February 2022 — Ed Reporter Monthly Email Edition

Recently, an Enfield, Connecticut public school administered a sex questionnaire to eighth-graders using pizza toppings to identify their sexual likes and dislikes. The assignment asked students to create their own pizzas using a variety of toppings to indicate sexual preferences. Olives, for example, were to represent giving oral sex, and cheese was the code word for kissing.

Blaze Media reported the atrocity on February 10, quoting the questionnaire as follows: “Now that you know this metaphor for sex, let’s explore your preferences! Draw and color your favorite type of pizza.” Blaze further wrote that the assignment — which included an image of an empty pizza dough round — instructed students: “What’s your favorite style of pizza? Your favorite toppings? What are your pizza no-nos? Now mirror these preferences in relation to sex!”

The students were to color their pizzas by inserting the toppings of their choice, creating a picture that revealed to teachers and administrators their most personal sexual information. But as one parent later noted to the local NBC News affiliate: “This assignment is prompting kids to become sexually active before their time.”

When details of the assignment came to light, parents were outraged. They contacted Parents Defending Education, which documented the particulars on its Connecticut chapter website. Then they showed up en masse at the next Enfield school board meeting to voice their objections. Using the familiar pattern of public school districts administering an odious assignment then claiming it was done in error when parents push back, Superintendent Chris Drezek told the angry crowd that the survey had been posted by accident.

According to Patch.com, the superintendent claimed: “The simple truth is it was a mistake. I know there are some who may not believe that, I know there are some who don’t necessarily want that answer, but… there was no hidden agenda, there was no secret cabal to indoctrinate kids on something. They sent the wrong document. None of us are happy that it happened, and no one feels worse than the person that did it. I owe it to that person to stand up here and tell them, I’ve got your back on this one. I’m moving on, for them and for the 5,000 kids we’ve got to worry about.”

But most parents weren’t buying it. One mother caused a ruckus when she delivered several pizza boxes to the podium desk where parents and citizens are allowed to speak. Another mom eloquently testified:

Since when has it become acceptable for a teacher to ask a student what his or her sexual wants, desires, and boundaries are? Maybe our board members would like to answer these questions as our eighth-grade students were asked to do. No? Do you object and find it incredibly uncomfortable? When we reached out for clarification, we were informed that the incorrect version of this assignment was posted in the curriculum and inadvertently used in the classroom. The coordinator claimed to have caught the error but failed to post the edited version. Why didn’t the teachers catch it? Do they just blindly follow the curriculum and not question the morality of the assignments required for the unit? Why didn’t the curriculum committee catch this? What is their role if not to oversee the curriculum and make sure these types of mistakes don’t end up as homework for our children? This type of assignment, whether an accident or not, is unacceptable.

But the Enfield questionnaire is nothing new, although the pizza concept may be unique. The focus on leading school children to develop an inordinate fixation on sex has been in place for decades, and as Education Reporter has often described, the assignments and surveys have become increasingly pornographic. The good news is that, with the help of parents’ groups that are popping up like spring flowers, they are being exposed as never before, and more and more parents are closing ranks to fight back.

Pornographic books

Another area of parental concern involves the pornographic and otherwise objectionable books assigned to students and available on both school and public library shelves. In Wyoming, the attack on parents protesting pornographic library books became so intense that a county commissioner ended up resigning over his public anti-parent rants.

According to conservative news source WorldNetDaily (WND), the national pro-family organization MassResistance began documenting the Wyoming situation nearly a year ago, and is now reporting on the departure of Campbell County Commissioner Daniel Reardon. Wyoming MassResistance activists described in a February 9 online post that Reardon compared parents to Nazis during a meeting last summer, where parents adamantly objected to what they considered pornography in the public library. Reardon further accused them of “ignorance and hate.”

“When it comes to arrogant anti-family public officials, parents don’t have to just sit and take it,” the MassResistance activists wrote. “But they have to be willing to take a very strong stand and be persistent.

“Like most areas in Wyoming, Campbell County is quite conservative,” the post noted. “But unfortunately, liberals and RINOs have been elected to key positions. Last summer, local MassResistance parents began complaining to their County Commission about the pornographic and obscene LGBT books for children and teenagers appearing in the public library. Some of the graphic homosexual books for young teenagers are sickening even for adults.”

County Commissioner Daniel Reardon “was particularly hostile to the idea of shielding children from obscenity and LGBT pornography,” the post read. In a July email, Reardon “smeared parents” for objecting to a transgender performance for children at a local library. Then, during a County Commission meeting on August 12, “Reardon suddenly launched into an angry rant against the parents in the room.”

He defended library staff and the bureaucratic “processes that are in place” for book selections and pointed out that forms are available which allow parents to challenge the selections. He claimed that “‘censoring’ LGBT books (i.e., homosexual pornography) was equivalent to censoring books on guns, the military, blacks, or religions other than Christianity.

“Then he really went off the rails,” activists reported, blaming parents for “not doing their jobs” and “not supervising what their children are reading in the library.” He said parents need to “stop talking about censoring, taking books out, burning books, and going back to the days of the Nazis.”

When one parent angrily shouted out that the commissioner was lying about parents, Reardon “had a Sheriff’s officer escort the man out of the room.” He then scolded parents: “Don’t tell us we’re not doing our job. We are doing our job.”

Reardon’s outburst was obviously meant to intimidate and silence parents, but MassResistance relates that it had the opposite effect. Parents continued speaking out at commission meetings and aired their concerns on social media. Last October, the commission banned all public comment in order to keep parents from complaining at the meetings, which caused more outrage.

Then on January 5, 2022, without prior notice and just weeks after the library board chair departed from her position, Reardon abruptly resigned from the commission, citing fears of COVID-19 and the fact that he had moved to another county. His relocation, however, had taken place well prior to his resignation.

Wyoming MassResistance activists note that Reardon’s successor, commissioner Don Hamm, is more in tune with their views. According to parents who met with the three potential replacement candidates, “Hamm was right on their wavelength regarding the library problems.”

Campbell County parents fully expect the commission to repeal its ban on public comment, once another of the family friendly commissioners becomes the new chairman this month. And they are hopeful that even bigger changes may be ahead.

‘Too Woke’ for San Francisco

Parents are even rising up in an unlikely location, the liberal/progressive city of San Francisco. Fox News reported on February 16 that residents had voted the previous night to recall three sitting school board members. The city’s mayor, London Breed, conceded that school board President Gabriela López, Vice President Faauuga Moliga, and Commissioner Alison Collins — “pushed progressive politics rather than act in the best interest of children during the pandemic.” Pundits observed that the city’s policies had become “too woke” for San Franciscans.

The board members were criticized over a variety of issues, including a failed attempt to rename 44 schools honoring historic and public figures whom it claimed were guilty of “racism” and “sexism,” including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Some parents complained about the elimination of merit-based admissions and the board’s general lack of concern for education. Fox News Contributor Leo Terrell accused the board’s policies of “harming children,” and noted that “parents have had enough.” He added that board members “were playing woke-ism, renaming schools, and keeping children at home” without a scientific basis for doing so. He stressed that “the damage has been done—these kids have been damaged.”

The Independent Journal Review reported that ousted school board president López whined that the recall was the “consequence” of fighting for racial justice. But many parents disagreed, including Asian Americans in particular. After board members labeled them “white supremacists,” they turned out in droves to help oust the offenders.

Library books and books chosen for assigned reading that are inappropriate for children aren’t all necessarily pornographic, such as the graphic (picture) book, Maus, although Maus does include one instance of nudity. But when books are pulled from library shelves as a result of parental demands, leftist teachers, administrators, school board members, community activists, and the mainstream media swing into action, labeling the parents’ attempts to protect their children’s innocence as “book banning,” “censorship,” and “Orwellian.”

On January 10, the McMinn County, Tennessee School Board removed Maus, a 30-year-old story of the holocaust written by Art Spiegelman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1992, from the eighth-grade English language arts curriculum. The board cited as its main objection that the book is not age appropriate. “It shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids, why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy,” said School Board Member Tony Allman, according to the Associated Press.

The board issued the following eloquent and reasonable explanation of its decision:

One of the most important roles of an elected board of education is to reflect the values of the community it serves. The McMinn County Board of Education voted to remove the graphic novel Maus from McMinn County Schools because of its unnecessary use of profanity and nudity and its depiction of violence and suicide. Taken as a whole, the Board felt this work was simply too adult-oriented for use in our schools.

We do not diminish the value of Maus as an impactful and meaningful piece of literature, nor do we dispute the importance of teaching our children the historical and moral lessons and realities of the Holocaust. To the contrary, we have asked our administrators to find other works that accomplish the same educational goals in a more age-appropriate fashion. The atrocities of the Holocaust were shameful beyond description, and we all have an obligation to ensure that younger generations learn of its horrors to ensure that such an event is never repeated.

We simply do not believe that this work is an appropriate text for our students to study.

Despite its sound reasoning, the board has been roundly criticized, with hysterical accusations of “book banning” and censorship coming from the Left. But as supporters of the board’s action correctly note: “The graphic narrative Maus is becoming a point on which the Left is hanging its accusation of book banning.”

For example, in addition to numerous media reports condemning the action, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, whose union is not represented in McMinn County, said: “Yes it is uncomfortable to talk about genocide, but it is our history and educating about it helps us not repeat this horror.” The Holocaust Museum tweeted: “Teaching about the Holocaust using books like Maus can inspire students to think critically about the past and their own roles and responsibilities today.”

What’s it about?

Maus is a tale of Spiegelman’s Jewish parents living in 1940s Poland, using a format whereby the author interviews his father about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor. The book uses graphic images of cats to depict the nazis and mice to depict the Jews. The Poles are portrayed as pigs, Americans as dogs, the British as fish, the French as frogs, and the Swedish as deer. Reviewers have described the book as a mix of genres, from biography to autobiography to history to fiction.

Maus employs postmodernist techniques, which by definition reject objective fact. One student of postmodernism described it this way: “I don’t care what you believe — you can believe whatever you want, and you can’t tell me I’m wrong, whatever I believe or do. Seriously, that’s it in a nutshell.”

But is Maus truly banned?

Although the book’s merits as an educational tool, albeit not suitable for students younger than college age, could be debated forever, the real question is whether or not Maus was truly banned by the McMinn, Tennessee School Board. A February 5 article in the American Spectator asserts that “Maus was not banned. When a county school board in Tennessee chooses to not use a certain book in an eighth-grade curriculum, that is not a ban.”

The Spectator further states that the school district “didn’t choose thousands of books on the topic. Were they banned? With a limited amount of time to teach, many worthy books are not chosen… Sometimes the choice is wise, sometimes it is not. But even an unwise choice is not the same thing as forbidding a book to be read. It is not banning…

“Students’ lockers are not being checked for the ‘banned’ book. It is sold in stores and delivered to doors. There is no attempt by authorities to stop it from being read… So why do all these news outlets, talking heads, and tweeters insist on calling this a banning?”

The article ominously points out that “misuse of the word serves a rhetorical purpose. It is meant to eliminate a meaningful consideration of the pros and cons of this specific choice. It instantly labels the deed and those who did it as enemies of all that is good and right, fascists, as they were called again and again in the Star Chamber world of the woke and the would-be woke.”

In a similar manner, Kyle Smith of the National Review correctly asserted on February 8 that “all of the major media outlets reported something that simply did not happen.”

Smith wrote: “When the Right takes a book off a school reading list, it’s a ‘ban’ and cause for despair, calumny, and outrage. When the Left does so, it’s merely a removal and passes by with hardly any mention in the media…

“The media almost unanimously used the word ‘ban’ to describe a Tennessee school board’s decision to remove Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus. Yet the book was not banned. It was removed from a curriculum. Meanwhile, on January 24, a school board in Washington State removed To Kill a Mockingbird from its required curriculum for the ninth grade. The response to this move was about as loud as the sound a sparrow feather makes when it crashes into a pillow.”

The bottom line is that parents, concerned citizens, and conservative school board members and candidates need to arm themselves with these truthful, rational and sensible arguments so they are prepared when confronted with irrational leftwing name-calling and accusations.

School board members have every right to determine curriculum; it is their most important job, and the McMinn, Tennessee School Board has done just that. It did NOT ban Maus, it correctly took action that it believed to be in the best interests of the students they were elected to serve.

The mainstream media and their supporters are spreading lies because it suits their agenda. The McMinn School Board should stand strong and not rescind its sound decision.

Heart of a Child Ministries is an organization devoted to educating school children about the miracle of life through the powerful visual of live ultrasound. Ministry professionals create age-appropriate presentations for children from elementary school age through high school, supplementing the ultrasounds with scientific information about fetal development in the womb. The organization also presents to adults through church and community groups.

Based in Omaha, Nebraska, Heart of a Child was founded in 2012 by Bernie and Nikki Schaefer, who were inspired by their seven-year-old daughter Grace. On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the family was praying before the Blessed Sacrament at their parish church. After prayer, Grace told her mother she wanted to make something to sell and then give the money “to mommies considering abortion. Those babies may be small,” Grace said, “but they are people.”

The child described what became a pro-life “prayer pillow.” Schaefer says the hand of God was definitely at work because at the time, her homeschooled daughters were taking sewing lessons from a seamstress who visited their house. The seamstress helped them make a few sample pillows and Grace’s idea took off.

With the help of another professional seamstress, Mitzi LeClair, and some willing volunteers, almost 2,000 pillows have been produced, and for four years they donated their sales revenue to help pregnant mothers in need.

Then in 2015, Grace and her mother were invited to share the story of the prayer pillows with students at a Catholic middle school, and since that first presentation, thousands of K-12 students have heard the “pro-life, pro-God, pro-woman, and pro-family message behind the pillows.”

Age-appropriate presentations

“With that first successful presentation,” Schaefer explains, “we developed a full-fledged pro-life education ministry through the Hand of God. Being able to see a baby in the womb and hear his or her heartbeat is so important and impactful to children. We’ve seen the experience make an impression at all ages and grade levels.”

Heart of a Child makes presentations at Catholic schools, other Christian schools, and even at public schools. Its website points out that “85 percent of women who see their babies on ultrasound choose life,” and that children properly instructed learn to value life. “Our presentations include age-appropriate conversations with students — about the gift of life for young kids, and including the topics of abortion and adoption for older kids,” Schaefer explains.

The organization’s website includes video trailers of its presentations, which parents, teachers, and interested citizens can view. A short description and link to each trailer is noted below.

• K-3rd grade presentation focuses on Scripture, songs, fun fetal facts, live ultrasound, and interactive hands-on activities.
• 4th-6th grade presentation focuses on Scripture, fun fetal facts, live ultrasound, adoption speaker, and interactive hands on activities.
• 7th-8th grade presentation focuses on Scripture, fun fetal facts, live ultrasound, adoption speaker, and gently introduces the topic of abortion through the story of the pro-life Prayer Pillows.
• High School & beyond presentation focuses on Scripture, fun fetal facts, live ultrasound, and abortion, adoption, and abstinence speakers.

In addition to Nikki Schaefer, who holds a Master’s degree in Social Work and Art Therapy, Heart of a Child’s team of professionals includes sonographers, masters-level health and mental health professionals, and pro-life parents. The website states: “We are from different faiths and backgrounds – united in Christ and in God’s call to share the gift of life and love with others.”

The organization offers videos on a variety of pro-life topics, including adoption, choosing life despite difficult circumstances, and choosing life for a child with disabilities such as Down’s Syndrome. The beauty of adoption is featured in some of the presentations. Heart of a Child also provides a video to help women heal after abortion.

Informing parents

The school presentations are made by Schaefer and the sonographers, but her group includes 15 speakers on their high school volunteer list alone. Some speakers are paid as needed, as are some sonographers. One of the speakers, Kristen New, is a woman whom Schaefer compares to the famed pro-life speaker Abby Johnson, who converted after witnessing late-term abortions in a Planned Parenthood clinic. New converted after witnessing a second trimester dismemberment abortion at a clinic (not Planned Parenthood). Schaefer notes that the list includes a man “who has had to go through healing after experiencing a partner’s abortion.”

Volunteers include pregnant women who donate their time for on-site ultrasounds during the school presentations. Schaefer explains that the organization’s guidelines “are set by our presiding doctor. Pregnant volunteers must have had their 20-week baseline ultrasound, and so the ultrasounds performed in class occur after our volunteers’ 20-week baseline, or between 20 and 30 weeks of pregnancy.”

While parents generally welcome these sessions, some are more reticent, fearing that younger children may be subjected to graphic images of aborted babies or discussions of human sexuality. Schaefer counsels that the presentations do not include either, and instead focus on the humanity of the unborn child. The key question after the ultrasound presentation, Schaefer notes, is: “What did you see that tells you that this is a human being?”

Schaefer says that once parents understand what their children will learn — the topic of abortion, for example, is not raised until middle school age — they support the scientific and age-appropriate instruction on the development of human life.

Looking to the future

From its humble beginnings in Nebraska, Heart of a Child has grown and now reaches into five other states, including Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, South Dakota, and California. Schaefer says they are looking to add Illinois and Minnesota in October 2022. “We can’t be the ones to always travel, but instead, what we really want to do is inspire other organizations to adopt the same educational model that we use, because it works.”

In fact, a 2020 Live Action news article posted on Heart of a Child’s website notes that “Focus on the Family has also used ultrasounds to try to change hearts and minds, and even hosted a live ultrasound presentation in Times Square” in 2019, where “approximately 20,000 people watched what Paul Batura, vice president of communications for Focus on the Family, described to the Omaha World-Herald as a ‘game-changer,’ explaining that the ultrasounds serve as ‘a window on the womb.'”

But Heart of a Child remains unique in that its primary mission is to educate through ultrasound. “We employ the three S’s in our instruction,” Schaefer describes, “Science, Scripture, and Speakers, the formula we use in Christian schools. But in public schools, we have to forego Scripture because, as we’ve been told, it makes the message too religious.” Nonetheless, the biological and scientific instruction so powerfully demonstrates the humanity of the unborn child that the organization believes it’s worthwhile to modify the presentations.

Schaefer relates that “we have a new website just for public schools called ScienceoftheUnborn.org. The website tells public school teachers and administrators: “Our goal is to provide ultrasound education to middle school and high school students to create awareness of the scientific development of the human person in the womb. We work with you and your science curriculum to share the development of the pre-born person with your students. We have professional sonographers who perform live ultrasounds on pregnant volunteers and project the ultrasound on a large screen for your students to see.

“We share fetal development slides and discuss the fascinating growth of the zygote, embryo, and fetus. We can customize each presentation to fit your curriculum goals.”

Schaefer and her team pray that, with God’s grace, the ministry will continue to grow. “We want to partner with like-minded organizations and encourage them to adopt our program because, again, it’s proven to work.”

Observers familiar with Heart of a Child agree. “If anyone knows a pro-life teacher, this is a fantastic opportunity,” notes Phyllis Schlafly Eagles Researcher Gwen Kelley. “We should spread the word about this organization far and wide.”

Disney’s Minnie Mouse is ditching her classic red dress with white polka dots for a navy-blue pantsuit with black polka dots. The new attire, which is clearly gender neutral, was designed by famed clothing designer Stella McCartney, daughter of musician and former Beatle Paul McCartney. “Minnie has always had a special place in my heart,” McCartney told the New York Post. “We share the same values.” Really? “What I love about Minnie,” McCartney continued, ” is the fact that she embodies happiness, self-expression, authenticity, and that she inspires people of all ages around the world.” But Minnie’s new outfit conveys neither “happiness” nor “authenticity,” but instead suggests darkness and depressing meaninglessness. She could be anything to anybody, which is doubtless the whole point. Disney indicated that Minnie’s new style “is in honor of Women’s History Month in March and the 30th anniversary of Disneyland Paris,” but the new figure of Minnie fails to portray anything womanly. While feminists and the gender identity crowd will likely embrace her new look, it smacks of the Left’s relentless effort to destroy everything traditionally American, including the timeless icons of children’s entertainment. Rumble.com/Minnie Mouse

Missouri State Rep. Suzie Pollock (R-District 123) has introduced H.B. 2649, the Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act which is intended to protect minor children from physiological gender transition procedures. Pollock appeared on the Family Research Council’s (FRC) Washington Watch program, where she explained that the bill makes it illegal to give children life-altering cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, or any kind of gender transition surgery. The legislation is timely as the propagation of gender identity ideology is rampant in the schools and on social media, resulting in increased numbers of children undergoing procedures that result in irreversible harm. These destructive treatments have not only ruined lives but failed to reduce the risk of suicide, and FRC says all these factors compelled lawmakers in states like Missouri to seek a legislative solution. Last year, 21 states introduced bills prohibiting gender transition procedures on minors. Arkansas became the first to enact such a bill into law, overriding Gov. Hutchinson’s veto by wide margins. Missouri is the fifth state to introduce a SAFE Act this year, and 17 states have already introduced similar legislation. Many of these bills have even stronger protections for minors. The Missouri SAFE Act also defines crucial terms like “sex” and “gender,” in order to differentiate a child’s biological sex with the self-perceived gender. With rare exceptions, it prohibits public funding, insurance coverage, and referral for sex-altering procedures. Finally, the bill includes a professional penalty for noncompliance (i.e., revocation or suspension of medical licensure) and creates a cause of action for individuals harmed by violations to receive damages. Pollock urged Missouri residents to contact their state senators and representatives. “The faster we move, the better,” she said. Family Research Council Washington Watch, Feb. 9, 2022

Tennesee Governor Bill Lee finally said “enough” to efforts by the University of Memphis to push diversity and equity through its “social justice” programs. In response to the governor’s concerns, the university canceled a federal grant for its social justice programming, which began in 2020 and has “14 groups focused on improving academic outcomes for students of color, retaining faculty of color, and improving pay equity, as well as minority business contracting and creating diverse, equitable and inclusive coursework.” The latest initiative would reportedly have awarded 15-20 professors with a $3,000 grant to “support faculty who are interested in redesigning and aligning existing course syllabi with the goals established by the workgroup” of the program focused on coursework, or in other words, to throw thousands of additional taxpayer dollars down the rabbit hole of leftwing politics. The governor explained his decision in a statement: “We welcome robust debate on college campuses, but taxpayer dollars should never be used to fuel a divisive, radical agenda.” He added: “The University of Memphis has informed my office that the initiative will not move forward. Ending this program was the right decision, and I thank the university for hearing our concerns.” The termination prompted apoplectic attacks on the governor by mainstream media, academia, leftwing organizations, and activists. The local chapter of Turning Point USA, a national conservative group that is represented on many college campuses, supported the grant cancellation. The Left accused this group of fomenting “disinformation campaigns about the pandemic and the 2020 election,” and of sending “50 people” to take part in the January 6 insurrection, all of which had nothing to do with the worthiness of the grant program but was consistent with attacks by leftists when their agendas are thwarted. The bottom line: Governor Lee did the right thing and should be commended. MSN.com