September 2025 — Ed Reporter Monthly Email Edition

Public school enrollment began dropping during the COVID-19 pandemic and has continued its downward spiral ever since. For years, Education Reporter has chronicled this trend, most recently last March when we described the failure of public-school students to master basic skills and the subsequent transfer of many to charter schools, microschools, and homeschools.

News Nation reported on the continuation of the trend in 2025, writing: “Public school enrollment is on the decline across the United States as school choice programs grow in popularity.” The article noted that two-thirds of U.S. public school districts in 37 states have experienced declines in enrollment since the pandemic.

In late June, the education research and policy development organization, ExcelinEd, called these shrinking enrollment numbers “The biggest threat to public schools that no one wants to tackle.” The organization painted a bleak picture, asserting that this downward shift is “not a temporary blip,” but one that is “here to stay.”

Some districts, including Chicago and Denver, are keeping school buildings open with fewer students despite the cost. For example, the Chicago public school system has lost 70,000 students in a decade, and ExcelinEd writes that, nationwide, “many districts are or will soon be confronting significant financial shortfalls due to dwindling student numbers. The implications are profound,” they add, “with potential consequences including staff layoffs, program cuts, and school closures.”

Of course, many factors contribute to the drop in public-school enrollment. One is the falling U.S. birth rate—there are simply fewer school-age children than in past generations, although illegal immigration has doubtless impacted the numbers.

But another compelling force in the reshaping of the K-12 education landscape is the expansion of school choice programs, which vary greatly but are available in one form or another in most states. In fact, the climate has never been more favorable for parents who are seeking a better educational environment for their children.

As ExcelinEd writes: “Over the past decade, a growing number of states have passed legislation that empowers families to choose from a broader range of educational options, including charter schools, private school scholarships, open enrollment, education savings accounts [ESAs], microschools, homeschooling, and hybrid models.”

Pro-school choice guidance impacts Mississippi

Last month, the downsized U.S. Department of Education built on the Trump Administration’s support of school choice by issuing additional guidance to state and local education agencies. This guidance indicates “how [states] might provide equitable services for students enrolled in private schools to more effectively and efficiently meet students’ needs.” These services can include tutoring, summer school programs, and other services that are available to public-school students. A four-page Dear Colleague Letter reinforces previous instruction from the administration in support of expanding educational options for families.

Recently, a panel of Mississippi lawmakers met with federal education officials, “who wholeheartedly encouraged them to expand school choice in Mississippi, signaling the Trump Administration’s support of passing such legislation.”

According to an August 25 article in Mississippi Today, Mississippi House Speaker, Jason White, formed an “‘Education Freedom’ select committee” to explore the possibility of implementing “a robust school choice program in Mississippi, ahead of the upcoming legislative session.” White has indicated that school choice will be “a key issue during the 2026 session.”

On the table are choice options including expanding a universal ESA program, which the state currently has in place for disabled students only, and a voucher program that parents could use for tuition at the private school of their choice, including faith-based schools. Also under consideration is the federal tax credit program, which allows residents of participating states to contribute to private scholarship programs in exchange for tax breaks of equal amounts.

Reportedly, while there is support for choice in Mississippi, some observers fear the changes could threaten the state’s improved curriculum and test scores, which Education Reporter described in May. After school districts in several southern states, including Mississippi, adopted phonics-based reading and other more rigorous academic programs, students bested their peers in other states in achievement.

Nonetheless, Mississippi’s freedom committee is scheduled to meet again in late September to continue discussions on the expansion of school choice.

Champions of choice

Among the organizations championing education choice nationally is Americans for Prosperity, which tracks applicable legislation and programs nationwide. The group reports that in 2025, “the percentage of American students who have access to school choice programs such as ESAs, vouchers, or tax credits is nearing 50 percent.” The organization credits 18 states with having passed “22 pro-school choice bills” that expanded access “to nearly 9.3 million more students.”

While state specifics vary depending on the source reporting them, Newsweek wrote last March that 15 U.S. states “have at least one universal private school choice program.” These include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Last spring, just after the Newsweek article was published, Texas became the 16th state to offer a universal private school ESA program, which allows $10,000 annually per student.

The article might also have mentioned Wisconsin, which provides private school voucher funds directly to parents. Choice opponents in the dairy state whined that private schools approved for the state’s voucher program “are getting more funding than ever.” The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction reports that “there are 406 private schools and school systems registered to participate in the Private School Choice Programs” for the 2025-26 school year.

While it may be tough to rank the best state for school choice, information on choice programs nationwide is readily available to fed-up parents. The Hoover Institution provides an interactive map listing the options afforded by each state.

As an example, Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program provides state funds that can be used to offset tuition costs at participating “Choice” schools. Families qualify based on household income. In total, Indiana offers seven school choice options, as do Florida, Louisiana, and Ohio, including vouchers, ESAs, tax credit scholarships, and tax credits and deductions. Additional alternatives give parents the ability to move their child to a different school district, as well as permitting the operation of charter schools and magnet schools.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, states such as Hawaii, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Washington allow only public charter schools and public-to-public-school transfers. But as the educational freedom advocacy group Edchoice observes in its July-2025-School-Choice-Snapshot, these are merely options “within the traditional system,” leaving many meaningful schooling choices “off-limits for families.” Parents should note that the Edchoice School Choice Snapshot provides a wealth of information about available programs in every state.

Another pro-parent organization that tracks choice programs and legislation throughout the country is the Center For Education Reform (CER). The center’s Parent Power Index lists Florida, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, and Iowa in its top five states with comprehensive school-choice programs.

CER’s website notes: “School choice puts the rights of children and parents first over the convenience of the bureaucratic system. School choice holds schools accountable and introduces quality into the system. School choice enables parents and educators to open their own public schools that are free from regulations,” which is happening in the form of microschools.

In other words, public money for education should follow the student, with parents determining where and how their children are to be educated. It is an ongoing battle for control between parents and the state.

Perhaps a 2024 article covering Wisconsin’s school choice programs said it best: “When Wisconsin parents choose to take their children out of public school and use vouchers to send them to private schools, it means that public schools get less money…. [P]rivate voucher schools use public tax dollars, they aren’t held to the same standardized testing or public meetings standards….” For many parents and observers, this is the whole point.

As long as public schools continue to do the bidding of radical teachers’ unions and far-left activists, school choice will remain popular with parents, and the likely result is a continuing fall in traditional public school enrollment.

The persistence of public-school officials to get into their students’ heads continues, with new information surfacing seemingly every day. On September 3, Phyllis Schlafly Eagles received word from a concerned parent about a change in Illinois law which, as a letter from the Edwardsville, IL School District explained, “impacts how schools provide counseling services to students.”

The letter “informs” parents about the new state mandate 405 ILCS 5/3-550, which reads:

• Any minor 12 years of age or older may request and receive counseling services or psychotherapy on an outpatient basis. The consent of the minor’s parent, guardian, or person in loco parentis shall not be necessary to authorize outpatient counseling services or psychotherapy. [Emphasis added.]

The mandate contains the caveat that outpatient counseling or psychotherapy provided to children under the age of 17 “initially” will be limited to “8 90-minute sessions” until parental authorization is obtained. But the law quickly renders this condition meaningless with the stipulation that if, through consultation with the minor, the provider considers that attempting to obtain parental consent “would be detrimental to the minor’s well-being,” the provider will consult with his/her supervisor to determine if services should continue without the parents’ consent.

As observers might imagine, this opens a Pandora’s box, with any minor wishing to pursue a lifestyle with which his or her parents might disagree; e.g., a transition to the opposite sex, is likely to qualify for exemption from parental notification.

The new law codifies the outrageous notion that 12-year-old children know best when it comes to their thoughts and feelings, which often change by the day. These young people are entrusting their emotional wellbeing, and potentially their entire future, to strangers who may place a political agenda ahead of their best interests. Granted, there are always exceptions — occasionally a youth may need protection from addicted or abusive parents — but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

The law further states: “The minor’s parent, guardian, or person in loco parentis shall not be informed of the counseling services or psychotherapy without the written consent of the minor unless the service provider believes the disclosure is necessary….” It’s easy to imagine, in lieu of the overreach of public schools in so many instances, that almost any child who wishes to circumvent his or her parents might be empowered to do so by mental health “experts.”

As Education Reporter described last month, Illinois passed a bill over the summer that will force public schoolchildren in grades 3-12 to undergo annual mental health screenings beginning with the 2027-28 school year. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed that bill into law on July 31. Combined, these statutes ensure that no Illinois public-school child is likely to escape the mental health screening and subsequent treatment gauntlet.

Not just in Illinois

While Illinois parents grapple with the latest intrusion of their blue state education system and determine how to fight it, parents in other states face similar challenges.

An interactive map posted by World Population Review shows the age of consent for mental health treatment by state for 2025. The heavily footnoted post asserts that all states “have some sort of law that allows minors to be diagnosed and treated for certain mental health concerns in special circumstances, with the youngest age being 12, and the generally accepted age of majority being 18 for medical care consent.” It is unclear whether World Population Review is referencing treatment available through the public schools without parental consent for students between the ages of 12 and 17.

In California, Assembly Bill (AB) 665 took effect July 1, 2024, which allows public schools to provide mental health services to children 12 and up without their parents’ consent. The law further allows these services to be paid for through the students’ Medi-Cal benefits.

An FAQ by the California Alliance of Child and Family Services explains that the law removed the requirement of these youth “to demonstrate that they are in danger of serious physical or mental harm to themselves or to others without the mental health treatment or counseling, or are the alleged victim [sic] of incest or child abuse in order to access care and use their Medi-Cal coverage to pay for it….”

Young people with private insurance are also able to obtain mental health services without their parents’ consent. The FAQ states: “Starting on July 1, 2024, access to minor consent mental health services must be made available to all young people based on the same consent standard, regardless of insurance type.” In California at least, it is possible to bill a minor’s insurance carrier “confidentially.”

According to the FAQ, the law says “a minor may self-consent if ‘in the opinion of the attending professional person,’ the minor is ‘mature enough to participate intelligently’ in outpatient services.” But the statute “does not define ‘mature enough’ for this purpose. It simply says that it is based on the opinion of the attending professional.” In other words, the law relegates the determination of whether or not a child is “mature enough to participate intelligently” in his or her treatment not to the parents, but to the mental health counselor, psychologist, or “professional person,” whatever that means.

The opt-out option

While conservatives agree parents should have to opt children in to objectionable curricula, programs, and activities, including mental health screenings and treatments, it is possible in nearly every school district to opt them out. Information on opting out is readily available online from many sources, including the Parental Rights Foundation, Parents Defending Education, and the Pacific Justice Institute, to name a few. Some websites also provide generic opt-out forms, although many school districts require parents to use forms specific to the district.

The Parental Rights Foundation publishes Opt-Out-Report 2025, which summarizes by state the laws covering the rights of parents to opt their children out of “certain public school classes and activities.” The report’s introduction admits that some of the information may change or may have already changed since the June 27, 2025 Supreme Court decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which reinforced the right of parents to direct the education of their children on the basis of religion. (See Education Reporter, July 2025.) “This decision,” notes the guide, “will no doubt alter the opt-out provisions and policies of some states and many districts.”

Nonetheless, the opt-out guide should be helpful in most instances, as the majority of state laws “are not likely to change as a direct result of the Mahmoud ruling.” The foundation cautions that the ease with which parents are able to enforce their decision to remove their children from offensive programs or curricula “varies from state to state, and sometimes from school to school.”

Parents Defending Education advises parents to familiarize themselves with the opt-out process in their school district and to ask for the forms. “If your district does not provide an opt-out form,” its leaders stress, “ask how to opt out. Some districts do not want students to opt out, so they do not make the opt-out forms readily available and they do not publicize the right to opt out.”

The Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a pro-family, Christian organization battling government intrusion into the lives and minds of children and families in the state, asks the pertinent questions: “Who decides what qualifies as a mental health issue? Can we really trust government-approved professionals to make such judgments when many of them reject the foundational truth that God created us male and female—and that God has set clear moral boundaries for sexuality and life?”

IFI’s executive director, David E. Smith, speculates as to what might happen when a boy suffering from gender dysphoria is screened by the district and his confusion is discovered. He asks: “Will the school notify the parents—or conceal it in the name of ‘affirmation’? What if the parents disagree with the label or proposed treatment—do they have any rights or recourse? Will the DCFS be called in to interrogate parents, or worse?”

Smith continues: “And will the same institutions now labeling children as mentally unwell also promote curriculum that normalizes LGBTQ ideology and graphic sex-ed, even in kindergarten?”

IFI and other pro-parent organizations encourage parents unable to homeschool or afford a private school to protect their children through vigilance and use of opt-out forms provided by their school districts or available online.

Even as the noose appears to tighten, there remain ways parents can fight back. Barring any other type of pushback by outraged parents in Edwardsville, Illinois, for example—class action lawsuit?—many parents there will doubtless be exercising their right to opt their children out of mental health mandates.

Last May, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported that several male students, discomfited by a female student using their locker room and filming them on her phone, were being investigated by the Virginia Attorney General’s office for sexual harassment under Title IX.

The saga began early this year, when Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) opened an investigation after several male students at Stone Bridge High School asked why the girl, who identifies as male, was allowed to access their locker room. According to the sports and political commentary website, OutKick, the biological female “secretly recorded the boys when they questioned why a girl was in their locker room, and she later accused them of sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination.” The LCPS launched its investigation despite the fact that the girl’s actions in recording the boys was in itself a violation of district policy.

The mother of one of the boys complained that the presence of the female in the boys’ locker room made him uncomfortable, which led to Governor Glenn Youngkin asking Virginia’s Attorney General, Jason Miyares, to investigate. According to Fox News, the school-district probe was later handed off “to the U.S. Justice Department and the federal Department of Education.”

In August, the male students were suspended, allegedly because LCPS found two of the three boys “guilty of sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination” in violation of Title IX. The suspension set off a firestorm that threatens to impact the upcoming November elections in both Loudoun County and the State of Virginia. Miyares described it as “a disturbing misuse of authority by Loudoun County Public Schools.”

This is hardly the first time public schools in Loudoun County have stirred controversy and created national news. Education Reporter has written extensively on their antics since 2021. (See as examples the October 2021, November 2021, and January 2022 issues.)

While the school district denies that the boys were suspended for complaining about the girl’s presence in their locker room, parents say that’s exactly what happened.

Fox News affiliate, FOX 5 DC, reported that the boys’ parents and their attorney are appealing the school board’s decision, calling it “absolutely devastating” and “a shock.” Parent Renae Smith has already moved her family to North Dakota. She told Fox 5, “I have a teenager who should be focused on school and football and not branded with a false label that can follow him for life.”

The father of another of the students said: “I think this has gone a little too far and that they are trying to make an example of our students. It’s just hurtful … It’s not just about us. If Loudoun can twist Title lX to punish my son for questioning their unlawful policy, then no student is safe!”

According to the The Daily Caller, the suspension of one of the students has recently been blocked by a federal judge, at least temporarily. The court order notes that the school district offered “a private changing area to plaintiffs but not to the female student accessing the male locker room.” The order also states that a Muslim student “who seems to have engaged in similar activity” as the other boys was not similarly charged.

Bathroom policy retained

In early September, Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican hopeful to replace Governor Youngkin in November, along with John Reid, the candidate hoping to take her place as lieutenant governor, criticized the Loudoun County School Board for voting in a closed session to retain the county’s divisive transgender bathroom policy. The board’s reaffirmation of the controversial policy is in defiance of the Trump Education Department’s reversal of former President Joe Biden’s Title IX rewrite.

In fact, the Education Department had already announced on August 19 that it was cutting “federal funding to LCPS and four other Northern Virginia districts for violating Title IX.” Specifically, the Department found these districts in violation of federal civil rights law for “allowing students to occupy intimate facilities based on gender identity, not biological sex.”

The districts impacted are Fairfax County, Prince William County, Alexandria City, and Arlington, which OutKick explains “are now considered ‘high risk’ within the federal grant system.” This means all federal money will be awarded “through reimbursement status only, meaning schools must front their own expenses and prove those expenditures were legal before receiving any money back.”

Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, stated in a press release that “states and school districts cannot openly violate federal law while simultaneously receiving federal funding with no additional scrutiny…. School Divisions that are choosing to abide by woke gender ideology in place of federal law must now prove they are using every single federal dollar for a legal purpose….”

But as Virginia House Delegate Geary Higgins (R-Dist. 30), the only elected Republican remaining in Loudoun County, told Fox News Digital that the Loudoun County board “continues to double and triple down on their illegal policy at taxpayers’ expense while putting the privacy and safety of our children in jeopardy.”

Political fallout

As previously noted, the Loudoun County School Board’s insistence on continuing its transgender bathroom policy, along with the district’s punishment of the male students, has drawn the ire of both local and state Republican officials.

In referring the LCPS case to the U.S. Justice Department and the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), Virginia AG Mayares said his findings showed the district’s measures “to be unlawful, discriminatory, and retaliatory.” Governor Glenn Youngkin also criticized the district for its actions.

Then, in a brazen show of what Fox News’ host Laura Ingraham called “liberal racism on full display,” LGBT protestors showed up outside an Arlington school board meeting brandishing signs which read: “Hey Winsome, if trans people can’t share my bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water fountain.” In decrying the spectacle, Ingraham referred to Arlington as “the People’s Republic of Arlington.” Sears, who is black, declined to address the signs when Ingraham asked her about them, and instead took the high road by focusing on her opponent, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger.

Earle-Sears accused Spanberger of wanting “girls and boys nude in the same bathrooms and locker rooms.” She characterized the positions of the Democrats in general as “you can’t get any worse than this.”

Spanberger reportedly presents herself as a “moderate,” but has refused to take a position on the latest Loudoun County controversy. Instead, OutKick noted that her campaign staff issued a “vague statement” about her support for “the safety of Virginia’s kids.” But some observers wonder exactly which kids she is talking about. The boys being punished are not safe from unfair labels that may haunt them and the disciplinary records that will follow them as they apply for admission to college.

While Earle-Sears is said to be trailing in her race to become Virginia’s next governor — the election is November 4 — the Washington Examiner reports that the gap has narrowed. “Spanberger has 49% support among registered Virginia voters compared to Earle-Sears’s 40%, according to a Sept. 9 poll released by Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.” This is a jump of 3 percentage points for Earle-Sears in two months. She will no doubt gain additional benefit from her interview with Ingraham, which enraged liberals, who railed about the air time she received and bashed her as a weak candidate.

Whatever the outcome, Earle-Sears has been a staunch proponent of traditional values and solid academics in the state’s public schools. (See Education Reporter, January 2023.) As she told Fox News Digital: “Biological differences matter … It is not political. It’s common sense, and somebody has to stand up and speak for parents.”

State Delegate Higgins asserted that “the best way to fix the issue is to elect Earle-Sears and Reid and reelect Miyares, followed by a ‘common-sense’ new school board in Loudoun’s next municipal election.”

Meanwhile, parents and conservatives in Loudoun County are awaiting the outcome of the lawsuits, suspensions, and the upcoming elections, holding their collective breath.

Variations of “woke math” are unfortunately nothing new. In October 2023, Education Reporter described California’s “equity-based math” and in May 2024, we reported on a Bill Gates-backed curriculum titled “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,” that focuses not on math but on teaching kids that traditional math education is “white supremacy.”

For many years, Phyllis Schlafly documented the failure of the U.S. school system to adequately teach math by implementing curriculum fads such as “Feel Good Math”, new math, fuzzy math, liberal math, etc.

But the latest iteration of so-called “math” education promises to do even less to teach actual math and more to advance a radical progressivist/socialist agenda. As reported by the New York Post, the woke math movement is ominously being bankrolled by billionaire heiress and philanthropist Liz Simons, a key supporter of “socialist Zohran Mamdani’s NYC mayoral campaign.” The Post reports that Simons recently donated $250,000 to a political action committee funding Mamdani’s election bid.

The Post warns that Simons, “daughter of late hedge-fund billionaire Jim Simons, oversees a foundation with a near-billion-dollar endowment trashing traditional race-neutral math in favor of race-obsessed leftist lessons inserting social justice principles into many aspects of students’ studies.” Essentially in place in California, the fear is that socialists like Mamdani will push to install the program nationwide.

Simons’ father was “a top mathematician turned hedge-fund legend,” which may explain his daughter’s dabbling in math curriculum. Daddy’s net worth at his death in May 2024 was reportedly more than $31 billion, and the Post writes that Liz “has not been shy about spending his money.” Sadly, as acumen in factual math and science propelled the elder Simons to billionaire status, it’s questionable whether he would approve of his daughter’s promotion of math education that fails to teach math.

Through the Heising-Simons Foundation (co-founded by Liz Simons and her philanthropist husband, Mark Heising) millions are already pouring into woke math, even as student test scores in basic math skills fall to ever more troubling lows.

While he has yet to win the mayoral race, some observers in New York City are sounding the alarm about Mamdani’s potential impact on education. PLACE NYC, or Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, is a local group that advocates for rigorous academic standards across all ethnic and cultural lines. Its co-president, Yiatin Chu, told the New York Post that she has “‘grave concerns’ about the direction of public schools under Mamdani and that Simons’ influence is ‘troubling.’”

Chu continued: “Woke math lowers the bar without helping black students. While test results show gains among black and Hispanic students, the gap with Asian and white students hasn’t closed. We hope Mamdani doesn’t undo progress.” She added that she fears “megadonor” Simons will impact Mamdani’s choice of a math curriculum and/or a chancellor.

Woke math and DEI

An extensive exposé by RealClearInvestigations paints an even more sobering picture of woke math’s inroads in education beyond California and potentially New York City.

The article asserts that Simons’ foundation and like organizations “are supercharging a movement to remake K-12 mathematics education according to social justice principles,” and that the change they are pursuing is “profound.”

For example, they consider traditional practices of math instruction, including numerical computations, to be oppressive hallmarks of white supremacy that must be scrapped. Instead, lessons are infused “with racial and gender themes.” Due to pressure from the Trump Administration, this way of thinking seems to be waning in the corporate world and, to a degree, in higher education, but it is moving full speed ahead in woke math for grades K-12.

RealClearInvestigations points out that this is because curricula in K-12 education “are locally controlled and largely insulated from the dictates of Washington.” Progressive foundations and like-minded charitable trusts, therefore, continue “to pour millions of dollars into reshaping math education for black and Latino kids, including an $800,000 grant this year from the Heising-Simons Foundation,” with no credible evidence to show that such indoctrination in lieu of real math instruction improves performance.

Of course, DEI brainwashing is not just for black and Latino students; the goal is to teach all kids woke math. Another organization promoting it is “TODOS Mathematics for All, an Arizona-based organization that calls for elevating DEI practices and anti-racist activism into all math instruction, with over $553,750 in grants in recent years.” RealClear says both the Gates and Heising-Simons foundations support TODOS.

The article points out that not only is DEI and anti-racist propaganda the basis for woke math education, but that LGBT identity propaganda must also be included. During an hour-long TODOS-sponsored webinar on “2SLGBTQIA+ identity in mathematics education,” speakers “expounded at length on various queer and indigenous identity groups while spending virtually no time on math-related curriculum or instruction.”

RealClear further observes that “deep pocket donors” like Gates, Heising-Simons, and others, also fund woke math activists such as Danny Bernard Martin, a math education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Martin has referred to math instruction as a “white supremacist construct that inflicts epistemological violence on black students.” He has even criticized DEI programs as “mere accommodations rooted in the fictions of white imaginaries and designed to appease white logics and sensibilities.” Martin and his ilk push the dangerous and divisive notion that black students must be taught by black professors at independent black institutions.

The Socialist influence

In the wake of the failed Biden presidency and the fruitless campaign of Kamala Harris, the common consensus among many is that the Democrat Party has become rudderless, lacking in strong leadership and a clear vision. This weakness has given rise to the likes of Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Party.

At their convention in August, The Washington Free Beacon reported that DSA delegates claimed: “We’re in charge now. Zohran Mamdani’s surprise win wasn’t an anomaly, but rather the start of the DSA’s rise to power over the Democratic Party.” Indeed, other DSA candidates are running for office in various states such as Minnesota in hopes of replacing moderate, middle-of-the-road Democrats.

Approximately 1,200 DSA party members met at the Chicago Convention Center, with the purpose of “solidifying the party’s platform.” They celebrated Mamdani’s primary win and called for his campaign to be used as “a template” for other DSA campaigns around the country. Delegates made bold speeches, claiming: “We can win the Democratic primary in 2028,” and “DSA has the opportunity to seize power with the Democratic Party’s favorability ratings in the tank.”

While one might expect such posturing at a political convention, the truth is that many socialist policies are already embraced by the Democrat Party. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has endorsed Mamdani, and he has been praised by various other Democrats, including Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.

And although Mamdani has not formally endorsed woke math, his vehement backing of “social justice” and the LGBT agenda, as well as his campaign’s acceptance of the Heising-Simons Foundation’s financial support, strongly suggest that his position on woke math and other radical curricula will be favorable.

Mamdani’s platform pledges to “Trump-proof” New York City while making it an “LGBTQIA+ Sanctuary City” and “expanding and protecting gender-affirming care citywide.” He plans to establish an “office of LGBTQIA+ affairs,” and provide $87 million for special services and programs aimed at the LGBT community. These are but a partial list of his chilling socialist/Marxist plans.

As Claire Lehmann writes on The Dispatch.com, Mamdani’s rise marks “a mutation of progressivism,” which is not fading but has “simply shapeshifted” and may become a greater threat. She offers this interesting anecdote on Mamdani:

• In him, the aesthetic of postcolonial identity is married to the language of rent freezes and class struggle. That combination—which is new to the United States but familiar to the Global South—signals the possibility of a mass politics capable of mobilizing the downwardly mobile middle class alongside the urban poor. Mamdani’s very name points to this lineage: His middle name, Kwame, was given by his father in homage to Ghana’s first postcolonial leader, Kwame Nkrumah, who fused anticolonial identity with socialist redistribution. Despite remaining a hero to many on the postcolonial left, Nkrumah implemented Soviet-style plans which collapsed entire industries—and later the entire Ghana economy—while simultaneously locking political dissidents up in “preventative detention.”

Lehmann believes Mamdani “is not a relic of a fading era but a herald of the next….” She writes: “What comes next may not be softer or weaker, but sharper, harder, and more dangerous—and aimed squarely at our economic order itself.”

On September 16, the Parents Demanding Justice Alliance (PDJA), made public a letter from former Phyllis Schlafly Eagles President, Ed Martin, Jr., who is currently Director of the [Federal] Weaponization Working Group by President Donald Trump. The letter shows that the U.S. Attorney General’s office is partnering with PDJA to investigate the targeting of parents who raised concerns over the past 4 years about the safety and education of their children in public schools. According to Freedom Talk, the letter was addressed “to one of the many parents targeted” for voicing such concerns. Kelly John Walker, co-founder of PDJA, called Martin’s issuance of the letter “a watershed moment,” adding, “parents across the country have been harassed, defamed, and retaliated against for speaking up. Now, the highest levels of justice are moving to correct those wrongs, case by case.” Martin’s letter expresses deep concerns “about parents and parents’ advocates who have been targeted by federal, state or local government or quasi-government officials or entities. For these and other reasons, your situation has drawn my attention, and I respectfully request that you share all relevant documents with me directly.” The letter is likely the first of more to come, and serves notice to the guilty parties that “the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Attorney General’s office are actively working to right the abuses that began with Attorney General Merrick Garland’s October 4, 2021 memo—widely criticized for labeling parents as potential domestic terrorists.” PDJA is working with like-minded associates “to secure a corresponding Executive Order from the Trump Administration to permanently safeguard parental rights.” Walker stated: “We are Americans. We do not tolerate tyranny.”

New Jersey wants to regulate homeschooling families by proposing that they be forced by state law to teach DEI and other woke curricula. Although still under review, Fox News reports that the new legislation will “require homeschooling parents to teach their kids about controversial topics such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI),” and enable the state to usurp parental rights by mandating that homeschoolers “submit a curriculum in line with state learning standards.” Parents would be required to include subjects such as “gender identity, sexual orientation, and climate studies,” all of which are examples of the woke indoctrination foisted on children in public schools. The measure would add more oversight to homeschooling, requiring that families “submit a portfolio of student work every year to be evaluated by either a teacher or a licensed psychologist.” For most homeschooling parents, such objectionable mandates are the reason they are teaching their children at home in the first place, of which state education departments and teachers’ unions are doubtless aware. Interestingly, the blue state of New Jersey is reportedly “one of a dozen states with looser homeschooling restrictions,” and supporters of tighter control say the bill would “help improve transparency about what kids are being taught at home.” Are they worried that kids are learning such things as how to read and do traditional math? What if they are learning Christian moral principles and biological reality? — gasp! Last June, homeschooling families in Illinois defeated an attempt by the state to legislate a restrictive burden on them. New Jersey parents will hopefully do the same, and homeschoolers in every state should be on alert for similar mischief.

A wave of news reports has surfaced of teachers and professors in hot water and even being fired after publicly celebrating the death of American patriot and leader of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), Charlie Kirk. The murder of Kirk was, in the words of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles’ John and Andy Schlafly, “premeditated and executed with vengeance against an innocent victim merely for exercising his constitutional right of freedom of speech.” Leftists across the country have done little to hide their glee over the tragedy, and many are paying the price. The Daily Caller reported that several high school students passionately requested the firing of a teacher at a school board meeting in Rhode Island after the teacher posted a TikTok video celebrating the assassination and saying he “had no sympathy” for Charlie Kirk. That teacher has been suspended. The College Fix reported that law professor Kelly Carmena was suspended from Louisiana’s Southern University and is being investigated after she posted on Facebook: “I will 1000% wish death on people like him [Kirk]…. He is the epitome of evil and I have no compassion, not even a minute ounce of it for people like him who go around spewing hate the way he does.” The Fix further publicized that a Kansas Department of Education official was fired after referring to Kirk’s murder as “well deserved.” A number of professors nationwide have tried to claim that Kirk’s murderer, Tyler Robinson “was not necessarily liberal” even though evidence emerging since the assassination strongly suggests otherwise. But some liberals are learning the hard way that the very “hate speech” they accuse conservatives of and that they have unleashed on Charlie Kirk, is coming back to bite them. As the Schlafly brothers point out in their column: “The federal hate crime statute — and the federal death penalty — should be applied to prosecute this assassination of an outspoken Christian. The Trump Administration should ensure that Americans are fully informed about what encouragement the assassin may have received from well-funded Leftist organizations before and after this crime.”