The Frothy Projection Artist

Posted on 06/21/2011 at 3:50 pm by JM Ashby

Republican presidential candidate Rick “The Frothy” Santorum believes the recent revelation that history is American student’s worst subject is actually a sign of a secret liberal plot to impose new values on them.

We don’t even know our own history. There was a report that just came out last week that the worst subject of children in American schools is — not math and science — its history. It’s the worst subject. How can we be a free people. How can we be a people that fight for America if we don’t know who America is or what we’re all about. This is, in my opinion, a conscious effort on the part of the left who has a huge influence on our curriculum, to desensitize America to what American values are so they are more pliable to the new values that they would like to impose on America.

Always accuse your enemies of doing exactly what it is you are doing.

Low scores in history are not caused by the defunding of education, the revision of said history, or the trendiness among conservative circles of being a know-nothing. It’s all the fault of those damned Lefties.

Conservatism is a mental illness.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=723743139 Peggy Manfredi

    Quoting you … “Conservatism is a mental illness.” Agree!

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  • http://twitter.com/gbeaudette Grant Beaudette

    I’m sure once the Texas- approved textbooks that focus on the founder of Mary Kay cosmetics rather than people like Cesar Chavez those test scores will shoot right back up.

    • Anonymous

      Exactly.

    • Anonymous

      Ha!

      Amen.

  • Anonymous

    Rick “Putagoddamncondomonforchristsakealready” Santorum also tried to blame the Catholic child abuse scandal on liberals on Boston. Yeah, that’s why priests were raping boys on every continent except Antarctica.

  • Anonymous

    Rick “Putagoddamncondomonforchristsakealready” Santorum also tried to blame the Catholic child abuse scandal on liberals on Boston. Yeah, that’s why priests were raping boys on every continent except Antarctica.

  • Anonymous

    Rick “Putagoddamncondomonforchristsakealready” Santorum also tried to blame the Catholic child abuse scandal on liberals on Boston. Yeah, that’s why priests were raping boys on every continent except Antarctica.

  • Anonymous

    Rick “Putagoddamncondomonforchristsakealready” Santorum also tried to blame the Catholic child abuse scandal on liberals on Boston. Yeah, that’s why priests were raping boys on every continent except Antarctica.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_VV4SLINTCRQKVEOCIT62UXCVDY AJ

    “Sanitarium” is ‘effing insane.

  • Anonymous

    Kevin Drum is, predictably, less exercised about this than The Frothy Mix:

    Kids may not know a ton of history today, but neither do adults. And why should they? They didn’t learn much history when they were in high school either. Nothing much has changed, and education most likely hasn’t gone to hell in a handbasket. That’s cheery news, isn’t it?

    It’s worth following the link just for the caption on the picture accompanying the post.

    –alopecia

    • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com IrishGrrrl

      I think I must have gone to one of the best high schools in the entire friggin U.S. then because I learned a buttload of history–American and otherwise. I had 4 years of math (up to calculus), science (up to physics), language (4 years of Spanish but I could have chosen French, Russian, German or Chinese) and art. Of course I actually studied and if I brought home a 99% my Dad would ask me why I missed a point.

      I loved my teachers even if they didn’t know it. The women, in particular, were true inspirations to me and I am forever grateful. Every child in America should have the same opportunities that I had….and I was just lucky. I moved from Memphis, TN to Mechanicsburg, PA at age 12…from poor to middle class…..and I simply lucked out because my father, who took me in, lived in that upper scale, high tax base neighborhood. Not everyone will be lucky like that. It shouldn’t be left up to luck for our children, our nation’s future.

      • Anonymous

        I’m a little bit torn on this. On the one hand, it is important to know history, especially the lessons to be drawn therefrom. On the other hand, I’ve met a lot of (metaphorically) drooling idiots who could rattle off dates and facts more easily than the average historian (and then go off and vote straight-party Republican).

        “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” No matter how good the history classes available may be, it takes some interest on the part of the students—and their parents—for them to be of any use. A motivated student can get a good education even at a lousy school; an uninterested student can avoid getting a good education at the best school in the country.

        The opportunity to get a good education without having to fight for it shouldn’t be a matter of luck or the accident of birth. Alas, it is, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

        –alopecia

        • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com IrishGrrrl

          Alo, how very reasoned of you! :) Seriously though, you have to at least teach the facts as they exist. The interpretations will still be left up to culture (or subculture) as the case may be. We can’t affect that….but we should give out the basics. Part of that should be the use of Logic and Problem Solving. That isn’t a part of any curriculum that I have ever seen and until we can teach that, we’re dead in the water anyway.

          I run into these assholes who know just enough facts to rattle off things impressively but as far as putting them in a larger context? they’re incapable. And that’s the problem. Facts don’t exist in a vacuum and that vacuum as it is taught to us is a paradigm controlled by the cultures and subcultures that surround us. Too many conservatards think they are being rational when they are so far removed from it, they wouldn’t know it if it walked up and slapped them in the head. That’s why we can’t even engage in conversations with them. They already think they’ve cornered the truth. Perhaps the mistake in American education is the concept of arroagance, the arrogance of assumed exceptionalism. Maybe if we can get over that hump, we”ll be okay as a nation.

          • Anonymous

            The big problem has become our obsession with standardized tests. Being able to fill in the right ScanTron bubbles is considered the functional equivalent of knowledge. Context? What’s that?

            In college, my Mammalogy instructor’s midterms and final were what he called “integrative and synthetic”: short-answer and short-essay questions that required students to pull together information from the lectures and readings. I actually enjoyed those exams quite a lot (I have a weird brain, and that sort of thing isn’t all that hard for me), but I could see the terror on the faces of some of my classmates. Given the teach-to-the-test state of K-12 education in this country, I hate to think what the reaction would be to an integrative and synthetic exam today.

            Ouch! Damn! Fell off my soapbox.

            –alopecia

      • Anonymous

        One of the best high schools? Probably.

        My high school only had Spanish and french, but shortly after I went to college they dropped the french program too and only retained Spanish.

        There was no physics class. Calculus was only open to select students because only one teacher taught it for one period per day.

        My favorite teacher, who also happen to be the best history teacher at the school, was fired for allowing his students to have too much fun. I learned more in his class than any other. Good thing they fired him…

        Most schools are horrible, to put it bluntly. If your child goes to a genuinely good school, you’re lucky.

        • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com IrishGrrrl

          It was a damn fine high school, Cumberland Valley High, Mechanicsburg, PA, Class of 1988! My rich friends went to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Cornell, etc, whether their grades deserved it or not. I was nominated to go the Naval Academy by Congressman Gooding. I was up against a young man who was nominated by then Vice President Quayle. This boy was fat (I mention this only because the Academies expected physical fitness) and was ranked behind me academically (I was 25th out of 650+ students with a 97% average). He got to go to the Naval Academy. Did I also mention he drove a red porsche to school….his dad’s EXTRA car! I drove a pos Le Carre. Anyway, to make it short…its who you know, not what you know. Since that day, I know that meritocracy doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it.

          However, I can say that it WAS rich families like his that paid for my excellent high school education. Unfortunately, not all school districts get that kind of tax base. Maybe that’s part of the solution….getting rid of districts altogether…..and funding schools evenly nationwide. I sure as hell know that vouchers won’t solve the problem. Rich people will still have the upper hand in a system with vouchers.

          • Anonymous

            That is the solution, but erasing lines of class like that will never happen. Not ever.

            • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com IrishGrrrl

              yes, but we make can make it more even cant’ we?

  • Anonymous

    It’d be awesome if some social scientist would test for individual historical facts to see if Americans incorrect knowledge of history were more liberal or more conservatively slanted.

    I would go ahead a bet money that not only is the misinformation conservative leaning, but the factual deficit would be far worse among conservative Americans. Sure, it’d have to be somebody elses money ; ) but I’d be willing to bet a great deal of it.

    Here are a couple of survey questions off the top of my head:

    Did JFK have multiple extramarital affairs during his tenure as POTUS?

    Was Ronald Reagan a CIA informant who implicated many of his Hollywood colleagues as Communists?

    • Anonymous

      Okay, okay… my survey is probably a little biased.

      Here’s another, rather topical thought experiment: Correcting for factors like depravity and tabloid-readiness of the scandals, would Americans be aware of more of the sex scandals involving conservative or liberal politicians?

      • Anonymous

        Hmm, tough one. I don’t feel like doing any actual research, but my impression is that conservatives favor homosexual scandals while liberals favor heterosexual ones.

        • Anonymous

          I don’t think that that’s a fair observation. Yes, there havent been many homosexual scandals on the D side, if any. But the R’s dont have that many either. There are a few that we (informed progressives) all remember because of their crass hypocrisy. And also, the R’s have a metric shit ton of heterosex scandals in addition to those.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Peter-Bockenthien/1476190129 Peter Bockenthien

    It’s actually yhe Texas Board of Education that sets the tone for curriculum in America, because the Texas is the largest purchaser of text books. Doubt Mr. Frothy knows this.