As Democrats Disparage School Choice, Experts Say Increased Competition Fuels Innovation

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While states have successfully expanded their school choice programs, left-wing critics argue that the programs are an “existential threat” to public education. But experts are pointing out that not only do school choice programs relieve pressure off of the public education sector and provide parents with more schooling options, they are also proving to help students thrive academically and are fueling academic competition and innovation.

On Sunday, National Review reported that Florida has seen an additional 90,000 students enroll in private schools and other “innovative” educational programs in the last year due to the universal school choice bill that was enacted this year, marking a 43% increase in the number of students enrolled in the program, which now totals over 256,000 students. The program allows any Florida family to use state scholarships funded by corporate tax credits and other state funds to send their children to the private school of their choice.

Currently, 10 states have enacted school choice programs similar to Florida’s.

As the programs have expanded nationwide, Democratic lawmakers have almost universally denounced the programs, claiming that they present an “existential threat” to the public school system by redirecting public money away from it. But as observers have noted, the financial shortfall projections that left-leaning organizations have claimed would occur have proven to be wildly inaccurate. The Florida Policy Institute estimated that the state’s school choice program would cost the state $2 billion to fund scholarships in its first year, which was almost 10 times higher than the legislature’s estimate.

“They were grossly over-inflated in their estimates, and that they did so, in my mind, deliberately to stop kids from having the kind of customized, quality education that they deserve, and only for partisan purposes and in defense of their union allies that put the needs and interests of institutions and adults over the needs of children,” said Florida House Speaker Paul Renner (R).

Renner went on to tell National Review that “we’ve had Democrat members who have reached out to us, our staff, to find out how their families can benefit from the scholarship, even though they voted against our bill.”

In recent years, public education has seen a remarkable downturn in equipping students with proficiency in basic skills. Reading and math scores are currently at their lowest levels since 1971, and the Associated Press reported in May that “40% of eighth grade students are performing below basic proficiency in history, meaning they likely cannot identify simple historical concepts in primary or secondary sources,” with 31% “performing below basic proficiency in civics.”

At the same time, recent studies have shown that students who are enrolled in school choice programs show more political tolerance than public school students, with “13 studies showing a private-school advantage and only one showing a government-school advantage.” In addition, a study of Milwaukee’s school choice program found that it significantly reduced criminal activity of students, including a 53% reduction in drug convictions, an 86% reduction in property damage convictions, and a 38% reduction in paternity suits.

As Doug Tuthill, president of Step Up For Students, contended, school choice programs will lead to “a lot more growth with very innovative 21st-century learning environments.” He went on to observe that “we’re in a weird place where the people who like to think of themselves as progressives are very, very conservative and traditional. They do not want the innovation and change. When people say, ‘You’re trying to destroy public education,’ what I hear is, ‘You’re trying to destroy my 1950s concept about what public education should be.’ And that’s true, we are trying to move away from a one-size-fits-all industrial model that’s been around really since the 1800s.”

Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, concurred, while also arguing that the rise of controversial ideologies on gender, race, and sexuality that have arisen in public schools are a direct threat to Christian families — further highlighting the value of school choice programs and the need for Christian engagement in the educational sector.

“These kinds of dire predictions of ultimate demise are typical fearmongering from the Left,” she told The Washington Stand. “They are afraid of their own demise if they are prevented from indoctrinating a new generation of leftist activists via highly politicized public education. As birth rates decline in the U.S., the fight for the minds and hearts of children will intensify. Christians need to engage in our educational system in every way: churches starting their own schools and Christians running for office or serving as teachers, administrators, or staff. Our witness is desperately needed.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

VIRGINIA: Pro-jihad School Board Member Opposes Honoring Victims of Hamas Jihad Massacre

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Abrar Omeish represents her constituents in what has been dubbed “Northern Virginiastan.” Celebrate diversity!

Pro-Palestinian school board member opposes honoring Hamas attack victims: ‘Ignores the root of the violence

by Gabriel Hays, Fox News, October 13, 2023:

A pro-Palestinian Fairfax County school board member scolded fellow board members Thursday for giving a statement and holding a moment of silence for the victims of Hamas’ recent deadly attack against Israel.

During the meeting, Abrar Omeish rebuked the board for their “sneak attack” of inserting a moment of silence for victims of Saturday’s surprise terrorist attack and Israel’s ensuing war against Hamas into the meeting’s agenda….

Airing her grievances with how the memorial was conducted, she said, “I wasn’t expecting what seemed to be a sneak attack after we had discussed making sure we represent all children in the ways that we speak and when we speak. So it’s disappointing that my colleagues would do that behind my back after conversations that I had with them in saying that the statement represents everybody’s views.”…

“Many are thinking about the incredible devastation and human suffering unfolding today in Israel and Palestine. And we mourn the loss of hundreds of innocent civilians killed and homes destroyed this week alone and the thousands over the decades,” Omeish said.

Omeish continued by declaring that seeing Israel’s retaliation against an aggressor as a black and white issue is insufficient, stating, “It might seem simple – aggressors attacking families in a state seeking vengeance – but we often sympathize with and humanize the side that we relate to and the side that looks more like us, or that our biases guide us towards.”

“But doing so ignores the root of the violence,” she said. Appearing to lessen the moral culpability of Hamas in its terrorism on Saturday, Omeish added, “Centuries of human history teach us that escalations happen when problems are ignored, realities are denied, and voices are censored. When one narrative dominates from the world stage all the way to our classrooms.”

She then uttered the social justice quote, “No justice, no peace,” and slammed Israel for building an apartheid state and murdering Palestinians….

Read more.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘We’re Not a Soft Target’: Ohio School Superintendent Arms Teachers

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As violence continues to surge amongst America’s youth and both politicians and civilians hotly debate gun control, an Ohio school superintendent has decided to start arming his teachers.

John Scheu, superintendent of the Benjamin Logan Local School District, has trained and armed nearly 20 faculty and staff members in his district in order to respond to active shooter incidents and protect students. Scheu had implemented a similar program in the nearby Sidney City Schools district 10 years ago. In a recent interview, he explained why he decided to arm teachers, even though he says he’s “not a gun person.”

According to Scheu, the idea originated in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Scheu worked closely with his county sheriff to bolster campus security across the district, upgrading security cameras and reinforcing doors and locks. “But the Sandy Hook situation showed us that we can have the most secure buildings in the country,” he said, “and if an active shooter wants to come in and do that kind of carnage to students, they can, so that’s when we sat down and came up with the plan that had an armed presence trained by the sheriff’s department.” Scheu explained that school board members were told by the sheriff that it could take up to 15 minutes before a deputy was able to arrive on the scene in the event of a shooting, and agreed that “time is of paramount importance” and greenlit the formation of armed response teams.

“The policy we came up with is one to train volunteers — secretaries, custodians, teachers’ aides, principals — to either conceal carry or have an assigned firearm that’s securely stored and available to them in the event of an active shooter,” Scheu explained. “They go through intense training and are the first line of defense if there’s a shooter. They don’t help the police once they arrive — they’re instructed to put the threat out as soon as possible and retreat as soon as law enforcement identifies themselves.”

Scheu also noted that, while teachers have had mixed reactions to the programs, parents have almost unanimously supported it. He said that “the parents overwhelmingly have supported the armed response team, so we feel pretty confident that the community in general is supportive of having a trained and qualified armed response team to back up our school resource officers and the police.”

Many teachers, according to Scheu, expressed concern over the program, insisting they’re trained to educate children, not to serve as law enforcement. The superintendent responded, “I understand that, but what I go back to is no one is being forced to do this, and every one of these people are very, very committed to protecting their fellow teachers and students in the unlikely event of an active shooter.”

Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council commented to The Washington Stand, “School children should enjoy the same level of protection we require for our most precious assets. As a country we have watched the disappointing responses to active shooter situations in Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas in contrast to the heroic response of the police in the Nashville, Tennessee, massacre. Allowing willing and trained teachers and staff to serve on an armed response team is a reasonable and praiseworthy endeavor.”

Although Scheu admitted that the chances of a school shooting occurring are relatively low, he added that having trained, armed adults on campuses acts as a deterrent. Schools in his district now have signs warning that active shooters will be met by an armed response team. He explained, “By putting up signs telling people, it’s not that we’re bragging. It’s just a matter of telling people we’re not a soft target. Do not pick us to do your carnage.”

Kilgannon agreed. “The ‘school shooter’ is a result of the breakdown of the family and the rejection of God,” she told TWS. “The disturbed coward who would attack school children is looking for a ‘soft target,’ making ‘gun free zones’ in schools very attractive. Armed response teams will be a deterrent, and if worst comes to worst, they can respond immediately to an attack. Parents want their children to learn safely in excellent schools.”

Armed response teams on school campuses are growing in popularity across the U.S. For example, the Mad River school district, also in Ohio, is reinstating a once-active armed response team, and several school districts in Indiana are in the process of training teachers to participate in armed response teams in the near future.

State legislators are also funding the effort, at least in part. As of June, there are 33 states that legally permit teachers to carry firearms on campus and in the classroom. The armed response team program in Ohio’s Benjamin Logan Local School District went into effect at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

If we want better schools, we need to be a serious people

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In the final season of the wildly popular series Succession, fictional media tycoon Logan Roy sobered his four children with the ultimate oratorical coup de grace: “I love you, … but you are not serious people.”

Not only was it a striking emotional dart of paternal honesty, Roy’s bitter honesty also captured the take-no-prisoners ethic of personal ambition untethered to any trace of sentimentality. Could this sentiment — that we are no longer “serious people” — be applied more widely? To the American electorate writ large? To the modern American demos? To many of us living in both the red and the blue states?

I think so.

On any score of important social concerns — politics, health, well-being, relationships, the way we spend our time — hysteria and frivolity quickly supplant sober-minded introspection. The issues that are decisive for our future, that will inform and colour what a “pursuit of happiness” will look like in the next generation and beyond, are routinely ignored.

Instead, we are endlessly outraged by Budweiser commercials and country music songs. We obsess over the megalomania of Elon Musk or the micro-dosing habits of Silicone Valley titans. Young men have become so tragically addicted to the palliative intoxication of video games that they now violently attack their parents for cutting off their access. The most common reason for childlessness among young people is “wanting time for themselves.” Yet this is but a paltry sideshow in comparison to our refusal to be serious about our children’s education.

A bleak educational landscape

This summer has brought a disquieting deluge of bad news on the education front. Every eighth-grade student at LeBron James’s “I Promise School” in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, failed the state math exam. National test scores for 13-year-olds dropped precipitously in both reading and math, with black students bearing the heaviest burden of a 13-point dip in math scores; the yawning gap between white and black students widened significantly to a jaw-dropping 42 points. Twenty-three Baltimore schools don’t have a single student who is proficient in math. The list could go on and on.

As the next school year begins, Americans have a vague sense that all is not well in our schools and in the souls of our children. Whenever I give an interview or a speech or I appear on a podcast to discuss the proliferating problems of American education, the same question comes up time and time again, like a ghoul in a low-budget horror film that refuses to die: how are we going to fix all these failures?

It’s not just a fair question. It is the question, perhaps the most central and pressing question of our time. But underneath it is a substratum of expectation that the answer must be rooted somewhere on a school campus — in a reform, a new curriculum, a tweak to pedagogy, or the advent of a new gizmo or tech toy. Maybe there isn’t enough money. Maybe the teachers aren’t good enough. Maybe we need to emulate Finland or Singapore or South Korea.

But if we want to face a tremendously daunting truth, if we genuinely want to become serious people in the face of this epochal challenge of broken schools and broken children, then we must acknowledge a reality that policymakers and ed-tech aficionados simply don’t want to hear: the solutions to our school problems do not come from school.

Politicians hate to hear this because they have no policy levers to pull.

Innovators hate to hear it because it destroys the utopian notion that the answers are “out there” in the ether.

The public hates to hear it because it sounds like catastrophism without a plan for ending the catastrophe.

Root of the problem

If we were being serious and honest, however, we would admit that the outcomes of a school are almost always decided by the relationships, values, and behaviours that are formed before a student sets foot on a school campus. How can we be naïve enough to believe that broken families and passive parenting, violent neighbourhoods, and a narcissistic culture won’t colour and shape the outcomes of our schools?

For example, our literacy crisis starts in the home. Yes, classroom instruction is pivotal and the science of reading is complicated, but nothing in the classroom can take the place of years of parents’ reading to their children. Nothing can take the place of thousands of hours of conversation and verbal engagement between a child and his or her parents. Nothing can replace the power of a home furnished with books aplenty.

Teachers can assign meaningful homework and make grades available to parents. But teachers cannot make the parents monitor their own children. These same teachers cannot regulate how much their students are on their phones at night. They cannot make sure an adult is modelling responsible study and organisational habits.

Teachers cannot ensure that values about the dishonour of cheating or, conversely, the virtue of hard work, have been omnipresent throughout a child’s life. Yet, these are the very influences that are necessary to ensure not only that students are actually doing their homework, but that they’re meaningfully engaging with the material.

Schools can offer an ever-enticing array of sports programs. They can build staggering stadiums and sprawling practice facilities and fundraise for new uniforms every year. But those teams will only be as good as the participants in those programs. The dirty little secret about so many American sports these days — tennis, golf, baseball, hockey — is that the highest achievers almost always come from families of means. Tens of millions of American children play in organised sports leagues. The most elite, however, are supported by parents whose entire focus of family life — the weekends, the weeknights, the disposable money — is oriented around their kids’ sporting life.

We can use the 1776 curriculum or the 1619 curriculum or any type of curriculum, but none will compensate for the fact that many students never attended a Memorial or Veterans Day Parade. Many never talked to their parents about politics or current events at the dinner table.

The curriculum won’t alter the advantage bestowed on those children whose grandparents told tales of grim sacrifice about fighting in World War II or Vietnam, or whose parents visited Washington, DC, or Gettysburg when they were children.

“What has been the biggest change in the last ten years of teaching?” is a question I often ask my fellow teachers around the country. High school teachers invariably point to the advent of smartphones and short attention spans as well as the spectre of teaching manically distracted human beings all day.

But what the kindergarten teachers say is horrifying. They respond that the parenting style they witness today is terrifyingly unengaged. They tell of parents who refuse to check their child’s folder at night for work and announcements; parents who complain that academic work should always be done exclusively at school with nothing ever sent home.

Teachers who highlight classroom behaviour problems to mom and dad are told their student’s misbehaviour is a “school issue”, not a “home issue.” The notion of education as an intensive partnership between the home and school is increasingly foreign to parents of Gen Z students.

All this leads to the central and climactic question: what does it mean to be serious people?

On a peripheral level, it means acknowledging how we have failed our children: how we have hollowed out their educational institutions of excellence and simultaneously failed to say once and for all that school failure is, in large part, due to a crumbling of the home, the most vital cultural institution. But on a deeper level, seriousness asks how, when, and why the centrality of home as a child’s first and primary source of learning crumbled.

Role models

Have we forgotten how to pursue a form of freedom that is productive and purposeful not only for ourselves, but for the children and students observing our behaviour? Have we forgotten how to model freedom for our children in a way that avoids the wilderness of moral chaos and a streak of self-indulgence?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are intensely practical because these failures of freedom are manifesting themselves in our schools and in our children: in test scores, in absenteeism, in rates of campus violence and a teacher exodus from the profession. The habits and behaviours our students bring to school do not start at school.

If we want better schools, then we must use our freedom to be better parents and citizens, from putting down the TV remote at night, to checking children’s folders nightly, to protecting them from the moral anarchy filling their social media feeds. If we want better schools, then we must fight the urge to fetishise frailty, and instead valorise grit and resilience. And if we want better schools, then we must freely and effusively tell our children what they do not want to hear: that education takes time, diligence, focus, and tremendous effort. There are simply no shortcuts, no “hacks,” no detours to a well-formed mind and soul.

Depositories of wisdom that used to be found in the fortifying institutions that instruct, mould, and cultivate a sense of possibility and responsibility — the home, the community, the church, and yes, the American school — are largely bereft of the authority they once wielded. Yet these are the places where the most essential education occurs, where young minds are fitted and framed either to receive or to reject the lessons of the classroom.

Our schools are failing not because of what happens in the classroom, but because of what happens — or more to the point, what doesn’t happen — at the dinner table. If we wish to be a serious people, then we must bolster our institutions with the power to humanise and domesticate the bedlam within us all.

Until we can do that, we will all be Logan Roy’s unserious American children.

This article has been republished from Public Discourse with permission.

AUTHOR

JEREMY ADAMS

Jeremy S. Adams is the author of the forthcoming book Hollowed Out: A Warning About America’s Next Generation. He has been a high school and college civics teacher for over two decades in Bakersfield, California and was the 2014 DAR California Teacher of the Year. Mr Adams is the first public school teacher ever inducted into the California State University, Bakersfield Hall of Fame.

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EDITORS NOTE: This MERCATOR column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

California Teachers’ Union Wants Homeless People To Sleep on Public School Grounds

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Yes, that would be wonderful for the children. A real life learning opportunity – drugs, crime, sexual violence up close and personal.

Teachers Unions are our children’s worst enemy.

Top California Teachers’ Union Wants Homeless People To Sleep in Its Public School Parking Lots

Proposal comes as Fresno’s public school teachers barrel toward a strike that could close classrooms

By: Alex Schemmel, October 5, 2023:

One of California’s largest teachers’ unions wants to open up its public school parking lots to the homeless, a priority the union is pushing as it barrels toward a strike that could shut down school just weeks after students returned to the classroom

The Fresno Teachers Association laid out the policy in a contract proposal, which calls to “open high school parking lots to homeless families to park their car.” The union acknowledges the move would require “paid security” at a cost of at least $500,000, one of many expensive proposals union president Manuel Bonilla is pursuing in an attempt to address what he calls “societal things.” The Fresno Unified School District has thus far balked at those demands, and the union is expected to authorize a strike in the coming weeks as a result.

The union’s effort to turn its parking lots into homeless safe havens reflects a broader push from teachers’ unions across the country to use their bargaining power to actualize left-wing priorities. In nearby Oakland, for example, unionized teachers in May shut down the city’s public schools for two weeks after demanding reparations for black students in their contract proposal. Unionized teachers in Portland, Oregon, similarly threatened to strike if their district refused to provide subsidized housing for poor students.

While some public districts have caved to those demands—Oakland Unified School District agreed to provide housing assistance for homeless students in order to end the May strike—Fresno Unified School District has not budged. The district’s superintendent, Robert Nelson, last week questioned the homeless parking lot proposal, arguing that it isn’t the district’s “area of expertise.” Thousands of teachers are thus on track to strike following a union vote on October 18, not long after students returned to school in August.

Such a shutdown would undoubtedly add to the learning loss seen during the coronavirus pandemic, which in California kept many public school students out of the classroom for the majority of the 2020-21 school year. The Fresno Unified school board hopes to avoid that outcome thanks to a resolution it passed in late September, which allows the district to employ emergency substitute teachers.

“If we’re unable to reach an agreement, we are well-prepared and will ensure that our schools stay open, safe, and full of learning,” Fresno Unified School District spokeswoman Nikki Henry told the Washington Free Beacon, adding that students “cannot afford another school closure after the pandemic.”

The Fresno Teachers Association did not return a request for comment. In addition to its proposal to allow homeless families to access its parking lots, the union is pushing for free laundry services for district families, 24-hour access to mental health services, and free yoga and meditation classes on weekends.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

For Just $83,140, Princeton Will Train Your Son to Be a Drag Queen

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It costs a staggering $83,140 to send a student to Princeton University, and that’s just for one year. Four years of this august Ivy League school will set you back a cool $332,560, and just think: for that kind of money, you could have bought a brand-new Corvette convertible every year and had some spare change left over.

But Princeton has its benefits: you may not be able to tool around in the glorious sunshine with the wind blowing your hair back, but for all that dough, Princeton will take your thoughtful, intelligent son and turn him into a prancing, preening, children’s-innocence-stealing drag queen. And they will do that in just one year, in case you can’t afford all four. Hey, it’s worth $83,140 to get in step with the times, isn’t it?

The College Fix reported Thursday that Princeton has launched a “new ‘Drag University’ program” that purports to “train students in the ‘artform.’” Do parents send their children to Princeton for this? If there are any parents out there (and I’m sure there are, complete with peeling Bernie stickers on their Volvos) who would be pleased and proud, nay, thrilled, if their sons became drag queens), there are cheaper ways to accomplish this than plunking down $83,140 to get him or her or xer or whatever a degree from Princeton.

The Princeton drag queen training program is “open to all undergraduate and graduate students interested in the world of drag,” so students need not be concerned that they might be too young for it. And there are no prerequisites or preliminary courses that enrollees have to take; they can go from zero to drag queen with just one course. No wonder Princeton charges so much.

The course goes for the entire “academic” year and covers a sweeping array of pressing issues that every young man who will be graduating from college and facing the future in the next few years needs to know, and know thoroughly. These include “the history of drag, ‘Sewing 101,’ choreography, face painting, photoshoots, and other topics,” as if all that wasn’t quite enough, thank you very much.

On the cutting edge as always, Princeton was actually offering scholarships for this course. An Instagram post stated: “Drag University is a new program housed under the mentorship pillar of the Gender + Sexuality Resource Center,” as anyone would expect. The Gender + Sexuality Resource Center describes itself as fostering “a supportive and inclusive campus community for women, femme, trans and queer Princetonians.”

In line with that mission, Princeton’s Drag University is a full-year program that will “teach about the history of drag, as well as the art form of drag. Sessions will be taught by local drag performers, on-campus partners who know their way around machines, and other students. This program is open to undergraduate and graduate students. The first 8 applicants who commit to the entire curriculum and attend orientation will get a scholarship to cover costs of supplies.”

Generous. This course, however, is so very much in line with the spirit of the age that all the scholarships were snapped up in the twinkling of an eye. The College Fix noted that “the form was updated this week to note: ‘At this time we have reached our capacity for our scholarships, but you are more than welcome to attend our workshops.’” That kind invitation appears to be extended only to Princeton students, so you’re still in for the $83,140.

Considering that “pride” is the emblematic slogan and second-favorite deadly sin of the entire LGBTQETC movement, it would have been only natural for Princeton to be effusive and enthusiastic about its new Drag University and happy to respond to inquiries. However, when The College Fix reached out to university administrators, Princeton’s media affairs division, and the Gender + Sexuality Resource Center seeking information about “the number of students enrolled and what pool of money is being used to fund the scholarships,” all of them ignored the inquiries.

Surely they couldn’t have something to hide, could they? Surely they are just bursting with pride about their Drag University, and want all Princeton parents and alumni to know about it, don’t they? Don’t they? If not, why not? Could it be that somewhere underneath their dresses, exaggerated makeup, and wigs, Princeton administrators still have some understanding that this sort of “academic course” is deeply offensive on numerous levels and has no place in any decent university? Inconceivable!

AUTHOR

Robert Spencer

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Report: Baltimore Public School System Producing Little to No Students Proficient in Math

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In February, news broke that students in the Baltimore public school system were scoring poorly in math examinations, with zero students able to score at a proficient level. In the months since then, it appears that little has changed. On Thursday, Breitbart reported that 13 out of 33 schools in the Baltimore area have zero students with math proficiency, “meaning 40 percent of Baltimore City Schools did not produce a single student proficient in math.”

According to Fox News Project Baltimore, “1,736 students took the test, and 1,295 students, or 74.5%, scored a one out of four,” which is the lowest level one could score. The test scores were not given to Project Baltimore by Baltimore City Schools, who also refuse to participate in any interviews regarding the matter.

Jason Rodriguez, deputy director of the Baltimore-based non-profit People Empowered by the Struggle, classified this issue as “educational homicide,” saying there are “no excuses” for these results. “We’re still dealing with these same issues year after year,” he said, in light of a similar report conducted in 2017 which had some of the same schools on it. “[I]t’s just opening up the floodgates to the school-to-prison pipeline.”

Baltimore City Schools asserted the results can be explained by COVID and “minimal funding.” They sent a statement to Project Baltimore claiming that, despite recent financial “increases,” there are still “years of chronic underfunding that has directly contributed to [the] current incomes.” The statement continued, “That recovery takes an equal or more significant amount of time to remediate.”

Despite their statement, Rodriguez quickly shot down their reasoning. “[I]t’s not a funding issue,” he said. Last school year, Baltimore City Schools received $1.6 billion from taxpayers, with the district receiving an additional $799 million in COVID relief funding. Rodriguez continued, “I think accountability is the issue.”

At Family Research Council’s 2023 Pray Vote Stand Summit, Ben Carson, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, gave a speech where he alluded to the issues plaguing public schools. For Carson, a lot of it comes down to the woke agenda of “dumbing down the population” by prioritizing the wrong things in schools. Carson encouraged his listeners to take a stand of courage and use their constitutional rights to “hold people’s feet to the fire.”

Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, shared his take on the situation to The Washington Stand. “Part of this is almost certainly related to the fact that millions of students just spent two years or more not in school. That created a massive learning loss that, in reality, will never be made up.”

“But that’s not all that’s happening,” he continued, noting how before COVID, many schools failed students. However, “the laws have been written in a way that hold students’ hostage in failing schools just to make sure money continues to flow to those schools,” he said. “The system has long prioritized the needs of adults over the needs of children.” But with the rise of parents choosing homeschooling and other options they find is best for their children, Backholm pointed out that “we can expect to see outcomes start to improve for children.”

“It’s going to take time, though,” he concluded.

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden Admin Set To Deport German Family Who Sought Asylum After Being Persecuted For Homeschooling

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U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told a German Christian family that was persecuted for homeschooling their children that they needed to prepare to be deported after living in the U.S. for 15 years, according to Kevin Boden, an attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike fled with their family from Germany in 2008 after getting thousands of dollars in fines for refusing to stop homeschooling, which was outlawed in 1918, and sought asylum in the U.S. before being granted “indefinite deferred action status” in 2014, allowing them to remain indefinitely in the country, according to an HSLDA press release. During a routine check-in with the agency in early September, the New Jersey parents were informed that they needed to have their passports ready in four weeks to be deported to Germany.

“They did not tell them why,” Boden told the DCNF. “They were just told there was a change in orders. We don’t know where the orders come down from, they may have come to the local office from the field office director or the deputy Field Office Director, which probably came from ICE headquarters. Whether it came from the Biden administration or somebody more at the executive level, we don’t know, just the change in orders, get travel documents and get ready to go is effectively what they’re told.”

The parents were also reportedly given no written document explaining the situation or the next steps, nor were they given instructions regarding what would happen to their two minor children, who are 12 and 10 years old and were born in the U.S., according to Boden. He said that the Romeike’s five adult children’s status is also of concern; some are married to U.S. citizens and others are not.

“We just don’t know at this point, which is part of the scary nature of it,” Boden told the DCNF. “You can imagine showing up in two weeks and not knowing ‘Will they take me or my wife into custody and then what happens to our two minor children who are literally US citizens?’ So the uncertainty of this is just remarkable.”

The Romeike’s faced similar issues a decade ago when the Obama administration threatened to deport them in 2012 after they were initially granted asylum by an immigration judge two years earlier, according to HSLDA. The judge’s decision was overturned and the family appealed but the Supreme Court declined to review the case.

A petition was sent to the White House with over 120,000 signatures demanding that the executive branch take action to protect the Romeike family, according to the Christian Post. In 2014, the Department of Homeland Security granted the family “indefinite deferred action status” in March.

Boden told the DCNF that HSLDA is looking into its legal options and that they are circulating another petition in hopes of raising public support and “spreading awareness.” He said that the Romeike’s have been “a delightful family” as he’s worked on their case and that anyone “who meets this family would appreciate and enjoy who they are and would have a desire that they be allowed to stay.”

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PODCAST: How the Chinese Communist Party is Influencing U.S. Classrooms

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A Republican congressman is speaking out about how the Chinese Communist Party is influencing U.S. classrooms.

“Well, they come in, and they sort of soft-pedal their propaganda, but yet, they also whitewash history by eliminating Taiwan,” says Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s early childhood, elementary, and secondary education subcommittee.

“You can’t talk about Taiwan. You can’t talk about Tiananmen Square. You can’t talk about the Uyghurs. You can’t talk about Tibet, the Dalai Lama—all these things that they are influencing and really trying to grasp the young minds of young students to say how great China is,” adds Bean, who was elected to Congress last November.

Bean joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss a hearing his subcommittee held Tuesday, “Academic Freedom Under Attack: Loosening the CCP’s Grip on America’s Classrooms”; the Confucius Classrooms located throughout the U.S.; and what’s at stake if the U.S. isn’t able to counter the communist regime’s influence in American classrooms.

Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript:

Samantha Aschieris: Today I have the honor of welcoming Rep. Aaron Bean of Florida’s 4th Congressional District to “The Daily Signal Podcast.” Rep. Bean was elected to Congress in 2022 and is the chairman of the subcommittee on early childhood, elementary, and secondary education. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

Rep. Aaron Bean: Samantha, what an honor it is to be here in your studio.

Aschieris: Of course. Now, earlier this week on Tuesday, your subcommittee held a hearing titled “Academic Freedom Under Attack: Loosening the CCP’s Grip on America’s Classrooms.” In your opening remarks, you said that the influence of the Chinese Communist Party is rampant in America’s classrooms and that over 500 K-12 schools across the United States have allowed the CCP to establish itself in their halls under the guise of Confucius Classrooms. First and foremost, tell us a little bit more about Confucius Classrooms.

Bean: So, first of all, China has been aggressively maneuvering itself in the world for decades. And I like to tell everybody, I think America has first woken up to the aggressive nature of the Communist Chinese Party. The wake-up call came in the form of a Chinese spy balloon and now Americans are waking up.

So this conversation and study came from a report from a group called Parents Defending Education. They found 143 of what’s called Confucius Institutes, which some, it’s under the guise, the disguise is it’s a goodwill move by China to put a cultural center. They give money, they give volunteers to teach the language and the culture. But what we’ve discovered, it’s just a front to spread propaganda by the Communist Chinese Party.

Aschieris: Can you speak more to between this report and what we heard at the hearing on Tuesday, how the CCP is influencing our classrooms?

Bean: Well, they come in and they soft-pedal their propaganda, but yet, they also whitewash history by eliminating Taiwan. You can’t talk about Taiwan. You can’t talk about Tiananmen Square. You can’t talk about the Uyghurs. You can’t talk about Tibet, the Dalai Lama. All these things that they are influencing and really trying to grasp the young minds of young students to say how great China is.

So we are raising that alarm. We’re raising the red flag, really, to let everybody know this is happening and schools need to be aware of what’s going on.

Aschieris: Just regarding the conversation, we’ve had Nicole Neily, actually, who was a witness on Tuesday on the show before to talk about the report that you referenced, “Little Red Classrooms.” Why was it important for you to not only host this hearing but also bring attention to this issue?

Bean: Well, let’s call Nicole Neily what she is. She’s a fireball, a fireball for freedom. She stood courageously to say, “This is happening, America. Let’s wake up.” Because we just ignore it. So many people ignore it. It’s important to know.

She also has flagged—it’s a red flag, by the way, so let’s be clear what that is as well. A red flag on, they’re really focused on schools surrounding our military bases. So they’re focused on kids, the sons and daughters of our service men and women, at these bases. So they know exactly what they’re doing.

People like Nicole Neily and Parents Defending Education have, I guess, raised that flag and said, “This is happening America. We all need to be aware of it. Schools need to be aware of it.”

I’m going to tell you the biggest shocker. The biggest shocker for me—you were there. You were there, Samantha. You were there and you watched the hearing. I guess I’m a naive new congressman. I’ve been there nine months now. We came in and there is a lot of fighting between parties and I keep thinking, “What issue, what issue is going to bring us together?”

Whenever our committee was two days ago, I would’ve bet the farm that this issue, China invading America through our classrooms, you know what? This is going to be the issue that brings parties together. Shocker. They were on the other side. Democrats seem to excuse it or say it’s Asian American racism. They ignore the problem and how we want to welcome culture and how important it is to learn the language.

So this is not the issue that brought the parties together. So thank goodness there were a lot of folks like Dr. Virginia Foxx who stood up for freedom, Lisa McLean, Burgess Owens, so many other patriots. Mary Miller stood up and said that we need to call the Chinese what they are, propagandists trying to take the minds of American youth.

Aschieris: You just brought up the military bases with these Confucius Classrooms surrounding them. I think, if I’m remembering correctly, at least in the “Little Red Classrooms” report, there were 20 that they were able to identify around the military bases. In terms of what you were talking about in your opening statement with the 500 K-12 schools, where are some of those located throughout the country?

Bean: They’re in 34 states. So you think, if you’re listening in, there’s a great chance that your state has one or two in them.

To call attention to it—Oklahoma had a handful. We heard from Ryan Walker yesterday, who’s one of the senior leaders in education in Oklahoma, that they started having a requirement that if you’re accepting money from foreign influences, particularly China, then everyone needs to know it, and he’s had success with reporting requirements.

That’s something that we need to study going forward to make sure that maybe that’s an option to prevent, or at least let everybody know this is what’s happening.

Aschieris: Absolutely. Something I also wanted to highlight from the hearing that you talked about were the risks associated with Confucius Classrooms. You talked about how they’re threatening America’s national geopolitical and academic interests. First and foremost, let’s talk about national security. What are the risks associated with Confucius Classrooms in relation to national security?

Bean: Well, we’re allowing our enemy—and let’s be clear, China is moving as an adversary. They are making strategic moves around the globe to thwart American influence. They’re buying up mining rights in Africa and South America, these countries to dominate a lot of the rare earth minerals that are the future of our production. They know exactly what they’re doing, and so we need to wake up.

They’re promoting apps like TikTok that record and spy on our young people and everybody that is on those types of platforms. So all this information can and perhaps could be used against us and maneuvers going forward, as they’re getting aggressive and they’re maneuvering. So that is definitely a national concern for us.

Aschieris: Also, just to continue on with geopolitical interests, if you could speak more to that?

Bean: Well, we just need to be aware. They told us when this Chinese spy balloon, the administration said, “Oh, don’t be alarmed.” First of all, it was a weather balloon. Then it was just simply off course. Then it was just following the winds, but yet it always seemed to hover over our military bases and just long enough to take multiple pictures. In Montana for some of our missile sites, I think it circled more than three times to make sure it got the clear pictures. Only when it left airspace did we shoot it down.

We were told, Samantha, we were told, “Don’t worry. They’re not recording. They’re not taking pictures. They’re not doing anything.” They were. Oh, we were told, “Don’t worry. They’re not transmitting in real time.” They were.

So this administration, and that’s another discussion of why they didn’t shoot down the spy balloon immediately, are they compromised? That’s another conversation, too. It certainly has raised America’s attention that China is not a friend.

Aschieris: Then just finally, academic interests, if you could expand on this and just walk us through what you talked about on Tuesday’s hearing with regard to academic interests?

Bean: Well, they want to rewrite history. China wants to rewrite history and China wants to whitewash history. We want to be clear today, and so your listeners know, we are not trying to be at war with the Chinese people. We’re not trying to push back against the rich culture of China. But it’s the government. The government is the one that’s actively being aggressive and trying to, as all the things we mentioned that you can’t talk about Taiwan and Tiananmen Square.

We heard Rep. Brandon Williams from New York who was in China at the time Tiananmen Square went down and he also has a great story to tell of how that went down. Now, that’s erased from history if you’re in China, because we know they’re not about freedom. They’re about control. Our heart aches for the 1.4 billion people that are under the control of tyranny and repression.

So that’s something that we’re standing up to. That’s something that we’re raising the red flag to, and hopefully the hearing brought attention.

Samantha, I think we’re already at a success. If you and this podcast are spreading that message, we’re raising the flag that everybody needs to know that China needs to be watched. They’re an aggressor, they’re not our friend, they’re an agitator, and we need to put them in a corner.

Aschieris: What’s at stake if we aren’t able, in the United States, to counter this influence of the Chinese Communist Party in our own classrooms?

Bean: It’s only going to grow. Their influence is only going to grow. Another topic on another podcast, we can talk about their infiltration of higher ed, of the universities that have accepted money from the Communist Chinese Party. What happens there? They continue to spread their influence.

They also, Samantha, they steal our stuff. They steal our technology. We’ve had hearings on college campuses how they come in and they’ll have a donor that will give this college money, but they always want to focus it on the computer lab or on the quantum physics department or whatnot. They get their hooks into that technology, and whatever comes out, they steal it.

So we’re also telling universities that they need to be keenly aware that China’s on the move. We just don’t need to sell out for money. We need to be aware that this is going to have long-term impacts on our country if we’re not aware of it.

Aschieris: Absolutely. Congressman, just before we go, what are the next steps? We have this hearing on Tuesday. We had the witnesses come forward, with regard to the “Little Red Classrooms” report. What happens now?

Bean: I think we’re going to look at legislation just to have reporting requirements, that everybody that’s accepted money from foreign influence needs to report it. It needs to be widely known who’s doing what and what they’re up to, and then really examine China who’s been aggressively doing this. So we need to let everybody know that they’re out there, they’re on the prowl, and so we need to be aware.

So maybe, I don’t know, in the coming months, this is something that will be introduced. Dr. Foxx has talked about it, our committee has talked about it, and hopefully we’ll have a product. We’ve got work to do, because I’ve already mentioned there were people in our committee that refuse to acknowledge that this is even a problem.

Aschieris: With that, I just wanted to give you opportunity, final thoughts. If there’s anything, key takeaways that you want our audience members to know about Confucius Classrooms and the work that your subcommittee is doing.

Bean: You’ve got a lot of people that want to keep our country free and strong and to be aware that there are countries, bad actors that want to harm us as a country. And so I think you’ve got a lot of patriots in Congress that are working to do that.

I want to thank you. That committee, Samantha, you get credit for sticking around. That was a very long committee. We heard from a lot of people. For you to stick with us and then to talk about it on this podcast is certainly appreciated and to be commended.

Aschieris: Of course. Well, we appreciate you coming into the studio. It’s such an important topic that we will certainly be continuing to follow. Congressman Aaron Bean of Florida’s 4th congressional District, thanks so much for joining us.

Bean: Thanks, Samantha. Have a great day.

AUTHOR

Samantha Aschieris

Samantha Aschieris is a senior news producer for The Daily Signal.

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CANADA: Massive Anti-Woke/Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity March in Ottawa [Videos]

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The story details can be read at at RAIR Foundation along with the full complement of videos and photos published so far.

Here are a few of the videos just to give a sense of what went on yesterday on Parliament Hill and the march around the Downtown core area.

This is the back of what could be called a teeming throng of people walking down Elgin St. I liked the guy with the Wokeism is Marxism sign. I think I did an interview with him. Will look and see if I can find it.

Like with all our Rumble videos, please click on the little gear on the bottom and select the highest quality bitrate offered to get the best look.

Here is the second interview with Kamel El-Chiekh we did after he noticed a few hundred union led, rabid leftists had arrived to counter-protest. The first one is available at the RAIR article linked above.

Here is a look at the crowd of protestors coming back to the Hill from the South West up Wellington. Also the leftists on the South side of Wellington. Try and compare these videos with the Maoist narrative attack materials the MSM spews at us about this and all related events.

A woman dressed in the manner of a religious Muslim, suggested her two sons come and offer me an on camera statement. This is the older of the two boys. He was very impressive. You can see both at RAIR.

Over the next few days hopefully we will get a chance to see more video from the MSM and do a more in depth expose of the nature of media in the United Socialist Provinces of Canada. To be clear: At this point the media is not even just enemy propaganda anymore. It is in fact dialectical weaponry. Very sophisticated engines of political warfare. We see it in the way they report, lie, misrerpresent, but mostly in the language they use to frame an issue. They do this in such a way as to even be able to show a person they wish to discredit speaking their own truth to a degree, while framing it in language to make him look like a Nazi camp commandant. Sometimes subtle just to create or confirm a prejudice in the mind of the observer, and sometimes more bluntly, getting an interview to follow which does it for them.

There is more on this and it will be published as the need arrises. The Laura Lynn interview with CBC mentioned in another post as an example. Please do leave your own thoughts and observations in the comments. Both if you were at one of these events, but also if you have seen some or a lot of the MSM reporting on the events and what impression you got from it.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column posted by  Eeyore is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Student Group Sues West Point Over Race-Based Admissions

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Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed a lawsuit against the military academy West Point Tuesday alleging that the school is violating the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection clause by using race-based admissions policies.

The Supreme Court ruled against Harvard and the University of North Carolina in June in a 6-3 decision, arguing that a “student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.” SFFA, who represented the plaintiffs in the previous cases, sued the military academy, arguing that the Supreme Court’s decision should apply to all schools.

“Over the years, courts have been mindful of the military’s unique role in our nation’s life and the distinctive considerations that come with it,” Edward Blum, president of SFFA said in a press release. “However, no level of deference justifies these polarizing and disliked racial classifications and preferences in admissions to West Point or any of our service academies.”

The lawsuit argues that instead of basing admissions on “objective metrics and leadership potential” the academy’s administrators had instead opted for discriminating on the basis of race. It notes the school’s “benchmarks” for the amount of students in each class that should be made up of  “African Americans,” “Hispanics,” and “Asians.”

“Because skin color can be—and often is—a decisive factor for successful applicants who are chosen from those congressional nominee pools, it is equally dispositive for the other qualified nominees who are turned away,” SFFA argues. “Put differently, because race is a ‘positive’ factor for some West Point applicants, it is necessarily a ‘negative’ factor for others.”

SFFA criticized the military’s justification for the racial quotas, saying that these kinds of policies insinuate that all minorities think alike. The lawsuit also dismissed the academy’s claim that these policies were needed in order to gain legitimacy in a “diverse nation,” noting that a country’s military should not be considered trustworthy only because of its racial make up.

The lawsuit asks that the court issue a “declaratory judgment that West Point’s use of race in admissions is unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment” and that it grant a preliminary injunction barring the academy from enforcing the policy while the lawsuit goes through the court system.

“Because the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent opinion in the SFFA cases expressly forbids all institutions of higher education from using race in admissions decisions, it must follow that the U. S. military higher education institutions must end their race-based policies as well,” Blum said.

West Point did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

ERASING GIRLS: Male crowned homecoming queen, beating out four other girls in Missouri school

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TERRIBLE. The left hates women.

BREAKING: Male crowned homecoming queen, beating out four other girls in Missouri school

By: Libs of TikTok, Sep 18, 2023:

Oak Park High School students in Kansas City, Missouri just got sent a message loud and clear: boys are just better at things than girls are. Even at being a girl. Tristan Young, a male student who identifies as a female, was crowned the homecoming queen this week. He beat out four lovely female candidates because actually identifying as the gender that you are is like, sooo 2010.

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time a transgender student was named Homecoming Queen at Oak Park High School. Back in 2015, a different boy who identified as a girl snagged the title.

We spoke with a parent in the district who asked to remain anonymous and she was disgusted by the district’s actions. She told us, “I’m appalled by NKC Schools’ continued support of the LGBT agenda. NKC Schools says they are “Champions for All Students” yet by embracing radical political statements like this they not only indoctrinate children, but they are placing certain student populations over others. Having two homecoming “queens” that are boys is a disgrace to the NKC Schools community. I hope more parents, community members and district employees start speaking out and start protecting children.”

This insane gender rhetoric not only teaches women and girls that men do things better, but also that a man who identifies as a woman is somehow more deserving of recognition and accomplishments in women’s spaces.

Another parent told us, “As a woman, it breaks my heart to see these girls get passed over and a man stealing what is rightfully theirs. As a parent I’m enraged that the school district is celebrating this on all of their social media accounts (conveniently locking down comments). On the other hand I’m broken-hearted because I know the students voted for him. Although Kansas City is a liberal leaning area of Missouri it is still more conservative than most cities. I don’t know how we’ve reached this point or how to turn it around.“

Imagine a little girl who dreams of being crowned homecoming queen one day when she’s older. Fast forward to high school, she gets nominated. Yay! She knows that she might not win, but to lose to a guy? Seriously? What could be more insulting? And even worse, confusing.

Predictably, the district limited replies and hid comments. If they’re so proud of embracing this radical gender ideology, why are they trying to hide?

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Wisconsin School District Defends Offering Kid’s Guides to Anal Sex and Sex Kinks

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The district said the content passed the “selection guidelines.” It’s pedophilia, it’s predatory, it’s sick.

BREAKING: WI school district defends offering kids guides to anal sex and sex kinks, claims the content passed the “selection guidelines”

By: Libs of TikTok, September 3, 2023:Sep 3

Thanks to an email tip from a concerned parent, we did a deep dive into the books the Kenosha Unified School District is providing their students. What we found in their libraries and heard from their leaders is truly shocking.

So after sifting through their library, we reached out to the school with our findings: Our email to the district.

“This Book Is Gay” teaches students how to have gay sex and how to use a gay sex hookup app to meet up with others. It also includes a guide to sex kinks and fetishes such as peeing on each other and eating poop. It’s available as an eBook, students just need to login and can check it out digitally.

Sample pages from “This Book Is Gay” here.

Full guide to sex kinks, anal sex, sex toys, and more found in ‘This Book Is Gay”

“Let’s Talk About It” Is a guide to watching porn online and using sex toys with extremely graphic depictions of sex.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: ERASING GIRLS: Male crowned homecoming queen, beating out four other girls in Missouri school

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Canadian Muslims hold ‘Million Man March’ Against State-Sexualization of Children

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A planned, ‘Million Man March’ against state-sexualization of children with all its subcategories is planned for Wednesday morning across various Canadian cities. The planning was by a Muslim community leader, and is not without internal drama, although I don’t know the specifics. In any case, one of our readers posted this about (the state thugs with the illusion of a degree of separation such as) ANTIFA etc. who are planning a counter-protest. This is interesting as so far, whenever Muslims protest SOGI or any of the other hideous state programs to remind parents that the state has total control of children, right up to sexually mutilating them and sterilizing them without parents even having the right to argue privately to the children that maybe this is a bad idea, the media and leftists ignore it, figuring that in classic Marxist thinking, if no one knows the Muslims are protesting these policies, then the state-dialectic that Muslims are a victim group along with all the various sexual-deviations from the norm are a united front against classical Western thought.

The dialectic is that the revolutionaries refer to as, “racists, Islamophobes, bigots, haters, transphobes” and every other kind of rhetorical device used to silence and ideally, destroy, de-bank and so on, anyone with counter-revolutionary views using Repressive Tolerance and Discourse theory

To be clear, one must look at the entire issue as one of total Hegelian-Marxist revolution Vs. classical civilization including, and especially the method of thought deployed and how policies are created from that method of thought. We are Socratic. We believe there is an objective reality that can be determined through reason, evidence and logic, at least to a degree, and that policies can be created for the greater good as applied to the individual. Much in the sense that a pilot knows that if he can get down and off the aircraft safely, chances are so will his passengers. The new way, at least for North America, is the Hegelian standard. “And the state shall be unto like a God that bestrides the land”.

If ANTIFA and other revolutionaries under whatever rubric they claim, decide to show up and intimidate what is supposed to be mostly Muslims protesting SOGI, it means they have a strategy for regurgitating the event to the public in cooperation with the media. Either the media will not show it at all, or carefully tailer the footage to make sure that they show only non-Muslims as targets of the revolutionary thugs so they can present it in the manner in accordance with the usual dialectic. In any case, learning about it by CBC and comparing it to footage here or on Twitter or whatnot should be interesting. Twitter however buries a lot of posts it seems. In one post I did, I wrote as a 3 word part discussing solutions, “Grannies not Trannies” in terms of the program of transsexuals and transvestites reading to kids and it was suppressed for hate speech. One can be confident that any post suggesting Trump supporters not be allowed to do something, would not be treated this way. So be cautious with Twitter as well.

It is also quite likely that this is fake. The people are real, and their views, most likely are what is presented. But that they intentionally leaked this as disinformation (deliberate falsehoods intended to damage a target as opposed to naïve spreading of it by those who fall for it which is misinformation) as they include “Islamophobia” as one of the reasons they want to counter-protest when it is Muslims who are organizing the event.

There is simply NO WAY they would not know that this is in fact organized by a Muslim community leader.

If you go to around 21 minutes you can hear the tactic. She names the groups they want to protect. This means this video was likely created and released to maintain the illusion that there are two groups: Every possible victim of Western civ, including Muslims, Vs. evil white supremacist-colonialists. I add colonialists because of the excessive land claims statement at the beginning of the zoom, which clearly is meant to replace any form of national allegiance or pledge to the crown or nation-state. So there is the dialectic. The video itself is the weapon. They cannot show up and counter-protest and be seen to be against people who will be conspicuously Islamic in appearance and clothing. Instead, they leak a video which continues the narrative that Muslims are victims of counter-revolutionaries as much as ‘trans-kids’ are. This would be in keeping with Leftist thought and tactics. One imagines that we will know on Wednesday. For all we can know, there are more layers of disinformation and the tactical use of words involved. Perhaps that could explain some of the behind the scenes drama betwixt the organizers. No details on that have been provided though.

This is said to be a complete transcription of the video, although we have not checked it.

Here is an interesting paragraph demonstrating they are aware of the issue of who organized the march and are hiding it to preserve the dialectic of Islam and sexual deviant groups together Vs. who they have sculpted as the acceptable villains.

What is unique about this is that it’s now being under the guise of being led by parents, it’s being led by the guise of being led by religious faith, and it’s being led by religious faith and some sort of ethnic communities. And we need to be very sure that we make sure that our response is based on the hate and not on the people. And it’s a very easy way to divide many diverse communities by pitting us against each other.

The slide presentation in this video is also useful.

To be clear on who the people created as targets of acceptable, even mandatory hate, watch this short clip from the Trans-march in Ottawa from this summer:

CUPE Ontario appears to be recruiting for the counter-protests which is data suggesting the organization of the counter-protest is real and the video may in fact be a real leak. So hard to tell these days.

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column posted by Eeyore is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Here’s Why the Left Is So Determined to Destroy the New College of Florida

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The Biden administration is attempting to crush a small Florida liberal arts school for not being left-wing.

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights recently announced that it would launch an investigation into the New College of Florida.

The school, which previously had been known for its liberal politics, is being transformed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a notable trustee, Christopher Rufo.

Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the recently released “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.”

Rufo explained in City Journal what the investigation is about.

He said it began with a complaint from ACLU attorney Jennifer Granick. She said that the school’s board and trustees violated civil rights law by “removing ‘gender neutral’ signage from bathrooms, defunding the [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and gender studies programs, and ‘misgendering’ the former DEI director and a former student, who use ‘ze/zir’ and ‘they/them’ pseudo-pronouns, respectively.”

As Heritage Foundation scholar Mike Gonzalez wrote for the Washington Examiner, neither “ze” nor “zir” are words in the English language—or any other language. They are an invention of far-left ideologues who have come up with “‘neo-pronouns’ that must now be used in place of the third-person singular ‘he’ or ‘she’ for people who say they are of unspecified sex.” (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

The complaint against the school included that Rufo “mocked” the contrived pronouns. He didn’t deny it.

“You know what? I did mock her,” Rufo said in a conversation with Gonzalez. “Her pronouns are ridiculous. They are trying to make mockery illegal.”

Is mocking the ridiculous a federal crime now?

My colleague Fred Lucas reported that several members of Congress in the House Anti-Woke Caucus wrote a letter to the assistant education secretary for civil rights, Catherine Lhamon, questioning the investigation.

The three Republican legislators, Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, wrote:

The original complaint alleges that opposition to ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ programming is a violation of federal law. In effect, it argues that conservative political beliefs are illegal. [The Office of Civil Rights’] decision to investigate the New College of Florida based on a clearly politically motivated complaint calls into question its commitment to impartially enforcing civil rights law.

The New College of Florida is bucking every trend that’s poisoned modern academia. The board of trustees is abandoning the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. It is also seeking professors with an actual diversity of views and backgrounds, and it’s ending overtly ideological programs like “gender studies” on campus.

Those ideas will instead be discussed in traditional programs like “history, biology, and psychology,” according to another board member, Matthew Spalding, a professor and dean at Hillsdale College.

I imagine that, to most taxpaying Americans, that sounds entirely reasonable. Given that the New College of Florida is a publicly funded school, why should it serve as an sinkhole of left-wing indoctrination?

If you thought that the Left would see what happened there and just move on, I’d say you don’t understand how the Left operates.

The New College of Florida takeover triggered not only a deluge of media coverage immediately declaring the school “broken” and a “failure,” but it has drawn out a hostile federal regime looking to squash it.

This is an example of why it is impossible to escape the culture war. The Left simply won’t abide an institution, anywhere, rejecting its view of the world. Any institution the Left doesn’t control it immediately seek to destroy, whether it’s the Supreme Court or a small school in Florida.

The transformation of the New College of Florida from an extremely left-wing liberal arts school into an institution that embraces classical learning, a “Hillsdale of the South” as DeSantis called it, represents a total defeat for the Left.

Never mind the fact that New College will be an extreme outlier in the liberal-dominated sea of higher education. For the Left, what’s happening at the New College of Florida amounts to heresy from the secular faith. Higher education is the gatekeeping institution of the American elite, and losing their near-monopoly on that power is perceived as an existential threat.

And that gets to the biggest reason why Democrats are desperate to destroy the New College of Florida. If the project succeeds, even just a little bit, other states may soon copy its model. After decades of complaining about the radicalism of our colleges and universities, Republican governors and legislators might now actually attempt other school takeovers.

That will be especially the case if the experiment is successful.

It wouldn’t just be a victory for the Right; it would be a victory for free thought and higher education in general. Our college campuses have gone from bastions of liberalism, to hotbeds of radicalism, to monolithic enforcers DEI ideology.

The growth of schools that reject that model would mean that there are serious alternatives.

Despite accusations of “chaos” at the New College of Florida from grumbling opponents of the school’s rightward turn, things seem to be working out just fine. Enrollment is up, with 2022 setting a record for the school.

As ridiculous as the Biden investigation is, it isn’t surprising. The Left is highly invested in seeing the New College of Florida fail, and lawfare is one of its favorite tactics. Stopping the changes by traditional political means isn’t working out for Democrats right now. DeSantis won his reelection bid for governor by a wide margin, and the state is getting redder.

So, when we have political power, we don’t have to cede every single institution to far Left radicals? What a crazy idea. It just might work.

It turns out that governing as a conservative isn’t just effective; it can be popular to boot. That’s what scares the Left, which will use every tool in its arsenal to ensure that this green shoot of liberty fails.

AUTHOR

Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal. He is also the author of the book “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.” Send an email to Jarrett.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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