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Idahos education culture wars will come full circle Thursday.

Thats when Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachins education task force meets again, focusing this time on higher education.

Where Idahos debate began, two years ago.

Theres no disputing that the controversy over critical race theory and school indoctrination has consumed a lot of education policy oxygen in 2021 fueled nationally by Fox News and other conservative networks, and stoked locally by the Idaho Freedom Foundation and its hardline legislative allies.

This year, Freedom Foundation-aligned lawmakers killed a three-year, $18 million federal early education grant and held a $1.1 billion teacher salary budget hostage. But the battle lines over higher education politics were drawn into the map in 2019.

And the debate hasnt changed much since then.

On Marlene Tromps ninth day as president at Boise State University, she received a pointed greeting from more than a third of the Idaho House of Representatives.

I dont view the current direction of Boise State to be in the tradition of what higher education has been, or should be, in Idaho, wrote state Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, in a letter co-signed by 27 Republican colleagues. As legislators, we will seek and support academic excellence that does not pursue social or political agendas or incur additional costs.

Interestingly, Ehardts letter did not address critical race theory or indoctrination, the terms that dominate the education debate in 2021. Instead, the lawmakers criticized a menu of diversity and inclusion programs that predated Tromps arrival, including multicultural events such as Rainbow Graduation and Black Graduation, a graduate school preparation course geared toward underrepresented student groups and graduate fellowships for underrepresented minority students.

The letter foreshadowed the controversy that has followed Tromp through her 25 months at Boise State. And it signaled that a cadre of House conservatives were ready to start voting down education budgets.

Only23 of those 28 co-signers are still in the House. But if anything, the chamber is more conservative than it was in 2019, after hardliners captured additional seats in the 2020 elections.

The culture wars began to play out on the House floor in March 2020. Even as the coronavirus pandemic began to reach Idaho, and as some lawmakers fled the Statehouse over health concerns, the higher education budget became a major impediment to closing the session. The House voted down two budget bills before finally agreeing on a third version with 20 of the 26 no votes coming from co-signers of the letter to Tromp, including Ehardt herself.

The same budget later passed the Senate 31-0.

If anything, 2020 only hinted at what would follow in 2021. The House rejected the early education money, leaving a grant from the Trump administration on the table. The House voted down the first versions of the higher education and teacher salary budgets. It wasnt necessarily about the dollars. In the end, the House actually approved a larger teacher salary budget, after lawmakers passed a separate bill calling out critical race theory.

The growing uproar over critical race theory once an obscure academic concept certainly factored into the battles that marked the 2021 session. But the backlash against higher education, beginning with the letter to Tromp and growing through the 2020 Idaho elections, provided a template for a more far-reaching campaign against education.

The emotions from the 2021 session, including frustrations and fears, come through in some emails to the State Board of Education.

Using the state public records law, Idaho Education News requested all emails to the State Board containing the word indoctrination or the phrase critical race theory, written since Jan. 1. (Idaho Education News filed similar requests with McGeachin, Gov. Brad Little and the State Department of Education.)

The State Board released 38 emails, with 30 voicing opposition to critical race theory or indoctrination. And 17 of these began with boilerplate wording, replicated in full or sometimes changed slightly.

The template: Please weed out any and all political, medical, and religious indoctrination in our public schools before it gains an even stronger foothold in ldaho. While it may not yet be happening in every classroom in every school, it lS happening in many classrooms, schools, districts, and universities in ldaho.

One emailer acknowledged the obvious, saying the emails were part of a coordinated campaign while refusing to divulge the source of the wording. Its unclear whether the Freedom Foundation was that source. The group, which routinely ignores media requests, did not respond to an inquiry from Idaho Education News.

Regardless of the root source, the form emails illustrate one point. Two years into this debate, the Freedom Foundations assertion of widespread classroom indoctrination have been accepted as fact by a number of Idahoans despite a lack of specifics, and despite the State Boards categorical denials.

The State Board also released eight emails commenting on a new proposed policy on diversity and inclusion at Idahos four-year campuses. Under this policy, Each institution shall strive to create environments in which diversity and inclusion are valued, promoted, and embraced, in alignment with the goal of achieving educational equity.

Several comments came from current or retired teachers. Six commenters urged the State Board to approve the policy or strengthen it by covering LGBT students. Two commenters opposed the proposal.

A diversity and inclusion policy is not a critical race theory policy, although all of these terms tend to be thrown about as if they are interchangeable. But diversity and inclusion programs prompted lawmakers to write their letter to Tromp two years ago. And diversity and inclusion initiatives are unlikely to win support from McGeachins hand-picked indoctrination task force. The group is slated to spend 30 minutes at Thursdays meeting discussing the State Board proposal.

The State Board is scheduled to vote on its diversity and inclusion proposal at its Aug. 25-26 meeting. That same week, the McGeachin task force is expected to hold its final meeting and issue its own recommendations.

The debate has gone full circle. Now, a showdown looms.

Each week, Kevin Richert writes an analysis on education policy and education politics.In the interest of timeliness, this weeks analysis was published on Wednesday, July 28.

Coming Thursday: Look to Idaho Education News for full coverage and live blogging from the education task force meeting.

Senior reporter and blogger Kevin Richert specializes in education politics and education policy. He has more than 30 years of experience in Idaho journalism. He is a frequent guest on KIVI 6 On Your Side; "Idaho Reports" on Idaho Public Television; and "Idaho Matters" on Boise State Public Radio. Follow Kevin on Twitter: @KevinRichert. He can be reached at [emailprotected]

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Analysis: The education culture wars go full circle, and head for a showdown - Idaho EdNews

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GovExec Daily: The Culture Wars, Return to Offices and Management - GovExec.com

4 min read28 July

In dousing the flames of the culture wars, our leaders would do well to look to the push for gay equality and to learn from it how to better live up to the publics expectations about navigating cultural change in Britain today.

A staunch conservative who enjoys Ru Pauls Drag Race. A 70 year old Brexiteer who admires Englands footballers for taking the knee. A liberal NHS worker who worries that everyone is becoming afraid of losing their job for saying the wrong thing.

This is the real face of modern Britain. As a new report from More in Common yesterday shows, far from being divided into two starkly opposed sides on culture war issues, most Britons look for balance. They have their views, but they blame politicians, campaigners, and cultural arsonists for turning disagreements into flaming rows, instead of showing leadership and building on the lessons of widely accepted cultural changes such as the countrys embrace of gay rights.

People think our ability to talk freely is under threat, creating resentment and resistance towards cultural change

More in Commons research has identified seven different segments of the population based on their values and beliefs. In conversations with all of them in the last month, we kept hearing how the tone of current debates is exhausting and leaves the public increasingly worried about saying the wrong thing. That feeling is leading people to think our ability to talk freely is under threat, creating resentment and resistance towards cultural change.

But despite this frustration, what came through strongly from our conversations was that Britons accept, and are proud, that Britains culture evolves and changes over time. And the public has a strong sense of how this evolution should be managed: in a way that builds on our traditions, rather than tears them down.

That helps to explain why time and time again when we asked people to name an example of how Britains culture has changed for the better, the answer that came back was how we now treat gay people and their families.

That acceptance of same-sex relationships might seem normal to us now - but at a time when the Pet Shop Boys topped the charts in 1987 with Its A Sin, three-quarters of Britons believed that same sex relations were almost always wrong. Now only 17% do. Same-sex marriage has gone from deeply contentious to widely accepted in 20 years. Attitudes have been transformed, and with that the experiences of gay people across Britain.

What lessons can our leaders take from the way attitudes on gay rights have changed to diffuse todays culture wars?

A key lesson is that campaigners for equality didnt talk about tearing things down. Recognising that Britons overwhelmingly say they are proud of our history, the case for gay equality was made in terms of fairness and equal marriage was presented as chance to strengthen the institution, not overhaul it.

A second lesson is that politicians advocating gay equality avoided an all or nothing approach. Instead, they took an incremental tack, that allowed them to bring people along and to show that changes didnt see the sky falling in.

Third, advocates of gay equality sought to build a big tent on the right and left. Rather than polarising the debate into us-versus-them or prosecuting debates along party lines, they engaged with the Conservative Party, with faith groups, with centre-right think tanks that had previously been hostile to gay marriage. And so, it was a Conservative PM who finally oversaw that introduction of equal marriage.

Fourth, campaigners also took time to make sure they communicated in everyday language and real stories that people understood. When Britons reflect on what has changed their attitudes, they often referencedcharactersin popular culture such as Eastenders in helping them to better understand the experiences of gay people.

Of course, there were moments of flashpoints and some polarising activists on both sides of the debate, but what is striking about the steady march towards gay equality is that it was done in a very British way - through dialogue and creating the space for people to ask questions.

In dousing the flames of the culture wars, our leaders would do well to look to the push for gay equality and to learn from it how to better live up to the publics expectations about navigating cultural change in Britain today.

Luke Tryl is the UK Director of More in Common.

More in Commons report Dousing the Flames: How Leaders can Better Navigate Cultural Change in 2020s Britain is being released today.

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To stop the culture wars, learn from gay rights - PoliticsHome - PoliticsHome

If you listen to certain British newspapers or Westminster politicians, you might have got the idea that universities are a major battleground in the culture wars: threatening free speech, left-wing madrasas,divisive forces that suck graduates into their metropolitan liberal orbit while leaving non-graduates to drift in a void.

However, an extensive survey on perceptions of culture wars in the UK in the wake of the Brexit vote suggests that theres not a great deal of awareness or particular focus among the UK public about universities being in the front line of this, according to Bobby Duffy, professor of public policy and director of the Policy Institute at Kings College London, and a former managing director of public affairs for pollsters Ipsos MORI.

There are plentiful implications for universities in the major research series on culture wars concluded last month by researchers at the Policy Institute and Ipsos MORI, carried out in the light of increased British media focus on a concept originating in the US, and involving a survey ofabout 2,800 UK adults, international surveys and media analysis, plus reviews of academic literature.

Although real social and political issues divide opinion, the example of the US where the Republicans and Fox News have promoted culture wars, including via an intense focus on campus politics shows that you can help push yourselves down this road towards implacable conflict between mega identities where it becomes really difficult to compromise, said Professor Duffy.

The research found that while there has been a surge in media discussion of culture wars in the UK, its less clear that the public are as interested or engaged in the debate.

For example, when asked which issues they think of when the phrase culture wars is used, just 0.1 per cent of UK survey respondents cited noplatforming in universities, one of a range of findings suggesting that only tiny minorities associate culture wars with many of the sorts of issues that have been prominent in UK media coverage of this area.

And there was little sign that the public see university professors as left wing, the research suggested; among survey respondents who didnot go to university,about one in five (18per cent) thinks professors mostly have left-wing views, compared withabout two in five (42per cent) who think they tend to have a mix of different political opinions.

Meanwhile, the survey found just 5 per cent of respondents thought there was a great deal of tension between people with a university degree and those without, putting that divide 12th out of 13 social divides the survey asked about (Leave-Remain and rich-poor were rated as the greatest sources of tension).

Having re-analysed British Social Attitudes survey data on public attitudes to higher education for his forthcoming book on generational divides, Generations, Professor Duffy thought that could stem from the fact that there is still very strong support among the public for increasing or maintaining higher education access for young people.

He added that many people who did not attend university see it as a good thing and a sign of progress when their children or grandchildren do rather than something thats creating division.

The divide between those with and those without degrees is thus not the same as some other socio-demographic divides; actually, youre aspiring to that for your own family in many ways, he continued.

Overall, the Policy Institute and Ipsos MORI study concluded that there is (as yet) no comparable political identity in the UK to the Republican/Democratic identity driving culture wars in the US, but that those who identify with the Conservatives or Labour, or one side on Brexit, do show very large differences on some cultural perspectives, which could be a possible basis to build intractable political divisions based on broad cultural identities, particularly if there is top-down encouragement of cultural division, from any side.

Asked what advice he would offer to universities on their responses to the culture wars, Professor Duffy said that it was the same as the report overallthat we shouldnt be panicking or talking this up too much because actually when you look at the data, people are not nearly as divided or as agitated as the extreme examplesthat travel further fastest on social media and media would suggest.

However, that doesnt mean we should dismiss it as an important thing to engage with because it is these kinds of cultural change and tension [that] are really important, he said.

The main thing from universities point of view is to engage openly in that and be the place where you can have open debates on complex subjects, added Professor Duffy. That is very in line with where the public are on this.

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com

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UK public 'don't see universities as a front line in culture wars' - Times Higher Education (THE)

A joke making the rounds since January describes social media dialogue thusly: Twitter is 90% someone imagining a guy, tricking themselves into believing that guy exists and then getting mad about it.

I dont know who wrote this tweet or the individuals qualifications. But for me the message captures something about the ills of drawing caricatures of our political opponents.

Democrats these days are critical race theory loving, woke Marxists determined to scramble all gender distinctions, transform the country by making election fraud easy, drive faith out of the public sphere and silence any voices that challenge their radical agenda through censorship by their allies in big tech and the media.

Republicans are obedient fascists who remain in the thrall of former President Donald Trump and are all too willing to trash democracy to institute minority rule and maintain white supremacy while picking on immigrants and transgender people along the way.

Portions of these characterizations probably feel true to you. But they are inherently dehumanizing, turning an opposing faction into irredeemable cartoon villains. Its easy to make up a guy we hate, project him on someone else and live comfortably in our moral superiority.

Most of us know people who, at the very least, complicate these narratives. Yet the culture war carries on with the assumption that opposing factions represent existential threats to our side. Its a sure-fire formula for commentators and politicians to command attention amid myriad distractions. But it also walls us off from the kind of give-and-take between factions that is often necessary to make progress.

The conflict over critical race theory, which unfolded in Manhattan-Ogden USD 383 earlier this summer, is one of the latest topics to heat up in the culture wars. (Photo by Luke Townsend)

If theres hope to be found, it could be in the shared value that many Republicans and Democrats still place in the idea of civics. Last year, Republican pollster Frank Luntz found that a majority of Americans in both parties rank civics in K-12 education as their top choice for how to strengthen the American identity.

Of course, as The Atlantics George Packer recently explained, thats pretty much where the agreement ends. The right opposes anything in K-12 public education that smacks of anti-American activism, while the left demands the elevation of historical interpretations different from Americas heroic founding narratives.

If I get the option, I choose a civics approach that deeply educates Americans of all ages about their rights and duties as citizens, along with cultivating respect for the structures and processes of democracy. Civics should also teach people to hold and test different interpretations and inculcate a mindset that Americans must be doers, because civics has never been a spectator sport.

If we take that approach, the culture war could be the place where civics begins anew, rather than ends. But it requires us to set aside the imaginary archenemy mindset in favor of one that elevates curiosity over certainty. It requires us to ask questions first, be willing to fight our own instincts by considering the most noble interpretations of views we detest, and to look for any threads of connection that might be able to sustain us through even the most wrenching of disagreements.

What makes civics as an ideal different from the culture war is the opportunity it creates for understanding to move those with whom we disagree closer to us while ideally being moved to new understandings ourselves.

The process of engaging in civics can be messy.

As great as this country is, American civics can also produce unsatisfying outcomes. Even unjust or sacrilegious ones. But winning over enough factions to move forward is also the only feasible way weve ever had as a nation to re-form a more perfect union where the common good and individual Americans might thrive in concert.

We cant abandon that hard road even now, because any path that allows us to give up on half the country leads to nowhere but a dead end.

A version of this article appears in the Summer 2021 issue of The Journal, a publication of the Kansas Leadership Center. To learn more about KLC, visit http://kansasleadershipcenter.org. Order your copy of the magazine at the KLC Store or subscribe to the print edition.

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Opinion: Curiosity key to tamping down the culture wars and renewing civics - The Journal at the Kansas Leadership Center