By: Mark Glennon*
If you haven’t taken two minutes to listen to the hot mic audio first published by West Cook News, do so.
It’s a candid display of how pleased ideologues are about how they have captured the education establishment.
The two on the audio are Ralph Martire and Gina Harris, both professors at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and both on the Oak Park and River Forest High School board where the recording was made.
Martire is a major figure in Illinois, with frequent media appearances and op-ed publications. He served on Gov. JB Pritzker’s transition Finance Committee and is executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a public union advocacy shop. He played a major role drafting Illinois’ school funding formula.
Harris is teacher and an Illinois director of the National Education Association – a teachers’ union, and a member of the NEA’s Black Caucus. She’s also Human and Civil Rights Committee Chair at the Illinois Education Association, an NEA affiliate. She is a “Climate and Culture Coach” at the Julian Middle School in Oak Park.
On the tape, Harris says, “I mean, it’s all social justice. All day, every day I get to talk about all the things I love all the time.”
“All day every day,” responds Martire.
“All day at the day care, all day at my night classes, all day when I’m here. I mean, really, I’m living the life over here,” says Harris.
“Yeah,” says Martire. “I always flip out the kids that take my master’s class on fiscal policy and public budgets within the first three or four classes are devoted to philosophy of social justice and how you organize society. We don’t talk about one, you know, budgetary item. They’re like, Oh, man. Professor Martire, this is a really weird way to teach a budget,” [laughter].
Harris: “Now it’s part of everything, right, what a foundation!”
Martire: “If you don’t understand your values, you can’t allocate resources among public priorities that are scarce, but all needed. Right?
Someone: “Just so you guys know, you’re out there, you’re on the mic in the auditorium, OK?”
It’s good to hear that some grad students are “flipped out” by having social justice philosophy the subject of the first three or four of their budget classes, but their concerns evidently don’t matter.
Earlier this week we wrote about a poll showing that Illinoisans don’t like political indoctrination in schools, but two-thirds admit to not objecting. That’s why Martire has every reason to laugh at how thoroughly Americans have let schools become instruments of political dogma. That’s no doubt why, at the end of the tape, he said he didn’t care that he was being recorded.
Martire is actually a gracious guy when you meet him. My colleague Ted Dabrowski and I have met him often in various debates and panels. Last time I saw him I said, “You know, Ralph, we are actually on the same side because we are both trying to help the little guy, it’s just that we have different means for how to do it.” I had barely finished before he answered, “Yes, yes, I know.”
I was thinking in terms of government policy when I said that, but it’s more than that. We would never support replacing education with indoctrination of any kind. No viewpoint should be taught as dogma that cannot be questioned, which is common now for social justice and critical race theory, from kindergarten through college.
“What a foundation,” indeed, for those who preach it.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Dox these scumbags. Cancel them, like they want to do to anyone who disagrees with their victim-peddling, whiny, BS. Let the mob handle them.
At least they are honest about their goals. What is so frightening is their standing in both education and public service.
We’re doomed. There is no way our society will do anything but crumble with academia (a simple echo chamber) creating boobs like these two.
Close all state institutions. They are doing nothing for true and proper education in Illinois.
Unions and egg head professors who are liberal hacks and Marxists in disguise are sucking down huge salaries and pensions and giving us destruction to our nation.
Same old drug head mentality since the 1960’s
The very definition of “ivory towers”, folks. These sorts never learn from history, and as such, have no idea what happens when useful idiots are no longer deemed useful by the regime.
Martire is a gracious guy, lol.
The devil himself masquerades as an angel of light.
Martire hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt.
[Message deleted and user blocked]
So you want to hunt down people with a different political view than you and kill them. Wow. Way to represent the crazy loony wing of the far right. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of people to agree with you on this board.
Suggesting that one person’s argument suddenly “represents” all of us is quite the assumption.
Do you represent any one other than yourself? I’d like to know on whose behalf you speak.
Not to mention that you seem to not understand the term “hyperbole.”
IE,
Where did I say ALL?
Hyperbole? After the Capitol attack that type of hyperbole is grotesque. Pointing it out and those that think like that isn’t vile it’s necessary.
Do you think it’s necessary to point out that the people who burned our cities and threatened police and other citizens all summer 2020 are the entire base of the Democrat party?
Amen. The Marxists who destroyed our U.S. cities were praised by the Democratic party and the Liberal elites.
Now they want to turn their anger on all Trump supporters.
This has become a witch hunt and Liberal Marxists are in charge.
The capital attack has been disproven. It was the antithesis of an attack. The guard who died perished of natural causes. The attack – it was a bunch of folks who got rowdy and caused a few thousand bucks in damage (for which they should be prosecuted). It was NOTHING compared to the violence and economic damage wrought by the left… Save your faux outrage for the folks who buy what you’re selling. Here you will find those left of the center of the bell curve – and those who understand the self-destructive path upon which your team has set… Read more »
So, if the same sorts of things happened when uninvited groups of strangers did these things to your home you’d be equally charitable?
There are no good faith discussions with the opposing regarding the Capital Revolt. One side, in bad faith, calls it an insurrection despite the overwhelming evidence of ordinary hooliganism, simply because they want to score political points. James Carville this week said it’s the Democrat strategy to draw it out as long as possible, with hearings, commissions, charges, just drag out this issue forever if possible. I don’t even bother trying to convince people any more otherwise because they don’t care to change their mind.
The truth is always in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? A good percentage of them were probably “fine people” as Pres. Trump may have touted it. But, surely a good number of them were nothing of that sort, judging from their hoollgan tactics. Again, if such things happened to your own home I doubt you”d be nearly as charitable about it. People can’t always do what they want simply because they become unrecognizable while doing it. Hooligans have to held to account by society at large.
Be careful, James, that sounds like “whataboutism”. And the liberals have already told us many times that is a bad thing, and not a legitimate way to make a point about principles. The wokists can be vicious, you know, when you run afoul of them.
Then again, don’t worry. Consistency is not one of their virtues.
James I certainly hope when you use the term “fine people” you’re not implying that Trump supported the bad things that happened at Charlottesville. If you are then you’re just repeating the mischaracterization of Trumps comments. It’s a great sound bite if you want to paint him and all republicans as white supremacists but it’s not the entire text of the press conference. By the same token I’m sure there were people at all these “peaceful protests” that had no intention of, and did not do anything destructive or violent. Is it ok to paint every one of them as… Read more »
you can’t have good faith discussions with leftists.
nope,anything you say that they disagree with,well,you must a racist!!-ALWAYS playing the race card is REALLY old and tiresome,the left never has any legitimate argument,just,youre a racist!!
Did anybody set fire to any federal buildings like your antifa and black shirt friends did?
No.
Did they shoot police officers like your friends did?
No.
Did they shoot the opposition like your friends did?
No.
You are a bad faith commenter. Not to be taken seriously. Not one bit.
GQP, that’s almost as vile as his comment.
Really Mark? I have seen plenty of vile comments like that on this website get upvotes. Not all of your readers but enough. Don’t get mad at me for pointing out a subsection of the right and many of your readers think this way. In case you forget this part of the far right also attacked the Capitol. You need to re check your moral compass if you think my comment is near the same category. Pathetic.
Like hell you have seen plenty of comments like that here.
There was no attack on the capitol.
It was a peaceful protest. Started by your friends at antifa and black lives matter, who were among those arrested.
But we appreciate your dutifully parroting the communists talking points.
Attack. Please, stop using that term. It was hardly an attack. And, if you honestly believe that, you have a larger problem with perception, reality, and the ability to process information on your own. The folks who comment on this site seem to share the values what would be ascribed to “Americans” – personal agency, personal responsibility, a belief that “public servants” are here to serve, not enrich themselves, etc, I shudder at our Nation’s future – our society has given up the ability to think critically and analytically – the vast majority find their source of information (more accurately,… Read more »
m. radant, you’re outa here.
They teach government budgeting for a socialist government. Ugh. So, the government is going to resolve the problems of scarcity for us. How?
The least forceful way to convince people that a dollar doesn’t have to be worth something is to indoctrinate. Their operation consists of people who believe in entitlement, think lives are better by collecting entitlements, hand-outs, and getting bail-out money.
I assume the professors get paid for most of what they do along these lines, even though their efforts don’t require any skill. This could explain why they’re having such a blast doing what they are.
It is becoming more obvious by the day. Not only will it be important for law abiding Illinois residents who value hard work to leave the state, it will be critical to move to a deep red state that minimizes the over reach of the federal government with this mumbo jumbo BS. Let the social justice warriors live with the mess they create in the declining urban areas across this country.
Ex Illini Yes, as a life long resident of Illinois and one who invested millions into it myself and live near the U of I my heart grieves over the foolishness and Liberal mentality of the now Marxist thought leaders. We need Godly men and women like Candace Owens, Thomas Sowell and so many who are and have led in our nation the thoughts of our youth. Illinois is depraved. Only these forums like Wirepoints have brought hope. I donate to help this organization along with a few others who are trying to bring to light and to bring ideas… Read more »
Mark-was it necessary to write what a gracious guy this bloodsucking indoctrinator is? It’s pure evil -and my grandchildren and generations to come are its victims.
Folks like this always want to have a “conversation” when they disagree with you. It’s not about a conversation, it’s about telling you what you should be thinking. The arc to the end point to these sorts of conversations is not pretty.
“Conversation”=lecture. Newspeak is quite real.
Seem one obvious issue nobody’s discussing with regard to crt/ woke requirements is what will all this cost? Is each school required to hire a gina harris?, plus an aditional layer of crt/woke administration at district level for all the crazy 630+ school districts? This is a GOLD MINE for the teachers unions, administrator acc and ginna harris of the state, etc. Especially if state/school districts can fund through all the additional $billions$ in fed ARP Bidden bucks…the gold rush is on!!!
Divide and conquer is an elite game. Slave ownership was a thing for the wealthy, not the deplorable working and middle classes. Nevertheless, the richest folks in the world want you to believe that it was poor and working class chumbalones (fill in the blanks to suit the time and situation). The wealthiest elites, as usual, want to shift blame for their abhorrent behavior and failed policies.
This is an excellent point that needs reminding. Constant talk about “white privilege” must befuddle all of those working class white people who struggle to balance it all. People of all colors struggle, especially those families that have newly emigrated here in the past 100 years. It is really “class privilege” and the wealthy don’t want anyone to start talking about that. Prior to Obama there was always “wealth envy” but it shifted to hardcore racial politics sometime in the last decade. I look at Lebron James, Oprah Winfrey et. al. and I wonder how it is that I’m now… Read more »
There is NO WHITE privilege.
These Marxists contrive these ideas to divide and conquer and some of the youth of today are sucking down the Kool-Aide
And who brought the U.S. the Jim Crow laws? Leftists.
Who brought gun control over Blacks? Leftists.
Who brought the KKK? Leftists.
What’s in the White House and governors mansion?
You know the thing.
This is what Oak park wants, they can have it. Good Luck
Saying the *quiet part* out loud, has rarely hurt a leftist…
It actually emboldens the other leftists…
Evil delights in being overt.
Both should immediately be removed for their positions. Voluntary first, if they don’t resign the public needs to remove them.
See, they really don’t care – they are ideologues. It’s important for the rest of us to realize that, and stop pretending there is a slim chance common sense and the ‘good of all’ will appeal them.
An academic who has probably never laid awake at night worrying about how to meet payroll. An academic who has never worried about losing their life savings in a small business in Illinois. An elitist who virtue signals while projecting as a “gracious and nice guy.”
This type of out-of-touch elitist liberal is very much what is causing everyone else to flee this rotten state.
And laughing about it.
I could have appended my comment anywhere, since the whole string is littered with ignorance and stupendous mis-education. What you so-called “capitalists” fail to realize is that the free market never has and never will equal capitalism. From the beginning, and most certainly every time it became managed to achieve wide-spread prosperity, and to marginalize the socialist and totalitarian experiments you all seem to think it resembles, capitalism heeded social justice goals and social justice imperatives. As Keynes showed the world in the 1930s when capitalism was on its knees, it simply could not stand tall again unless it did… Read more »
Sooner or later the issue of how to fund social justice arises.
Financing social justice with interest hikes the cost of the social justice.
http://www.data-z.org/state_data_and_comparisons/detail/illinois
http://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/IL-2019-2pager.pdf
http://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-state-of-the-union-2021
http://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/Financial-State-of-the-Union-2020.pdf
CRT is teaching massive failure, it is a disgrace. What happened to teaching the youth real life skills and STEM? It is extremely evil and dangerous to teach young white children that they are inherently racist while visible, extreme violence all around them today is perpetrated by others. Almost all humans have been victims multiple times, more folks than you might realize suffer PTSD, but we still must live and work together, preferably in peace and camaraderie. Politicians and race hustlers would subject us to civil war or worse to promote their own agendas. Please home school or find other… Read more »
Department chair must have approved the curriculum. Let’s hear from some masters’ students who took the class. Did they agree or disagree with the syllabus, or did they do the lemming dance.