I love a big gift too. My take on anonymous gifts, though, has always skewed toward it being a foundation or entity that doesn’t want to get swarmed by other requests. Which isn’t to take away from the generosity – I love to see it. Just adding a perspective that it might not be motivated by humility and desire to “do the right thing when no one’s looking.”
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I read this article today. Any thoughts on it ?
Yes
The most prestigious of these is Phillips Exeter Academy.
Andover and Choate, amongst others, would like to have a word.
The Exeter man is prepared to rule or, at a minimum, to conform to the culture of those who do.
Last I checked, Exeter went coed over 50 years ago.
Anyway, the publication is put out by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative think tank. That they have a different point of view is not a surprise.
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I didn’t notice until the end that it was by Christopher Rufo, that paragon of intellectual dishonesty. There may be some left-wing excesses at Exeter as at other schools, but I’m confident Rufo’s indictment (and that of the single graduate he spoke with) is a cherry-picked parody. Just because the mentioned classes exist in those various disciplines doesn’t mean the disciplines now “are” those classes. And he doesn’t specify what’s so terribly wrong with referring to people by their preferred pronouns, nor does he make a detailed case for the supposed deficiencies introduced by an affirmative-action program for faculty recruitment. Instead he takes his bigotry as the base case for any perception of the world, and offers his constant assumption that White people are inherently superior to others. In sum, the piece was the same tendentious nonsense we’ve long come to expect from Rufo and his ilk.
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Got in so researched heavily, but didn’t matriculate. Seems mainly true. After George Floyd, extreme anti-police messaging scrolling (since removed, as far as I know) on Exeter home page. In catalog, race/gender seemed to have been globbed on to the curriculum of some heretofore race/gender-neutral topics, such as beginning economics. Summer reading list heavy on race topics, including one poem I specifically remember as seeming to justify, or at least heavily rationalize, black on white murder.
Exeter seemed to have some wonderful qualities as well, especially a fantastically broad course catalog, but in the end we chose a difference school for the ideological but also other reasons.
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More likely, your poetry analytical skill withered on the vine in the decades since you attended high school. In the absence of the poem, it’s difficult to provide an alternative analysis
Interestingly, it does seem that Exeter has shifted ideologically over time. My impression when I was visiting before applying was that it was more conservative than many of its peers.
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Thank you for your feedback. My point in posting the above article was for parents and previous students to share their experiences. It seems like there is less viewpoint diversity and more rote ideology is being promoted these days at all levels of education. The purpose of education is teach critical thinking and analysis rather than espousing a fixed set of views and ideas. I know Rufo is a staunch conservative and those courses were handpicked to show his views, hence the request to share your views.
Heres another one albeit about colleges. It is through dialogue we grow and learn to appreciate the other side or at least understand where they are coming from.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-dartmouth-keeps-its-cool-president-commitment-to-free-speech-a0c6c62e?mod=hp_opin_pos_5#cxrecs_s
I think I have to agree with ski’s assessment. My analytical skills caught the word “unless” in the last stanza:
…unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt…
The poet defines this difference in the first stanza:
being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
So, unless the poet learns to use this difference he, too, might be capable of the heinous act he describes.
If any student came away thinking the poem justifies or rationalizes black-on-white murder, I would question the teacher’s ability to help students walk through the poem which is, admittedly, a tough read and a lot to unpack. However, the question, "Do you think this poem rationalizes murder in any way,” might be a good discussion topic.
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Didn’t feel very different from 3 yrs ago. Pence and Vivek held town halls next to the campus and were well attended by students.
You probably can replace the school and people’s names with another school and person, and it’s still true. Exeter is a big name so it’s a good target. That’s it.
BTW Rawson has generally good reviews.
At virtually all of the well-known boarding schools of which I am aware, the percentage of politically conservative students is far in excess of the percentage of politically conservative faculty/staff/administrators.
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Probably true. I couldn’t tell teachers from townsfolk so can’t comment on that front.
We came from a public school, and didn’t feel PEA was even close to the middle school in terms of political bias.
PEA is also one of the first to reinstate standard test requirement. Obviously this can be interpreted in different ways. Just saying.
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Anyone else catch the boarding school references in the new Netflix show “The Perfect Couple?” The youngest son, Will, wears a Hotchkiss sweatshirt and there are several references to other characters attending Deerfield.
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Not sure if this has been posted. If the link is broken, it is readable in Apple News More Elite Prep Schools Are Offering a Free Ride for the Middle Class
More Elite Prep Schools Are Offering a Free Ride for the Middle Class Wall Street Journal
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Not an easy problem to solve but Choate does contribute significantly to the town of Wallingford both financially (indirectly) and by allowing the citizens to use the school’s athletic facilities.
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Believe it or not, we even get the same discussion in Greenwich (who at $36 billion has by far the largest grand list in CT) whenever Brunswick or Greenwich Academy buy another property.
I just read the article now. It makes it sound like Choate pays nothing in property taxes. This strains credulity – most private schools make PILOT payments. . .
Been a big issue in CT over the years. As I understand it, there is no state statute that dictates a PILOT structure for 501c3. Yale didn’t pay the City of New Haven a dime for a long time but has since adopted a “voluntary PILOT” approach. None of the private schools in Greenwich make PILOT payments to the Town. In my experience, that’s why they are taken to task (as in the noted example) when it comes local land use approvals because it’s the only time the government has a hammer over them.
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I caught the Hotchkiss sweatshirt too. The dad also mentioned in passing that he had to drive up to Groton to pick up that canoe for the youngest son.
Boarding schools aside, that was such a classy property they used for filming!