June 2022 — Ed Reporter Monthly Email Edition

The law known as Title IX was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972. It was a simple, one-sentence rule that had broad support from both Republicans and Democrats because most politicians did not consider it controversial. The purported original intent of Title IX was to prevent discrimination against women who wanted to play college-level sports at post-secondary schools that receive federal funds, but some conservative leaders considered it a feminist ploy to diminish men’s sports.

Whatever the case, according to Dr. Buddy Ullman, retired professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Oregon University of Health & Science: “The real problem started in the 1990s when the Supreme Court made several rulings that expanded the definition of gender discrimination to include harassment and assault.” In a June 2 interview with Phyllis Schlafly Eagles President Ed Martin on his ProAmerica Report, Ullman explained: “These are politically motivated regulations that govern how schools must handle disputes — sexual harassment disputes, sexual assault claims, under the guise of Title IX.”

In response to Martin’s question of whether the regulations that were added to Title IX and the investigations that resulted were predictable, Ullman replied that “they were not something we saw coming.” He alluded to a false accusation that was made against him personally during his teaching career and described the Title IX investigation as “straight out of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.” He said the Obama Administration “put together a guidance for the schools that was a disaster. It empowered functionaries to basically adjudicate these types of disputes and they resulted in a lot of erroneous outcomes. They often ended up in court and the wrong students typically prevailed.”

Trump Education Department tried to right the ship

Ullman commended the Trump Administration and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos* for putting together “a set of regulations that were very well thought out,” and which “leveled the playing field by overturning some of the Obama regs that were very slanted toward the accuser. In an effort to undo the Trump rules, the Biden Administration is revising Title IX again to include gender; controversial in the sense that it attempts to regulate pronoun use, etc.”

When Martin asked: “Are we at the point now where Title IX is just a political and/or cultural football to be kicked back and forth,” Ullman responded “Yes, it is both.” He explained: “The Biden Admin is trying to reverse the regs that were put in place by Betsy DeVos without providing any reasons for doing this.

“They’re trying to do two things: Loosen the rules to make it easier for female students to lodge complaints, a lot of which are frivolous … in fact, in most cases the complaints don’t rise to the level of sexual harassment. Secondly, they want to broaden the meaning of biological sex. Initially, it was about giving women equal access to play college-level sports, now they want to make it about sexual orientation and gender identification.”

Ullman suggested that the end result could well mean a Title IX investigation if a student simply uses the “wrong” pronoun. He referenced, for example, that the State of Wisconsin was “prosecuting kids for using the wrong pronouns to address another student, which is a violation of those students’ free speech rights.” However, as reported by Blaze Media on June 6, that action was dropped after parents of the accused students hired the conservative Institute for Law and Liberty to defend them. The group notified the district in May that the school “had violated the boys’ First Amendment rights and that the use of biologically correct pronouns does not constitute sexual harassment under Title IX or school policy.” However, if the Biden Administration’s new Title IX rules are adopted, such frivolous charges could result in a totally different outcome.

Both Ullman and Martin agree that Title IX has long been “weaponized” on college campuses — by students, by faculty, and by administrators. “I was Title IX’d,” said Ullman, “by someone who wanted to get back at me for other reasons, and who made an allegation that I was only able to find out the specifics about many months later, after the case was closed.

Martin noted in a press release on May 31 that “redefining discrimination in schools and colleges to include so-called ‘mispronouning’ is bringing the thought police to life in American public schools, plain and simple.”

Attorneys General take action

“Thankfully not all public leaders have lost their minds,” Martin continued, “Montana’s Attorney General Austin Knudsen is leading a coalition of 15 (and hopefully growing) attorneys general who are calling on the U.S. Department of Education to cancel this planned revision of Title IX. Such a radical interpretation is contrary to the very text of the law itself and would undoubtedly lead to a violation of the right of parents to decide the best interests of their children.”

Martin is referring to the objections that have been raised in a letter signed by 15 Republican state attorneys general who are pushing back on Biden’s pledge to replace “the DeVos era Title IX rule” with a new one. As reported by Dive Wire, the new rule would, among other things, “set up courtroom-like hearings for evaluating sexual assault cases.” It will also “protect transgender students from discrimination under Title IX,” which will likely be the final death knell for women’s sports. The attorneys general noted in their letter that they “are prepared to take legal action against such provisions.”

The letter is addressed to Catherine E. Lhamon, assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, and conveys the signers’ alarm that the department intends “to propose new regulations implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.”, in 2022, citing as their chief reason the department’s failure “to provide sufficient justification for engaging in a new rulemaking.”

The attorneys general are urging the U.S. Department of Education to “halt its effort and not disturb the current Title IX regulations.” The letter states: “The 2020 Rule, which became effective on August 14, 2020, sets forth clear legal obligations that require schools to promptly respond to allegations of sexual harassment, follow a fair grievance process to resolve those allegations, and provide remedies to victims. It guarantees victims and accused students strong, clear procedural rights in a predictable, transparent process designed to reach reliable outcomes. It offers important new protections and benefits for victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault. It provides essential provisions protecting free speech and academic freedom. The 2020 Rule also clarifies an institution’s entitlement to a religious exemption under § 1681(a)(3). The Department should not eliminate or modify any of these vital provisions.”

The letter describes the toxic environment created by the Obama-era rules, and insists that Assistant Secretary Lhamon recuse herself if the new rulemaking moves forward. It reads: “The 2020 Rule was enacted in response to a constitutional and regulatory mess created by OCR from 2011 to 2016. As Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights from 2013 to 2017, you played a crucial role in creating this problem. OCR’s infamous 2011 Dear Colleague Letter: Sexual Violence (“2011 DCL”) and 2014 Questions and Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence (‘2014 Q&A’) wreaked havoc on campuses across the country. OCR compelled schools to adopt the lowest standard of proof for proving sexual harassment and sexual assault claims—preponderance of the evidence—and pressured schools to find accused students responsible for sexual misconduct even where there was significant doubt about culpability.”

Ed Martin stated on behalf of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles: “We wish all the best to General Knudsen’s coalition and we plan to support them in any way we can as they face down this disturbing assault on Free Speech, freedom of conscience, and the right of parents over their children’s education.”

National Association of Scholars urges citizens to speak out

In its April 2022 newsletter, the National Association of Scholars (NAS) included an article on the Biden Administration efforts to promulgate a new Title IX regulation. NAS characterized the law as being “frequently abused by feminists who see it as a weapon in the sex wars—that is, to falsely accuse men of sexual assault.”

The NAS called the Biden initiative a “waste of tax dollars as it duplicates much of what [Betsy] DeVos already did, such as a ‘comprehensive review’ of the law’s applications.” The organization lamented that the DeVos efforts had already resulted in stronger due process for both accusers and accused, and that these measures have been in effect for less than two years.

But the point of the NAS article was not only to decry the Biden Education Department’s unnecessary efforts to revamp the good Title IX regulations of 2020, but also to urge its members to speak out during the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) public comment sessions “so individuals can express their concerns about Title IX going forward.” NAS is asking anyone concerned with this new threat to Title IX to take advantage of the public comment sessions of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (“OIRA”) so individuals can express their concerns about Title IX going forward.

NAS notes that “the Biden proposal is also expected to redefine the word ‘sex’ to include not just sexual orientation but also ‘gender identity.’ This will enable students to use Title IX for complaints about a hostile environment if they think that hostility is because of their sexual orientation or because of their expressed ‘gender identity,’ including their stated pronoun preferences.

“Such redefinitions by federal agencies constitute yet more unlawful agency overreach and would violate current United State Supreme Court jurisprudence, many state laws as well as the plain meaning of this federal statute.”

Anyone interested in commenting may make an appointment at the following link: https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eo/neweomeeting. Commenters should enter the regulatory identification number (“RIN”) 1870-AA16. Those submitting a request will receive a confirmation email through which they can complete the registration process. Requestors will then receive a time slot for making their statements. Reading a written statement is permitted, and commenters may also upload documents.

The NAS adds that it is already on the calendar for comment, so individuals seeking to comment should use their own personal or professional affiliations rather than show affiliation with NAS.

*NOTE: Education Reporter covered the Trump/DeVos revamp of the Obama Administration Title IX regulations in its Summer 2020 issue.

Once in a blue moon, a liberal/progressive educational pillar collapses, prompting celebrations by those who have labored for decades to topple it. But as this article will demonstrate, progressive willingness to admit defeat only goes so far.

To illustrate is the case of education professor and author Lucy Calkins, who was for decades a champion of so-called “balanced literacy” in reading — which essentially means word guessing — and whose flawed programs flourished in schools nationwide, leaving many a student unable to read. Calkins was recently featured in a New York Times article as having changed her tune and embraced phonics.

Calkins is certified in the teaching of reading, and is founding director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. Now 70, her philosophy has been that children are “natural readers” and that they should be given a “voice” in how they learn; that they should be encouraged to “discover and refine their own writing style” as they compose their own stories and journals. Her curriculum, called “Units of Study,” is built on this premise and was not only “wildly popular,” according to the Times, but also very profitable, with one-fourth of the nation’s 67,000 elementary schools using it.

Additionally, Calkins’ organization, the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, is billed as a “not-for-profit think tank.” But the Times contends it is a money-making business venture as well, which includes a stable of highly compensated consultants, books schools pay for that accompany Calkins’ curriculum, and other revenue-producing activities.

‘Science’ chooses phonics

Regardless of the popularity and reach of the purveyor, when a reading program fails to teach children to read, it’s difficult to expect them to learn to write, and the gap inevitably becomes noticeable. Given the increasing impact of “science” on every endeavor in recent decades, and especially since the start of the pandemic, it was perhaps inevitable that the “science of reading” would amass data unmasking the failure of Calkins’ and other look-say reading methods.

As the Times observed: “With brain science steadily adding to that evidence, there is a sense — at least for many in the education establishment — that the debate over early reading instruction may be ebbing. Phonics is ascendant.”

Perhaps if one of the greatest champions of phonics instruction, Phyllis Schlafly, were alive today, she would find some satisfaction in this acknowledgement of what she knew to be true for most of her long life; that phonics is the means whereby children of all socio-economic groups, ethnicities, and backgrounds can best learn to read.

Phyllis not only created her own proven phonics programs, First Reader and Turbo Reader, but she championed other supporters of phonics over the years and mentioned them in her writings. For example, she lauded the Virginia-based National Right to Read Foundation (NRRF) which was active in promoting phonics instruction programs for more than 20 years. (The organization has recently closed its website.)

In July 2000, Education Reporter described a study by the National Reading Panel (NRP) showing that, “to be effective, reading instruction must include phonics.” The study was billed as “the largest, most comprehensive evidence-based review ever conducted of research on how children learn reading.” Its conclusions were that children should be taught “phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency, or how to read orally with speed, accuracy, and proper expression.” Finally, this study emphasized the necessity of children being taught strategies for how to comprehend what they read.

Mrs. Schlafly almost certainly would not have praised the “balanced literacy” philosophy of Professor Calkins. While Calkins now claims she never doubted “the importance of phonics,” for decades she placed little importance on it. The Times notes that, in her influential 2001 book, The Art of Teaching Reading, Calkins “warned about what she saw as the risks of ‘too much sounding-it-out.’ She praised one teacher for avoiding ‘an intricate series of activities with phonics,’ and argued that a simple way to build ‘lifelong readers’ was to allow children to spend time with books they chose, regardless of content or difficulty.” A logical question is how useful spending time with a book would be for a child who cannot read it.

During most of her career Professor Calkins “said little about sounding-out and recommended a word-guessing method, sometimes called three-cueing. According to the Times, “this practice is one of the most controversial legacies of balanced literacy. It directs children’s attention away from the only reliable source of information for reading a word: letters.

“Three-cueing is embedded in schools. Thousands of how-to guides are available online, and a 2020 video shows a teacher telling children “to use a picture to guess the word ‘car,’ even though simple phonics make it decodable.”

Is Calkins’ about-face real?

The New York Times says Calkins changed her mind about the science of reading in response to several experts who criticized her work, including journalist Emily Hanford. In October 2020 Hanford wrote: “The United States has long struggled with teaching kids to read; 65 percent of fourth graders read at a level considered basic or below, according to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

“Reading scientists say part of the problem is that popular curriculum materials, including those written by Calkins, rely on a disproven theory about how people read. That theory says people use meaning and sentence structure to predict words as they read when, in fact, decades of cognitive science research show that skilled reading requires an ability to decode, matching the sounds in words with the letters used to spell them.”

But Calkins was not the only promoter of cueing. Hanford wrote in 2019 that cueing was “a disproven theory” that remained part of American education, causing many kids to continue to struggle with learning how to read.

“The theory was first proposed in 1967, when an education professor named Ken Goodman presented a paper at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York City,” Hanford wrote. “In the paper, Goodman rejected the idea that reading is a precise process that involves exact or detailed perception of letters or words. Instead, he argued that as people read, they make predictions about the words on the page using these three cues:

• graphic cues (what do the letters tell you about what the word might be?)
• syntactic cues (what kind of word could it be, for example, a noun or a verb?)
• semantic cues (what word would make sense here, based on the context?)”

Goodman’s conclusion: “Skill in reading involves not greater precision, but more accurate first guesses based on better sampling techniques, greater control over language structure, broadened experiences and increased conceptual development. As the child develops reading skill and speed, he uses increasingly fewer graphic cues.

“Goodman’s proposal became the theoretical basis for a new approach to teaching reading that would soon take hold in American schools.” Calkins later incorporated it as part of her reading method.

Regarding Calkins’ purported about-face on teaching phonics, the Times wrote that despite her assertion that “word-guessing would not be included in her revised curriculum,” she is peddling “a hybrid of her old and new methods.” She recommends that “students should first decode words using ‘slider power’ — running their fingers under letters and sounding them out — but then check for mistakes using ‘picture power.'” Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said that while he found some of the revisions ‘encouraging,’ he was concerned that ‘objectionable’ concepts remain.

Some parents, whose children have failed after being taught to read using Calkins’ methods, said “no revision from Professor Calkins could earn their trust.” One mom of three dyslexic students told the Times: “When children don’t learn to read, they doubt their ability to do anything in life.”

Despite significant negative exposure by conservative media outlets, authors, activists, and parents’ groups, efforts by the progressive left to force-feed dangerous and destructive transgender propaganda to schoolchildren continue unabated. According to The Epoch Times, a phenomenon known as “secret transgender transition closets,” which originated at the college level, is surfacing in public high schools and middle schools.

The Western Journal’s Elizabeth Stauffer observed with sarcasm on April 24: “Activist teachers understand how painful it can be for students whose parents won’t allow them to dress as the gender they identify as. And they’ve come up with a solution — ‘secret gender transition closets.'”

Stauffer explains how the closets work. “Unbeknownst to their unenlightened parents, a student can arrive at school, enter a transition closet, which is equipped with a wide variety of gender-appropriate clothing and accessories, and walk out dressed any way he or she wishes. Obviously, before they return home to their parents, the student goes back into the closet to change into his or her original clothes. And no one is the wiser.”

While this notion is disturbing at the college level, it becomes even more outrageous when pitched to middle and high school students. Stauffer reports that, surprisingly, the concept was initially launched by the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and was designed “to let trans-identified youth circumvent their parents and socially transition without their knowledge.”

The concept spread and was “announced with glee” by Fremont Public High School in Oakland, California in February of this year. An article posted on thepostmillennial.com reported that the school launched its “‘transition closet’ to help students hide gender dysphoria from parents.”

Thomas Martin-Edwards, a Fremont Spanish teacher and founder of the Queer Teacher Fellowship, explained that he uses “the idea that this is like Superman changing in a phone booth. But that idea actually goes a lot further … Because Superman isn’t Clark Kent. Clark Kent is actually the disguise. And when Clark Kent goes into the phone booth, he transforms into Superman, who is really just who he truly is, Kal-El. So this gives our trans students the opportunity to be the superheroes that we know they are.”

The PostMillennial article said the Oakland district was looking to expand Transition Closets to other schools and was busy soliciting clothing donations. In addition to providing a secret space to change their clothes, the closets also offer videos to students on “how to use specific pronouns,” “how to put on a chest binder,” “how to look more stereotypically masculine,” and more.

The Western Journal’s Stauffer also stated: “PJ Media’s Megan Fox wrote about a new transition closet at a Denver, Colorado, middle school in March.” A now-deleted post on the school’s Facebook page read: “Our school, DSST Conservatory Green Middle School, is creating a closet for our trans students to be able to access clothing reflecting their gender identity.”

The Libs of TikTok tweeted about Green Middle School’s effort to “TRANSGENDER TWELVE YEAR OLDS pic.twitter.com/vRUVQA76wR.” One Twitter user responded that the Denver Public School District “is now hiding and restricting comments. They don’t want to answer as to why they are assisting in transing the kids.” Another user commented: “There were zero trans kids when I was in school. Now they seem to be everywhere.”

Is there any real question as to why this might be so?

Stauffer added that Fox “tried to obtain information from Green Middle School via the Freedom of Information Act. She was told it would cost her $1,650 because they estimated it would take 55 hours at $30 per hour to fulfill her request.” Fox asked if the school “had notified parents that a transition closet was being set up and for any emails about its planning” and decried the “absurd amount of money” they tried to charge as being “calculated to keep parents from being able to discover what this publicly funded school is doing with the children in their care.”

‘Sinister motive’ behind the transgender movement

Journalist, educator, and author Alex Newman rightly contends that the sex and gender curriculum uncovered by many parents during the COVID-19 lockdowns “is intentionally being used to indoctrinate young children and has gotten progressively more radical with time.”

Newman spoke with NTD Evening News in May, noting: “With each generation that passes, the content has become more and more graphic. The content has become more and more radical, the values being promoted have been more and more explicitly anti-traditional, anti-Christian, anti-family values, and I think there really is a very sinister motive here.”

He voiced what many conservatives have long recognized, that “the main goal of such a curriculum is to undermine the nuclear family. And one of the ways that that happens is by undermining traditional morality and values associated with sex….”

The NTD news report described how since the early 20th century, Marxist influence has advocated for increasingly graphic and deviant sex education of children. For example, “Georg Lukacs, a Hungarian Marxist who served as deputy commissar of education in 1919 during the Hungarian Soviet Republic, introduced sex education to children at the elementary level.”

Newman explained: “This was back during the Bela Kun regime — the communist Bolshevik regime that took root in Hungary for a short time under the leadership of cultural and education commissar Georg Lukacs. What he wanted to do — and he was very explicit about this — was use a sort of psychological terrorism in the form of graphic sex education to try to break down the moral values of Hungarian children.

“They couldn’t start right away in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s teaching children to go have multiple sexual partners, teaching children that they might have been born in the wrong body and that if they mutilate their genitals they can be a new gender, or that they should go out and experiment with homosexuality, it just would have been absolutely forbidden.”

But as Newman and others explain, the goal of the left has consistently been to replace the nuclear family with government, and this has been accomplished since the 1960s with the feminist movement and the civil rights movement. Both these movements quickly abandoned the notion of equal opportunity for all and instead became a crusade to foster dependence on the state. As Newman summarized it, the state has become “the primary influence in the child’s life; in terms of passing on values, in terms of passing on morals, in terms of passing on culture.”

The bad news for the left is that parents have awakened and many states are passing laws to protect kids from these radical curricula. Most famous of these is Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, but many similar measures have either been enacted or are moving through the legislative process in other states. Surveys consistently show that a majority of citizens support these efforts.

An example of the human toll

On May 2nd, Candace Owens published a powerful narrative on The Daily Wire.com that, in her direct and movingly honest manner, demonstrates the tragic reality of gender transitioning.

She points out the fallacy of so-called “gender-affirming care” as an example of the lies and manipulation undertaken by transgender proponents. “It’s a term used by trans-activists and media talking heads when discussing, as journalist Abigail Shrier put it, ‘puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and experimental surgeries whose benefits are unproven. In other words,” she writes, “it’s a euphemism only meant to soften the blow of what transitioning and radical gender ideology looks like.

“It makes transitioning sound like a cakewalk which, in turn, makes the issue sound like it’s impossible to argue against.”

Owens then shared the heartbreaking story of a young man who transitioned to a “woman,” as described by his mother on the social media platform Reddit. “The mother’s son, who received puberty blockers from an early age and underwent gender reassignment surgery, is now 20 years old, identifies as a girl, and is unhappy. And not just unhappy — he is suicidal, and the mother doesn’t know what to do.” At her wits’ end, she is asking strangers on Reddit to help her.

Owens acknowledged that the mother’s son probably had innocent childish fantasies, such as believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. She then stated the obvious, that other fantasies can be harmful, such as a child believing he’s Superman, also harmless until he decides to jump out a window believing a cape will help him fly. The parent then has to step in and save the child from serious injury or death.

“The child might not understand why his parents would pull him away from the window,” Owens wrote… “But the parents know the truth. And they know it’s their responsibility to keep their child healthy and alive—to show him the difference between right and wrong, reality and illusion.

“Now, imagine that a boy, like the one above, came to his mother and said, ‘I want to be a girl, mommy.’ And rather than explaining to him why that is ultimately a biological impossibility—no more possible than flying like a bird—the mother, in her ignorance, went along with the fantasy.

“She allowed her child to jump from the figurative bedroom window, and now, her child has grown into adulthood and is crashing into reality all at once. He’s already harmed himself and he’s thinking about taking it a step further — suicide is on his mind.

“Because, as the doctors have told the mother and her son, there is no way to undo what’s been done. Reality has caught up with fiction. Truth has caught up with lies. His depression stems from the fact that he will never be a woman. Sure—they can use parts of his colon to give him something that resembles a vagina, but he will never be a woman — and he knows that.

“His suicidal thoughts also stem from the realization that he’ll never have the opportunity to be a man now because his mother allowed his sexual parts to be mutilated. He’ll never truly know physical desire — because an irrevocable decision was made for him in his childhood.

“Yes — alongside a host of predatory doctors and therapists who should all be imprisoned, this mother agreed to the physical mutilation of her son. The heart aches for the son because he is a true victim; a child victim; a young man whose life was stolen from him.

“To the mom who reached out on Reddit for help — the truth is, you mutilated your once-healthy son over a feeling and a fantasy that he had. Ultimately — and this is hard to accept — you bear responsibility for that mutilation because you prioritized acquiescing to an insane cultural narrative rather than first-grade-level, immutable, biological facts.”

As many victims have painfully discovered in recent years, despite its cultural popularity, transitioning is not a solution for gender dysphoria.

Owens recommends the nonprofit organization “Sex Change Regret,” which is operated by a group of former trans individuals who help those who regret and further suffer from their gender reassignment procedures. Although there is no way back from such procedures, Owens affirms that “there is, fortunately, a way forward. And that way forward begins by no longer suppressing the truth.”

For the first time in his career, Dr. Mark McDonald, psychiatrist and author of United States of Fear: How America fell victim to a mass delusional psychosis, is telling parents to take their children out of the public schools. McDonald says the public-school system “is not only a failure but irredeemable. It is utterly controlled by teachers’ unions and advocates, meaning those who go into the schools to proselytize their ideology on your children. They have no other purpose; no other function.”

“In an online interview with producer Mikki Willis* of Plandemic Series.com, McDonald said: “We would be better off if all parents pulled their children out of the government schools and either did homeschooling or built their own schools in their local communities. That would cause the corrupt, rotten, termite-infested structure to collapse under its own weight, and we could rebuild at the local level.”

McDonald admits he “can hardly believe” he’s telling parents to remove their kids from public schools because two or three years ago he would have considered that “extreme and unnecessary. It’s not a question of whether the school is good or bad,” he adds. “The school is bad. The real question is what are parents willing to do to invest and sacrifice in order to make sure [their] child is given the tools to succeed.”

Some parents are listening

Whether parents are aware of McDonald’s arguments or are listening to the many other voices warning about today’s public-school environment, the recent exodus from public-school classrooms continues. As Education Reporter has noted, many parents removed their children after witnessing first-hand the leftist ideology posing as academics during the COVID-19 shutdowns.

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), observed in March that “since 2020, more families have been fleeing local district schools for other options.” FEE’s Senior Education Fellow and host of the weekly LiberatED podcast, Kerry McDonald (no relation to Dr. Mark McDonald) reported that “homeschooling rates have doubled” and that the “pandemic pods” that sprang up during the lockdowns “have evolved into established microschools and co-op arrangements that have worked better for many families than a conventional classroom.”

She also cited the rise in enrollment in Catholic and other private schools. “Parents are recognizing that they have many more options for their children’s education and are continuing to abandon government-assigned district schools,” she said.

In Minnesota, public school enrollment declined this year by another 0.3 percent on top of the nearly two percent decline in 2020-2021, which was the first drop there in a decade. While this percentage may not seem significant, Scott Croonquist, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, admitted on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR): “Anytime you experience declining enrollment, the reality is the revenue drops off much faster than you can shed the expenses. That does create a significant financial challenge for school districts.” MPR added that while fewer Minnesota families are homeschooling this year, “nonpublic schools saw a 5.8 percent enrollment increase.”

Among FEE’s additional findings:

• San Diego public schools are losing students at a faster pace than officials expected.
• Michigan public school enrollment is down again this year.
• Rhode Island public school enrollment is down.
• Officials in Oakland, California recently voted to close several public schools due to falling enrollment. In this instance, numbers reflect not only parents fleeing public schools, but those moving out of the state altogether.

A dim view of higher education

When Plandemic Series.com interviewer Mikki Willis asked Dr. McDonald for his take on education at the university level, his reply for parents is “don’t bother. The university is a cesspool, a wasteland, an indoctrination camp.” His suggestion is that, unless the student is going to a STEM school (science, technology, and math), or possibly preparing to study medicine or law, parents should not waste their time and money. “Your child will leave college believing the U.S. is a hateful, racist country, that men are sexual predators and women are victims of toxic masculinity, and that the only people who deserve to get a leg up are the marginalized classes; a sick, perverse, destructive philosophy.

“There may be no way to correct that after four years,” he adds. “You are throwing your children to the wolves if you send them to a university. The schools only get worse the higher up you go. Send them to a trade school instead.”

In discussing his book, McDonald says: “Witness that we’ve moved on from one crisis, which was COVID-19, to the next crisis, which is Ukraine. Why? Nothing changed except the politics. It is a crisis-distraction strategy, and it is intentional so that Americans and those around the world do not have to look and feel and act on the suffering that they witness in their day-to-day lives: economic collapse, open borders, drug addictions, fentanyl overdoses, anxiety, depression, suicide, failing schools, crime.

“All of that gets put on the back burner during a state of crisis. The only way for us to move forward and get out of this is for individuals — the parents, the friends, the families, people who have been taken hold of by fear and have essentially become addicted to fear — start to acknowledge that they are hurting each other and themselves by holding onto the fear.”

He explains that this is why he’s writing a second book called Freedom from Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Individual and National Recovery, modeled after AA and Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life. “We cannot look to the people at the top to correct themselves,” he says. “We have to look to each other and build up from the bottom to get over this fear addiction, and hopefully block the next crisis from taking over our lives.”

* Mikki Willis is an independent investigative filmmaker and author. His most recent production, Plandemic, received the European Independent Film Award for Best Documentary in 2021, and claims to now be acknowledged as among the first vehicles for warning the world of the agenda to reduce citizens’ liberties through medical tyranny.

On May 26, The Epoch Times published an article projecting a “mass exodus” of teachers from public-school classrooms this fall. The Times attributes the “overwhelming number of educators [who are] planning to close the book on their teaching careers” to excessive workload, mostly caused by staffing shortages and post-pandemic student behavioral issues, as well as early retirement and/or pursuit of a different career path.

The article points out that “widespread educator shortages predate the arrival of COVID-19, but the pandemic also served as the last straw for many, kicking off the trend of early departure.” There are fewer counselors to serve the increased percentage of students emotionally damaged from the pandemic, and just as likely from the woke agenda they are being force-fed. Teachers also complain of an increasing lack of respect for educators. “The respect situation is just a huge issue,” former Nebraska public schools’ superintendent, educator, and counselor, Gary Marks, told The Times “And you need way more counselors when you’re having all these mental health issues.”

An explosion of newly graduated teachers next fall could in itself pose big problems, given the extensive training and certification process required “even after qualified graduates apply to teach,” and some districts require additional screening and credentials. Whether or not these processes result in better academic instruction for students is at best debatable, but they add to the hoops through which both new and returning teachers must jump.

The teacher shortage is also due to the fact that there are fewer students pursuing degrees in education. The Times writes: “Over the past 10 years alone, the number of people completing traditional teacher preparation programs has dropped by 35 percent,” from nearly 200,000 per year during the 1970s to fewer than 90,000 in 2019.

The Times article prompted nearly 2,100 comments from readers, most of whom are retired and/or disillusioned teachers. One reader admitted to being a teacher for many years but quit because: “1. I didn’t want to take the poison”; and “2. Here in Illinois, they were forcing us to teach this crazy liberal crap under the umbrella of ‘Social/Emotional Learning.'”

Another comment stated: “This might be the best thing that can happen to education. More kids will have to be homeschooled, which is better for them and better for the country. A lot of these teachers aren’t just quitting because they are retiring. They are quitting because they aren’t going to teach CRT and the woke BS that is being shoved down their throats… Do your children a favor and home school or at least find a good private school where this idiocy isn’t tolerated. Bite the bullet and work two jobs if you have to [in order to] put your children in a good school. But get them away from the public-school indoctrination centers.”

International sports authorities are banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports if they transitioned after the age of 12. The International Swimming Federation, known by its French acronym FINA, has moved to officially ban transgender athletes such as U.S. swimmer Lia Thomas from competing in women’s sports on the world stage. Similar bans have also been adopted by the International Cycling Union and the International Rugby League, which appear to recognize that post-pubescent men have an undeniable physical advantage over post-pubescent women. This obvious biological fact has evidently been lost on the NCAA, which has permitted transgender athletes to dominate women’s sports in the U.S. While female athletes are generally pleased with these new bans as a necessary first step, Phyllis Schlafly Eagles President Ed Martin believes “it leaves the door wide open for the radical transgender ideologists to push hormone therapies and surgical procedures for younger and younger kids. Martin wrote in a June 21 press release: “We need total bans, not exceptions only for those who are prepubescent.” James Pearce, spokesperson for FINA president Husain Al-Musallam, told The Associated Press that the transition by age 12 rule “does not mean that FINA supports early childhood transitioning.” According to Pearce, “It’s what the scientists are saying, that if you transition after the start of puberty, you have an advantage, which is unfair.” But Martin’s perspective is more apropos: “Let us take this victory and keep running with it, not rest on our laurels and call the issue closed. This battle is far from over to save girls’ sports!” Also unclear is what impact, if any, these international rulings may have on the Biden Administration’s new attack on Title IX. The Western Journal, 6-21-22

Disney slaps itself in the face with woke “Lightyear” movie, the prequel to and latest in the otherwise successful Toy Story series, which was a box office flop in its opening weekend. The film came up short by nearly $20 million from the $70 million it was anticipated to earn, ostensibly due to a gratuitous lesbian kissing scene Disney put in to spite Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for his Parental Rights in Education law. The movie also introduced a new voice for the Buzz Lightyear character which turned off Toy Story fans, presumably because Tim Allen, who previously voiced the animated character, is now considered too conservative for Disney. Instead, the character is played by Chris Evans, an actor who is “very vocal” about his far-left politics. In fact, Evans insulted parents and others who dissed the movie because of the same-sex scene, calling them “idiots,” who will “die off like dinosaurs.” BlazeMedia cleverly described the film as “Woke = Broke,” and said some critics “pointed out that the ‘Lightyear’ character is not the same as the toy figure character of the prior Toy Story films.” The Western Journal reported that “fourteen foreign markets had already banned the picture and it seems unlikely the largest foreign market for U.S. films, China, will allow it to be released there without edits,” which Disney has reportedly refused to allow. But as the Journal notes, the mainstream media just doesn’t get it. They blamed all sorts of factors for the movie’s box office failure; “literally anything but controversy surrounding the lesbian kiss.” It’s a hopeful sign, however, that parents and others concerned with the rot infesting all areas of American life, including children’s entertainment, may continue to avoid exposing their kids to anti-Christian, LGBTQ-obsessed propaganda.

A North Carolina preschool teacher was caught using flash cards portraying LGBTQ themes, including a card depicting a pregnant man, to teach young children about colors. According to The Western Journal and Fox News, the objectionable cards came to light after a “worried parent” contacted Republican State Representative Erin Paré, who brought it to the attention of Tim Moore, the Republican Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives. Moore issued a press release calling out the preschool class at Ballentine Elementary School, which is part of the Wake County public school system. According to Moore, Rep. Paré contacted the principal’s office immediately after receiving the tip from the concerned parent, and the principal reportedly “took swift action to investigate and respond” to the information. “The principal found the stack of cards in a preschool classroom and verified with the teacher that they had been used by the teacher in the classroom to teach colors,” Moore wrote. “The principal confirmed that the flash cards were not part of approved curriculum and that she was unaware that they were being used.” It’s an all-too familiar theme; that school leadership is allegedly in the dark about inappropriate curricula and has no idea it’s going on. Also unclear is what if any action will be taken against the teacher, other than “notifying HR.” But the good news here is that the North Carolina General Assembly is now “reviewing legislation that would make parents the primary decision-makers regarding their child’s health and medical decisions and provide parents with opt-out options regarding controversial surveys or age-inappropriate classroom materials.” A new poll cited in Moore’s press release shows that 57 percent of North Carolina voters support such legislation.