So who – or what – is Mark Lopez?

The Australian on 30th October carried an article by one Mark Lopez, under the heading PC warriors serve up a slanted education, with the sub-heading Examples abound of students trying to survive ideological bias in the classroom.

In case you missed it, you can still read it here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22668464-7583,00.html

That will save me having to regurgitate and summarise the rubbish that the Australian’s editors found so compelling as to gave it prime centre space on their Opinion page.

What they don’t say is that the article is largely lifted from the October 27 issue of Newsweekly, that desperate little publication of the late Bob Santamaria’s National Civic Council. Lopez has been a regular contributor since 2000.

So who – or what – is Mark Lopez?

According to the article’s by-line he “is an educational consultant who was a participant in the Howard Government’s History Summit in August 2006.”

That’s part of the “who”.

The “what” is that he’s rapidly emerging as the replacement for Kevin Donnelly who seems to have fallen somewhat out of favour in reactionary circles.

Donnelly always waved the flag for the Right on education issues, particularly in the Australian and in the Institute for Public Affairs’ magazine IPA Review.

However, Donnelly lost favour with Bishop and other reactionaries when he distanced himself from her proposals for a national curriculum, and then went public with his observation that Labor was winning the education debate.

If you don’t stick to the straight and narrow then you’re on the outer. It sort of makes a mockery of Lopez’s “growing desire among Australians for greater intellectual diversity and freedom”.

Nevertheless, Lopez is emerging as the new Donnelly.

His credentials began with the publication of his The Origins of Multiculturalism in Australian Politics in 2000.

This was one of a new wave of right wing publications that ascribed every progressive development in any field to the work of “elites” and “lobbyists”. A tiny group of such persons developed the “ideology of multiculturalism” and foisted it on ministers in both the Whitlam and Fraser governments.

He has summarized the politics of the “multiculturalist” push and its victory over “public opinion” here: http://elecpress.monash.edu.au/pnp/free/pnpv8n4/v8n4_3Lopez.pdf

Then the IPA picked him up - at about the same time that Donnelly began to disappear from its pages.

Lopez contributed a four-page critique of The left wing domination of Year 12 English to the December 2006 edition, and reviewed Donnelly’s Dumbing Down: Outcomes-based and Politically Correct - The Impact of the Culture Wars on our Schools for the July 2007 edition.

The day after his latest piece in the Australian, Lopez was published in Melbourne’s Herald Sun (also part of the Murdoch empire). This piece was another teacher-bashing exercise timed to coincide with the Victorian branch of the AEU’s push for a new enterprise agreement and wage structure.

Lopez’s credential for this piece (also referenced in the Australian article) was his work as a private tutor: “As a private tutor…I have an insight into what is really going on…I have the rare opportunity to observe what is good about the system and what the teachers’ unions would rather Australian families not consider.”

This dismal diatribe can be found here: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22668399-5000117,00.html

Perhaps we can suggest that the good Dr Lopez gets a job in a secondary school teaching Year 12 English or History to a class of 30 students, and compare that experience to the luxury of one-on-one tutoring before he throws any more slurs on the professionalism of Australian teachers.

It is unlikely that he will.

But keep in mind who - and what – he is the next time he graces the pages of a newspaper near you.