By: Tom Tancredo
The Governor of Oregon just signed a bill that removes reading, writing, and math as skills necessary to graduate from their state school system. Attacks on knowledge are ongoing so as to stamp out these racist characteristics.
A Fairfax County, Virginia, elementary school recently provided an online course for second graders that “taught” them through videos created by a person named Ki. This person says many things describe “her” (which she evidently is), but gender isn’t one of them. She then goes on to do a lesson on what makes her feel safe. One situation stood out. She felt safe when there were no police around. Another video explained that it’s okay to break the law if it’s for a good cause (ala the Black Lives Matter excuse for mayhem and murder).
Every day, in schoolrooms around the nation, kids are being brainwashed by woke teachers, prodded on by left-wing school boards and their fundamentally Marxist teachers unions. There is so little fear of being too overt about what goes on behind the closed doors of good ol’ PS 189 that schools and teachers now advertise their wokeness and pride in providing curricula that include the racist 1619 Project and even more racist Critical Race Theory.
Teachers are now signing manifestos saying they will continue to indoctrinate children in racist and Marxist ideologies even if their states pass laws to curtail the use of such propaganda. (By the way, I do not support laws like this, as I speak out against liberal censorship all the time and have written several columns on its hazards, regardless of target.)
No laws can change the fact that Marxist bias is baked into the public school system.
So let me suggest an even better solution, one I’m stealing from Florida governor Ron DeSantis. First, the problem: Some Florida schools are ignoring his executive order that only parents can decide whether their children wear masks in school. The solution: Allow those parents to claim their share of the insurrectionist school district’s education funding and used it to send their kids to private schools.
Bravo. Covid has had at least one good result: More and more parents are realizing the utter corruption of government schools and are actively seeking alternatives.
In 1992, I wrote and raised the money to put a voucher amendment on the ballot in Colorado. I had been a teacher and had seen the stranglehold that the teachers unions had on the system. I knew that the only hope was some form of school choice that would force the public school monopoly to compete for students. Naturally, the unions went berserk; as I’ve always said, saying “voucher” to a teachers union member is like punching a vampire in the face with a crucifix brass knuckle.
The result? They outspent us 10 to 1, and we lost, as the vampires used their vast funding to successfully portray school choice as a threat to your child’s favorite teacher. I wrote a small pamphlet for our side that said you could win any argument with a voucher opponent by using a single word to counter every anti-voucher assertion. It went something like this:
Voucher Opponent: You don’t support those school vouchers, do you?
Voucher Supporter: Yes. Why?
VO: Well, they are terrible!
VS: Really? Why?
VO: Because they will destroy public schools!
VS: Really? Why?
VO: Because everyone will leave public schools!
VS: Really? Why?
End of argument.
Anti-choice “educators” admit via their own opposition that if you give a key to the door that financially locks down millions of parents inside public schools, almost all of them would make a break for it — which of course tells you what they themselves think about the quality of the government school product they are defending from competition.
School choice is the only hope we have to reform the education system to turn out graduates who can read and write and think for themselves, not ignorant sheep bathed in Marxist propaganda. Without competition, the government school monopoly will always be able to indoctrinate and intellectually abuse our children. The system, which now holds the purse strings, will not go down without a fight, but I think more and more parents are ready to revolt (search “school board meeting explode” and watch what comes up!). In a true education choice arena, there will be public and private schools that succeed and fail. So be it. It is only through the ability to fail that we can see what success is, what works, and what parents want for their children. Today, however, government schools can’t fail because they are connected to the public treasury with steel cables that defy cutting.
I would give almost anything to hear even one government-school teacher or administrator say: “Vouchers? Bring them on. We are confident that our educational offerings are so good that we welcome the chance to prove it!”
I won’t be holding my breath, though.
Quick Poll:
More from America’s Citizen Press
More you might like
It’s all control, dummies are easier to control, parents better start taken back their schools.
Agreed.
Great article! Now is the time to have the dollars follow the students!
Good idea.