Education Briefs
In an all-too-common occurrence, the Springfield, Missouri public school district conducted a teacher training session in August that forced teachers to identify their racial and sexual "privilege." As writer/editor and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute Christopher Rufo 
revealed on Twitter, the training promoted "identities such as 'pansexual' and 'polyamorous,' and warned that 'misgendering a trans person is an act of violence.'" The session opened by recognizing "the Native and Indigenous Peoples whose land we currently gather on. Springfield Public Schools is built on ancestral territory of the Osage, Delaware, and Kickapoo Nations and Peoples." While it's unclear whether any tribal representatives were present (or cared enough) to witness this groveling, the slide stated: "In doing social justice work, it is important we acknowledge the dark history and violence against Native and Indigenous People across the world..." Rufo noted that the program included transgender activism by following "the basic principles of radical gender theory: that 'gender is a universe'" and that "society has created a 'heteronormative' system that is inherently oppressive." Training materials acknowledged that "the goal of the program is to subvert this system and affirm identities such as 'trans,' 'nonbinary,' 'polyamorous,' and 'pansexual.'" The presenters shared a video featuring "genderqueer" and "nonbinary" children, claiming that some students "don't have a gender," and that "pronouns matter." Unfortunately for the Springfield school district, this radical propaganda matters to Missouri's conservative attorney general, Eric Schmitt, whose office is investigating the training program, and to the Southeastern Legal Foundation, which has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to shut it down. Rufo's entire article on this subject can be found at City-Journal.org.
The Family Institute of Connecticut wants parents to "stop feeding the insanity at local schools" by first opting children out of school surveys. As Phyllis Schlafly often wrote, these surveys, or what she called "nosy questionnaires," collect personal data on children that can be stored and shared. 
The Family Institute notes that the surveys "feed data about your child and family to school administrators, the State Board of Education, and external data collection agencies." They report that the State of Connecticut "uses Panorama Education and other out-of-state companies to track your child as authorized by benign-sounding state laws. They use that information to justify, of course... 1) more surveys, but also 2) more administrators, 3) comprehensive sex-ed and accompanying sexually explicit books and materials, 4) categorizing and grooming of children, and more." The Family Institute's website contains information and suggestions for parents, including a "Parental Opt-Out Form" that can be copied, filled out, and presented to schools to protect children from controversial activities and programs. The form can be used in any state, for as the organization asserts: "There is no constitutional or moral authority for the federal government to create standards for attitudes, values, and beliefs of American citizens, conduct psychological research on them, and to keep this data in perpetuity in state longitudinal databases."
A teacher's union and parents are battling in Woodland Park, Colorado for control of the city's public schools. The union wants to force-feed liberal propaganda to students while parents want to return to reading, writing, math, and science. The Epoch Times reported that last November,
after a slate of conservative school board members won four seats on the local school board and immediately began delivering on their campaign promises, the Woodland Park Education Association, an NEA affiliate, instigated a recall effort "with help from its state and national allies." According to citizen activist and Woodland Park resident, Jameson Dion, one of the new board members was harassed into resigning, and the recall petition is targeting the three remaining conservative members. Their crimes include opposing mask mandates and supporting school choice, higher teacher pay, and greater transparency, which are positions most parents support, and were the reasons the new board members were elected. Teachers received an 8.5 percent pay increase, the COVID-19 mask mandate was eliminated, and the new board created a "sensitive subject" policy to ensure that parents would be informed beforehand of any controversial or age-inappropriate programs. Woodland Park parents have been fed up for years, which prompted the creation of the classical charter school, Merit Academy, in 2021. (Education Reporter wrote about Merit and its resounding success last year.) In resisting the new school board members, Dion told the Epoch Times that the local teachers' union was "using a playbook established by the NEA," and that the NEA's website contains an article on "How to Oust a Right Wing School Board" that describes a similar campaign undertaken a few years ago in the Jefferson County School District near Denver.
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