Tag Archive for: public schools

‘That’s What Motivates People’: School Board Winners Say Gender Policies Drove Big Election Gains

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Conservatives saw major school board wins this election, proving that parents across the country are still actively working to get gender ideology out of the classroom, victors who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation explain.

Parental rights watchdog Moms for Liberty saw more than half of its school board candidates prevail on Nov. 4, with several winners attributing victory to concerns about inappropriate classroom content and issues related to gender identity policies. Moms for Liberty CEO and co-founder Tina Descovich told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the issue driving parents to the polls for school board elections is a lack of transparency with what is happening in the classroom.

“Parents feel like they don’t have access to schools the way they used to, or information about their children,” Descovich said. “And I would say parents on both sides of the aisle are concerned about transparency in education.”

Two school board winners who spoke to the DCNF strongly agreed with this notion, having both experienced attempted classroom indoctrination firsthand.

“That’s actually the reason that I originally ran for office four years ago, was because of the inappropriate material that was in our daughter’s classroom,” Danielle Lindemuth, who was reelected to the Elizabethtown Area school board in Pennsylvania, told the DCNF. “There is sexually explicit content in the books. There is a major theme of rape and incest in different ones.”

Brooke Richards-Patterson, elected to the Old Bridge Township Board of Education in New Jersey, told the DCNF she became aware of the school’s agenda to teach inappropriate content to children three years ago when a school board member began recruiting parents to speak out about the issue.

“The curriculum proposed by the state includes verbiage such as anal, oral sex, masturbation, as young as the second, third, fourth grade,” Richards-Patterson said. “My kid still believes in Santa Claus at that age, my kid’s waiting for the tooth fairy. Why is that appropriate?”

“I’m not trying to mother your kids,” Richards-Patterson continued. “If you want your kids to know all that stuff, have at it. I don’t, and a lot of us don’t. And the whole point is I should have the most say as the parent. That’s the bottom line. I want you to have that too.”

Lindemuth’s and Richards-Patterson’s districts have already seen some success with rooting out gender identity-based policies.

“We do recognize that it is something that is a parental choice. It is not a school district choice,” Lindemuth stated. “And so if a student chooses to identify as something other than their biological gender, then we have set data that the parents must be involved in the conversation, and so if they would like to change their name or their pronoun, then the parents must be the ones who sign off on that.”

“We also want to make sure that we are protecting all of our students, faculty and staff’s rights. And so within that, what we did was we made sure that if somebody has a strongly held belief that they cannot call somebody by something other than their biological gender, that they have alternatives to what they can do,” she explained. “They are not allowed to be rude and disrespectful to them, they must not use a name that the person doesn’t want to be called.”

Under the new policy, teachers are allowed to address students by “something a little more generic,” such as addressing students by their last names instead of their first names, as long as they address all students the same way. That way, “they are not using pronouns at all” while still being “very careful to make sure that they are respecting the students choice while so not infringing on their own rights.”

Richards-Patterson said her district was able to abolish a policy that allowed children to change their gender identity within the school system without their parent knowing after enough people spoke out about it.

“I wish I could hit every single door and speak to every single resident, because there are a lot of things that people are unaware of,” she told the DCNF. “Nobody knew that there was a policy that said if your child identifies as the opposite sex, they can change their name on the student portal. And you’d have no idea.”

Richards-Patterson believes her effort to inform parents of these issues is what got her elected.

“That’s what motivates people, when they feel like they’re learning more and that I want to educate them, they want to work with me,” she said.

Even when districts do not experience these issues directly, stories from other districts that make national news like the sexual assault cover-ups in Loudoun County and the registered sex offender frequenting school and public changing rooms in Arlington, Virginia make parents take a closer look at their children’s schools.

“We do absolutely see that,” Lindemuth said. “There are times where the parents do come to the school board meetings, or do contact us and say, ‘Hey, is this happening in our school? Is this something we need to worry about?’”

“It makes parents look under the covers a little bit,” Descovich said. “Take a look, parents. Wake up. Is this happening in your district?”

While Richards-Patterson’s victory shifted her district to a majority conservative board, most school districts aren’t as lucky. Despite Loudoun on Nov. 4 electing its second member who is willing to defend girls’ spaces from biological males, the rest of the board generally remains unfriendly to this idea.

Descovich, however, advises parents and school boards in similar situations not to lose hope.

“One school board member can make a huge difference if, at a very least, they are exposing what’s going on in the district, because they have access, they have a lot more access than the average parent in the community, if they are just sharing the information out and exposing what’s going on, it is so worth having just even one school board member, even if they’re getting outvoted,” Descovich said. “This isn’t a quick fix. We did not get into this mess in education in one election cycle, and we’re not going to get out of it and one election cycle. It’s just been decades of unions dominating school boards and education in America, and it’s going to take decades to fix it.”

Seventeen candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty won their school board races this election, making up a fraction of the 500 total races the organization has influenced over the last three years.

“We’re at a peak of education reform in this country,” Descovich said. “All of this really is going to lead to this golden age in America that we’re looking forward to, where we’re going to go from only a third of kids reading in America, only 22% of high school seniors being able to pass a civics test, to a place where our children can be enriched and they can be bold supporters of the good, the beautiful and the true, and they can be educated citizens again and have the ability to self-govern.”

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Education Reporter

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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.

Virginia Democrat’s Lead Erodes Amid Familiar Mistake On Gender Ideology

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The Democratic candidate in Virginia’s 2025 gubernatorial election is watching her lead erode amid a familiar clash that led to a Republican victory in the 2021 race.

With less than three months until Election Day, Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial race is becoming increasingly competitive, as Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears closes the gap with her opponent, former Democratic Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger.

A Roanoke College poll released Tuesday shows Sears trailing Spanberger by seven points. In comparison, a previous poll from May had Spanberger leading by 17 points in the 2025 governor’s race.

As public polls show the race tightening, Sears told the Daily Caller in an exclusive interview that she always believed the contest to be winnable.

“Our polling showed that we were much closer and even my opponent said that this was a toss-up race, but the mainstream media would not believe her because they want her to win,” Sears said.

But Sears now has extra momentum thanks to a renewed debate over gender ideology in schools — an issue that was pivotal in Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 victory. Questions about how schools should handle transgender students and how much say parents should have in the public education system are once again emerging as a central focus in the final stretch of the 2025 race.

The discussion was reignited after America First Legal (AFL) sent a letter in July to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Education (DOE), urging an investigation into five Virginia school districts for allegedly failing to protect girls’ facilities.

Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) is also once again in the spotlight for punishing a group of boys who objected to a biological girl who identifies as transgender entering their locker room and allegedly recording them. Two of the three boys who complained have been suspended.

Sears has been outspoken about the suspension of the boys and the five Northern Virginia districts that are accused of violating Title IX. The lieutenant governor attended an Arlington County School Board meeting on Thursday to hammer the issue.

“It’s dangerous, it’s insane, and it has to stop,” she said, addressing the school board. “Here’s the truth: there are two sexes, boys and girls.”

“It is interesting to me that we have these five Northern Virginia school boards who are willing to risk not millions but hundreds of millions of dollars for their ideology,” Sears later said in an interview with WUSA9.

Spanberger, meanwhile, has not offered much substance in response to the issue. ABC 7News sent a list of questions to Spanberger’s campaign in early August in an attempt to clarify where she stands on school bathroom, locker room and sports policies.

“Abigail is a mom of three kids in Virginia public schools — the safety of Virginia’s kids is Abigail’s top priority, and she believes that parents have the right to make decisions about what is best for their children,” the Democrat’s campaign said in reply.

Spanberger also accused Sears of backing the Trump administration’s “threats to strip funding from Virginia schools” but did not directly address concerns about the Virginia schools’ alleged Title IX violations.

The fight over gender ideology and the tightening race is reminiscent of similar conditions during the 2021 gubernatorial race between Youngkin and former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

Youngkin’s campaign capitalized on McAuliffe’s stance against parental involvement in schools, which ultimately shifted momentum in the blue state. Youngkin spent the early part of his campaign meeting with parents’ groups concerned about Covid school closures, transgender bathroom policies, boys in girls’ sports and DEI curricula. When the opponents met for a debate in late September, McAuliffe declared, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” The statement became central to campaign ads from Youngkin’s team.

A Republican strategist involved in Virginia’s 2025 elections affirmed to the Daily Caller that the current dynamics in the gubernatorial race echo what happened in the 2021 gubernatorial election — but with trends developing possibly even earlier than four years ago.

“The dynamic that’s playing out now is very similar to what played out in 2021, where you had a very potent issue pop at the final stretch of this election. I think you’ll just continue to see the polls close as Winsome really stands out from Abigail Stanberger as someone with conviction, courage and common sense priorities on the stuff that’s so important to people,” the strategist explained.

Matthew Hurtt, chair of the Arlington GOP, pointed to the importance of Republicans eating into Democratic strongholds in Virginia’s traditionally bluer northern regions. Taking advantage of cross-party issues like gender ideology and parental rights in schools could accomplish that goal, as was shown in 2021.

“Arlington was 10% of Governor Youngkin’s victory margin in 2021. That is to say, the difference in the votes from 2020 to 2021, it was about a 6,000 vote difference. That’s what I’m focused on, being just one part of Northern Virginia,” Hurtt said. “We don’t have to win it — it’s unlikely that we would win Northern Virginia in a statewide election — but we just have to reduce those margins.”

Sears’s appearance at the Arlington School Board meeting last week made the gender ideology issue even more salient, as a Democratic activist went viral for holding up a sign racially targeting Sears, who would be the nation’s first female black governor if elected.

“Hey Winsome, if the trans can’t share your bathroom then blacks can’t share my bathroom,” the sign said.

Sears said that although she is now a public figure, she has never gotten used to “racist language” from her opponents.

“You never get used to seeing racist symbols, racist language, but I’m an adult and so I can brush it off. But this is not about me, this is about the young child who will see this and wonder why is this happening in a new century,” she reflected.

Spanberger condemned the sign as “racist and abhorrent,” but a top Virginia Democrats official accused Sears of stoking the racial attack, writing, “What happened in Arlington wasn’t just about a meeting. It was about the climate Winsome Sears is creating, one where contempt is currency and neighbors are turned against each other.”

Ian Prior, the former Executive Director of Fight for Schools and a prominent activist who helped push Youngkin over the finish line in 2021, argued that Democrats in Northern Virginia are again alienating voters by pushing radical gender policies in schools — and by relying on personal attacks like the one employed by the Democratic activist on Thursday.

“Northern Virginia’s school systems are once again using children as pawns in their subservience to the idea that men can be women and women can be men,” Prior told the Caller. “Now their outside allied activists are threatening to return to Jim Crow laws if grown men aren’t allowed to change in front of young children in girls’ locker rooms and restrooms.”

“This issue has become electoral poison for the left, yet it looks like they are so captured by their radical base that they are willing to set their chances on fire again this November,” he asserted.

The Republican strategist noted that Youngkin also trailed McAuliffe in public polls throughout the summer and fall of 2021, but the race grew increasingly close as they got closer to Election Day.

“Just naturally, a lot of these polling organizations are from pretty disreputable sources. Obviously, you can get the nitty-gritty of how they actually conduct polls, but I think the energy felt on the ground — especially towards the fall of Governor Youngkin’s win — was really palpable,” the strategist explained.

Hurtt said that although the singular Roanoke College poll is not necessarily instructive, “a string of polls tells a story.”

“Nobody is paying attention to a gubernatorial election in March and April. I think the lightning strike event of Tuesday and Thursday in Loudon and Arlington, respectively, is the point where people begin to clue in,” Hurtt told the Caller.

Sears also highlighted the significant increase in fundraising for her campaign and suggested her willingness to take a public stance on key ideological issues sets her apart from Spanberger and entices donors and voters to stand with her.

“People want to donate to people who they believe in and they see something, I think, in me that says I am going to do the right thing. I am going to ensure that the policies that we’ve already begun will continue,” Sears said.

“I’ve raised in this last quarter $6 million,” Sears said. “I have raised more money in the second quarter of the campaign than any Republican ever has, including my wonderful Governor Youngkin — and he will tell you that. People like what we’ve done and they want it to continue.”

Hurtt similarly said that the Arlington GOP’s August fundraising effort is shaping up to be their strongest yet, calling it the single best fundraising month “probably in a generation.”

The Caller contacted the DOJ and the DOE to confirm whether a referral had been made for the five Northern Virginia counties for Title IX violations, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

AUTHOR

Ashley Brasfield

Reporter

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

Here’s How Schools Are Catering To Illegal Immigrants While Avoiding Federal Scrutiny

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Several schools are trying to fly under the radar with programs providing education to illegal immigrants despite the Trump administration cutting funding for such initiatives.

The Trump administration on June 30 announced it was revoking nearly $7 billion in federal grants that went towards teaching English as a second language — used in part for illegal immigrants — saying the funds are being used to push “a radical leftwing agenda.” Now, some schools are advising staff to use private messaging tactics and are wiping details from their websites to cover their tracks, The 74 reported.

“Because of the threats from the federal administration about revoking the 501(c)(3) status of nonprofits, we want to keep ourselves from being targeted,” an employee of an organization that works with undocumented youth, who chose to remain anonymous, told The 74. “Anything that could be perceived as obstructing or challenging federal immigration policies, we don’t put in writing. Anything that could be seen as a criticism of the administration — or anything that could be seen as partisan — we’re going to completely avoid.”

Some schools and leftwing activist organizations are advising members to use secure messaging apps like Signal rather than text or email, or conduct conversations over the phone, The 74 said. Staff are also directed not to participate in any protests or rallies in support of illegals to avoid the federal government’s radar.

“We’re not trying to draw attention,” an administrator for an Illinois school district told The 74 on condition of anonymity. “I don’t want any light shining on our district.”

The funding being withheld from schools went towards after-school and summer school programs mainly focused on adult education and English learning for non-speakers. The Office of Management and Budget is currently reviewing whether to release some or all of the funding after it discovered some schools used it for illegal immigrants, according to The Detroit News.

School administrators and consultants are even being advised to avoid certain words in emails, such as terms related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), to prevent communications from being discovered through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, The 74 reported.

The Trump administration has also taken aim at states that provide special benefits to illegal immigrants, including several that offer in-state tuition prices for illegals. Texas even joined on to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit against the state to overturn the law allowing the policy, with the state now asking colleges and universities within the state to identify the illegal students.

Reining in illegal immigration has been a main priority of the administration, especially after the Biden administration allowed hundreds of criminal illegal migrants to flood into the U.S. Roughly 11 million total border encounters occurred at the southern border throughout the Biden administration.

So far, the Trump administration has facilitated the arrests of over 30,000 illegal immigrants in the U.S., about half of whom it claims are convicted criminals. Border crossings have plummeted since President Donald Trump took office, with no illegal migrants released into the U.S. in May.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Education Reporter

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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.

EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Org Lays Out Roadmap To Rebuild America’s Crumbling Education System

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The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal released recommendations Thursday to reform teacher training programs across the nation as student test scores have plummeted to historic lows and schools have become increasingly defined by radical ideology.

The organization, a conservative public policy group focused on higher education, first shared the blueprint with the Daily Caller News Foundation, outlining recommendations to improve university education certification programs and contending that the changes would result in improved outcomes for K-12 children. The memo recommends schools of education at universities to take steps to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirements and set standards to equip future teachers with the knowledge necessary to educate children.

“Too many teacher preparation programs ignore subject matter expertise to focus on pedagogical fads or trendy ideologies,” Jenna Robinson, president of the center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Robinson added that one of the causes of low student achievement in schools is the “irresponsible schools of education” training the teachers.

The blueprint further recommends that lawmakers better regulate such programs to ensure universities are teaching fundamentals and not indoctrinating students who will go on to do the same to the next generation. The center also suggests that policymakers consider creating alternative paths to obtaining a teaching certification — such as demonstrating mastery in a field rather than attending corrupted teacher education programs. Current state licensure requirements should be placed under scrutiny to ensure programs are not being overrun with divisive ideology and teachers are being properly equipped with the skills to teach students reading and math skills, the blueprint says.

Some states have taken steps to lower the bar for teaching candidates, no longer requiring aspiring educators to pass a basic reading, writing and math test for certification.

The blueprint cites a recent report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which found that as many as one-third of eighth grader students failed to reach the NAEP’s reading assessment benchmark in 2024, the largest percentage ever recorded, and 40% of fourth graders tested below NAEP’s reading proficiency, the largest percentage recorded since 2002.

While some of these failures can be attributed to the learning losses suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools remained closed for over a year and students struggled under remote learning, much of the responsibility also falls on schools prioritizing teaching divisive concepts over fundamental education, the center argues in its blueprint.

“When teachers focus on inequity or social-emotional learning instead of teaching students to read using proven methodologies, they send two messages,” Robinson said. “One is that students are destined to fail. The other is that reading isn’t important.”

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ) poured over $100,000,000 into DEI efforts for K-12 schools, funding projects aimed toward “LGBTQ inclusion” in which “anti-racism and anti-oppression are embedded.” Upon taking office, President Donald Trump immediately got to work eliminating some of the radical topics from schools, signing a series of executive orders banning critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender ideology from being taught in federally-funded schools.

“I hope this Blueprint will encourage state legislatures and university boards to take a hard look at what’s going on in their schools of education,” Robinson continued. “Schools of education must change if we want students to succeed.”

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

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.

‘Students Will Be Better Off’: Former Education Secretary Pitches Plan To Completely Dismantle Her Old Agency

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Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos proposed a plan Thursday to dismantle the Department of Education after stating it has failed to fulfill its purpose.

DeVos, who served under the first Trump administration, said in a column published to the Free Press that the department has worsened the state of education in the United States despite spending over $1 trillion on education since 1979. President Donald Trump has expressed plans to dismantle the agency completely.

“I can understand how that idea, which President Donald Trump is committed to advancing, might sound a bit radical,” DeVos wrote. “But having spent four years on the inside as secretary of education, struggling to get the department’s bureaucracy to make even the smallest changes to put the needs of students first, I can say conclusively that American students will be better off without.”

The National Assessment Governing Board released the 2024 Nation’s Report Card in January which exposed the dire state of education, with students still testing below pre-pandemic levels five years later. Roughly 40% of fourth grade students tested below the reading benchmark and there is now a nearly 100-point gap between the lowest and highest performing students.

“Nothing could be more important to our success as a nation than having well-educated citizens,” DeVos asserted. “But don’t be fooled by the name: the Department of Education has almost nothing to do with actually educating anyone. The Department of Education does not run a single school. It does not employ any teachers in a single classroom. It doesn’t set academic standards or curriculum. It isn’t even the primary funder of education—quite the opposite. In most states, the federal government represents less than 10 percent of K–12 public education funding.”

“So what does it do? It shuffles money around; adds unnecessary requirements and political agendas via its grants; and then passes the buck when it comes time to assess if any of that adds value,” DeVos continued.

Under former President Joe Biden, the department invested heavily in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, critical race theory and gender ideology. Trump has already taken steps to strip these concepts from public schools.

DeVos went on to explain that the department functions merely as a “middleman,” imposing regulations on schools and taking in billions of dollars for their own salaries while forcing schools to do the work of implementing the policies themselves.

DeVos’ three-step plan for dismantling the agency includes sending the Congressionally-allotted education funding straight to schools and passing a universal school choice measure which “would take away more than half of the department’s duties, while materially increasing the amount of funding going to educating students,” passing the responsibility of enforcing civil rights law to the Department of Justice (DOJ), and privatizing student loans.

“With those issues solved, a federal Department of Education would no longer have any pretext to exist,” Devos explained. “While it is true that no federal agency has ever seen its doors closed, there must be a first for everything. On the merits, the Department of Education has earned such a historic distinction.”

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Fail Our Children’: New Data Shows Just How Badly Student Learning Suffered As Schools Doubled Down On DEI

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.

Biden DOJ Poured Over $100,000,000 Into ‘Restorative Justice,’ DEI Efforts For K-12 Students, New Report Finds

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) under President Joe Biden awarded K-12 schools $100,113,942 in grants aimed at increasing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts since 2021, a new report says.

The DOJ divvied up at least 30 grants that explicitly mentioned DEI or stated an intention to improve outcomes for a specific demographic group. Many more included topics of restorative justice and social emotional learning, according to Parents Defending Education (PDE). A total of 102 grants involving such topics were sent to 946 school districts in 36 states, representing about 3,235,414 students.

Nearly $2 million went to the Minnesota Department of Education to “create safe learning environments where practices of anti-racism and anti-oppression are embedded,” PDE said. The award said the Minnesota department was committed to “supporting LGBTQ inclusion” within all school districts.

Many of the grants mirrored this promise, specifically naming LGBT and nonwhite students as their intended targets.

Pennsylvania State University received $1,785,773 as part of an anti-bullying campaign to help K-12 schools “provide an opportunity to meaningfully advance equity in violence prevention for communities historically underserved, marginalized, adversely affected by inequality, and disproportionately impacted by crime, violence, and victimization (People of Color (POC), women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ community),” according to the grant document.

The Milwaukee Public Schools was awarded $986,757 for a project meant to “promote racial equity” and “dismantle institutionalized barriers,” documents show. Another program implemented in Pennsylvania school districts received $1,688,668 from the DOJ to teach students “community policing, trauma informed conflict emphasizing racial/historical and intergenerational trauma, impacts of social media on conflict and conflict escalation and management, anti-bias education, restorative practices.”

DEI is being uprooted in many states as governors move to ban such programs. Major companies like Walmart and several universities are also moving to end their employee and student DEI trainings and race-based admission and hiring decisions.

A report released after Texas banned the programs said that schools with DEI policies did not improve learning outcomes for their target groups. Another report said that DEI policies made people much more likely to agree with racist statements from Adolf Hitler.

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

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

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.

VIDEO: How American Voters Got Dumb

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Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from professor Peter St. Onge.

How did American voters get so dumb? Thank a public school.

It’s a modern fetish that we’re brilliant but our ancestors were idiots. After all, they didn’t have iPhones, internets, or Kim Kardashian.

This is also academic consensus, for what it’s worth. It’s called the Flynn Effect—the idea is people do better on puzzles, so we must be smarter. Of course, one wonders if puzzles translate into, say, understanding monetary policy or how welfare destroys families.

Thankfully, we have a real-world test: actual political campaigns. Back when I was a professor, I ran every inaugural address through a Flesch-Kincaid text analysis to measure the grade level. The logic being top speechwriters know how to talk at voters’ level.

Doing that, it turns out we are getting dumb breathtakingly fast. In 1900, inaugurals were written at between 13th and 14th grade—modern college level. Today, they’re eighth grade for Barack Obama, ninth grade for Donald Trump, and … seventh grade for Joe Biden.

It gets worse the further back we go: Andrew Jackson’s 1828 inaugural was written at 22nd grade—meaning, strictly speaking, two Ph.D.s was the median voter in 1828.

Keep in mind Jackson was a populist man-of-the-people.

George Washington’s inaugural was closer to 26th grade.

Also keep in mind almost nobody in 1828—or 1789—had a formal education.

Jackson kicks off with, “Undertaking the arduous duties that I have been appointed.” Washington starts with, “Among the vicissitudes incident to life.” For Biden it’s, “This is America’s day.”

So how did we get so dumb?

Easy: public schools.

The modern government school came from 1800s Prussia, which had enough of worker riots and peasant revolts and resolved to indoctrinate kids into pro-regime obedience. It worked like a charm, turning the once unruly Germans into a government-directed army that went on to do terrible things.

Left-wing American intellectuals were fascinated by Prussia’s indoctrination and imported it to the U.S. They were motivated not by peasant revolts but by the frustratingly small-government ethos of Catholics. Progressives figured they couldn’t frog-march American Catholics into government utopia, but they have the children.

These activists spread government schools to every state and got a major boost postwar, when competence tests for employment were declared discriminatory, forcing companies to instead rely on formal education to discover talent. This launched the university from a fringe toy for the 1% into a $300,000 tax on anybody hoping for a white-collar job.

Meanwhile, like all government programs, opportunists—teachers unions—took over, spending $878 billion per year dutifully peddling politics but neglecting the actual purpose of education, leaving American kids illiterate and innumerate. In a video last year, I mentioned how fully 23 Baltimore schools had precisely zero students proficient in math, and in Detroit, 96% of students lacked proficiency in math, and 95% can’t even read. But by gum, they know their demi-genders.

Take people who can’t name a state or don’t know what the Supreme Court is, wash them with decades of left-wing propaganda, stick them in a voter booth, and here we are.

So, what’s next?

If we’re to save our democracy, we have to save our voters—by replacing government schools with schools that actually teach instead of indoctrinate. That could mean school choice, it could mean vouchers, it could mean home schooling co-ops. But until we fix it, things will keep getting worse.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Peter St. Onge

Peter St. Onge is a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Professor Onge on X: .

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In Florida Public School Students Will Learn About the Dangers of Communism

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“Communist tyranny has already resulted in 100,000,000 victims.” — Governor Ron DeSantis

Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, signed a law this week that will require Florida public schools to educate students about the history and dangers of communism, both in the U.S. and in other countries, and about the growing threat of communism in the U.S. now.

“We are going to tell the truth about the unprecedented death toll of the 20th century at the hands of communist tyranny – 100 million people killed by communist regimes, which spread to China, the Soviet Union, Cuba…” said Ron DeSantis.

VIDEO: Orthodox Christian Receives Two-tier Policing — An Orthodox Christian man in Great Britain wrote on his Facebook “Christians must stand up” after an Islamist stabbed a bishop during mass in Australia. The British authorities responded by sending the police and a psychologist to his home for a checkup. Two-tier policing!

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Is Governor Ron DeSantis a Hypocrite? Has he cleansed our public schools of the gay agenda? NOT!

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On May 17th, 2023 Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Let Kids Be Kids bill package to protect Florida’s children from permanent mutilating surgical procedures, gender identity politics in schools, and attending sexually explicit adult performances.

HB 1069 protects students from having to declare their pronouns in school and expands parental rights in education by prohibiting classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in Pre-K through 8th grade.

Laura Loomer in the following tweet exposes the hypocrisy of “absentee” Governor DeSantis.

In a tweet with photos of a public school classrooms in Florida Laura Loomer wrote:

HYPOCRISY IN FLORIDA:

These photos were taken TODAY inside a PUBLIC middle school history classroom in Palm Beach County, Florida at Polo Park Middle School in Wellington, Florida. I’m told this is Mr. Rizzo’s class. The photos were sent to me by a parent whose child is being subjected to this sexual grooming. I thought @RonDeSantis  said he made it ILLEGAL in Florida for public schools to be indoctrinating minors with LGBTQ grooming materials? Looks like another lie by @RonDeSantis. 

Please call his office and ask why he is allowing for history teachers in Florida to groom children.

850-717-9337

Why is there a need to have multiple LGBTQ flags in a public school classroom? And why does @RonDeSantis  lie so much? I thought Florida is where “woke goes to die”? I thought @RonDeSantis  was a parental rights advocate? This is what my tax payer dollars are paying for?

Are you kidding me?

We have an #AbsenteeGovernor.

Here’s the tweet with photos:

For more information about SB 254, HB 1069, HB 1438, and HB 1521 click here.

We warned that Governor DeSantis’ would fail to implement the policies he signed because he is too busy running in the GOP primary election. He has given up on protecting our children in Florida’s public schools.

Loomer is right. DeSantis needs to be the Governor, not a candidate.

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier, Ed.D. All rights reserved.

Critical Race Theory And Gender Ideology Are Ubiquitous In U.S. Schools, New Study Shows

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Last month, the Manhattan Institute released a groundbreaking new study, titled “School Choice Is Not Enough: The Impact of Critical Social Justice Ideology in American Education.”

The study presents survey results of a representative sample of over 1,500 Americans aged 18-20. Their primary finding was that “Ninety-three percent of American 18- to 20-year-olds said that they had heard about at least one of eight [Critical Social Justice] concepts from a teacher or other adult at school, including ‘white privilege,’ ‘systemic racism,’ ‘patriarchy,’ or the idea that gender is a choice unrelated to biological sex.'” Also included on the list of Critical Social Justice (CSJ) concepts are the ideas that discrimination is primarily responsible for disparities, that America is built on stolen land, and that there are many genders.

This study is significant because, over the past two years, debates about education policy have occupied an increasingly prominent place in political discourse. In particular, ideas on the proper way to instruct on subjects like race and gender have been hotly disputed. Backlash over perceived indoctrination into extreme theories of race and gender — as well as the exclusion of parents in the educational process — have decided major elections in some states.

However, up to this point, there has been a glaring issue with these debates: they have been largely based on anecdotes. The findings of the Manhattan Institute’s study are important because they represent the first time we have been able to put some real numbers to phenomena that many have only observed anecdotally.

Thus, we should examine the findings in more detail to find out how we ought to move forward.

Ever since journalists such as Christopher Rufo and Bari Weiss began highlighting examples of “institutional capture” of the education system by politically-driven actors, skeptics have often claimed that CSJ concepts are not being taught in schools. This assertion has been promoted by the leaders of teacher unions, cable news hosts, and politicians.

The issue is, and this study confirms, that their claim is simply not accurate. As noted, 93 percent of respondents affirmed that they had heard at least one CSJ concept “from a teacher or other adult at school.”

If these concepts were being introduced as one perspective among many, then there would be no issue with the fact students have been exposed to them. After all, if one wishes to give students an accurate picture of the competing visions of society, then it would be dishonest to exclude all CSJ concepts.

The issue is that the Manhattan Institute study confirms that K-12 schools are effectively indoctrinating students into radical — revolutionary, even — political ideologies. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said that, when taught, “These concepts are introduced as the only respectable approach to race, gender, and sexuality in American society.” This means various perspectives were not weighed against one another, but rather kids are being led to believe that only one view is legitimate. When one considers how impressionable K-12 students are, along with the fact teachers have a fair amount of sway over the way their students think, the issue here becomes apparent.

Click here for Deltapoll Survey results.

This is also concerning because CSJ presents a vision of America that is at best unorthodox and at worst destructive. In Critical Race Theory: An Introduction — which is among the most influential textbooks on the subject — the authors write that “critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.” In other words, critical race theory opposes the basic tenants of the American founding. Ibram X. Kendi, a leading “anti-racist” author — whose writing has been brought into many schools — has written that “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

There is simply no justification for schools across the country to present this as the only viable perspective.

The study demonstrates that the prevalence of CSJ concepts — and the way they have been introduced — is having real effects on students. Data presented in the report show that the more CSJ concepts kids have been exposed to, the more left-wing they are in their politics — as measured in a variety of ways in the study.

It should be clear that this approach is an improper use of the state — which should be educating, not indoctrinating, students. It not only gives children an incomplete picture of the world around them, but also creates a civil society that is more prone to intolerance of dissenting views. After all, if one was led to believe only one perspective was legitimate, then it is natural to then believe that it is important to shut out all “illegitimate” views — both socially and maybe even legislatively. This is concerning because pluralism and tolerance are indispensable to a healthy and vibrant political culture.

Critics of the educational approach detailed above often assume their enemies are the traditional public school system and public sector teacher unions. One thing that this study demonstrates, though, is that this problem is by no means exclusive to traditional public schools. Rather, this type of instruction on race and gender has made its way into private schools, parochial schools, and even homeschools; indeed, CSJ was shown to be just as prevalent in private schools as it is in public schools.

This observation is why the title of the study is “School Choice Is Not Enough.” The authors recognize that this issue is not relegated to traditional public schools, which means that advancing choice and privatization will not make the problem go away.

This is true, but it does not mean school choice should not still be promoted. After all, studies show that school choice programs are associated with better educational outcomes. Additionally, public sector teacher unions inflict considerable damage on the traditional public school system — and, by extension, the children in those schools. This means that we should recognize school choice as beneficial, but not as a panacea.

The fact that these ideas are being taught everywhere — not just in traditional public schools — suggests a deeper problem than is often assumed. It is not just about the traditional public school structure, but about an ascendant culture that — much like the instruction outlined — assumes that CSJ concepts are the capital-T Truth. Thus, in order to fight against it, and remove indoctrination in schools, it is important to address it on a cultural level. Private and parochial schools will only stop if, culturally, the tide turns decisively away from these ideas and towards those that have traditionally characterized American philosophy — ideas of liberty, virtue, pluralism, and meritocracy.

The significant exception to this “cultural argument” is when it comes to public schools. The reason is simple: the government decides the curriculum. Taking action on this front would therefore be a way of correcting government overreach. In particular, impartiality laws, curriculum transparency laws, and audits of existing instruction and employee training — as the study recommends — are reasonable measures to ensure the government is not being used as a tool of indoctrination for CSJ.

This would hopefully, in turn, help shift the culture towards a more balanced classroom in all schools.

This issue has been brewing for a long time, but only now do we have the data to back up our suspicions and anecdotal understanding. This study represents a comprehensive statement of the problem.

Now it is our job to fight back.

AUTHOR

Jack Elbaum

Jack Elbaum was a Hazlitt Writing Fellow at FEE and is a junior at George Washington University. His writing has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The New York Post, and the Washington Examiner. You can contact him at jackelbaum16@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @Jack_Elbaum.

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

Here Are The Sexually Explicit Books Florida Is Working To Remove From Public Schools

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  • Florida public school districts have removed over 100 books for containing content that is pornographic, violent or not age-appropriate, the Daily Caller News Foundation learned.
  • The books included “This Book is Gay,” “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” all of which include graphic references to sex.
  • Florida law requires librarians and media specialists to undergo training before selecting material that is age-appropriate, and it has a law prohibiting the distribution of pornographic material to minors.

Florida schools have removed more than 100 books that contain pornographic material during the 2022-2023 academic year in order to comply with state law, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

A survey of local school districts found that 153 of 175 books were removed the the district for including pornographic, violent or age-inappropriate content, according to a document obtained by the DCNF. The removed books included “This Book is Gay,” “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” all of which contain sexually explicit depictions according to snippets shared by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.

“This Book Is Gay” is described as an informational book about growing up in the LGBTQ+ community and includes a section about the “ins and outs of gay sex,” according to Sourcebooks. Taryn Feske, DeSantis’ communication director, shared a page from the book that defines sex terminology including “rimming,” “scat,” “scissor sisters” and “strap-on.”

Feske also shared pages from “Gender Queer,” an autobiography from author Maia Kobabe who uses e/em/eir pronouns, that depict two characters attempting oral sex by using a strap-on. The book also depicts the characters sexting, masturbating and tasting themselves.

“Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears,” the book description reads.

“Let’s Talk About It” includes an image of two people engaging in anal sex and a diagram of an anus, according to pages of the book shared to Twitter.

“When it comes to reproducing, the penis and the vagina can fit together to form the ultimate baby-making machine. Let’s take a peek right now and see how —” the book reads.

It also explains that “your genitals exist to let you feel pleasure with yourself or others (no matter which genitals they may have)” and promotes hookup culture.

“Sexual intimacy is a powerful way to feel good and bond with another person, whether it’s for a night or a lifetime,” the book reportedly reads.

“It’s Perfectly Normal,” advertised for children ages 10 and older, includes sections on masturbation, heterosexual and gay sex and all gender restrooms.

Only 23 districts out of 56 reported to remove books from the schools and a majority of books were removed from the schools’ media center and not classrooms. The number of books removed for having inappropriate content may be higher because 13% of reports did not include a specific reason for removal.

DeSantis signed legislation in March 2022 that requires school districts to be “transparent” about the material being taught in public schools. House Bill 1467 required those involved in selecting school library books to undergo training prepared by the state Department of Education beginning in January 2023 before selecting age-appropriate materials.

Florida law also prohibits distributing pornographic materials to minors under section 847.012, which reads that a person cannot distribute on school property “any picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion picture film, videocassette, or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts nudity or sexual conduct” to minors.

Videos circulating on social media appeared to show empty book shelves at a Duval County public school, according to First Coast News. DeSantis challenged this video on Tuesday and said it was a “fake narrative.”

“That was not true,” DeSantis reportedly said, according to First Coast News. “This is trying to create some narrative as if that they hadn’t even put the books out yet to begin with. So there’s no need for all of that stuff. What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to act like somehow, you know, we don’t want books.”

Eighty-four percent of books removed from Duval County schools contained pornographic, violent or inappropriate content, according to data provided to the DCNF.

Tracy Pierce, Duval County Public Schools chief of marketing and public relations, confirmed to the DCNF the video was fake.

“Yes, this video is an outstanding example of deceptive and false narrative,” Pierce said. “The videographer took great care only to show a portion of the media center where books were removed. At that time, an extensive array of non-fiction books, biographies and reference materials remained in stock and accessible. In fact, well over half of the books in the library were still available to students.”

AUTHOR

ALEXA SCHWERHA

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.

At Least 269 K-12 Educators Arrested on Child Sex Crimes in First 9 months of 2022

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Who is hiring these pedophiles. Pull your children out of government schools. Democrats hate you. What more effective way of destroying and our wonderful country then by abusing your children and shredding the family?

At least 269 K-12 educators arrested on child sex crimes in first 9 months of this year

74% of the arrests involved alleged crimes against students

By Jessica Chasmar | Fox News October 14, 2022:

Virginia counselor charged twice for sex crimes allowed to work for nearly two years

Fox News’ Mike Emmanuel reports on a Fairfax County, Virginia, twice-convicted sex offender who was allowed to work for nearly two years before being fired.

Nearly 270 public educators were arrested on child sex-related crimes in the U.S. in the first nine months of this year, ranging from grooming to raping underage students.

An analysis conducted by Fox News Digital found that from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, at least 269 educators were arrested, which works out to roughly one arrest a day.

The 269 educators included four principals, two assistant principals, 226 teachers, 20 teacher’s aides and 17 substitute teachers.

At least 199 of the arrests, or 74%, involved alleged crimes against students.

TRUSTEE OF TRANSGENDER KIDS’ CHARITY RESIGNS AFTER UNEARTHED SPEECH TO GROUP FOR ‘MINOR-ATTRACTED PERSONS’

The analysis looked at local news stories week by week featuring arrests of K-12 principals, assistant principals, teachers, substitute teachers and teachers’ aides on child sex-related crimes in school districts across the country. Arrests that weren’t publicized were not counted in the analysis, meaning the true number may well be higher.

Only 43 of the alleged crimes, or 16%, did not involve students. It is not known whether another 10% of the alleged crimes involved students.

Men also made up the vast majority, with over 80% of the arrests.

OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY PLACES PROFESSOR ON LEAVE AFTER INTERVIEW DEFENDING ‘MINOR-ATTRACTED PERSONS’

There are an estimated 3.2 million public school teachers in the country, meaning the arrests compiled by Fox News Digital make up only 0.0084%.
placeholder

“The number of teachers arrested for child sex abuse is just the tip of the iceberg — much as it was for the Catholic Church prior to widespread exposure and investigation in the early 2000s,” Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “The best available academic research, published by the Department of Education, suggests that nearly 10% of public school students suffer from physical abuse between kindergarten and twelfth grade.”

“According to that research, the scale of sexual abuse in the public schools is nearly 100 times greater than that of the Catholic Church,” he said. “The question for critics who seek to downplay the extent of public-school sexual abuse is this: How many arrests need to happen before you consider it a problem? How many children need to be sexually abused by teachers before you consider it a crisis?”

Many of the arrests in Fox News Digital’s latest analysis involved especially heinous allegations.
Eugene Pratt, a former principal, elementary school teacher and coach who taught at-risk youth in multiple Michigan public schools, is accused of sexually assaulting at least 15 boys and young adult men over the course of several decades.

Eugene Pratt, a former principal, elementary school teacher and coach who taught at-risk youth in multiple Michigan public schools, is accused of sexually assaulting at least 15 boys and young adult men over the course of several decades. (Genesee County Sheriff’s Office)

Eugene Pratt, 57, a former principal, elementary school teacher and coach who taught at-risk youth in multiple Michigan public schools, was charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct in August. He is accused of sexually assaulting at least 15 boys and young adult men during his education career spanning several decades.

Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, whose office is investigating Pratt, told ClickOnDetroit in August that sexual predators often put themselves in a supervisory position so that they have easy access to victims.

“When you see positions that he held that involve being a principal, school administrator, counselor, GED coordinator, and even after he taught, where he was arrested last week out of New Paths, as a driver, as a transport officer,” Swanson said. “Individuals like Eugene Pratt put themselves in positions of authority over others in order to act on their prey and to find and identify vulnerable people.”

Keep reading…..

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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American Parents Who Protest Schools are Terrorists. Muslim Parents are ‘Multifaceted’

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You can’t treat Muslims like terrorists.

The wave of protests against sexual materials and agendas in schools spreading around the country appeared in Dearborn, Michigan. Islamists in America had long grappled with how to manage both their leftist alliances and the sexual agendas of those allies. Most opted for public expressions of support and private repression. The breach broke out in the open in Dearborn with videos of angry Arab Muslims, among others, speaking out at school board meetings.

They waved signs, booed speakers, and denounced the board members. The same sort of stuff that led Biden and Garland’s DOJ to illegally coordinate a school board association letter preparing to treat them like terrorists.

But they can’t treat Muslims like terrorists.

The sheer awkwardness was captured by the local NPR affiliate’s story on the protests.

.Community members within the Dearborn Public School District have been in heated debate over several LGBTQ-positive books and their availability to students. The debate in Dearborn came to a head at a school board meeting this week.

It’s not the first time a religious, conservative group has opposed the availability of books that include LGBTQ-positive stories and sentiments.

However, unlike we’ve seen before, many of those religious conservatives are Muslim. It’s the first time someone other than Evangelicals and far-right constituents have been a sizeable force in the protests at the school board.

Reporter Niraj Warikoo provided some context on this multifaceted issue. We also heard from someone who’s taken a stand in favor of age-appropriate, LGBTQ-positive books.

When American parents protest sexual materials being inflicted on their kids, it’s terrorism. But when Muslims protest, it’s “multifaceted”.

That’s especially true since the local CAIR appeared to be involved in guiding some parents behind the scenes while cautioning them away from public protests. Others however, with fewer woke alliances, took a more vocal stand.

One of Michigan’s most prominent faith leaders, Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini of the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, urged people during his Friday sermon to attend the protests.

“Some of those books are completely inappropriate for our children to read,” Al-Qazwini said. “Some of those books promote pornography. Some of them promote homosexuality. We don’t need this. Go and attend this meeting.”

Al-Qazwini and others said that they have the democratic right to decide what is appropriate in their schools since their faith is now in the majority. Dearborn is about 47% Arab American, most of them Muslim, and Dearborn Heights is about one-third Arab American, according to census data

What’s the Left going to do? Shut up and take it. At least in public. And explain how multifaceted it all is, and double down on pushing this stuff anyway. Publicly, dissent is impossible. And impracticable. The Left hopes to run the same routine that it did with the black community, but it doesn’t understand the territory. Or the players.

They’re the majority and they mean it.

When similar incidents happened in the UK, there was some handwringing and inspectors were sent to investigate Jewish and Christian schools. Expect the media and activist lefties to loudly shift attention back to safer targets. And then call them terrorists.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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MICHIGAN: Dearborn Muslims protest LGBTQ agenda at school board meeting, Muslim leader calls protest ‘very embarrassing’

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This protest was “very embarrassing” for everyone concerned. The far-Left Detroit Free Press pseudo-journalist Niraj Warikoo says that even “a heavy police presence” couldn’t keep the meeting from “descending into chaos,” and this is especially “embarrassing” for local Muslim leaders such as Osama Siblani, as they know that Leftists are their staunchest and most dependable allies. If the Leftist-Islamic alliance splits, events could take an ugly turn, especially given the Left’s increased penchant for authoritarianism.

But this is also embarrassing for the Leftist school board members for they would rather have their teeth pulled out one by one with rusty pliers than appear to be “Islamophobic,” and yet they can’t appease the Muslims in Dearborn in this instance without giving up their cherished gender fantasies and relentless agenda of sexualizing children. So who will give? The appalling Niraj Warikoo is staunchly on the LGBTQ side, as you can tell here from his editorializing at the end of his article, where he says “As Stone walked away, a protester yelled at him a phrase advocates note is often used to make bigoted attacks against gay people based on inaccurate stereotypes: ‘Leave our kids alone.’” What will Warikoo do when all the friends he has made in the Muslim community over the years with his relentlessly biased coverage turn on him because of nasty little digs like that one?

“Protesters shut down Dearborn school board meeting over LGBTQ books,” by Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press, October 11, 2022:

Hundreds of protesters packed a Dearborn Public Schools board meeting this week and shut it down with cries of anger over certain LGBTQ books they said are too sexually explicit for children. And now, some community leaders anxiously await a rescheduled meeting set for Thursday night as others call for calm.

A heavy police presence failed to prevent the Monday night meeting from descending into chaos as demonstrators took it over and then various factions within them jostled for control, shouting at each other. Protesters often ignored the requests of police officers to stop interrupting board members.

It was unclear who was in control of the meeting at times. Most of the crowd appeared to be in opposition to the books, but there were also a number of people with the the American Federation of Teachers union who showed up to support inclusion of LGBTQ people and others.

Not until Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin arrived later did the protesters stop their agitation. Shahin pleaded with the crowd to relax and not embarrass Dearborn. There was concern expressed by some community leaders that the protesters are making the city and its Arab American Muslim population look bad. But others said that as Muslims, they have to stand up for their faith….

“Vote them out!” the crowd repeatedly chanted during the raucous meeting inside an administrative center where the board holds its public meetings. The room was packed tightly, with many using an overflow room and others standing in the back and on the sides. Several held up signs with anti-gay rhetoric in English and Arabic, making religious references to assert that LGBTQ educational materials and books should not be available in Dearborn Public Schools, the third largest school district in Michigan. Some of the placards held up read: “Keep your porno books to yourself,” “Homosexuality Big Sin,” and “If democracy matters, we’re the majority.”

Most of the protesters appeared to be Arab American and Muslim. But others in the Arab American community strongly objected to the actions of the protesters Monday night.

“What happened tonight at the school board meeting in Dearborn is very embarrassing and is totally rejected,” Osama Siblani, publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News and a longtime community leader, wrote on Facebook. “Remember that the loss of any individual’s right to express himself/herself is the beginning of the end of all people’s rights … Remember that Islam is a religion of love, peace and tolerance, not a religion of insults, violence and threats.”

Aya Moughni, a Dearborn resident who is Muslim, also said earlier that Arab Americans should not be attacking the LGBTQ community. She spoke at a previous Dearborn rally in support of the books….

Police officers repeatedly told people who yelled out and interjected to keep quiet. But their efforts failed as the crowd’s anger grew. Part of the frustration was the board first addressed other issues not related to the books that most had showed up to discuss. They also didn’t like what some called a condescending attitude toward them and their concerns….

Brian Stone, who is part of the LGBTQ community, attended the meeting with a poster that displayed two photos next to each other: the one on the left said “1957” with a photo of whites screaming in anger at a Black woman, Hazel Bryan, attending a school in Little Rock, Arkansas that was integrated for the first time; the photo on the right said “2022,” with a photo of a man with an angry face giving the middle finger to Sam Smalley, a transgender person who was a counter-protester, at the Sept. 25 rally at the library against the books.

As he displayed the sign, Stone drew the attention of some angry men, including Chami.

“This is a community where everyone should be safe and they should be represented,” Stone said as they yelled.

Stone was later escorted to his car by two police officers, echoing the scene after the Sept. 25 rally, where several police officers had to escort Smalley to protect him as he walked to his car.

As Stone walked away, a protester yelled at him a phrase advocates note is often used to make bigoted attacks against gay people based on inaccurate stereotypes: “Leave our kids alone.”

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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Montgomery County Schools Saw 582% Increase In Reported Gender Nonconforming Students Over Two Years, Data Shows

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Maryland’s largest public school district saw a 582% increase the number of students identifying as gender nonconforming in just two years, according to internal data posted to an educator’s Twitter page.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) gathered this data from forms school counselors fill out when students approach them to talk about gender identity issues. Because the numbers rely on self-reporting, the near-sevenfold increase from 2019 to 2022 could indicate a massive increase in the number of gender-diverse students, an environment that encourages those students to be more open with counselors or both.

The data — which is not publicly available to parents or taxpayers — was posted to Twitter on Oct. 6 when educator Elicia Eberhart-Bliss shared an image of a slide show presented at a meeting of the district’s “Pride ALLiance.”

During the 2019-2020 school year, a total of 35 students reported gender nonconformity to a counselor, including four elementary students, 19 middle school students and 12 high schoolers. During the 2021-2022 school year the total number of students reporting gender nonconformity spiked to 239, including 18 elementary students, 129 middle schoolers and 92 high schoolers.

The data state that 423 students filled out the form with a counselor, and 45% of those students are considered “non-binary.” The data were collected across 84 schools, including 20 elementary schools.

Christopher Cram, the spokesman for MCPS, told the Daily Caller that a “full accounting” of LGBTQ+ students is “impossible,” as the data can only be compiled on students who fill out forms with the district.

“A full accounting of students who may identify as LGBTQ+ or gender nonconforming is impossible to know,” Cram said. “This information is covered by privacy rules and is only collected if a student offers that information to a counselor. Therefore a percentage ‘of’ or ‘rise’ cannot be determined to be considered accurate in any way.”

According to MCPS guidelines for dealing with students who identify as gender nonconforming, kids have a “right” to keep their in-school gender identities private. The form used to collect data on which students identify as gender nonconforming states that parents can be involved only “if the student states that [the parents] are aware of and supportive of the student’s gender identity.”

Bethany Mandel, a conservative activist and parent in the Montgomery County area, told the Caller that the data show an “explosion” of gender-confused children.

“This isn’t data that the outside world has seen before; it was accidentally shared and is incredibly illuminating,” Mandel said. “There is a clear explosion of gender-confused children year-over-year, and it’s clear the majority of those are legitimately children, middle school and below. This isn’t just a Montgomery County problem, it’s nationwide; we were just able to get a glimpse of the data here.”

Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist and journalist, argued in an August Substack post that the definition of “transgender” was edited in recent years to be synonymous with people who are gender nonconforming, leading to a spike in transgender-identifying people.

If a girl gravitates toward trucks and cars as a child, she is considered “gender nonconforming” and “transgender,” even if she shows no signs of gender dysphoria, according to Wright’s analysis. This expanded definition is used by prestigious medical institutions and activism hubs including the American Medical Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Planned Parenthood.

“It is urgent that we all fully understand that the definition of transgenderism used by our most highly regarded scientific, medical, and human rights institutions now literally encompasses common gender nonconformity, and this is the main reason so many children are now claiming to be transgender,” Wright wrote.

AUTHOR

CHRISSY CLARK

Education reporter.

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