Public schools will be handing out condoms to fifth graders in Chicago next fall. Bureaucrats have decided that “society has changed,” and parents must comply.
These school district officials seemingly want parents to think that it is normal for their 10-year-old to be carrying around and using condoms — a clearly immoral and socially damaging assertion. The absurdity professed in Chicago serves as an indictment of a public school system that radicals have infiltrated thoroughly, and they are hell-bent on socially engineering children to conform to their perverse worldview.
School choice provides parents a means to avoid the degeneracy that is being pushed in government-run schools. As such, it ought to be expanded.
Though Illinois has comparatively strong school choice legislation on the books, it’s not enough for all parents to prevent the corruption of their children’s innocence that is occurring within Chicago’s schoolhouses. The state offers tax-subsidized scholarships varying in size depending on family income, but it lacks a universal voucher system like the one in neighboring Indiana. Vouchers allow parents the greatest degree of control over where and how their children are educated.
A traditional Catholic family should not have to deal with their children being overtly sexualized by the state, nor should Orthodox Jews worry about their children being exposed to toxic gender ideologies. If parents are given control over where their children attend school, they can enjoy peace of mind that they don’t have to be constantly working against the progressive dogma of their respective school district to preserve their families’ values.
How out of touch are those trying to indoctrinate these children? Simply read the full-throated defenses of critical race theory fielded by teachers unions. That already provides abundant grounds to expand the avenues available to get students out of public schools. Private schools may only be marginally superior in terms of overall quality, but with the teachers union’s own public propaganda, combined with this new push to encourage sexual behavior by fifth-graders, it is simply no longer possible to preserve the innocence of children in the public system.
Most people do not have the luxury of living in states with generous school choice provisions. Attempting to change laws to be more school-choice-friendly at the state level is a herculean endeavor, given the stranglehold teachers unions have on many legislatures.
However, parents can get involved at the local level to ensure that elementary schoolers are not given condoms in their hometowns. Mothers and fathers have been mobilized across the nation to reshape school boards in opposition to the implementation of critical race theory. While this development is encouraging, it is worrisome that such efforts may only be temporary.
Education is among the most consequential areas of public policy. What we teach children is instrumental in shaping the way the next generation of Americans will think. All of us have a stake in making sure the education young people receive promotes traditional values, civic engagement, and patriotism.
School board politics must become a permanent fixture of Republican organizing. Parents need to run, PACs need to provide funding, and community activists need to sound alarm bells when bad actors try to corrupt children. Conservatives must play an active role in ensuring that tomorrow’s voters are not brainwashed by today’s radicals.
