The man who has spent his life debating kids on college campuses got a shoutout from the U.S. Department of Education. The department is the same institution that Charlie Kirk was so vehemently against.
The Department of Education in Washington, D.C. unveiled a tarpaulin of conservative commentator and co-founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk. Other thinkers and revolutionaries, such as civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. and women’s education advocate Catharine Beecher, were featured alongside Kirk.
Kirk, in one of his videos, said that it would be one of President Donald Trump’s greatest accomplishments to dismantle the Department of Education.
Kirk’s argument for the abolishment of centralized education
“There never should have been a federal, centralized, Washington, D.C.-based Department of Education,” he said. He proceeded to compare the DepEd to “a politburo that controls what your kids learn.”
“Every founding father was classically Christian-educated,” Kirk boasted. But he also said prior that children should be encouraged to learn instead of being shaped by the administrative state. Essentially, in this argument, there is nothing wrong with centralized education. That only applies under the condition that it is under Kirk’s preferred religious guidance.
More specifically, Kirk prefers that parents homeschool their children. He believes that this approach is a better alternative to the Department of Education and the public school system.
Kirk cited the case of Aleysha Ortiz, a 19-year-old honors student from Hartford Public High School. Despite being academically awarded and earning a college scholarship, Ortiz claims she’s illiterate. She sued her school, and the case was settled for three million dollars. Surely, Kirk’s model of education could solve cases like Ortiz’.
Except his argument is only effective under the assumption that parents are better than most licensed professionals. It only applies if parents, some of them migrants, are capable of teaching civic studies, literature, mathematics, and sciences to their children as they work nine to five. But the point has long been laid to rest.
Kirk spent his career promoting Christian nationalism. He was notorious for his prejudiced rhetoric against racial minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, and women. Most importantly, in this context, Kirk was known for advocating against a centralized Department of Education.
It, therefore, makes Kirk an odd choice to celebrate beside thinkers who fought for, not against, the oppressed.
(featured image: Jubilee/YouTube)
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