Why Marx On School Certificate?

Graduates from Richmond’s Binford Middle School get a diplomalike certificate, signed by the teacher and principal.

It is ringed by six graphic marks, including icons of a notebook, an apple, the school mascot and such.

Then there is a picture of a man. And who is this icon of American education?

Not John Dewey or Horace Mann, both of whom were called fathers of American education.

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It’s Karl Marx!

Not exactly the father of education. This is the father of socialism. The father of communism.

Author of “The Communist Manifesto.”

Any Google image search confirms it. The specific Marx image on the Binford certificate, artistically embellished with books in the background, can be found online.

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Binford Principal Juanita Nicholson said yesterday that she had not known the photo was of Marx or the reason for its use.

She agreed it was an odd choice.

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“She really thought she was capturing clip art representing Frederick Douglass. She did a search to pull up Frederick Douglass and this is what came up . . . with the beard and the hair.”

Hold on. Wait a minute.

One was a German philosopher, the other an African-American slave who became a leading abolitionist.

They can’t be distinguished?

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