There’s One Key Issue That Could Decide The 2024 GOP Primaries thumbnail

There’s One Key Issue That Could Decide The 2024 GOP Primaries

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By The Daily Caller

Education issues such as Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender ideology are likely to become a key factor in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries as candidates attempt to appeal to the GOP base, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

While only former President Donald Trump has officially declared, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is expected to announce a run, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as several other Republican governors and former governors, have either laid the groundwork or hinted at possible campaigns.  As state-level executives, these candidates have a proven track record on education that may prove pivotal as the issue has become a political and cultural flashpoint in recent years, experts told the DCNF.

“To win the GOP primary, this is a smart strategy,” Dr. Keith Gaddie, Oklahoma University professor and political scientist, told the DCNF, adding that candidates’ background in enacting state-level education policy would “no doubt” be a valuable asset to their campaigns.

In 2021, DeSantis expanded Florida’s school choice program and in March 2022 signed the Parental Rights in Education Act into law, barring teachers from educating K-3 students on topics such as sexual orientation and gender ideology. Most recently, he pressured the College Board to alter its AP African American Studies course and announced legislation to provide core curricula “rooted in Western tradition” and eliminate the emphasis on CRT and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in Florida universities.

“Education is going to be a big issue in the Republican primaries mostly because it has (finally) dawned on folks on the right that the interests of State schools might not always align with the interests of the parents. That has probably been true for 100 years; not sure why it has taken so long for folks to figure that out,” Michael McKenna, president of MWR Strategies, told the DCNF.

Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has also been the subject of much speculation as to whether he will launch a presidential campaign, though the governor has yet to commit to a run. Youngkin won Virginia in 2021 on the back of a “parents’ rights” platform in a blue-leaning state, frequently arguing for parents to play a greater role in their child’s education.

Since his election, the governor has continued to stress education issues; recently, Virginia’s Attorney General Jason Miyares launched an investigation into Virginia high schools after certain schools withheld merit awards from students, allegedly out of concern for “equity,” while Youngkin proposed a “merit protection bill” that made it through the state’s House Education Committee on Jan. 25.

Youngkin has also made school choice a central part of his education policy, frequently pushing to expand Virginia’s program and investing in charter schools.

“It is pretty safe to say that the next Republican presidential nominee is going to be in favor of funding students not systems,” McKenna said.

Candidates will likely what cite what they’ve done on education within their state and their plans to nationalize these reforms if elected president, Dr. Charles Bullock, professor of political science at the University of Georgia and an American Enterprise Institute Fellow, told the DCNF.

“It would make sense, particularly for these individuals who have had terms in the governor’s desk, to talk about education and what they would do about it, and they would do it with some degree of expertise,” Bullock said.

He noted that that such state-level experience gives these potential candidates an advantage over Trump, and it would be wise to stress the issue.

“President Trump has not emphasized the issue, so it allows for some asymmetrical attacks from challengers, especially those who have been governors and been in the middle of the brawl,” McKenna said.

Trump released a preview of his education plan in January detailing proposed reforms should he win the presidency. The plan aims to “restore power to American parents” and remove CRT and gender ideology from American classrooms.

“Our public schools have been taken over by the radical left maniacs,” Trump said in the video. “At the end of the day, if we have pink-haired communists teaching our kids, we have a major problem.”

“Education will resonate well with the electorate, particularly those folks who have children, they’re desperately concerned about having their children prepared to succeed,” Bullock said. “It’s a good issue to run on.”

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has also leaned into the education issue, especially in recent years, targeting CRT and advocating for educational reforms.

“[M]ore school choice, more pathways to college degrees, more college alternatives, and more workforce training for people of all ages. Education can’t be allowed to hold anyone back. Every child deserves a world-class education that helps them get ahead – regardless of where they are born and raised,” the former governor said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in 2021.

Haley released a video Wednesday teasing her entrance into the race, ahead of her expected official announcement on Feb. 15.

In Florida, we will ensure that taxpayer-funded higher ed institutions focus on pursuing truth, promoting excellence, and providing students with a foundation so they can think for themselves, not to enforce ideological conformity and political activism. pic.twitter.com/OOz5iO1Jwr

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) January 31, 2023

Similarly, DeSantis’ advisors have been holding preliminary meetings to discuss a 2024 presidential campaign, the most recent suggestion that the governor is likely to jump into the GOP primary, according to The Washington Post.

“Schools have become a hot plate for activism, at the expense of core academics. This will make a lot of parents single-issue voters in 2024; that issue will be the current state of public education in America,” Mailyn Salabarria, Director of Community Engagement for Parents Defending Education, said in a statement forwarded to the DCNF.

Republicans have also made up serious ground on Democrats on the education issue, with voters just barely preferring Democrats to manage education over Republicans, according to a polling memo from the Republican National Convention.

“Voters are most concerned with kids not learning enough basic life skills AND the long-term effects of COVID on emotional and educational development. While masks on seven-year-olds and CRT is a concern, it is not the driving force. If Republicans solely focus there, they are missing a wide swath of voters open to the Republican message on education,” the memo read.

Donald Trump: “I will be the President to finally fix this education in America…We will not let men, as an example, participate in women’s sports.” pic.twitter.com/RYCx8H550E

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 16, 2022

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

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.

“Kid-Friendly” Sexualized Drag Show In Arizona City Funded By Taxpayers thumbnail

“Kid-Friendly” Sexualized Drag Show In Arizona City Funded By Taxpayers

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By The Geller Report

They’re coming for your children and they they expect you to pay for it. Deviants and pedophiles are driving the left’s culture war.

Save your children. First, pull them out of government schools.

All-Ages Drag Show In Arizona City Funded By Taxpayers?

It turns out that the local mayor not only manages the venue the event was held at, but also voted for $1.6M in tax funding for the tourism company promoting the show.

By: Ray Dietrich, Red Voice Media, February 9, 2023:

An all-ages drag show was held at the London Bridge resort in Lake Havasu City, Arizona on February 4th. Prior to the event taking place, protestors in the community made their voices heard and caused public discussion about children attending sexualized drag shows. The protestors made it clear they weren’t necessarily against drag shows but against children attending. Protestors compared the drag show to strip clubs where attendees must be adults. Of course, the local news ran with the leftist framed story, which goes something like “bigots hate trans people,” which isn’t the case.

Check out some video footage and pictures from the show:

As you can see in the video, during their quest to grab $1 bills, the performers shook what their momma didn’t make them, and some even pulled off, thrusting pelvis tricks on stage to the all-aged crowd.

I know what you’re thinking, another day, another drag show where children get to attend… but here’s where it gets weird(er). Lake Havasu City is in Mohave County, which happened to vote 74% for Trump in 2020, just to give you an idea of how ‘red’ it is. The Lake Havasu City mayor and city council are considered to be non-partisan but let their political leanings be known.

When you visit Mayor Cal Sheehy’s website, you see pictures of him with America First political superstars including Rep. Paul Gosar, Rep. Andy Biggs, AZ State Rep Leo Biasiucci, and AZ State Senator Sonny Borrelli. One would think this non-partisan mayor is attempting to show himself as a conservative Republican.

Yes, Cal, the non-partisan who pimps pictures hanging out with leaders of the America First movement runs the venue that held the drag show. Keep in mind Cal’s voters are overwhelmingly conservative. Unfortunately, this isn’t even the worst part.

Let’s take a look at the money trail. The event was promoted by Go Lake Havasu, which is under the parent company, Lake Havasu Tourism Bureau, Inc.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

“Objectivity Has Got To Go”: News Leaders Call For End Of Objective Journalism thumbnail

“Objectivity Has Got To Go”: News Leaders Call For End Of Objective Journalism

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By Tyler Durden

We previously discussed the movement in journalism schools to get rid of principles of objectivity in journalism. Advocacy journalism is the new touchstone in the media even as polls show that trust in the media is plummeting. Now, former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward have released the results of their interviews with over 75 media leaders and concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”

Notably, while Bob Woodword and others have finally admitted that the Russian collusion coverage lacked objectivity and resulted in false reporting, media figures are pushing even harder against objectivity as a core value in journalism.

We have been discussing the rise of advocacy journalism and the rejection of objectivity in journalism schools. Writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and his key advisers. This movement includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.

Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll decried how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.”

He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”

Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.”…..

*****

Continue reading this article at Zero Hedge.

UNTOLD TRUTHS: War Crimes of the Confederates and Post-War Democrats (From the Rogue Review) thumbnail

UNTOLD TRUTHS: War Crimes of the Confederates and Post-War Democrats (From the Rogue Review)

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By Catherine Salgado

Below are sections from an article published in full at my column on The Rogue Review. It is a tremendously important article on a subject that is vitally important today, because we are living in a world created by the losers of the Civil War, not the winners—we are still dealing with the war’s aftermath. The Democrats have been lying for over a century, and it is time, in the interests of truth and justice, that we set the record straight.

What do you think of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis? What is your opinion of the Confederacy? Whether you think Lee a noble, principled hero or the worst of villains, I guarantee you there is history you do not know about him and Davis. Whether you have fallen for the Confederate myth or the critical race theory picture, or whether (like my younger self) you don’t much care either way, there are facts that have been hidden from you. If you don’t believe me, read this article.

First of all, a country that celebrates traitors is setting itself up for failure. That is true objectively, universally, and in every country—not just America. How can a nation possibly expect loyalty and patriotism from its citizens if it points to traitors, the men who tried to undermine or destroy it, and calls them heroes? This is especially true since most of the Confederates never disavowed either their cause or their war crimes.

Statues and monuments have inherent meanings, just as we would say a man’s body has inherent meaning and can never become a woman’s body, no matter what the man says or does to it. A beautiful, magnificent statue or painting is inherently celebratory, whatever we might say about it. Otherwise, why is there no monument to Benedict Arnold at West Point, where he served and where he then betrayed the Americans? Why does no statue of Himmler stand next to the gas chambers of Auschwitz? Which emphasizes another point—that statues and monuments are not necessary to preserve history. We remember Benedict Arnold just fine without monuments. We also seem to have very definite memories of King George III, even though the American revolutionaries tore down his statue and ornaments and melted them into bullets.

But did you know that it was the official policy of the Confederate Army and government to execute or enslave every black person the army encountered, and execute any Union white officer of black troops it captured? Have you ever read the Retaliatory Act?

A Dec. 1862 proclamation from Confederate President Jefferson Davis claimed that the Union’s policy of allowing black soldiers and other actions created a “war in its nature far exceeding in horrors the most merciless atrocities of the savages.”

Jefferson, therefore, ordered that all black soldiers and their white officers captured by the Confederacy were to be treated as slaves, and not soldiers deserving of POW treatment. This was followed in May 1863 by The Retaliatory Act of the Confederate Congress, which said it aimed to protect the “institution of African slavery” and ordered the execution of white officers of black troops directly, and ordered the deaths and enslavement of black POWs by handing them over to southern state laws. Soldiers weren’t the only ones targeted by the Confederates, either—the Confederate Army rounded up countless black civilians in several states (Pennsylvania’s black population was decimated) during the war and re-enslaved them, many of the victims subsequently lost to history.

But the greatest single war crime of the Confederate Army, and the worst illustration of the above policy’s enforcement, was the Ft. Pillow Massacre. If you haven’t heard of it, you do not know one of the most important events of the Civil War. Some estimate that around 200 black and white Union soldiers and civilians, even children, were slaughtered after surrendering to the Confederates under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest (yes, the future KKK founder), but Forrest himself estimated the number of his victims much higher—over 500. Robert E. Lee later unhesitatingly called Forrest his greatest general. It is essential to understand that the Confederates were proud of their horrendous deeds.

Lee, post-war, said on the question of black Americans being allowed to vote, “My own opinion is, that, at this time, they cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the right of suffrage would open the door to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways.”

The Confederates’ and Democrats’ crimes did not cease with the Civil War. Multiple states experienced terrible anti-black and anti-“Yankee”/Republican violence during Republican U.S. Grant’s presidency, including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina, according to H.W. Brands in The Man Who Saved the Union. There are multiple first-hand testimonies of this violence, which the perpetrators’ sympathizers rarely sought to conceal and often defended.

A cabinet member of Grant’s wrote in 1871 that cases of rape, violence, castration, and murder were detailed for the cabinet twice a week. But when Grant reluctantly (reluctantly only because he hated using federal force) sent troops on various occasions to stop the rapes, the shootings, the lynchings, and the harassment, the Democrats immediately began denouncing him as a tyrant and justifying the crimes.

I wish to make one final point, an appeal to my readers. I am not a Marxist, which means I am not anti-monument. What I suggest is that, after taking down Confederate statues and monuments, we erect in their places—perhaps out of the statues’ own materials—monuments to the great Patriots and civil rights heroes of American history.

*****
This article was published by Pro Deo et Libertate and is reproduced with permission.

Not One Student Was Proficient In Math In 23 Baltimore Schools: REPORT thumbnail

Not One Student Was Proficient In Math In 23 Baltimore Schools: REPORT

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By The Daily Caller

In 23 Baltimore City Schools, zero students tested proficient in math in 2022, according to a report by Project Baltimore.

Through an analysis of 150 Baltimore City Schools, 23 of them, including 10 high schools, eight elementary schools, three high schools and two middle schools, no students met math grade-level expectations, according to a report by Project Baltimore. Approximately 2,000 students took the state administered math exams that tested proficiency levels.

“It just sounds like these schools, now, have turned into essentially babysitters with no accountability,”  Jovani Patterson, a Baltimore resident who sued the district for not properly educating its students, told Fox 45 News. “This is the future of our city. We’ve got to change this.”

An additional 20 schools in the district had no more than two students proficient in math, Project Baltimore reported. Another three schools in the district, which are for incarcerated students and students with disabilities, had no students that met grade-level expectations.

Approximately 7% of third through eighth graders at Baltimore City School met grade level expectations in Math in 2022, according to the Maryland State Department of Education.

The report on Baltimore City Schools comes as the nation suffers historic learning loss; since 2020, the nation’s reading scores dropped to fall in line with numbers from 1990, while math scores fell for the first time from. Every state has seen a decline in its students’ math scores since 2019.

To combat the lack of proficiency in its students, the school district has implemented professional development for teachers and summer learning sessions, Fox 45 News reported.

“We’re confident these instructional strategies will help us regain the momentum and progress we experienced before the pandemic,” the district told Fox 45 News.

Baltimore City Schools did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Chicago Educators Get An ‘A+’ On Teaching While Their Students Get An ‘F’ On Reading

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.

‘Zombie Studies’: DeSantis Declares All-Out War on University DEI, CRT in Education Manifesto thumbnail

‘Zombie Studies’: DeSantis Declares All-Out War on University DEI, CRT in Education Manifesto

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By Family Research Council

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) last Tuesday rolled out a new education agenda designed to comprehensively recapture the state’s higher education system from woke ideologues. Instead, he set forth a conservative vision for a higher education system: “to focus on promoting academic excellence, the pursuit of truth, and to give students the foundation so they can think for themselves.” The proposals affect curriculum, faculty, funding, and more.

Proposed Reforms

DeSantis proposed reforms to Florida curriculum so that “everybody who goes through a Florida university has to take certain core course requirements that’s really focused on giving them the foundation so that they can think for themselves.” There is that phrase again — “think for themselves.” This is the essence of DeSantis’ proposals, and leftists work hard to smear it because they understand how popular that objective is.

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DeSantis offered specifics. “The core curriculum must be grounded in the actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization. Our institutions are going to be graduating students with degrees that are going to be meaningful. We don’t want students to go through, at taxpayer expense, and graduate with a degree in Zombie Studies.” Florida is already practicing this at the high school level. Earlier this year, Florida rejected a proposed high school curriculum for AP African-American studies because it was riddled with CRT-related concepts. Days later, The College Board (which produces the curriculum) released “a serious rewrite,” in the words of The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

DeSantis also proposed reforms to hiring and firing of higher education faculty. He identified two problems with the hiring process: a political process and a lack of control by those supposedly in charge. A lot of hiring decisions are “done by faculty committees,” he explained. “And if they have a certain worldview that they want to promote, those are the kinds of candidates they’re going to bring in. And, if you don’t toe that line, you’re not going to get hired.”

That’s not just a “blue state” problem. A WSJ op-ed from this week began, “At Texas Tech University, a candidate for a faculty job in the department of biological sciences was flagged by the department’s search committee for not knowing the difference between ‘equality’ and ‘equity.’ Another was flagged for his repeated use of the pronoun ‘he’ when referring to professors.”

Under DeSantis’ proposed changes, university presidents may “go out and recruit directly. Boards of Trustees will be able to do a lot of this approving directly. And that’s going to make a huge difference in terms of making sure, not only do we have high quality faculty, but we’re not applying some type of ideological litmus test to be able to be hired in the first place.”

Another problem DeSantis identified is the irresponsible behavior encouraged by life tenure. He said “the most deadweight cost” to universities comes from “unproductive tenured faculty.” Under his new proposals, tenured faculty must undergo a performance review every five years, and they would be liable to an impromptu performance review at any time.

DeSantis also announced his intention to defund all DEI and CRT programs at Florida universities, particularly DEI bureaucracies. “We are also going to eliminate all DEI and CRT bureaucracies in the state of Florida. No funding, and that will wither on the vine,” he said.

In a December 28 memo, the governor’s office required public universities to itemize all woke programs and expenditures and report them by January 13.

“They reported that, and it’s a lot of money. And it’s not the best use of your money,” said DeSantis. “Those bureaucracies are not representative of what the people of this state and the taxpayers of this state want.” DEI “bureaucracies are hostile to academic freedom,” he continued. “And really, they constitute a drain on resources and end up — certainly around the country — contributing to higher costs as these bureaucracies metastasize.”

DeSantis justified scrubbing DEI bureaucracies for two closely intertwined reasons, one ideological and one pragmatic. First, their purpose runs counter to the academic freedom most Americans expect from public universities; they are, essentially, wrong. Second, they’re just too expensive. They capture resources that can be better spent elsewhere — and more so as they continue to grow. Pairing these reasons is both accurate and politically astute. Together, they outflank any counterargument (such as suggesting DEI bureaucracies might possibly provide a marginal benefit) except the most radically left endorsement of critical theory — which voters rightly see as crazy.

By purifying the hiring process and distilling out DEI bureaucracies, DeSantis hopes to transform public higher education into a potable experience. Under Florida’s proposed system, FRC senior fellow for Education Studies Meg Kilgannon told The Washington Stand, “Professors and students will be able to learn in an environment freed from politically correct groupthink.”

DeSantis rounded out his policy proposals with targeted initiatives aimed at certain professions and institutions. He proposed that Florida research universities increase their research grants for STEM programs up to $50 million annually (thus draining resources that might be used for less serious, woke “research”). He endorsed his administration’s efforts to expand the training of Floridians to serve in critical, under-staffed occupations, such as nurses, truck drivers, and mechanics. He promoted the establishment of two constitution-focused centers at Florida State University in Tallahassee and Florida International University in Miami.

DeSantis also expressed concern over the plight of New College of Florida, an autonomous public institution since 2001. “In Florida statute, it’s supposed to be our premier liberal arts college,” he lamented. “Its mission has been more into the DEI, CRT ideology, rather than what a liberal arts education should be.” DeSantis chief of staff James Uthmeier said last month, “It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.”

In early January, DeSantis appointed six new members to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees, creating a conservative majority. Some of the appointees are widely known, such as Manhattan Institute fellow and CRT-exposer extraordinaire Christopher Rufo, Hillsdale College Professor Dr. Matthew Spalding, and former 1776 Commission member Charles Kesler.

It turns out that appointing conservatives to higher education boards — thus puncturing academia’s typical, boring, progressive sameness — excites potential applicants. “When we announced the trustees,” DeSantis said, “you had people asking, ‘How do I apply?’ You had professors asking, ‘How do I join?’” The national media may scoff, but introducing real diversity — intellectual diversity — to university systems generates widespread enthusiasm.

Political Context

DeSantis’s new round of education policy proposals builds on his popular but unfairly criticized efforts undertaken during his first term as governor. For instance, the national media widely lampooned the Parental Rights in Education Act as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill for prohibiting teachers from discussing inappropriate sexual content in K-3 classrooms.

But what the national media sees as a problem, the average Floridian — and average American, for that matter — views as popular. Governor DeSantis and other Florida Republicans cruised to huge victories throughout the former swing state in November, even as Republicans generally underperformed expectations in most of the country. After winning reelection by 20 points, Governor DeSantis announced, “Florida is where woke goes to die.”

Conservative Education Manifesto

DeSantis’ proposals for higher education reform were no haphazard assortment of disjointed, incoherent positions working at cross-purposes. Rather, each is a well-thought-out piece of a comprehensive vision for a higher education system free of woke nonsense. And DeSantis accompanied his proposals with a 20-minute speech which is probably best described as a conservative education manifesto.

“There’s really a debate going on about, what is the purpose of higher education, particularly publicly-funded higher education systems?” said DeSantis, “The dominant view is, the use of higher education under this view is to impose ideological conformity, to try to provoke political activism, and that’s what a university should be. That’s not what we believe is appropriate in the state of Florida.” Instead, he proposed “centering higher education on the academics, excellence, pursuit of truth, teaching kids to think for themselves, [and] not try[ing] to impose an orthodoxy.”

Not only will slicing up the woke monster restore academic freedom, but it will also free up resources to promote real education. “And so, you’re not spending the money on DEI bureaucracies,” said DeSantis. “You’re spending the money on bringing really good people in. … That makes much more sense from a financial perspective, and it’s much more mission-oriented.”

DeSantis suggested his vision for higher education is actually quite popular. The more we implement this vision, he said, the more “you are going to see people flooding into these institutions because there’s a desire for it.” He underlined the basic motivation for this desire, “people want to be in a situation where they can send their kids to a university or college and not have to worry about, ‘what is going on?’”

He used New College of Florida as a prime example. Its DEI bureaucracy “really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter,” he said. “New College has really embraced that, and I think that’s part of the reason it hasn’t been successful and the enrollment’s down so much. Because I think people want to see true academics, and they want to get rid of some of the political window dressing that seems to accompany all this.”

Higher education reform benefits not only college-bound students and their parents, but every taxpaying Floridian as well, added DeSantis. “It’s important that your tax dollars are funding institutions that you can be proud of, with a mission you can be confident in.”

More Than Just Slogans

With slogans like “education not indoctrination” and “bring more accountability to the higher education system,” the new round of changes to higher education in Florida may seem like all talk and no action — a politician specialty. After all, things that sound too good to be true usually are. But when you pierce the surface, Florida’s new education plan brings the substance, too.

“This move by Governor DeSantis to really direct and guide higher education officials in his state is a great development,” said Kilgannon. “For too long, conservative leaders have not prioritized reforming higher education in ways that impact the moral and cultural life of students and faculty.” But the DeSantis plan emphasizes what others have neglected.

Nor are DeSantis proposals pie-in-the-sky fairy tales. “By reining in diversity, equity, and inclusion infrastructures that often act as Marxist politburos on college campuses, Governor DeSantis is offering not just an ideological critique but an actionable path toward reform,” said Kilgannon.

This path to reform already has the buy-in of every Florida college president. All 28 of them signed a letter pledging to “ensure that all initiatives, instruction, and activities do not promote any ideology that suppresses intellectual and academic freedom, freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and the pursuit of truth in teaching and learning. As such, our institutions will not fund or support any institutional practice, policy, or academic requirement that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality, or the idea that systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon.”

Here is a conservative education solution that doesn’t content itself with condemning leftist dominance in higher education; it actually proposes a workable alternative. DeSantis’ team has clearly thought long and hard, at every level, about what is required to take back the wheel of a public education system and redirect it to serve all the citizens and taxpayers of Florida.

Two qualities are rare among politicians: a brain and a spine. With these comprehensive education proposals, DeSantis demonstrates both.

Florida’s education plan is making news because it hasn’t been attempted before. No other conservative state has set forth a plan this comprehensive or this pragmatic to recapture higher education. “I don’t think there’s any state in the country that’s been leading on the issue like Florida,” said DeSantis. “We’ll be the first state that’s actually leading by example.”

“This is a great example for others on how to tackle the problem of taxpayer funded Marxist education at the higher-ed level,” said Kilgannon. “And since this is where teachers are formed for service in K-12, it’s a reform that will benefit younger children too.”

“We have more work to do,” said DeSantis. But he added, “I think you’re going to see some positive results really quickly.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Don’t Do This to Kids’: State Hearings on Gender Transitions for Minors Draw Large Crowds

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

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‘1619 Project’ Documentary Is Laced With Inaccuracies, Historians Say thumbnail

‘1619 Project’ Documentary Is Laced With Inaccuracies, Historians Say

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By Alexa Schwerha

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from Woody Holton, who appeared in the documentary series.

A new Hulu series based on The New York Times’ “The 1619 Project” includes historical references that are factually inaccurate, historians told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Hulu released the first 2 episodes on Jan. 26 of the six-part documentary expanding on “The 1619 Project,” authored by Nikole Hannah-Jones, which “seeks to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative,” according to its description. Several historians, however, argue that the content in the documentary is not an exact retelling of American history.

“This is … almost a fantasy version of history that [NHJ] has settled upon after badly misreading historical evidence,” Phil Magness, an economic historian, author of “The 1619 Project: A Critique” and American Institute for Economic Research senior research faculty and director of research and education, told the DCNF. “And a lot of it comes back to her attempting to backfill her narrative after she came under criticism for this claim by cherry picking-bits and pieces of the truth and bits and pieces of mythology that she’s gotten from other historians.”

Magness took issue with a claim made in the documentary that the American Revolution was fought over slavery.

He said that “this has been one of the most controversial of claims from ‘The 1619 Project’ basically since its inception” and added that Hannah-Jones attempted to “recast the American Revolution, and especially the colonist cause, as being a defense of slavery against the British empire making overtures to abolish the institution.”

Gordon Wood, who has previously criticized “The 1619 Project” for its inaccuracies, told the DCNF that “Hannah-Jones is just plain wrong about her claims about the causes of the American Revolution.”

“In fact, the Revolution created the first antislavery movement in the history of the world. In 1775 the first antislavery convention known to humanity met in Philadelphia at the very time the Second Continental Congress was contemplating a break from Great Britain. The Revolution and antislavery were entwined and developed together,” Wood wrote in a chapter of his latest book, Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution, obtained by the DCNF.

Magness also broke down the documentary’s portrayal of John Murray, also known as Lord Dunmore, the colonial governor of Virginia who ordered a proclamation in 1775 to award freedom to slaves of “rebellious colonists” if they fought for the British militia. Magness told the DCNF that Dunmore, who is reportedly described in the documentary as an “emancipator,” did not award freedom to slaves of loyalist colonists.

“Recasting Lord Dunmore as something as an emancipator … is a historical farce,” Magness said. “Lord Dunmore, himself, was a slave owner. The few times that he left his ship in the James River during the early days of the American Revolution were to visit his slave plantation and dine with British officers.”

Hannah-Jones appeared with historian Woody Holton in the documentary to discuss Dunmore’s proclamation outside of the governor’s mansion in Williamsburg, Virginia, and mistakenly claimed that the location is where the order originated, Magness said.

“Episode 1 of the 1619 Project highlights the overtures that African Americans made to Lord Dunmore, the governor of Britain’s largest colony, Virginia: if you’ll free us, we’ll fight for our king. Though a slaveholder himself, the desperate Dunmore said Yes, infuriating white southerners and pushing them further along the road to independence. Here are 76 documents showing Blacks’ role,” Holton told the DCNF.

Magness said that Dunmore had sent the order from a ship in the James River when “Williamsburg was clearly already in the hands of the colonists and he is making this last ditch effort several months after when she’s placing it on the timeline.”

He said that the revolution had been underway for “the better part of a year” when Dunmore issued the order.

Dunmore later was “reassigned to the Bahamas as the colonial governor there after he’s basically expelled from the future United States and becomes one of the most notorious pro-slavery governors in the islands history,” according to Magness.

“He’s really a horrible, brutal figure in British colonial history on the pro-slavery side, so the fact that The 1619 Project is turning him into this emancipationist hero just shows the absolute absurdity and the lack of connection to basic historic reality that [Hannah-Jones] has in undertaking this project,” he told the DCNF.

Hannah Jones did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

*****
This article was published by The Daily Caller and is reproduced with permission.

DeSantis Plan Would Defund Critical Race Theory, DEI Nonsense At Florida Public Universities thumbnail

DeSantis Plan Would Defund Critical Race Theory, DEI Nonsense At Florida Public Universities

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By Evita Duffy-Alfonso

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a proposal to eliminate all funding for so-called “diversity, equity and inclusion” and critical race theory “bureaucracies” at public universities during an event about “bringing accountability to the higher education system” in Florida on Tuesday. “All DEI and CRT bureaucracies in the state of Florida — no funding, and that will wither on the vine,” said DeSantis.

The Florida legislature, with a Republican supermajority in both chambers, will have the opportunity to pass the governor’s proposals in March.

Misleadingly-named diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and critical race theory (CRT) have spread like poison within American universities. Proponents preach that someone’s skin tone confers a particular moral value and that Marxism is the only answer to supposed “systemic” injustices, all while refusing to present competing philosophies. As programs often include racially segregated “focus groups,” propose reverse discrimination, and shut down viewpoint diversity, there is nothing diverse, equal, or inclusive about DEI.

Universities across the country have implemented brand new academic departments dedicated to critical race theory as if it were as valid as the study of history or English. It is also normal for each academic department, from chemistry to theater, to have its own diversity, equity, and inclusion committees. The committees are then able to give DEI seminars in majors that would otherwise never discuss racial or social “inequity.” DEI committees have also begun impacting universities’ hiring processes by mandating faculty quotas based on race and sex.

That’s why DeSantis’ plan doesn’t stop at eliminating DEI and CRT funding. Florida’s governor also plans to give university presidents and boards of trustees more power in the hiring and firing of professors — power that has been taken away by faculty entitlements and bloated bureaucracy like the DEI committees.

Reviews for post-tenure faculty reportedly occur every five years in Florida, but DeSantis wants the boards of trustees and the presidents of the universities to have the ability to call for a review at any time. “The most significant deadweight cost at universities is typically unproductive tenure faculty,” DeSantis stated. “And so why would we want to saddle you as taxpayers with that cost, if we don’t have to do that?”

Moreover, he is proposing that university presidents have more authority in the hiring process. “That’s going to make a huge, huge difference in terms of making sure not only we have high-quality faculty, but we’re not implying some type of ideological litmus test to be able to be hired in the first place,” said DeSantis.

The governor’s state education reforms also include implementing core course requirements that will be grounded in “actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization” and will propel students to “think for themselves.”

“We don’t want students to go through, at taxpayer expense, and graduate with a degree in zombie studies,” added DeSantis. “Zombie studies” isn’t the only bizarre curriculum offered by unhinged academic departments; full college degrees exist in puppet arts, cannabis cultivation, feminist theory, and gender studies, for example.

The problems plaguing American universities cannot be fixed with one or two state laws against CRT and DEI. This racist and Marxist philosophy does not only exist in curricula but in the minds of many — perhaps even most — university professors, who sincerely believe CRT and DEI are the correct moral framework from which one should view the world. DeSantis is fighting an uphill battle, but his impulse to ban brazen taxpayer funding of this radical, left-wing ideology is a good one, and a step in the right direction.

*****
This article was published by The Federalist and is reproduced with permission.

What is the Penn Biden Center? thumbnail

What is the Penn Biden Center?

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By Royal A. Brown III

Very Insightful article – shows clearly the Penn Biden Center is nothing but an image or memorial to Beijing Joe Biden and his failures in foreign policy over his 50+years as a politician.

It mirrors the influence of $55 million in donations from Communist China to the Penn Center and Biden.

What in the Hell Is the Penn Biden Center?

Clearly it has a bad case of cult of personality.

by PAUL KENGOR • January 30, 2023, 10:44 PM

If you’re like me, you’ve only recently heard of the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, generously described in the press as a “think tank.”

My ignorance is instructive. You see, I’m somewhat of a connoisseur of think tanks. Some people are connoisseurs of the arts, food, fine wine, and even good cigars. But I, dear reader, have an odd expertise in think tanks. I’ve worked at, written for, and even written about think tanks. I’ve given lectures at and even lectures about think tanks in grad schools, describing these distinctive entities, left and right and center. I actually began my professional career at a think tank, the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Next week, I speak at the Heritage Foundation. I’ve been a fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Institute for Faith & Freedom at Grove City College, and countless state and local think tanks.

If you’ll indulge me a bit more, I can relate an anecdote about this strange career path. I recall telling my working-class, Italian Catholic grandmother and her sisters that I worked for a think tank, only to elicit a puzzled look. “Paulie,” my grandma asked, “where do you work in Washington, D.C.?” I named the place and explained, “It’s a think tank, grandma.” This prompted my crusty grandpa to snap, “What in the hell is a think tank?”

All of which is a perfect segue to the Penn Biden Center.

Given my over three decades of think tank experience, I hereby assert, definitively, with no embarrassment, that I had never heard of the Penn Biden Center until it exploded into the news. And I’m certain that that’s more a product of the Penn Biden Center than anything lacking in my studious cranium.

To borrow from my Papa, I found myself wondering, “What in the hell is the Penn Biden Center?”

So, I ventured to the website of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy & Global Engagement. Alas, I remain even more in the dark. I found a few articles and what seem like press releases. I found no reports or policy papers, which is odd because such is the main product of a think tank.

Read more.

©Royal A. Brown III. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Urges Congress to ‘Restore Soul of This Nation’ by Expanding Abortion, Transgenderism in SOTU

New CFACT YouTube Series ‘Capitol Pink’ Exposes Free Speech Fight on Florida’s International University Campus thumbnail

New CFACT YouTube Series ‘Capitol Pink’ Exposes Free Speech Fight on Florida’s International University Campus

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By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

CFACT is launching a new YouTube video series aimed at exposing the assault on free speech that right of center students face on their college campuses every day.

The program is called “Capitol Pink.” It is hosted by Shakira Jackson who is a recent graduate from the University of Pittsburgh and former CFACT Collegians activist. Her spunky, “take no prisoners” approach at tackling the censorship and political bias of those on the Left, particularly on America’s college campuses, is a breath of fresh air.

Watch Capitol Pink E1: What’s the Fuss about Florida Free Speech.

On the first episode of CFACT’s new YouTube series, Capitol Pink, CFACT’s Shakira Jackson sits down with Florida International University student Cristen Lameira to discuss her fights with campus administrations in starting conservative clubs and standing for free speech.

Lameira explains her struggles to try to get professors willing to stand up as public advisers to conservative clubs, and gives her advice to current students on how to effectively advocate for the rights of all students.

Capitol Pink is the video series that focus on free speech, censorship, technology, energy, environment, and much more. Tune in every few weeks to get the fresh take on these issues from CFACT activist and researcher Shakira Jackson.

The series is largely aimed at young adults and those attending college. However, the program will certainly be of interest to those of all ages. In addition to free speech, Capitol Pink will focus on important issues like technology, public policy, energy, environment, and more.

The Left and the media like to paint the picture that all young people walk in lockstep with the woke agenda. CFACT prides itself in exposing this charade as being flat out wrong. That’s why CFACT started its one-of-a-kind national Collegians program, and it’s why CFACT is sponsoring this new Capitol Pink video series.

It’s time for the public hear from a bright, young, articulate woman that isn’t beholden to the left-wing agenda. It’s time for there to be a forum for young people to speak out on the important issues of the day, without fear of being bullied as “politically incorrect.”

Take a look at the first episode of Capitol Pink, share it with a friend, and let’s start putting pressure on left wing administrators that stifle the rights of students in America.

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT video exposé is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DeSantis’ College Appointees Like Chris Rufo Show The Battle For America’s Academies Is Far From Over thumbnail

DeSantis’ College Appointees Like Chris Rufo Show The Battle For America’s Academies Is Far From Over

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By Samuel Mangold-Lenett

Fixing education has to start sometime, and it has to start somewhere; it looks like that time is now, and that place is Florida.

SARASOTA, Fla. — In early January, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a group of six conservative academics and activists to the board of trustees of the New College of Florida in Sarasota. Some of the individuals nominated to the small liberal art school’s board include Chris Rufo, who has led the charge against the proliferation of critical race theory (CRT) and gender ideology in America’s classrooms and boardrooms; renowned constitutional scholar Charles Kesler; and Matthew Spalding, the current dean of Hillsdale College’s Van Andel Graduate School of Government.

Shortly after the announcement was made, DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier, indicated that a priority of the new trustees would be establishing a curriculum specifically dedicated to “classical” education, giving New College further distinction from the rest of the institutions of higher learning that are currently a part of Florida’s state university system.

Speaking with The Federalist, Rufo suggested that by embracing classical education, New College could stave off the bureaucratic materialist bloat that has come to characterize and bog down much of higher education. Colleges have “adopted this kind of empty materialist enterprise that has squashed the more significant spiritual and intellectual enterprise of learning,” he said. “And I think classical schools are really at the forefront of saying, ‘we’ve lost our way, let’s look to the past to try and make a more meaningful present.’ Maybe then we’ll actually have something that matters to people.”

New College’s approach to learning would become similar to that of classical schools like Hillsdale College in Michigan. As Uthmeier said earlier this month, “It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.”

Rufo emphasized to The Federalist that institutions like New College have been struggling to keep their doors open, whereas classical schools like Hillsdale are flourishing. “The proof, of course, is that a lot of the small liberal arts colleges are closing down, but the classical schools are getting record enrollment,” he said.

For years, New College has been, to put it benevolently, faltering even by liberal arts standards; consultants hired by the school indicated that it operates as an echo chamber where “druggies” and “weirdos” thrive on the “politically correct” while conservative and religious students are ostracized. Despite having an acceptance rate of 74 percent, more than 20 percent of students typically drop out after their first year, and only 53 percent of graduates found employment — earning a median wage of $32,000 — or continued their education one year after graduation, according to a fact sheet shared by Rufo’s team.

The school’s dismal performance, inconsistent enrollment, and inability to grow an incredibly small student body, plus the mishandling of millions of dollars a year — resources that are “just lit on fire” — while refusing to troubleshoot any of the school’s issues had even prompted the state government to try and close it down so as to better reallocate its resources into other parts of the state university system.

Nevertheless, DeSantis’ move proves the fight to reclaim American education is not a lost cause and — institutionally, at least — it may even be less of a conceptual uphill battle to reclaim the academy and rechart the trajectory of our nation’s youth than many may think. After all, it really shouldn’t be that difficult of a task for conservative leaders to appoint conservatives like Rufo to the boards of public schools in red states with Republican majority legislatures.

But even so, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a battle, and engaging in conflict — especially in the current political climate — comes with risk. With the understanding that their appointment to the board would likely ruffle the feathers of those in the predominantly leftist New College community, Rufo and Eddie Speir, another trustee, scheduled two town hall events in which they could address the concerns of students, parents, faculty, alumni, and the general public, which the Sarasota Democratic Party encouraged people to protest.

The night before the events took place, death threats were made against Speir, leading to college faculty, notably Provost Suzanne Sherman, confronting Rufo and Speir and insisting the event be shut down while encouraging students and faculty to “refrain from attending.” Catherine Helean, a public relations officer of the college, stated that the threats “were perceived to be credible.”

Despite the provost’s insistence that the event be canceled for safety, Speir — whose life was explicitly threatened — and Rufo pushed forward and were able to engage students, faculty, and community members in conversations about their concerns for New College in the months and years to come.

For years, the American right has paid lip service to “education reform,” promising to provide better outcomes and subsequently better opportunities for the masses. But these initiatives often miss the mark; the No Child Left Behind Act’s greatest legacy was the drastic expansion of the federal government’s presence in state and local education and recalibrating curricula almost entirely around the attainment of higher standardized test scores.

And it is undeniable that the left’s “long march through the institutions,” which gave them effectively total control of education, enabled them to radicalize young adults into despising the entirety of Western civilization and program generations of American children into hating their shared and personal heritages as well as themselves for their immutable characteristics. For decades, the right has been at a structural and ideological disadvantage.

During the Covid-era lockdowns, when it became apparent that the priorities of the American education system were the circulation of leftist ideology, leveraging political capital, and generating revenue for special interest groups, people finally had enough. And it just so happens that Florida’s governor was one of these people.

But what distinguishes DeSantis as a pugilist when the rest of his gubernatorial peers appear more pusillanimous is that he isn’t afraid to wield political power and is emboldened to govern by the mandate given to him by those who elected him. Since announcing the new New College trustees, the governor blocked the College Board from introducing an Advanced Placement African American Studies course in the state of Florida that was in violation of state law preventing the government from teaching CRT. The class’s curriculum included topics like “intersectionality and activism” and “black queer studies.”

DeSantis’ stand against CRT in public schools led to the presidents of every school in the Florida College System co-signing a letter stating that they would commit to scaling back their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments and ensuring CRT would only be mentioned in “an objective manner.”

Meanwhile, in other Republican states, it seems impossible for conservatives to make institutional gains of this sort.

While speaking with The Federalist, Rufo mused: “You have a deep red state, like Idaho, where there is a Republican supermajority and a Republican governor. Why do you have left-wing DEI departments at all of your public universities? You have a super majority, the public wants you to do stuff, and then they just can’t do anything.”

“I think what DeSantis ultimately has is courage,” Rufo continued. “Voters in Florida saw and said, ‘Oh, wow, we liked this guy. This guy’s getting it done,’ and they rewarded him with a huge margin of victory, which, I think, validates his model. … I think that’s what really, ultimately establishes the legitimacy of this takeover of New College. We’re a reflection of the democratic will of the people of Florida.”

For so long, Republicans have droned on about the need for education reform, but the only substantive options presented by conservatives were to pursue school choice and alternatives to public education (which, to be fair, is a very worthwhile cause), roll over and accept indoctrination from a corrupt system, or continue complaining. Democrats and leftists constantly leverage their ideology in education, but until very recently, mainstream Republicans hadn’t seriously considered, let alone attempted, actually using political power to elicit a political outcome from a political body.

Furthermore, several events over the past couple of years show that education isn’t solely something of concern to leftist interest groups; every American has skin in the game. Public school scandals and conservative victories in school board races across the nation became major political events that could reshape the trajectory of the nation for years to come.

What’s happening at New College under the guidance of men like Rufo and Speir is just the beginning, but conservative activists like them — men of courage who aren’t afraid to show up when their safety isn’t guaranteed — can be found throughout the country and they are eager to get to work. Conservatives can reclaim education. Yes, it will take a considerable amount of time and effort to do so in totality, but it has to start sometime, and it has to start somewhere. It appears that time is now, and that place is Florida.

*****
This article was published by The Federalist and is reproduced with permission.

Arizona Universities Demand Applicants’ Allegiance to Progressive Politics thumbnail

Arizona Universities Demand Applicants’ Allegiance to Progressive Politics

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By Goldwater Institute

Arizona’s public universities may be stacking the deck against conservative students and staff, as documented in a just-released Goldwater Institute report, The New Loyalty Oaths: How Arizona’s Public Universities Compel Job Applicants to Endorse Progressive Politics.

Indeed, joining a herd of colleges across the nation, Arizona’s three public universities have all begun forcing faculty job applicants to provide mandatory “diversity statements” as a condition of hiring. The statements—which ostensibly function to promote innocuous-sounding concepts such as “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI)—are increasingly used across academia as a political screening test to enforce intellectual and political conformity in support of leftwing concepts aligned with Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Key findings include:

  • Up to 80% of faculty job openings at Arizona’s public universities now similarly push applicants to pledge support for DEI.
  • As of fall 2022, diversity statements are mandated in over a quarter (28%) of job postings at the University of Arizona, nearly three-quarters (73%) of job postings at Northern Arizona University, and in more than four of five (81%) job postings at Arizona State University.
  • Diversity statement practices in Arizona’s public universities include replacing the traditional cover letter with a DEI statement, forcing candidates to provide up to two full pages detailing their activism or commitment to the DEI regime, and calling on applicants to endorse CRT-based concepts such as “intersectional personal identities.”

At the University of California system, such diversity statements have been used to eliminate more than 75% of applicants from consideration due to their failure to endorse progressive, racialized notions of DEI—regardless of the candidates’ academic caliber.

As explored in the new Goldwater report, up to 80% of faculty job openings at Arizona’s public universities now similarly push applicants to pledge support for DEI. At Northern Arizona University (NAU), candidates are even explicitly encouraged to infuse CRT-based terminology such as “intersectional personal identities” in their required responses. (As The Association of American Law Schools has noted, CRT scholar “Professor [Kimberlé] Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality,” [and] developed the framework for critical race theory.”)

Unfortunately, such ideological screens are being deployed across the entire institutions, with Arizona’s DEI administrators successfully amending university-wide policies to call for the infusion of diversity statements in all faculty and administrative hires. Such policies now demand diversity statements even from scholars pursuing such incredibly technical, specialized research areas as “ultra-bright nano-structured photoemission electron” studies.

Such diversity statements have been widely condemned by both left- and right-leaning academic and legal scholars for promoting an ideological agenda, compelling speech, chilling dissent, and exacerbating the already extreme partisan imbalance of higher education, where already at least five times more left-leaning faculty have been hired than conservative scholars. At the University of Arizona, faculty registered as Democrats now outnumber Republicans by more than 7 to 1. At Arizona State University, Democrats outnumber Republican faculty more than 12 to 1.

As Goldwater Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Butcher writes in the report’s preface: “DEI programs and ‘statements’ do not produce free expression nor more diversity of thought, equal opportunities, and a culture that includes everyone in school activities because DEI’s guiding principles are rooted in the racially discriminatory worldview known as critical race theory.”

Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier has similarly noted, “One way to understand the problem is to examine the academic literature regarding equity and inclusion today… It is obvious that these ideas and policy frameworks are not politically neutral. Rather, they map onto the left/progressive wing of the political spectrum, and their claims are arguable and highly contested. This ideological context is hardly subtle.”

As noted in the report, the clear political connotations of the DEI framework likewise suggest that the Arizona universities may be attempting to skirt the Arizona state constitution’s ban on the use of political tests in public educational institutions, and may also be violating several aspects of protected 1st Amendment speech.

While Arizona has made great strides to promote the free exchange of ideas—such as the adoption of the Goldwater Institute’s Campus Free Speech Act—the new and rapid proliferation of mandatory diversity statements threatens to decimate those protections by simply suppressing political dissent before it even appears on campus.

It is imperative, therefore, that the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) and/or state lawmakers protect faculty, students and applicants from these tests by prohibiting their use in Arizona university operations in a manner similar to the Institute’s model policy solution.

*****
This article was published by Goldwater Institute and is reproduced with permission.

Mom Explains What It Took to Rescue Daughter From Transgenderism thumbnail

Mom Explains What It Took to Rescue Daughter From Transgenderism

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By Virginia Allen

Erin Friday’s daughter was introduced to gender identity ideology in a comprehensive sex-ed class in seventh grade.

“The seed was planted after that class,” Friday says. “And in fact, all of her friends, there were five, sat in my front yard saying what their new labels were.”

Friday says she was “alarmed by the language that they were using, including ‘pansexual,’ which is not a term that 11-year-olds should know.”

The mother began looking into what her daughter was learning in school and was struck by the fact that other adults were not also questioning the teaching of gender ideology to middle schoolers.

When her daughter said she was “transgender,” Friday began taking decisive steps to rescue her from transgenderism. She took her daughter’s phone, put her in a new school, and tried her best to surround the preteen with the truth about who she was as a female. It was not easy, but Friday says, as a parent, “you have to be strong enough, your love for your child has to be strong enough, to take their vitriol.”

After about a year and a half, Friday’s daughter stopped claiming a transgender identity. Today, through the work of the parental support group Our Duty, Friday is helping other families navigate through gender identity ideology.

Friday joins the show today to share her story, and to explain how parents can protect their children from the harms of gender identity ideology.

*****
This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

Schools To Host Black Lives Matter At School Week Which Teaches Kids About ‘Trans Affirmation,’ ‘Restorative Justice’ thumbnail

Schools To Host Black Lives Matter At School Week Which Teaches Kids About ‘Trans Affirmation,’ ‘Restorative Justice’

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By The Daily Caller

  • Several of the nation’s schools are preparing to celebrate “Black Lives Matter at School” week which features curriculums on “restorative justice” and “globalism.” 
  • With lesson plans, reading, documentaries and activities, students learn about activism and “structural racism.” 
  • “Any education leader interested in building awareness on the history and struggles of the African American community should seek meaningful policy solutions rather than virtue-signaling,” Wenyuan Wu, executive director of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, a group that focused on combating racial discrimination, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Schools across the country are celebrating national “Black Lives Matter at School” week which teaches students about “restorative justice,” “globalism” and to be “trans-affirming,” according to the curriculum.

National “Black Lives Matter at School” week, which takes place from Feb. 6 to 10, focuses K-12 curriculums on 13 guiding principles including “restorative justice,” trans-affirmation and “diversity and globalism,” according to the curriculum. Through lesson plans, suggested reading, documentaries and activities, students learn about “structural racism” and how to be activists for the movement. (RELATED: Wisconsin School Board Bans Pride, BLM Flags From Classrooms)

“Black Lives Matter (BLM), as a political movement and an organization, has been proven to be a corrupted trojan horse that hijacks public education and injects hate and division into our young students,” Wenyuan Wu, executive director of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, a group that focused on combating racial discrimination, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The national group suggests schools start the week teaching about “restorative justice, empathy and loving engagement,” the curriculum showed. Lessons include “Who You Gonna Call, exploring alternatives to policing” which asks students to read articles that detail how to rely on community organizations rather than the police and participate in a workshop that discovers “viable alternatives to policing.”

On day two, educators are advised to focus on “diversity and globalism” with suggested reading on Palestine including “Determined to Stay,” a story about Palestinians fighting for their land against “Israeli efforts,” the lesson plans stated. Educators are given suggested lessons on diversity, including “Teaching Tolerance,” which features an “anti-racism activity” where first through fifth-grade students learn about “unfair practices” and discrimination using Dr. Seuss’s picture book, The Sneetches.

During the week, students learn about “homophobia and transphobia” and to “recognize that LGBTQ people exist,” the curriculum showed. A suggested lesson plan for third through sixth graders focuses on the past of LGBTQ people and “events in American history that are often omitted from textbooks.”

A guiding principle of the week includes “black families” with lessons on the patriarchy, its “system of oppression” and the privileges men have over women, the curriculum showed. Suggested reading for the guiding principle includes the picture book “My Rainbow,” a story about a mom who makes a rainbow wig for her transgender daughter.

In honor of #BlackHistoryMonth, San Diego Unified students from across the district will raise the Black Lives Matter flag to signify our shared commitment to creating a just, equitable, and empathetic world. #BetterSD pic.twitter.com/wb1tTLxOyZ

— San Diego Unified (@sdschools) January 31, 2023

Schools throughout the country have begun their celebration of the week; San Diego Unified School District raised a BLM flag below the American flag on Wednesday, according to KPBS News. In Maryland, Howard County Schools began teaching the BLM at Schools curriculum on “Diversity and Globalism” including lessons on “speciesism,” a type of oppression against animals.

“I understand and can advocate for the principles of Black Lives Matter,” the lesson plans state.

Milwaukee Public Schools is hosting events in honor of “Black Lives Matter at School” week including “BLM Family Night” where families can participate in “cultural experiences” at the Black Holocaust Museum, according to the school website. Shoreline Public Schools in Washington plans to celebrate the week in order to help students “understand inequities based on race” and to “affirm that the lives of people of color matter,” the school district website showed.

BLM at School raised more than $103,000 for its national week of action as of Friday, according to its website. Several teachers unions have backed the week-long event in the country’s schools including the National Education Association, Chicago Teachers Union and the Virginia Education Association.

“Giving the BLM brand legitimacy in public schools is handing ideologies, radicals and groomers a license to harm our next generation,” Wu told the DCNF. “Any education leader interested in building awareness on the history and struggles of the African American community should seek meaningful policy solutions rather than virtue-signaling.”

BLM at School, San Diego Unified School District, Howard County Schools, Milwaukee Public Schools and Shoreline Public Schools did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

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.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan Officially Subpoenas Department Of Education Over School Boards Issue thumbnail

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan Officially Subpoenas Department Of Education Over School Boards Issue

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By The Daily Caller

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan officially subpoenaed the Department of Education on Friday, the Daily Caller has learned exclusively.

According to the subpoena, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is “commanded” to produce documents before the Judiciary Committee on March 1, 2023, at 9 a.m. ET. The subpoena comes as Jordan sent four letters to various officials Friday, calling for information and interviews the committee has been requesting, in a final warning shot before he sent the subpoena their way.

The Daily Caller first obtained the letters, which were sent to Chip Slaven, former Interim Executive Director and CEO of the National School Boards Association; Nina Jankowicz, former leader of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) “Disinformation Governance Board;” Viola Garcia with the National School Boards Association, and Jennifer Moore, the Executive Assistant Director for the Human Resources Branch at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

In the letters, Jordan accuses each official of ignoring requests for transcribed interviews, as well as not providing the committee with the documents and information they previously requested. Jordan gives the officials one last chance to come before the committee before sending subpoenas to the officials.

Cardona allegedly solicited a letter from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) likening parents to domestic terrorists, according to emails obtained by Parents Defending Education (PDE). The letter reportedly advocated for federal investigators to monitor and intervene in activities by concerned parents, PDE emails showed. After the letter was publicized, the NBSA sent out a memo to members saying, “We regret and apologize for the letter.”

AUTHOR

HENRY RODGERS

Chief national correspondent. Follow Henry Rodgers On Twitter.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Rep. Jim Jordan Sends Final Warning Shot To Various Officials Before Subpoenas Fly

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

EXCLUSIVE: Med School Went Woke After Pressure From Accreditor, Documents Show thumbnail

EXCLUSIVE: Med School Went Woke After Pressure From Accreditor, Documents Show

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By The Daily Caller

  • The University of Utah School of Medicine implemented a series of programs to recruit and retain diverse students and faculty after its accrediting organization said its diversity efforts were unsatisfactory, according to emails obtained by a medical watchdog group and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • The school, in response, filed a status report outlining its progress in increasing its diversity on campus.
  • “This further promotes ideology ahead of quality medical education and race/ethnicity or sex over hiring the most qualified faculty and staff,” Laura Morgan, Do No Harm’s program manager, told the DCNF.

The University of Utah School of Medicine (SOM) adopted a series of programs to recruit more diverse students and faculty after its accrediting organization said its diversity efforts were unsatisfactory, according to emails obtained by a medical watchdog group and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) told the school that it found certain elements of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts unsatisfactory, and requested a detailed report from the medical school about how it improved recruitment and retainment for students and faculty from underrepresented communities, according to a 2021 accreditation report shared with the DCNF. In response, the school complied with the request, instituting several DEI programs and sending a status update about how it sought to connect with people from “each of the school’s identified diversity groups,” earning the LCME’s approval.

“The LCME and AAMC hold the power over medical schools regarding their accreditation, and the University of Utah School of Medicine’s responses to the LCME’s findings reflect the desire to live up to those organizations’ woke agendas,” Laura Morgan, Do No Harm’s program manager, told the DCNF. “This further promotes ideology ahead of quality medical education and race/ethnicity or sex over hiring the most qualified faculty and staff.”

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PAGE  4: Requited Follow-up For The School

The initial LCME report found that the school’s “diversity/pipeline programs and partnerships” element was “unsatisfactory” based on data that showed a low number of women at the institution. The LCME said that this was an “improvement for the 2020 entering class,” but that staff diversity remained low.

“DCI data show that 38.5% of full-time faculty and 22.2% of senior administrative staff are women,” the report reads. “No offers for faculty and senior administrative staff positions were made in several of the school’s diversity categories (American Indian/Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander) for the 2018-29 academic year.”

In response, the Utah school outlined several initiatives it took to recruit a more diverse student body. The efforts ranged from hosting an “Indigenous STEM Youth Outreach Program” to holding a “Day of the Dead Premedical Conference” and offering workshops to help undergraduate and pre-med students from “underrepresented” backgrounds prepare for the admissions process.

“Two significant areas for improvement are related to student and faculty diversity. SOM Office of Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (OHEDI) recognizes recruitment is important with compositional diversity and the need for intentional retention efforts for the success of all,” the school wrote in its report. “SOM OHEDI and health science center University of Utah Health, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (HSC UHEDI) are continuously working to identify needs for action to achieve desired results in terms of recruitment and retention of diverse faculty, students, and staff.”

CLICK HERE TO VIEW: Diversity Recruitment Days

The school held “diversity recruitment days” and offered scholarships specifically to students from “underrepresented populations” that covered the near total cost of tuition for four years, the report wrote. The school required its admissions staff to undergo “Anti-Bias Training” and to use a “holistic” admission process which required a cultural awareness essay for the 2021-2022 academic year.

Faculty search committees received anti-bias training, and most departments also require applicants to submit a diversity statement, according to the report.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW: School of Medicine Diverse Faculty Recruitment Initiative

The LCME responded in June 2022 that while the school had improved its diversity efforts, additional action is required. The accreditor labeled the school’s progress as “satisfactory with a need for mentoring,” but requested the school send a second status report by August 15, 2023.

“Medical education must not be undermined in favor of medical wokeness, and Utah taxpayers need to ask why this is being done at UUSOM,” Morgan told the DCNF.

The University of Utah School of Medicine and the LCME did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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.

Democrat Lawmaker Proposes Banning Kids From Attending Bible Camp thumbnail

Democrat Lawmaker Proposes Banning Kids From Attending Bible Camp

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By The Geller Report

Democratic Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt proposed banning children from attending religious camps in an amendment to a bill banning minors from drag shows Jan. 23.

Banning bible camp as revenge for pushback against sexualizing children and exposing them to sex shows.

Describing America’s simmering civil war as a battle between good and evil is not hyperbolic, it could not be more clear.  Good versus evil.

The left is pure evil.

Dem Lawmaker Proposes Banning Kids From Attending Bible Camp

By: Laurel Duggan, Daily Caller,  January 31, 2023:

Democratic Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt proposed banning children from attending religious camps in an amendment to a bill banning minors from drag shows Jan. 23.

Hunt proposed the amendment to “make a point” and will withdraw it if it garners enough votes to pass, she wrote Saturday. All–age drag shows, sometimes featuring child performers, have become increasingly popular in recent years, and Democrats and LGBT activists have fought against efforts to restrict child attendance, portraying these efforts as anti-LGBT.

This is an amendment that I will use to make a point about the underlying bill, LB371, which bans all-ages drag shows. It won’t pass, I would withdraw it if it had the votes to pass. It’s a device to make a point. We need not clench nor worry. https://t.co/aUgwBtN1QG

— Senator Megan Hunt (@NebraskaMegan) January 28, 2023

“There is a well-documented history of indoctrination and sexual abuse perpetrated by religious leaders and clergy people upon children,” her amendment read. “For purposes of this section, religious indoctrination camp means a camp, vacation Bible study, retreat, lock-in, or convention held by a church, youth group, or religious organization for the purpose of indoctrinating children with a specific set of religious beliefs. No individual under nineteen years of age shall be present at a religious indoctrination camp.”

Legislative Bill 371, which the amendment was proposed to, would ban anyone under 19 from attending drag shows and would make bringing a minor to a drag show a criminal misdemeanor. It would also ban anyone under 21 from attending drag shows where alcohol is served.

The legislation defines a performance as a drag show if “The main aspect of the performance is a performer which exhibits a gender identity that is different than the performer’s gender assigned at birth using clothing, makeup, or other physical markers; and The performer sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience for entertainment.”

“This is an amendment that I will use to make a point about the underlying bill, LB371, which bans all-ages drag shows. It won’t pass, I would withdraw it if it had the votes to pass. It’s a device to make a point. We need not clench nor worry,” she wrote. “I have introduced similar amendments in the past – e.g. in a session where we had a bill to require DNA collection of everyone accused of a crime, I amended DNA collection requirements on all kinds of other bills as devices to make a point. They aren’t meant to pass.”

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED TWEET:

“Drag shows are harmless to kids!” pic.twitter.com/J0CVczomRW

— Packers Posts 🍥 (@PackersCenter) January 25, 2023

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

‘Wasn’t A Boy’: Mother Testifies That Child Was Sex Trafficked After State Removed Her From Home Over ‘Misgendering’ thumbnail

‘Wasn’t A Boy’: Mother Testifies That Child Was Sex Trafficked After State Removed Her From Home Over ‘Misgendering’

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By The Daily Caller

The mother of a raped and sex-trafficked teen detailed in a Monday hearing how the school kept her child’s gender identity a secret and a court then withheld custody for months.

Michele’s testimony was offered during a period of public comments as the Virginia legislature considers Sage’s Law, a bill which would require school officials notify parents if a student is identifying with a gender inconsistent with his or her biological sex. The bill also clarifies that the definition of child abuse does not include so-called “misgendering.”

The bill is named after Michele’s adopted daughter Sage, who was brutally sex-trafficked and gang-raped after school officials, and then the state, intervened after accusing her parents of abuse for “misgendering” Sage. They kept Sage, who claimed to identify as a boy at the time, in a male children’s home for over two months where she was “repeatedly assaulted” and given drugs.

Michele, who is Sage’s biological grandmother, adopted Sage after her son died. Neither woman’s last name has been publicized.

Sage suffered from depression and anxiety when the COVID pandemic began, concerns which her teachers shared with Michele, she testified.

“The transparency ended in August 2021 when Sage started high school,” Michele said. “She started a public high school and she told me that all the girls there were bi, trans, lesbian, emo, and she wanted to wear boys clothes and be emo. Because I saw it as just a phase it was fine with me. But at school she told them something different, she was now a boy named Draco with male pronouns. Sage asked the school not to tell me and they did not tell me.”

“No one told me but boys followed her, touched her, threatened violence and rape. Something happened in the boy’s bathroom but for two days the school told me nothing. They kept meeting with Sage alone, and she became so distraught they called me to pick her up,” she continued.

That evening, Michele found a pass that listed Sage’s name as Draco. Sage then told Michele she was a boy.

“She’d been jacked up against the wall by a group of boys, she was crying, terrified. I said just stay home, we’ll figure it out,” Michele said during the hearing. “That was my last conversation with Sage for five months. The night she ran, she went with a young friend she met online. She left a note saying she was scared of what would happen if she stayed.”

Nine days after she went missing, Sage was found locked in a room in Baltimore . She had been drugged, gang raped, and brutalized by “countless men.” The FBI told Sage’s parents to pick her up in the morning.

“We packed our cars with blankets and stuffed animals and arrived by 8:00 a.m. But we were told we couldn’t see her, and were summoned before Judge Robert Kershaw later that afternoon. They didn’t even tell Sage that we came for her,” Michele said. “We finally enter the courtroom and Sage appears on a huge Zoom screen from a prison cell. She looks tiny and broken, and I cry out, ‘I love you, Sage!’ Sage responds, ‘I love you too, Nana!’”

Attorneys then rebuked Michele for using female pronouns to refer to Sage, Michele said. The judge ordered Michele’s husband, who was “so tearful he kept forgetting the new pronouns,” removed from the courtroom by a bailiff, according to Michele’s testimony. When Michele told the judge she wanted to bring Sage home to treat her for trauma, the judge told her she would also be removed if she used the word trauma again, Michele said during the hearing.

“For over two months [the judge] withheld custody. He housed Sage in the male quarters of a children’s home. Sage told me she was the only girl, and repeatedly assaulted. She was given street drugs by the other kids,” Michele testified, adding that Sage later disappeared from that home and was trafficked again.

Michele later learned that her daughter had been told to lie and say she was abused by her mother.

“They told me [Sage] might already be gone forever, but I couldn’t give up, and I finally found a tip on her social media that led the marshals to her in Texas,” Michele said. “She had been drugged, raped, beaten, and exploited. This time I was able to be with her for the traumatic rape exam and bring her home.”

Sage’s grandmother says she suffered from panic attacks and medical issues due to the rapes she suffered, but that “she’s not broken, she’s just scared.”

“Sage says she doesn’t know who she was back then. She wasn’t a boy, she just wanted to have friends,” Michele concluded. “Let parents do our jobs, we know our children best, and we love them a million times more.”

AUTHOR

SARAH WEAVER

Social issues reporter.

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

Texas Republicans Ask All School Districts To Immediately Leave Texas Association Of School Boards thumbnail

Texas Republicans Ask All School Districts To Immediately Leave Texas Association Of School Boards

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By The Daily Caller

Several members of the Texas legislature sent a letter to every school district in the state asking them to immediately leave the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).

Texas state Representatives, led by GOP Rep. Brian Harrison, are asking school districts to leave the TASB, claiming recent decisions the association made regarding school board protests and transgender students prove to Texas parents that the TASB “work[s] against their values and potentially place[s] their children in harm’s way,” according to the letter shared exclusively with the Daily Caller.

The nine signatories — GOP Reps. Brian Harrison, Briscoe Cain, Richard Hayes, Terri Leo-Wilson, Matt Schaefer, Nate Schatzline, Bryan Slaton, Mark Dorazio and Tony Tinderholt — said that although they “appreciate” that TASB left the National School Boards Association in May 2022, the amount of time the decision took to make was troubling.

January Letter to School Board Presidents Re TASB Vf-2 by Mary Rooke on Scribd

“We were shocked last year that it took the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) almost an entire year to leave the National School Boards Association (NSBA) after it sent an indefensible letter equating parental involvement at school board meetings to ‘heinous actions’ which ‘could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism’ and called on federal law enforcement to potentially target parents,” the letter stated.

The Texas lawmakers also took issue with TASB’s “radically pro-transgender” guidance released in January, which they claim undermines parental rights and violates Texas law.

“This dangerous legal advisory appears to encourage school districts to refrain from reporting child abuse and to obscure information regarding children exhibiting gender dysphoria from their parents,” the letter stated. “In the guidance, TASB also may be encouraging schools to violate Texas’s recent law, the ‘Save Girls’ Sports Act,’ and allow biological males to participate in girls’ sports. We feel duty bound to make sure all elected officials charged with overseeing the education of Texas student[s] are aware of this.”

Harrison told the Daily Caller that Texas parents shouldn’t be responsible for funding “woke ideology” with their tax dollars.

“It’s bad enough that harmful woke ideology is being pushed on Texas students over the objection of their parents, but worse that local elected officials are forcing those same parents to fund it with their tax dollars,” Harrison told the Caller. “That must end. I appreciate my colleagues joining me in fighting to stop the continued weaponization of our constituents’ tax dollars against them.”

Texas school districts are not required to be part of TASB or any school board organization. The representatives have directed their offices to help provide school districts with alternatives for the services TASB currently handles.

AUTHOR

MARY ROOKE

Commentary and analysis reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Texas Representatives Demand Review Of ‘Radically Pro-Transgender’ State School Board Guidance

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

VIDEO: Watch President Trump Announce his Education Agenda that Endorses School Choice thumbnail

VIDEO: Watch President Trump Announce his Education Agenda that Endorses School Choice

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By The Geller Report

“If we have pink-haired communists teaching our kids, we have a major problem.” — Donald J. Trump, the 45th president.

Boom. Watch:

By: Raina Raskin, NY Sun, January 30, 2023

President Trump, in his bid for a second term in 2024, is joining the crusade for school choice that is sweeping state legislatures.

Mr. Trump, announcing in a video tenets of his education agenda, called for “universal school choice.” He mostly focused on culture wars — the kinds of issues that have made Governor DeSantis a formidable challenger to the former president.

In the statement last week, Mr. Trump announced his intention to incentivize states to pass a “Parental Bill of Rights,” which would include universal school choice and curriculum transparency measures.

Mr. Trump says he will “implement massive funding preferences and favorable treatment” for locales that guarantee such measures — in addition to ending teacher tenure, cutting administrative personnel, and allowing parents to elect principals.

“If any principal is not getting the job done, the parents should be able to vote to fire them and select someone who will,” Mr. Trump said. “This will be the ultimate form of local control.”

Mr. Trump has not yet endorsed a specific policy program for states to enact universal school choice, but already several states have taken it upon themselves to pass universal school choice legislation in the form of education savings accounts.

ESAs, as they are known in education policy circles, allow states to disburse funds to families to spend on education-related costs: school tuition, textbooks, online courses, and more.

School choice advocates see them as more advantageous than traditional vouchers because they are more flexible and incentivize families to economize, as unspent funds roll over year to year. Students are usually eligible to receive the per-capita funding that public schools would spend.

In the past week, both Utah and Iowa passed legislation that will guarantee all students in these states ESA funding and effectively universal school choice. Arizona enacted the first universal ESA last year.

West Virginia has a similar program for students seeking to transfer out of traditional public schools. Texas, Idaho, Florida, and Oklahoma are looking at proposals for universal ESA programs this legislative term as well.

Mr. Trump’s announcement is a sign that the GOP is staking out education reform as a signature issue, but is moving cautiously with respect for state autonomy. Two of Mr. Trump’s most formidable potential opponents, Governors DeSantis and Youngkin, have made education their signature issue.

More than signaling support for school choice, the two governors have brought education to center-stage of the party platform by tackling the power of teachers unions — particularly during the Covid school shutdowns — and combating “woke” ideology in classrooms.

Conservatives have traditionally looked with disdain on the Department of Education and national K-12 standards. Yet increasingly they are relying on the department’s Office of Civil Rights for complaints about discrimination — for example, on the basis of race when critical race theory enters classrooms.

Mr. Trump in his address promised to cut federal funding for schools teaching “Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content.”

He also referred to leftist ideology as “an established new religion” and promised to investigate “potential violations” of the First Amendment’s establishment and free exercise clauses. Mr. Trump also discussed creating teacher certification for those “who embrace patriotic values.”

“As the saying goes, personnel is policy, and at the end of the day, if we have pink-haired Communists teaching our kids, we have a major problem,” the 45th president said.

Meanwhile, at Washington last week, Senator Cruz introduced two bills that would encourage school choice nationwide. One would allow 529 accounts to be spent on K-12 education, and the second would incentivize tax credit scholarships at the state level. Neither bill is considered likely to pass the current Congress.

Keep reading.

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

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