Public Schools? To Kansas Conservatives, They’re ‘Government Schools’
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Erica Massman, a moderate Kansas Republican, refers to the building where her daughter attends fourth grade as a public school.
Ms. Massman’s mother, whose politics tilt further to the right, calls it something else: a government school.
“My mother, who is a Tea Party person, started saying ‘government schools’ all the time,” said Ms. Massman, recalling when she first heard the phrase around 2010. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow.’”
Somewhere along the way, the term “government schools” entered the lexicon in place of references to the public school system.
“Our local grade school is now the government school,” State Senator Forrest Knox wrote in an op-ed article last year, echoing conservative concerns that the government had inserted itself unnecessarily into education.
The intent was obvious to her, Ms. Massman said. “They are trying to rebrand public education,” she said.
Davis Merritt, a columnist for The Wichita Eagle, said in a column in May that state legislators’ “deaf and blind” ideology was threatening public schools.
“Some have begun to call public schools ‘government schools,’ a calculated pejorative scorning both education and anything related to government,” he wrote.
That elicited a response from Bob Weeks, the host of “WichitaLiberty.TV,” a show about Kansas politics and public affairs.
“It is surprising to me that liberals and progressives object to the term ‘government schools,’” he said on the show. “They like government, don’t they? These people want more taxation and government spending, don’t they? Well, when we think about our public schools, we find they have all the characteristics of government programs.”
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