of its power as a democratizing mechanism and a promoter of equity. This article from ProPublica on the organization Teneo, a network designed to become "[a] Federalist Society for everything," did not make me feel better.
On one hand, it's no surprise that rich white guys have formed a secret society to promote the interests of rich white guys. On the other hand, the righteous zeal with which they pursue their interests--as if those interests are immutable features of a moral universe--is disturbing. The "Teneo Community Vision" doc outlining Teneo's principles and strategies is at once shocking and familiar, a manifesto for a congregation of far-right, far-out true believers. It gives off a creepy, cultish vibe as it declares, among other things, that "We acknowledge a transcendent order, whether founded in tradition, philosophy, or theology."
When I hear "transcendent order," I think about who is at the top making the rules. I think about empire, maybe because I just watched RRR. If there is a point to the recent infatuation with "classical education," it's the reinforcement of this purportedly unassailable "transcendent order," the natural hierarchy of power "founded in tradition, philosophy, or theology," with you-know-whose tradition and religion at the top.
Teneo's vision consists of some basic "beliefs" that are pretty familiar: limited government/individual liberty (of course), and free enterprise presumably protected by the strong national defense they advocate, and also god. Most of the vision doc deals with how they plan to accomplish their goals, rather than what those goals actually are. In fact, the document cautions that "Ideological organizations can end up in difficult positions," and therefore Teneo describes itself this way: "With respect to ideology, Teneo is thin and facilitative" where "thin" means "to resist further definition as an organization":
This position makes the questions like, “Does Teneo support gun control?” Or “Does Teneo support Donald Trump?” easy to answer: beyond our core convictions, Teneo takes no positions, though our members certainly have positions.
Indeed they do. Though the language is vague and prophylactic, it's clear that, as with any cult, everyone knows what to believe. Teneo is merely a facilitator helping members actualize their individual beliefs.
"Teneans" are masters of the universe who magnanimously support other masters in the project to strengthen (and in some cases restore) a power hierarchy threatened by the progress I grew up celebrating. These people deride the notion of a multicultural, multiracial, pluralistic, egalitarian democracy as a proper goal and reject it as fundamental to the creation of "a more perfect union."
Instead, they are certain of their superiority and the superiority of their ideology and their vision of culture.
In a misty blend of vague bromides ("We are conservative in ideology but innovative and entrepreneurial in our methods" and "We are a membership of values-aligned leaders) and weird religion-inflected language ("Teneo works to care for its members across personal dimensions of human flourishing" -- they call themselves Teneans, ffs), the vision document sets forth a chilling formula for power and for winning "a battle for the heart and soul of our culture." Whose culture?
Make no mistake, creating a culture in their image is the goal. It is mentioned in the document sixty-five times (Republican Party is mentioned once, "voting" and "elections" not at all). Manipulating the culture is central to the mission and vital to the accomplishment of all other goals.
Teneo's Community Design Principle 5 is titled "CULTURE IS UPSTREAM OF POLITICS" and acknowledges that "While politics and public policy are some of the legitimate domains we seek to shape," it emphasizes "Focusing on culture first, knowing that politics will follow."
It uses as an example "The Gay Rights Campaign (knowing that if homosexuality became accepted in pop culture, the law would change)" and specifically references the TV show Will and Grace,
which introduced many Americans to the gay experience in a friendly, non-threatening way. Will and Grace was written, filmed, and distributed by a small number of elites in Hollywood, yet its reach was enormous. It was a small but effective part of a much larger, self-conscious effort that changed Middle America’s view of the gay community.
Who will design the culture and the politics that will follow? According to Principle 5, it is "intrinsically a conversation of elites because not everyone has access to the institutions that shape culture."
This conviction that some people are born to rule dominates our private sphere and has captured most of our public assets and institutions. Private, anti-democratic, often theocratic, elite capital controls not only how we buy things, but how those things are delivered (a brief history of the post office and its transformation into a "government-business hybrid" here). Prisons, garbage collection, the freaking parking meters in Chicago have been sold off or contracted out.
On ostensibly public lands, private capital obtains rights to drill out oil and gas (permits around ten grand and royalties going up for the first time in literally ever). Big ranchers get permits to graze livestock (155 million acres). Sometimes they forego the permits. What belongs to we the people anymore? If you said at least we've still got the army...
Three quarters of the military budget goes to contractors.
The transfer of public assets into private hands is a longstanding and very successful project. Private, anti-democratic, often theocratic, elites want control of the schools, too. They want to acquire and transform public schools into private assets, destroy unions to increase their return on investment, and recreate their vision of hierarchical power with themselves sitting at the top. And they have a plan to do it.
In one of the most resonant sections of this remarkable "vision" document, the founder (sounds about right) Evan Baehr and the vision team describe two competing "THEORIES OF CULTURAL CHANGE." One is democratic:
Americans like to tell themselves a story about how cultures change: the “bottom up” method. This view holds that culture is the accumulation of values held by the majority of people.
<snip>
According to this view, if you want to change culture, you need to change the hearts and minds of the majority of people, and the culture will shift as a result. Although this view is comfortingly democratic, it is flawed.
What's wrong with it? From the document:
This view does not take into account the fact that powerful minorities have the power to shift the views of the majority. If culture were truly democratic, then you would expect the power of any minority—whoever it might be— to be minute. It is not.
Political scientist Byron Shafer says, “No issue, not even a grand issue ‘whose time has come’ can triumph without the support of some organized group or groups to serve as carrier(s). An individual or a small set of individuals can argue the attractiveness of an issue. But a larger network of elite actors must press it forward.”
And there you have it. In their own words. All the talk about how people support public schools and LGBTQ+ protections for students (and everybody else), the talk about gun legislation and climate change mitigation, all the polling--maybe even the elections--it all misses the point.
The members of Teneo's network ("We are welcoming, but elite") are determined to shape the world in their image regardless of "the hearts and minds of the majority of people." In spite of the majority.
If you think they can't succeed, just remember that Leonard Leo is running the Teneo "Federalist Society for everything" show now, and ask yourself how the "majority of people" is faring before the Supreme Court.
These anti-democratic free-market fundamentalists are elite power brokers and they have a plan. It has worked for much of the judiciary including the Supreme Court; now they want everything else. If we don't stop them, our failure will be complete.
