What Could Go Wrong?
Just the three R's please.
Have you heard about the new screening process in Alabama public schools? Unless their parents opt out, public school students in grades 3-12 will be required to take a quiz on their knowledge of and belief in the Bible. The ostensible purpose is to gauge the spiritual health of these kids and get them help if they are straying off the path of righteousness. While some critics are apparently concerned that this process will be used to push a religious orthodoxy, many are supportive. “The spiritual health of our children is critical for their development into fully functional members of society. If they are having uncertainty or doubts, we need to know about it quickly so they can get the help they need from a certified spiritual counselor. Protecting our children’s faith is too important to be left up to their parents alone.” said Reverend Dr. Jonathan A. Whitmore, D.D., Ph.D., Th.D., Archbishop of Birmingham’s popular The Way megachurch. Thompson has been nominated by Governor Kay Ivey to be the first chairman of Alabama’s Childhood Spiritual Well Being Commission. Critics remain who are both concerned that there is a “religious purity test” to participate in this commission, and that while well intentioned, this program will quickly morph into an indoctrination system whereby schools, the state, and religious interests will exert ever more control over the formative beliefs of young Alabamans.
Just kidding! If this exact thing was happening, you would have already heard about it. But the formula is familiar. “It’s for the children” rallying cry. Official sounding bodies led by impressively credentialed scholars. Cloistered professions with incredibly skewed political loyalties capturing a field and implementing a homogenous orthodoxy within a generation.
The inspiration for our fictional opening paragraph is this article: Illinois to institute mandatory mental health screening in schools.
The mental health screenings would be self-assessed, with students being able to take the screening on a tablet or a form, according to Dana Weiner, chief officer for the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative under the governor’s office, and who was credited for laying the foundation for the piece of legislation.
Who wouldn’t want the state of Illinois transforming the ‘behavioral health’ of their children? Me. What will they be screening for? How will they define ‘problematic’ answers? What will they do when they find ‘at risk’ children? Will parents be informed of test results and/or interventions? What percent of percent of parents will be aware of this Orwellian thought screening program? What stigma will be attached to children whose families opt out?
Dr. Weiner is a clinical psychologist and professor. How is the profession of psychology even remotely like a religious exercise? Let’s do a quick screen of that group.
(The links aren’t live in this table because making tables in substack is a pain in the neck. Hopefully there’s enough here for the curious to find/check the sources.) Less than 10% of psychology professors or therapists identify as conservatives. When tracking who they donate money to, that drops below 2%. In a country where Donald Trump just won a majority of the popular vote, the group in charge of screening the mental health of your children is 99 to 1 in the other direction. This isn’t bias, it’s ideological capture. The high priests of anxiety are trained in a church of liberal politics that has eradicated viewpoint diversity. You don’t get 99 to 1 on accident. These people literally all got their jobs by passing tests designed to get this outcome. Let’s put this group in charge of ‘testing’ our kids! What could go wrong? What are the major accomplishments of this group? The most provable accomplishments of the Psychology profession are: A. The ideological capture of the profession and their educational silo, and B. a dramatic increase in the number psychologists unleashed on the general public.
Good luck passing the test if you are a conservative boy.
Well, maybe all these psychologists went out and healed America. Let’s give them a chance.
I won’t claim causation here, but it is easy to squint at all this information and hypothesize that we: 1. Turned the profession of psychology over to an ideologically focused group who, 2. Purged all dissidents, 3. Over-produced a bunch of like-minded acolytes, who had a financial, professional and personal interest in finding mental illness who 4. went out and told everyone they were mentally ill. Is there a generation of arsonists running around in firefighter costumes? It’s a legitimate question.
Illinois’ cockamamie plan really feels like introducing an HR department to 3rd grade. Kids - learn what the right answers are to this open ended questions so you can be seen as stable. An even less generous analogy would be adding communist political officers to every school. Answer the questions on this test from the DNC wrong and you will be diagnosed with a mental health problem.
Bringing this in for a landing, would you rather have a pastor screening your kids for spiritual health or psychologists screening them for mental health? Trick question. If you’re a parent, that’s your job on both counts. Call in the pros when needed, and you should be in the room. Frankly, your church may not be much different than your university, (see below). If you abdicate this responsibility, be prepared to set aside a chunk of your monthly pay to cover the pharma bills coming your way to ‘fix’ your kids’ ‘problems’. Schools should stick to teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. The credentials of the credentialed class should be questioned frequently, forever.
very interesting times we live in.
Very scary. Hope Illinois parents vote with their feet to protect their kids