November 2021 — Ed Reporter Monthly Email Edition

In the wake of this month’s surprising election results, unbowed Democrats are blaming parents and Trump supporters for their losses. The biggest upsets occurred in Virginia, but there were sobering reminders of voter discontent nationwide.

Despite big name eleventh-hour appearances by Obama, Biden, and Harris, former Democrat Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, took a drubbing in his second bid for the office from non-establishment Republican Glenn Youngkin, who made education a main focus of his campaign. Youngkin vowed to eliminate Critical Race Theory (CRT) and other woke curricula from Virginia’s schools and return to teaching students how to think. His message resonated with fed-up parents in contrast to McAuliffe’s negative rants which included a complaint that “Virginia has too many white teachers.”

Rather than get a clue from Youngkin’s victory, however, Virginia education officials doubled down on denying the undeniable — that CRT is being taught in its schools — and instead accused parents and other concerned voters of racism. They were hardly the only ones seeking scapegoats.

On November 10, The Washington Examiner reported that feminists were singling out white women as recipients of their ire. Author Mona Eltahawy wrote: “White women voters are footsoldiers [sic] of white supremacist patriarchy.” Fellow feminist writer Amy Siskind blamed non-college-educated white women, proclaiming that “college-educated white women voted for McAuliffe by a bigger margin than Biden. Non-college white women gave it to Youngkin,” she alleged, “and the reason is simple: racism. They don’t want progress.” She ended by saying: “I join others in being dismayed and disgusted by these women.”

CNN also pointed a finger at “suburban white women” but then grudgingly admitted that part of the reason for the Democrats’ failure is the sitting president himself, noting: “President Joe Biden is not popular.”

According to the Washington Examiner, “60 percent of all voters in 2020 had no college degree,” and that not only do Democrats look down on this significant voting bloc but Republicans don’t always listen to them either. “For all his faults,” the Examiner opined, “former President Donald Trump taught Republicans to compete for and win voters without college degrees, and not just white ones, who traditionally supported Democrats when the party of the Left cared about or listened to them.”

Republicans have hopefully taken note of this lesson from Trump’s playbook.

Dissatisfied voters across the country

An editorial in The Missouri Times by State Rep. Jim Murphy (R-Dist. 94) indicates that voters all over the country agree with those in Virginia. “Parents have been showing up in record numbers at school board meetings to express concerns about mask mandates, quarantine policies, curriculum, inappropriate materials, woke agendas, mental health, and child safety,” he wrote.

He noted for instance: “Concerned parents have sent my colleagues and me many examples of books that are available in school libraries that they feel are inappropriate. If the explicit sexual activities illustrated in these books were a movie, they would be rated NC-17. When parents suggest that they should be given a choice on exposing these books to their children, they are called book banners.

“Parents in Virginia and in Missouri are sending a message that no longer will they be quiet, marginalized, vilified, insulted, and ignored. They no longer wish to finance this culture war with their tax dollars…

“Their message is clear,” Murphy concluded, “listen up or pay the price at the ballot box.”

A warning for Democrats in 2022

The day after the election, former Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter appeared on MSNBC to lament the election results and voice this warning: “The one thing we need to make sure of is that Republicans in 2022 don’t become the party of parents.”

Cutter at least had the common sense not to dismiss the parents who voted Republican as racists, unlike many of her fellow Democrats. Instead, she tried a more proactive approach: “We are the party of parents,” she insisted. “We are the ones that care about school funding. We are the ones that care about making sure parents can send their children to school because they have jobs to go to.” It’s unclear exactly how that followed, but Cutter then told the MSNBC pundits: “We need to own that agenda. And it’s not just about Critical Race Theory, it’s about coming out of COVID, it’s about parents being involved in their kids’ schooling. We need to pay attention to all of it.”

Some Twitter users were less than impressed with Cutter’s observations. One asked: As a rule, entire groups of people do not appreciate being called racists and terrorists. Make a note.” Another user mocked: “We’re the party of parents, which is why we keep calling them terrorists.” Still another tweet pronounced Democrats: “The party of masks and tooth decay and Zoom meetings.”

Whether or not Democrat voters are listening to party adherents like Cutter, Republican candidates should be paying close attention. Conservatives must maintain the high ground and articulate their support for the First Amendment and parents’ rights. RINOs need not apply.

Time will tell how the 2021 election results will impact education and other areas of life in Virginia, but for now the unrest continues. Parents have protested at school board meetings and in the media, some in support of the progressive curriculum but many more in opposition. On October 26, the Virginia students themselves chimed in by walking out of class at a total of five Loudoun County high schools in protest of the coverup of two sexual assaults.

Towards the end of last school year, an alleged “gender-fluid” student sexually assaulted two girls in two separate incidents at two different high schools. The initial attack happened in May, when a female student was raped and sodomized in a girls’ restroom by a male student wearing a skirt.

The school district transferred the offender to another school and kept the assault under wraps for months as school board members prepared to pass a progressive new transgender policy, which they did in August. (See Education Reporter Online, September and October 2021.)

News of the second assault came to light later, and the student pleaded no contest to the charge of sexual battery in Loudoun County juvenile court on November 15. He was convicted for his original crimes on October 25 and is scheduled to be sentenced in both cases on December 13.

The protest consisted of students walking out of their classrooms and peacefully gathering in front of their high school buildings. The Washington, DC area’s ABC News affiliate (7News) broke the story with video of large groups of students milling about.

Students said they were protesting against the coverup of the sexual attacks and in favor of student safety. At Broad Run High School, where the May assault occurred, students reportedly chanted: “Loudoun County protects rapists.” Other students could be heard shouting: “Why didn’t anybody tell us” and, “This is BS. We demand change.”

Months of parental outrage and the general state of unrest in Virginia made education and student safety a huge issue in the gubernatorial race. Glenn Youngkin’s strong rhetoric for change is considered a major factor in his successful campaign. Parents, students, and voters will no doubt be watching to see if he follows through.

School board in Fredericksburg gets it right, then wrong

When the Spotsylvania County, Virginia school board, which includes Fredericksburg, ordered school libraries to begin removing “sexually explicit” books in early November, it was a positive development for parents. The order included the requirement that district schools report the number of books that were removed at a special follow-up meeting.

The Free Lance Star reported on November 9 that parental complaints about the indecent and inappropriate reading materials readily available to their children prompted the board’s removal order. Books to be discarded included both hard copies on library shelves and digital copies available through the use of a library app. One of the offensive books was 33 Snowfish by Adam Rapp, which parents said contains “mature themes involving sexual abuse, drug addiction, child prostitution, and strong language.” Another book they found objectionable was Call Me By Your Name, a story detailing homosexual activities.

The criteria for the first round of books to be taken out of circulation was “sexually explicit,” but the board indicated its intention to “refine how material is determined to be ‘objectionable’ for a further review of library holdings.”

The school board’s vote was unanimous, and its action provided an excellent example of how effective a school board can be when its members respect and respond to parental concerns. According to the Star, two of the Spotsylvania board members, Rabih Abuismail and Kirk Twigg, “said they would like to see the removed books burned.” Twigg added that he wanted to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

In response to specific parent complaints, Abuismail “was adamant that there be an immediate audit of school libraries.” He noted that the inclusion of the offensive books is indicative of how public schools “would rather have our kids reading gay pornography than about Christ.”

Board reverses course

But in a sudden and inexplicable about-face, the school board reversed itself on November 16, voting 5 to 2 to overturn its unanimous November 8 decision. Only Kirk Twigg and Rabih Abuismail voted to uphold the original resolution.

Reporting on the board’s November 18 reversal, American Greatness.com stated that the initial action to remove the books was prompted by “numerous parents [who] expressed concern about such books being freely available for underaged children to read.” At the more recent meeting, “a small handful of counter-protesters” showed up who were “in favor of returning the books, with one of them holding a misspelled sign that said ‘Don’t Sensor my Sexuality.'” This begs the question of why sexually explicit books of any kind belong on library shelves that are accessible to young readers.

Evidently, there was lukewarm concession about the original decision, despite the unanimous vote. The Blaze (11-10-21) quoted board member Baron Braswell as observing “that what some people find offensive others may not.” One wonders how much pressure may have been applied to the agreeable but less committed members by far left activists.

Following the board’s original decision, Spotsylvania County School District Superintendent Scott Baker said: “I would not have thought to do an audit because I have great faith and trust in our librarians. If we find something being missed in a process, then we do refine the process. There was no ill intent here. We don’t have all the information.”

The superintendent may not have all the information, but presumably the concerned parents who prompted the school board’s original decision do, and they may yet prevail. After all, as American Greatness observed: “Public school board meetings have become the epicenter for the latest cultural battle in America, with parents across the country protesting school districts that openly promote books featuring homosexuality and ‘transgenderism,’ as well as the teaching of the far-left concept of Critical Race Theory… The [education] issue proved to be a winning one for Republicans in [Virginia’s] elections earlier this month, with the GOP sweeping all three statewide offices and flipping the House of Delegates after campaigning to overturn such policies in public schools.”

Merrick Garland scandal boils over

Meanwhile, Fox News White House Correspondent Kevin Corke reported on November 12 that the network has obtained a newly released internal National School Boards Association (NSBA) memo showing that Biden Administration officials colluded with NSBA activists as early as September 14 (see page 7) against concerned parents. This collusion was well in advance of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s infamous October 4 directive focused on investigating upset parents who were speaking out at school board meetings across the country.

Questions are swirling about “whether or not the White House helped coordinate the [NSBA’s September 29] letter that it claimed was the impetus to ramp up the DOJ’s effort to target parents or those it believed might be threatening to school board members,” Corke reported. “While the attorney general denied any such coordination, new material is a reason for many to question whether that’s true,” he continued.

The referenced “new material” is the memo signed by then-NSBA president Viola Garcia, which shows that the organization had been “actively engaged with the White House, Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security” since mid-September. The memo indicates that Garland lied under oath when he told Congress in late October that he “did not speak with anyone from the White House.” Garland further stated that his DOJ memorandum did not rely on the NSBA’s letter to Biden asking for help from the administration, which the association has since removed from its website.

When news of this latest memo broke, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) posted on his Twitter page: “The Biden Administration coordinated with national school board [sic] activists to go after parents. I said it before: Merrick Garland should resign in disgrace.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) tweeted the following on November 17: “Thanks to a whistleblower, we undoubtedly know that the FBI is targeting parents. Merrick Garland has to be brought back to Congress and fully questioned for his role in this soviet-style surveillance of Americans. This will NOT be tolerated.”

Washington Post 11/15/21
WJLA.com
The Blaze.com-Virginia School Board order libraries to remove sexually explicit books
Fox News.com/NSBA Coordinated with White House-DOJ
Twitter.com/Rep Andy Biggs AZ

Scottsdale Unified School District Board President Jan-Michael Greenburg is under police investigation for compiling a dossier on district parents who object to CRT curriculum and COVID-19 restrictions such as forced masking. Greenburg allegedly had 47 parents privately investigated, and included in his dossier photos of eight and 10-year-old students along with their parents’ Social Security numbers, property records, divorce decrees, and other personal data.

On November 12, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, covered the breaking story on the Charlie Kirk Show, which is widely viewed online and through social media. He explained that the dossier was stored on a private Google Drive and that parents were catalogued “with different labels and in different folders” based on the type of issue the parent had with the school district.

Kirk described, for example, that one folder was labeled “Anti-mask Lunatics,” another was called “Press Conference Psychos,” and another identified parents who oppose CRT. “This is going to be the next Loudoun County,” Kirk predicted, comparing the Scottsdale USD to the scandal-ridden school district in Virginia.

Kirk said Greenburg labeled one parent “anti-Semitic” because she had criticized George Soros, and that this parent had some sort of “back and forth” with Greenburg over the complaint. The exchange, presumably via email, ended with Greenburg inadvertently including a link to his private Google account. “She had the wherewithal or the wisdom to actually go see what he had in the private Google account,” Kirk continued, which led to her discovery of the dossier.

On November 14, The Blaze reported that Scottsdale police were investigating the matter, and explained that “news of the dossier broke last week after Greenburg reportedly shared it with a parent by accident.” The Blaze quoted a statement by the Scottsdale Police Department confirming that “the agency is aware of the allegations against Scottsdale Unified School District President Jann-Michael Greenburg,” and that it is “conducting an investigation into the matter and will report [the] findings once it is complete.”

The Associated Press and the Arizona Republic have also carried the story. According to the Republic, Greenburg’s Google drive “included screenshots of Facebook conversations parents had about their opposition to topics such as critical race theory and COVID-19 mask mandates. It also included emails sent to school board members calling for Greenburg’s resignation, photos and videos of parents protesting the school district, and screenshots of parents’ Facebook profiles that indicated their support for former President Donald Trump.”

The Republic also published snippets of Superintendent Scott Menzel’s letter to parents in the wake of the allegations, which stated that “the dossier was ‘allegedly created and maintained’ in Google Drive folders by Mark Greenburg and shared by his son, SUSD Board President Jann-Michael Greenburg.” Mendel wrote: “We want to determine if school resources were used inappropriately.” His letter emphasized that the district “did not create, maintain or have control over the dossier… I want to stress, again, that no Governing Board member has unfettered access to student records.” He added that “such documents are protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.”

Scottsdale resident Charlie Kirk, who resides in the district and has testified at SUSD board meetings, is not convinced. “The Scottsdale Unified School District has lied throughout this entire process,” he said during his November 12 broadcast. Of the current school board members, led by Greenburg, he observed: “They all have to go.” He encouraged parents to “keep up the drumbeat” for change.

“Is your local school board spying on you?” he asked rhetorically. “Isn’t it interesting how these left-wing collectivists and anti-parent activists can’t help themselves but to spy on dissidents? What other dossiers exist that we don’t know about? The FBI and the Department of Justice should be investigating people [who are] compiling pictures of eight and 10-year-olds because they don’t like that their parents complain at [school board] meetings. We are going to recall this guy; his time is done. We are not going to put up with this.”

Parents posted responses online to Kirk’s show with some telling comments and questions. A few examples include:

• “Where does a school board member get the money to pay for private investigators?” “Did they use taxpayer funds?”
• “Parents could reasonably construe this behavior [as] an effort to intimidate and harass them. Where is the DOJ and FBI? Are they going to investigate the Scottsdale School Board President for domestic terrorism?”
• “Thank you, Charlie, for putting out facts and names; that board needs to be cleared out. How can parents allow this to stand? Keep fighting and replace them all. If you can’t take them out, take your kids OUT of the sick public schools.”

On November 16, the Scottsdale Unified School District Board responded to calls for Greenburg’s ouster and voted to remove him from his post and electing an interim president. Time will tell if Greenburg’s fellow board members will suffer the same fate as angry parents respond to the scandal.

ABC News15.com

Matt Wyatt, Ph.D., of Lebanon, Oregon in rural Linn County is an interesting, multi-faceted individual, and Education Reporter is privileged to tell his story. A veterinarian by education, he served as a public health officer in the U.S. Air Force for 23 years. Returning to his hometown following retirement in 2016, Dr. Wyatt was dismayed to witness the transition of his state from independent red to deep blue.

As a concerned citizen, he began engaging in local politics. “Liberals and the progressive agenda emanating from Oregon’s population center, Portland, combined with failed leadership to silence conservative voices and common-sense values in Oregon,” Wyatt told Education Reporter. “Like some other western states, one liberal population center controls the entire state. Rural Oregonians pay a lot in taxes but lack representation or voice at the state or national level—it’s frustrating.

“Unfortunately, Oregon conservatives and Republicans are sometimes their own worst enemies with a history of non-engagement, risk aversion, and middle-of-the-road attitudes,” Wyatt explains. “They can lack unity on critical issues and often splinter at the first sign of controversy or intimidation. For example, state Republicans provided key votes to establish Oregon as the nation’s first sanctuary state and also voted to allow exclusive vote by mail in the late 1990s.” Second- and third-order consequences were both predictable and disastrous.

Wyatt continues: “Oregon Republicans have not won the governorship since and all legislative and judicial bodies are now controlled by liberal Democrats. California and Washington soon followed with similar results. Now, it appears liberal Democrats are trying to institute the Oregon model nationally to consolidate one-party rule as they have successfully done here on the West Coast.”

According to Dr. Wyatt, liberal overreach extends deep into conservative rural Oregon as well. “School districts have been inculcating leftist ideologies for years with critical race theory, school-based health clinics, sex education and sexual orientation, omission bias in teaching curricula, intrusive family questionnaires, and much more. Typically, these are implemented by liberal state officials as mandates and many are just pass-throughs of curricula developed by far-left education ideologues, liberal foundations, and teachers unions—funded by taxpayers.”

He adds that communities in favor of traditional values simply want their children to learn how to read, write, do mathematics, understand history and science, think critically, and become informed citizens. “They want their children educated, not indoctrinated”, he says. “Legally, school boards in Oregon have a lot of local control, but threats by state agencies to withhold funds or pursue legal action if mandates aren’t followed, and intimidation by union officials and liberal superintendents result in school board members giving in rather than sticking together and fighting back. It takes leadership and courage to stand against these forces.” He concedes that change is slow, but that parental awareness and support is growing and some notable school boards in Oregon are making progress.

With these considerable and complex issues as a backdrop, several things stood out for Dr. Wyatt as he engaged party officials and interacted with community members. The first thing he noticed was a lack of strategic, operational, or tactical planning to unify and consolidate state and county level operations to achieve common goals. To use Wyatt’s military parlance, there is no unity of command or unity of effort between state and local party officials. “It will be very difficult for Oregon Republicans to win at the state or national level without solid strategic and operational planning, a unified tactical statewide effort, and great candidates,” he explains.

Secondly, he noticed a high level of frustration and discontent in the community over the political climate. “The local party structure is an executive committee giving top-down, one-on-one directives, so there was no clear way to engage and energize the citizenry,” he describes. To its credit, however, the executive committee in Linn County was receptive to Dr. Wyatt and his colleagues’ ideas about creating a committee based organizational structure.

Wyatt relates that “basic committees such as budget and finance, human resources, communications, and candidate identification and support are basic, but subcommittees like fundraising, social media, newsletter, meet and greets, precinct committee person (PCP) operations, etc. are easily developed as subcommittees under these four major committees. This structure allows party members and others access to the system and empowers them to engage their talents, time, and energy to do their part.”

Enter the Candidate Identification and Support Committee (CISC)

Dr. Wyatt’s community outreach led him to discover that many good people were so frustrated by what was happening locally and nationally that they became willing to run for office, which gave rise to his Candidate Identification and Support Committee (CISC). “Historically, the local party would give them a pat on the back, a go get’em, maybe some money for signs, and it ended there,” he says. “Good candidates naturally faded away.”

The CISC team correctly surmised that the reason these candidates wouldn’t actually file for office was because running for public office is a daunting process. There are strict campaign finance and reporting rules and numerous tasks to accomplish with countless levels of detail, deadlines, and support required to succeed. “Without help,” Dr. Wyatt explains, “novice candidates won’t even realize what they need to know until it’s too late and they’re in trouble. Candidates—especially new candidates—should not have to reinvent the wheel just because they want to run for office. It’s a predictable process.”

To remedy the situation, Wyatt and his team molded the CISC to facilitate and provide support for these candidates. Tapping into his 23 years of military service developing and implementing plans, programs, and operations, his first order of business was to create a charter to define the intellectual framework: vision, mission, and objectives upon which the committee would focus. The charter fills just one page, but provides the blueprint to identify, recruit, and support candidates and get them elected.

The vision statement is simple: “Identify, empower, support and elect quality candidates who will govern in accordance with conservative principles and uphold traditional values.”

The mission statement expands the vision but establishes with clarity and simplicity the CISC mission: “Get Republicans and conservatives elected to office. That is the only reason for the Republican Party to exist.” With this statement, Wyatt reflects his Air Force roots: “On an Air Force base, you have finance, logistics, maintenance, personnel, ammo, medical, and many other areas, but they all have just one mission and one reason to exist—keep pilots healthy and planes flying so they can fight and win wars. Everyone else supports that end goal. The same is true for political parties, their only mission is to get their people into office. Every committee, fundraiser, gala, political function, and communications effort should be directed to that end; otherwise, they are simply another community social group.”

CISC’s three main objectives provide the building blocks to accomplish the mission. First, the committee determines which positions are coming open in the election cycle and pinpoints the election and filing timelines. Second, the members identify or recruit candidates and provide them with the tools they need to be successful, such as education, financial support, and human resource support. Third, CISC offers post-election contact and assistance as needed, including “reach back,” which might encompass issue-specific education, topic research, or other strategies to enable post-election success.

Finally, the charter includes a strategic planning and execution summary that outlines the steps in an election cycle, including cyclical strategic campaign documents with coherent action items, defined tasks, timelines, and measures of success that embody the campaign-specific strategic, operational, and tactical planning elements and documents unique to each election cycle.

Executing the process

Driving the CISC’s penchant for organization and attention to detail is probably Wyatt’s military background. Even so, he explains, “as I delved more into political science and campaign strategy and finance, it’s apparent the CISC is a grassroots conservative version of similar processes that unions and leftist organizations have used for years. Ideology and initiatives are on our side, we’re just late to the game and need to catch up.”

Wyatt says Republicans and conservatives are also waking up to the fact that if they don’t get involved, they will lose their country and their children will continue being indoctrinated by government schools. “However,” he concedes, “being independently minded and not prone to groupthink means candidates may need encouragement to step up and run. We assure them that they will not be going it alone; we will stand behind them with whatever assistance they need to understand and overcome the obstacles of engaging in a political campaign. CISC makes clear it’s a partnership; candidates must do their part financially and put in the hours and effort necessary for success.”

So far, the CISC has only been involved in two election cycles, having just been formed in late September of 2020 and not fully organized in time to engage in the November 2020 election. Nonetheless, Wyatt reports that CISC precinct committee persons identified and coordinated candidates for several vacant write-in city council seats and was successful in getting them all elected. “The first full test of the CISC committee’s influence was the special election in May of this year, when 14 out of 15 CISC candidates won their school board seats. Citizens in two districts voted out five liberal incumbents in favor of conservative CISC candidates and flipped those school boards from majority blue to red.” As a direct result of the CISC efforts, all seven Linn County school districts are now majority red.

With all CISC’s early success, Wyatt admits there’s more work to do. “CISC members attend school board meetings and engage with community members angered by city and school issues,” he describes. “Mask and vaccine mandates, curriculum concerns, and standing up to liberal superintendents are typical issues that come up. Local school boards have legal authority to adjudicate issues in the community’s best interest but as previously noted, they too often fall in line with directives and shrink in the face of intimidation by state and predominantly liberal union officials and superintendents. “So far, very few school board members have shown the courage needed to stand up and lead, fearing potential repercussions,” Wyatt admits. “Liberal state education bureaucrats collude with like-minded state agencies, union officials, and liberal superintendents on a daily basis to drive their agendas. Conversely, school board members show up a few hours every month and work from a meeting packet created for them by the superintendent. It’s an uphill battle.”

The CISC is using lessons learned to improve their processes as they begin engagement for the November 2022 election. According to Dr. Wyatt, the largest growth area is likely candidate education. “We can get candidates elected, but once in office we want them to be leaders and decision makers for conservative values and we’re not seeing enough of that.”

Beyond candidate skills and election orientation courses, classes in leadership, legal issues, communications, including risk communications, writing skills, problem solving, conservative principles, budget and financial analysis are needed, with background information on specific issues, local concerns, and much more.

“The CISC’s first effort at post-election education was a great success,” states Dr. Wyatt. “Titled, School Board Power Seminar—Know Your Power; Empower Your Board, it brought speakers from around the state and the country together to inform Linn County school board members about the state laws at their disposal, as well as the power they have to effect the changes parents and their communities want.” He added that the seminar also included “lectures on how liberal education elites develop and integrate their agenda through our public-school system using taxpayer money.”

“Informed citizens watch the news,” Dr. Wyatt observes. “Every day, they see images of illegals flooding across the border, leftists burning down cities, crime and inflation rising, the constant push to integrate Marxist controls and one-party rule, and a steady stream of horrendous decisions by dysfunctional Democrat-controlled government at all levels. They ask, ‘but what can I do?'”

Dr. Wyatt asserts: “The CISC provides the answer with assistance and tools. Get involved locally with a deliberate, calculated plan and a systematic methodology to take back your community one school board seat, one city council seat, one county commissioner, one state representative at a time. To paraphrase an old hippie meme—act locally, think nationally.” Dr. Wyatt concludes. “It would be great to see 10,000 conservative CISC committees popping up across the country. Counties across America hoping to restore liberty to the people by reclaiming their conservative roots could benefit from the efforts of an organization like this.”

Let’s hope they listen and take heed.

On Tuesday, November 16, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced his “parents bill of rights” in partnership with the Show-Me Institute, which issued its own version specifically for the State of Missouri. In reference to the federal legislation, Hawley wrote on his senatorial website that it is needed “to combat the Left’s indoctrination of students,” of which he says just about every parent in the country is now aware.

Less than seven pages long, Hawley’s bill contains eight main points requiring schools to provide curriculum and financial transparency. It would amend Title VIII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 by adding (at the end) specific rights of parents to fully review curricula, books, and other educational materials used by the school attended by their minor child or local educational agency that serves such school.

The act provides for the right of parents to access information on teachers, guest speakers, and extracurricular activities such as school assemblies, as well as the right to “information pertaining to the collection and transmission of data” on their minor children. It affirms the right of parents “to be heard at school board meetings” and to be notified of any “situation affecting the safety of their minor child at school,” including physical assaults. It also provides for enforcement of its rules.

In a November 15 op-ed on FoxNews.com, Hawley wrote: “Joe Biden’s Justice Department has tried to turn the FBI into a monitor of school board meetings, with one DOJ official going so far as to draw up lists of federal crimes for which parents could be prosecuted. Failed Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe spoke the Democrat Party’s mind when he infamously said, ‘I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.’

“Wrong. Parents have every right to direct their children’s education, as the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized. Parents make our schools work. The Left’s concerted effort to silence parents’ speech and ridicule their concerns is dangerous — for our children, our schools, and our democracy. It’s time to do something about it. My proposal would guarantee [parents] a seat at the table they deserve, one that no bureaucrat — or political party — can take away.”

Hawley added: “Over the past year, we’ve learned how school districts have quietly introduced new learning materials in classrooms related to critical race theory — often without parents’ knowledge, let alone approval.” He then listed several instances to support his point:

• An Illinois teacher reported being required to teach students that “racism is a white person’s problem and we are all caught up in it,” that “color blindness helps racism,” as well as the need “to disrupt the Western nuclear family dynamics as the best/proper way to have a family.”
• Seattle Public Schools released a draft math curriculum including discussion questions like “where does Power and Oppression show up in our math experiences?” — as if addition and subtraction could somehow be racist.
• The Virginia Department of Education even issued a document denouncing “microinvalidations,” or “communications that subtly exclude, negate, or nullify the thoughts, feelings or experiential reality of a person of color.” In other words, the search for truth takes a backseat to racial identity politics.

Hawley continued: “Faced with backlash, now the Left denies there is any such thing as critical race theory, and the media gladly repeat the falsehood. But parents know better.

“America’s schools should be the envy of the world. And they will be, if America’s parents are empowered. The Parents Bill of Rights is a start.”

As may be expected, the education newspaper Education Week disparaged Hawley’s bill and gave it little chance to advance. “New legislation in Congress to prioritize parents’ rights to know what books their children are reading in school and the identity of guest presenters in classrooms underscores how such culturally divisive issues could stay in the political spotlight as conservative politicians champion what they see as a winning issue in 2022,” the paper wrote. Interesting how protecting parents’ rights is a “culturally divisive issue” but sneaking around behind their backs indoctrinating their minor children is not.

“… [P]rovisions of Hawley’s bill — like a requirement to have parents opt their students into activities outside classrooms, and parents’ power to review curriculum materials and activities at a detailed level — could in theory create major headaches for schools,” EdWeek bawled. “And it’s unclear how federal funding cuts like the kind Hawley proposes would work in practice.”

These are the very issues the teachers unions and the education establishment have gone to great lengths to keep from the purview of parents.

Missouri bill is separate but similar

The Missouri Parents Bill of Rights is similar but not to be confused with Senator Hawley’s national proposal. It does emphasize “transparency and accountability,” which would reform the system to “allow taxpayers and parents to see exactly how their schools and districts are operating and what they are teaching.”

The Show-Me Institute’s Director of Government Accountability, Patrick Ishmael, said: “Too often, local officials have resisted oversight of Missouri public schools and districts. School bureaucrats from across the state have pushed back against Sunshine requests filed by the public, including many from the Show-Me Curricula Project, and now lawsuits are flying. I’ve heard stories from concerned parents and teachers about their treatment by school officials and their fears of persecution for speaking up about controversial issues.

“This is not how parents and taxpayers should be treated by our public education system. Enough is enough.”

As may be expected, the Missouri bill is already under attack by left-leaning mainstream news outlets such as the Kansas City Star, which opined that the Show Me Institute is trying to sneak money to private schools. “They want parents to be able to choose private schools and require taxpayers to pay the cost, through vouchers, tuition credits, tax-advantaged savings accounts and the like.”

The Star further accused the plan of being designed “to make angry people angrier. It purports to reflect the interests of moms and dads after a year of fierce debates over curriculum and student safety.”

Ishmael says these claims are lies. “At no point does the text of the MPBR reference — sneakily or otherwise — expanding Missouri’s educational choice options beyond its current boundaries. A simple call to our office or my personal cell, which staff at the Star have, would have further disabused the editorial writer of the notion. And if, as the editorial stipulates, people are angry about what is happening in their schools, this proposal intends to be a solution that reduces that anger by solving those problems.”

Problem solving! How quaint.

The Missouri Parents Bill of Rights joins other state efforts to support and protect parents, including initiatives in Minnesota and Arkansas. Given the current political climate, it will be interesting see how these legislative efforts fare, both at the state and national levels.

Texas State Representative Matt Krause (R-Fort Worth) requested information about objectionable books on school district library shelves and teachers unions are accusing him of a “witch hunt.” As chairman of the Texas House General Investigative Committee, Krause submitted a letter to the state’s education agency inquiring about a list of 849 books with topics ranging from racism and the Black Lives Matter movement to sexual themes, abortion, and LBGTQ rights. The letter reads in part: “Recently, a number of Texas school districts around the state including Carroll ISD [Independent School District], Spring Branch ISD, Lake Travis ISD, Leander ISD, and Katy ISD, have removed books from libraries and/or classrooms after receiving objections from students, parents, and taxpayers.” Krause explained that his committee “may initiate inquiries concerning any matter the committee considers necessary for the information of the legislature or for the welfare and protection of state citizens.” The letter asks how many copies of each book the school districts possess and at which campuses, the amount of funds spent to acquire the books, and more. A few of the questionable topics include “human sexuality, sexually explicit images, graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law, or material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” The Texas education establishment is charging Krause with “eyeing higher office,” overstepping his authority, and of course, racism. Star Telegram.com 10-27-21

Physical Education teacher Tanner Cross won his lawsuit against the Loudoun County, Virginia School District that fired him for refusing to comply with its gender identity policy. Cross was suspended last May after speaking out against the district’s proposed plan that would require county public school teachers to address transgender students by their preferred gender pronouns regardless of whether they correspond with the students’ biological sex. He told the board in May that, as a Christian teacher, “I serve God first and I will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it’s against my religion. It’s lying to a child, it’s abuse to a child, and it’s sinning against our God.” He was quickly banned from his school and placed on administrative leave for opposing the plan. In June, a Virginia Circuit Court judge issued a temporary injunction against the suspension, requiring that Cross be reinstated. Then on November 15, attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), who represented Cross, announced that a settlement has been reached and that the injunction will become permanent. “Teachers shouldn’t be forced to promote ideologies that are harmful to their students and that they believe are false, and they certainly shouldn’t be silenced from commenting at public meetings,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. “Freedom — of speech and religious exercise — includes the freedom not to speak messages against our core beliefs. That’s why our lawsuit asks the court to protect the constitutional rights of our clients by immediately halting enforcement of this harmful school district policy.” Alliance Defending Freedom 11-15-21; Daily Citizen-Focus on the Family.com

A 19-year-old school board candidate won his race against the incumbent he says helped ruin his senior year in high school by supporting the COVID-19 shutdowns. Ratification of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1971 gave 18-year-olds the right to vote and hold office. Fifty years later, Nicholas Seppy of Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, won an amazing victory at the age of 19 over his opponent by a 17-point margin. A recent graduate of Egg Harbor Township High School, Seppy told The College Fix that the lockdowns, which began in March of 2020, were “awful,” and that the school district “forced most of its students into entirely online learning or hybrid learning models with limited components of in-person instruction for most of the 2020-21 school year.” The situation motivated him to run for a school board seat “out of a desire to serve [his] community” and to “give parents a voice in the district.” The fact that Seppy had served as student representative to the school board during the 2019-20 school year likely played a role in his decision to run. Both the College Fix and The Independent Journal Review reported that, despite the fact that school board positions in his district are non-partisan, “Seppy’s Instagram profile paints a picture of a very patriotic young man, with posts of American flags, gratitude for the military, Mount Rushmore and the U.S. Constitution.”

Unbelievable displays of lewdness and near-pornographic behavior occurred during Homecoming week at U.S. high schools. The Hazard, Kentucky High School held a “Man Pageant” during which students were photographed giving lap dances to teachers and staff members, including the principal, who is also Hazard’s mayor. Photos showed that participating students were scantily dressed during the spectacle, which was purportedly “a joke” intended to embarrass the teachers. While some appalled parents said the pageant should have been shut down immediately by school staff, at least one mother defended it and was upset that the event became public. In Burlington, Vermont, the high school Homecoming football game was “overshadowed by the immoral display at halftime,” according to an October 25 op-ed in The Western Journal. The U.K. Daily Mail reported that the high school “put on a drag show — with 30 students and teachers dressing up to show support for the LBGTQ community.” Participants paraded and danced “in gowns, wigs, jewelry, and makeup — and a big crowd in rainbow colors cheered them on.” The halftime show was the brainchild of Burlington High School English teacher Andrew LeValley, who is an advisor for the Gender-Sexuality Alliance club that organized the event. The Daily Mail called it “fun,” but The Western Journal wrote: “Pictures and videos are horrifying… There are so many issues with this event that it’s hard to know where to start, the least of which is that, in high school, the majority of students are minors. Most drag shows are restricted to people ages 18 or older.” The Blaze 10-28-21