If there is any benefit to the remote learning disaster of the past year, it’s that parents are finally beginning to understand what the public school system is doing to their children.
Because of the pandemic, many families have gotten a closer look at the material their children are being taught, and they’re not happy with what they’ve seen. Instead of traditional subjects such as literature and biology, students have been getting a crash course in leftist ideology. Transgenderism is the new science. Anti-racism is the new common core. They’re trying to brainwash an entire generation, and most parents didn’t even realize it until now.
At least parents are starting to fight back. In New York, a mother went viral after she confronted her local school board for approving a curriculum that teaches students “to hate the police” and tells them they’re “homophobic” if they “don’t agree with the LGBT community.”
“You work for me,” the mother, Tatiana Ibrahim, said. “I don’t work for you. You have a duty. We are entrusting our children to you. We teach our children morals, values. You’re emotionally abusing our children and mentally abusing them. You’re demoralizing them by teaching them communist values. This is still America … And as long as I’m standing here on this good ground Earth of God, I will fight. This is not the last of me you will see. I’m retired. I have nothing else better to do.”
Ibrahim didn’t mention specifics, but there are plenty of examples from public schools across the nation that prove her concerns are justified. In Iowa, for example, the Ames Community School District recently came under fire for requiring students at all grade levels to participate in a “Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action.” One of the worksheets students were given during this week of presentations stated, “Everyone gets to choose if they are a girl or a boy or both or neither or someone else, and no one else gets to choose for them.”
This worksheet appears trivial when compared to the pro-transgender policies being enforced in other parts of the country. In Montgomery County, Maryland, educators are actively hiding information about students’ gender identity preferences from parents. The county’s policies allow administrators to help students begin their gender transition by using their “preferred pronouns” and allowing them to use the restroom of their choice without ever consulting the parents.
When this practice was challenged in court by several concerned parents, the county issued a serious threat: If school administrators believe parents are unsupportive of their child’s transgenderism, they will take action to determine whether a student “faces significant dangers of abuse at home from unsupportive families.” In other words, the school system will work to take your children away from you if you don’t comply.
The public school system’s acceptance of critical race theory poses another insidious threat. This doctrine teaches students that systemic racism will always exist, that if they are white, they are a part of the problem for no reason other than the fact that they are white, and that they must reform their worldview accordingly.
In some cases, critical race theory has resulted in outright discrimination against young children who don’t know any better. One example is from Loudoun County, Virginia, where five families have alleged in a recent lawsuit that the public schools’ anti-racist curriculum encouraged discrimination on the basis of race. The lawsuit cites one specific example: the district’s Student Equity Ambassador Network, which it launched last fall. This organization chooses three student ambassadors from each middle and high school to meet regularly with school district officials. White students, however, need not apply, according to an initial publication about the program, which said, “This opportunity is specifically for students of color.”
This toxic and divisive narrative is everywhere. Even if you live in a red state, there is a strong likelihood that your public school system has adopted parts of the Leftist dogma that is sweeping the culture. And the only way that changes is if bold parents such as those in Virginia, Maryland, and New York make it clear they won’t stand for it.
The public school system is long overdue for a reckoning. It’s time parents give them one.
