In 2007, when Hillary Clinton was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/us/politics/26DEBATE-TRANSCRIPT.html">asked</a> in a Democratic primary debate whether she would be comfortable having “King and King” — a children’s picture book about a prince who marries another man — read to her second-grade child as part of the school curriculum, she responded that it was a “matter of parental discretion.”
It’s remarkable how far off the deep end the Left has gone in just a few short years.
This week, the Supreme Court will <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_calendars/MonthlyArgumentCalApril2025.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hear a case</a> brought by a group of parents claiming what Clinton argued years ago: Parents should be able to decide whether or not their children read LGBTQ storybooks at school.
Oral arguments will be heard for the parental rights case Mahmoud v. Taylor, which <a href="https://becketfund.org/media/religious-parents-ask-supreme-court-to-restore-opt-outs-for-pride-storybooks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">originated</a> when the Montgomery County Board of Education introduced LGBTQ storybooks to the elementary school curriculum and revoked its existing parental notice and opt-out policies. Muslim, Jewish, and Christian parents challenged the school district’s ban on elementary school opt-outs on the grounds that the policy burdened their constitutional right to free exercise of religion.
The diverse coalition of parents isn’t asking the school district to remove the LGBTQ storybooks from classrooms. They simply want the option to remove their children from the classroom when content is taught that conflicts with their religious beliefs. Parents are the primary educators of their children, and that vocation doesn’t stop when kids begin to attend school.
The board of education added storybooks that introduce gender ideology and sexuality to children as young as three or four years old. These storybooks are transparently part of an activist push to introduce children to same-sex relationships, transgender ideology, and LGBTQ vocabulary at a startlingly young age.
“Born Ready” features a female main character who repeatedly claims, “Inside, I’m a boy,” and whose parents immediately start treating her like a boy. “Not everything needs to make sense. This is about love,” Penelope’s mom tells her confused older brother. The book’s author, Jodie Patterson, serves on the board of the Human Rights Campaign, a radical LGBTQ advocacy group.
Another book in the Montgomery County curriculum, <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">titled</a> “My Rainbow,” is about a transgender-identifying boy’s desire to have long hair to fit in with “cisgender girls.” Trinity Neal, a transgender-identifying boy, and his mother, DeShanna, a nonbinary activist, wrote the story based on their experiences. DeShanna <a href="https://history.delaware.gov/lgbtq/my-rainbow-and-trinity-neals-rainbow-wig/">advocated</a> for Medicaid coverage of Trinity’s puberty blockers, resulting in the first Medicaid coverage of transgender medical procedures in their home state of Delaware. Subsequently, Trinity <a href="https://history.delaware.gov/lgbtq/my-rainbow-and-trinity-neals-rainbow-wig/">became</a> the first minor in the state to change his birth certificate’s gender marker from male to female.
“Jacob’s Room to Choose,” about a cross-dressing boy whose school accommodates him by abolishing gendered bathrooms, was <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">published</a> through the American Psychological Association’s children’s book imprint. APA has prominently <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2024/02/policy-supporting-transgender-nonbinary#:~:text=%E2%80%9CAPA%20also%20affirms%20the%20essential,appropriate%20youth%20self%2Dadvocacy.%E2%80%9D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported</a> transgender medical procedures for minors and advocated for so-called “gender-affirming care.”
The other books at the heart of Mahmoud v. Taylor are similarly written at an elementary school reading level but focus on complex adult topics of sexuality and gender identity. “Love, Violet” <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">focuses</a> on a same-sex relationship between elementary school classmates. “Pride Puppy” <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">instructs</a> readers to identify leather, underwear, a lip ring, an intersex flag, and a drag king in its illustrations.
“What Are Your Words?” <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">encourages</a> kids to change their pronouns, promoting confusing pairs like “ey/em,” “ze/zir,” and “xe/xir,” and using they/them pronouns to refer to individuals in the story. And “Intersection Allies,” another book <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wu2be63z1cfa0jg6fq3je/APiCjohPQCCnkdX6jXcrOIE/Book%20Covers%20%2B%20Pages/Storybooks%20(Full%20text)?dl=0&amp;e=3&amp;rlkey=te8vom170eoxvb57ivge6ecue&amp;subfolder_nav_tracking=1">featured</a> in the case, includes a foreword by critical race theorist and activist Kimberle Crenshaw.
These storybooks are examples of radical propaganda written by progressive activists to shape the hearts and minds of the next generation. Kids may not know better than to believe what they’re taught, but American adults aren’t so convinced by these woke storybooks. Only 3% of Americans <a href="https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20250115160612/Religious-Freedom-Index-2024-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">believe</a> that instruction on human sexuality and gender identity is appropriate for pre-K or kindergarten-aged children. And 77% of Americans <a href="https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20250115160612/Religious-Freedom-Index-2024-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">believe</a> that parents should be able to opt their children out of gender and sexuality instruction.
Just a few years ago, I pulled my children out of Fairfax County Schools because of the progressive garbage they were being exposed to in their classrooms on a daily basis. My family is not alone. There is a large movement of parents who have made the same decision we have, but not every family is in a position to do so. Parents should undoubtedly have the right to opt their children out of reading these radical activist storybooks: Children are not wards of the state.
When public schools add storybooks that teach gender ideology as truth, the state has violated the right of parents to raise their children in their religious tradition, along with teaching them the corresponding religious beliefs about gender, human sexuality, and the meaning of marriage.
The government has no business mandating that elementary students learn radical gender ideology. Fortunately, parents will do whatever it takes to protect their children and exercise their parental rights — even if it means taking the case to the Supreme Court.
* * *
Terry Schilling is a parental rights advocate and president of the American Principles Project.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Mixed race teacher reading to class

Will SCOTUS Back Parents When It Comes To LGBTQ Storybooks?

Books

Children

Education

Gender

gender ideology

LGBTQ

Opinion

Parental Rights in Education

Parenting

Public Schools

Schools

SCOTUS

Supreme Court

Unsurprisingly, there is tremendous fearmongering marked by falsehoods from the opposition regarding President Trump’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Public school personnel are already claiming that special education funding has been cut and that closing the department will devastate their ability to educate students. These claims are unfounded.
Amongst the loudest clamoring are the teachers union bosses. Randi Weingarten, head of the second largest teachers union, the American Federation for Teachers, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/randi-weingarten-spitting-mad-about-evisceration-education-department" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in her own words</a>, is “spitting mad.” Note this is the Weingarten who leveraged her political power to <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/biden-believes-in-science-so-long-as-the-teachers-unions-approve/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">directly influence the CDC</a> to keep public schools closed to children outrageously far longer than necessary.
Following the signing of the executive order, the American Federation for Teachers issued a <a href="https://www.aft.org/press-release/educators-professors-school-districts-unions-unite-challenge-trump-attempt-dismantle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> announcing the filing of a lawsuit by a coalition of educators, school districts, and unions against the Trump administration. Regarding the recent cutting of the massive bureaucracy bloat within the federal department and those responsible for woke DEI initiatives, the press release <a href="https://www.aft.org/press-release/educators-professors-school-districts-unions-unite-challenge-trump-attempt-dismantle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read</a>: “Mass firings of these hardworking people planned by the Trump administration will harm students and schools.”
Clearly overlooking the reality that public education is failing to effectively educate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-national-test-scores-make-undeniable-case-for-school-choice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">seven out of ten</a> schoolchildren in the basics of reading and math, the teacher union is rushing to legal action in an attempt to maintain the status quo, which is a death sentence for children’s futures.
John B. King Jr, who was the U.S. Secretary of Education for a stint during the Obama administration, is another Democrat working overtime to dispense fear to Americans over the plan to dismantle the disastrous Department of Education. In a recent short <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/28/nx-s1-5341462/trump-education-department-financial-aid-layoffs-arrests-international-students" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview with NPR</a>, King kept his main talking point on repeat, asserting that “People are very worried.” Continuing, he commented about the things he’s “most worried about.” King went on, “…I’m very worried…” The painful and brief interview concluded with a final question to which King tripled down on his anxiety-spreading effort. “I’m really worried….I’m worried…I’m worried…”
The fearmongering is unfounded. President Trump, in his address prior to signing the “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities</a>” executive order into law, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjnoGgEJvLs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">communicated</a> that “Pell Grants, Title I funding, resources for children with disabilities and special needs will be preserved — fully preserved.” He explained that those programs would be “redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them.”
More specifically, special education programs will <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-and-defense-secretary-hegseth-deliver-remarks-on-f-47-fighter-jet/657517" target="_blank" rel="noopener">move to</a> the Department of Health and Human Services. Student loans will <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-and-defense-secretary-hegseth-deliver-remarks-on-f-47-fighter-jet/657517" target="_blank" rel="noopener">head to</a> the Small Business Administration (SBA), which is a commonsense change from education policy personnel managing the <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article/40-18-trillion-student-loans-late-payments-trump-seeks-abolish-dept-ed/27711" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1.8 trillion loan portfolio</a>. And, importantly, states will be freed from the red tape of Washington D.C., empowering them to make decisions concerning how best to educate the children of their state.
So, what is being cut? Simply put, the billions of dollars spent fueling the promotion of radical ideologies to children, such as gender ideology, Critical Race Theory, and an anti-American worldview. As one example, on January 23, the U.S. Department of Education, under the president&#8217;s direction, <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-takes-action-eliminate-dei" target="_blank" rel="noopener">began taking action</a> to “eliminate harmful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.” That <a href="https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/cultural-issues/article_89d2f95a-da74-11ef-881f-c31173f69a5c.html?seyid=48320" target="_blank" rel="noopener">included</a> placing personnel who lead DEI initiatives on administrative leave, the deletion of more than 200 webpages of DEI resources that “promote or endorse” the “harmful ideological programs,” and ending DEI contracts totaling over $2.5 million.
Then, on January 29, President Trump signed the “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling</a>” executive order. It <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that “In recent years…parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.” Specifically, the Secretary of Education, Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services must consult with the Attorney General to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">create a plan</a> within 90 days to end indoctrination and protect parental rights.
Additionally, federal bureaucrats pushing paper in Washington D.C. have been cut. Already, <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-initiates-reduction-force" target="_blank" rel="noopener">half of the positions</a> within the U.S. Department of Education have been eliminated as education rightfully returns to the states. Big government control of K-12 education has been a massive failure and has not increased student learning. Block granting the money back to the states will enhance efficiency and effectiveness while also providing increased accountability for student academic learning.
Don’t listen to the lies or anxiety-induced talking points. Dismantling the U.S. Department of Education is a win for America and a much-needed step forward toward the goal of successfully educating our future generation.
Hats off to President Trump for taking this longtime-coming, much needed action to ensure that gone will be the days of only three out of ten public school children learning to read or do math proficiently.
* * *
Dr. Keri D. Ingraham is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a Senior Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Rally Held In Support Of Department Of Education And Schools

Fearmongering And Falsehoods Over Education Dept. Shutdown

Department of Education

President Trump

Randi Weingarten

Student Loans

Students

Teachers Unions

The U.S. Department of Education is an $80 billion failure. For decades, it’s promised better schools and brighter futures, yet delivered little beyond bureaucracy and stagnation. President Trump is right: it’s time to end the Department of Education and hand states the reins.
In Tennessee, we understand that the best education system considers the unique needs of every student and empowers parents to choose what’s best for their child. We also have a proven track record of stewarding tax dollars wisely to achieve the maximum benefit for our students and teachers. By returning education to the states, we can once again make an American education the gold standard across the globe.
Since the department’s creation in 1979, the federal government has spent more than $6 trillion on education, yet our kids aren’t reading any better, solving equations any faster, or competing stronger globally. The “Nation’s Report Card” shows reading and math scores for 17-year-olds stuck where they were in the 1970s. Meanwhile, administrative staff in public schools has ballooned, growing by 19 times the rate of student growth since 2000, while resources are failing to make it into the classroom and teachers drown in paperwork. This isn’t just waste – it’s a sacrifice of our children’s future.
Worse yet, the department has become a megaphone for ideological agendas that undermine parents’ rights. The Biden Education Department pushed critical race theory in classrooms and threatened funding to schools that didn’t allow boys in girls’ sports. That’s not education – it’s ideology. In Tennessee, we’re focused on teaching our kids the facts – real civics and hard science – so they can think for themselves and take pride in our nation’s great story.
Education simply isn’t Washington’s job. Before 1979, states like Tennessee built school systems without a federal babysitter. That’s why President Ronald Reagan called the department a “bureaucracy that’s outlived its usefulness” and pushed to shift power back to parents and community leaders. Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America again called for abolishing the Department of Education. Today, President Trump is making good on generations of promises.
Tennessee, like many states, has proven that when parents and communities lead, students succeed. Our state has led the nation in academic recovery post-COVID and implemented literacy programs helping kids read at higher levels than ever before. And with the passage of universal school choice in Tennessee this year, thanks to President Trump’s support, we’ve put parents in the driver’s seat.
Look beyond Tennessee and the evidence piles up. Mississippi’s “Miracle” lifted 4th-grade reading scores above the national average thanks to state-driven literacy reforms. Florida’s investments in choice and education since 1999 have helped low-income students rise from 33rd to 1st nationally in reading scores, while graduation rates increased and dropout rates were cut nearly in half.
President Trump can end the federal government’s authority over education because the Constitution never granted it in the first place. The Department of Education’s main role is sending states money, which Washington somehow succeeded in doing before creating the department. Other parts of the federal government are likely better equipped to serve students, such as the Treasury with student loans.
Cutting off the bureaucracy does not mean turning off the funding. States already handle 90% of K-12 funding; the federal 10% — about $1.8 billion for Tennessee — can be managed smarter at home. We’ve done it before: Tennessee’s Medicaid block grant has saved taxpayers a billion dollars over three years while improving care. Imagine what we could do with education dollars, cutting waste and pouring resources into classrooms, not cubicles.
President Trump’s plan means hope for America’s children. It opens doors to state-driven innovation, unleashing the creative potential of all 50 states. And it gives parents — not Washington — more control over the education of their children.
It’s time to end this failed experiment and return education to the states. We know our children. We know what works. Let states lead — and watch our kids thrive.
* * *
Bill Lee is the 50th Governor of Tennessee.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The 2024 Republican National Convention

Education Belongs In The States, Not Washington

Tennessee

When an obnoxious group of political activists suddenly goes silent, it&#8217;s usually a sign that they&#8217;re regrouping in some way. That&#8217;s especially true after the activists suffer a crushing defeat in a national election. It&#8217;s only natural to assume that, under those circumstances, the activists have gone underground for a bit in order to refine their messaging. They&#8217;re putting their best minds together to come up with a platform that might appeal to more people. Or at the very least, they&#8217;re taking steps to make sure that, when they emerge from hiding, they&#8217;re not seen as even crazier and less convincing than they were before. That&#8217;s the bare minimum you&#8217;d expect. Think about how the Indians realized they were on the losing side of the whole debate over &#8220;who gets the land,&#8221; so they came back and decided to settle for owning a bunch of casinos instead. There&#8217;s a strategic retreat, then an effective comeback.
This is the playbook that we&#8217;ve seen again and again. But after this week, it&#8217;s clear trans activists and the LGBT movement have thrown out the manual. Following their rejection at the ballot box in November, trans activists have decided against the idea of moderating their insanity. Instead, they have elected to double down on the most extreme and demented aspects of their ideology.
They have devolved to a degree that, if you weren&#8217;t paying attention, you might have thought was impossible. We are now at the point where trans activists are embracing cruelty that isn&#8217;t even cloaked with the usual lies about &#8220;scientific consensus&#8221; or anything like that. These people are now endorsing child abuse, without reservation, right out in the open. That&#8217;s always what they&#8217;ve stood for. Now they&#8217;re not even attempting to hide it.
In order to understand the depths of depravity, you need to watch the scene that unfolded at a school board meeting on Thursday in Deerfield, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. A woman named Nicole Georgas began by telling the school board that her daughter is a 13-year-old student at a local middle school. And recently, her 13-year-old was forced to share a bathroom with a male student. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="005 PARENT SPEAKS OUT 1" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5QB6E-Aqh9Y?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Before we play the rest of Nicole Georgas&#8217; statement, it&#8217;s worth pointing out that, strangely enough, no one on the Left is calling this situation a &#8220;constitutional crisis.&#8221; She&#8217;s pointing out, correctly, that the state of Illinois is defying Trump&#8217;s executive order on gender ideology. And in the process, they&#8217;re disregarding the civil rights of children at a systemic level. If you listened to the Left&#8217;s complaints about how outrageous it was that the Trump administration ignored a judge&#8217;s order when he deported Venezuelan terrorists the other day, you might think that they&#8217;d be equally upset about what the state of Illinois is doing in this case. But of course there&#8217;s no outrage, because these people are more than happy to ignore orders when they feel like it. And the state of Illinois should lose federal funding immediately as a result.
If you don&#8217;t agree with that, then you&#8217;ll change your mind after you hear the rest of Nicole Georgas&#8217; statement.
Listen as she explains what the adults at this middle school allegedly forced her child to do, against her will:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="006 PARENT SPEAKS OUT 2" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lqka-RRQ79M?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
To restate: This woman is saying that school officials forced her 13-year-old daughter — and several other young girls — to change in front of a male student in a locker room at a middle school. Those school officials, she said, include the district’s assistant superintendent for student services, the school’s assistant principal, and the director for student services.
If this claim is true — and as you&#8217;ll see in a moment, there&#8217;s no reason to doubt that it is — then the school officials who forced these girls to change in front of a boy are guilty of sexual assault. You could probably add kidnapping and child endangerment charges as well. The fact that this took place in a school should not provide any kind of cover for these people. If anything, it should make the charges even more serious. And whatever charges are brought, it&#8217;d still be too light of a punishment. Try to imagine what you&#8217;d do, as a parent, if you learned that an adult was forcing your daughter to get naked in front of a male, against her will. Criminal charges would probably be the least of that particular adult&#8217;s problems.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1557-the-matt-walsh-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
At a minimum, we need conservative DAs to start pressing those kinds of charges against the people pushing this madness. This goes beyond the realm of a political debate or a &#8220;constitutional crisis.&#8221; This is child abuse. And if there were any good-faith members of the trans activist community — if any of them were capable of some level of basic human decency — they would admit this. They would acknowledge that, indeed, it&#8217;s possible to go too far in the process of affirming gender ideology. And that point is reached when you&#8217;re forcing children to expose themselves to members of the opposite sex.
But because there are no good-faith trans activists, you can probably guess how this mother&#8217;s statement was received. As soon as she was finished, &#8220;boos&#8221; rang out in the room. One person asked her why she was &#8220;obsessed&#8221; with the genitals of children, which is one of those stock arguments these activists use all the time, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. They could be exposing themselves to you and your children in the park, and then when you object to it, they&#8217;ll accuse you of being &#8220;obsessed.&#8221; Then, a few other activists spoke at the school board meeting, and they continued to take cheap shots at the mother. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="007 ATTACKS ON PARENT" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-31ulVAg1do?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This is the dominant mode of thought, such as it is, among trans activists at the moment. If you&#8217;re a mother who doesn&#8217;t want your daughter to be forced to strip in front of males in middle school, then you&#8217;re a &#8220;bully.&#8221; You&#8217;re an extremist, as identified by Left-wing propaganda outfits. You&#8217;re &#8220;obsessed&#8221; with genitalia. And on and on.
One particularly threatening trans activist took things a step further, and railed against &#8220;white supremacy&#8221; and the &#8220;white God.&#8221; And this person did so while wearing a shirt that reads, &#8220;Protect trans kids,&#8221; with a picture of a knife. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="008 Wacko" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yj6PFKBJy0s?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The framing of course is that the male student is being &#8220;targeted.&#8221; So they can force a girl to undress in a place she doesn&#8217;t want to undress, in front of this male student. And the girl isn&#8217;t being targeted in that scenario, supposedly. Instead, the male is being targeted. He&#8217;s not getting to see the girls undress, so he&#8217;s the victim here. It doesn&#8217;t exactly take Freud to understand the psychology underlying this whole movement.
To the extent that any of these activists presented something approaching an argument, it was to suggest that actually, these girls did have the option of requesting private changing rooms. That came up a few times during the school board meeting. But I&#8217;m going to focus on this one clip, featuring a trans-identifying individual who uses the name &#8220;Charlie.&#8221; Charlie uses &#8220;they/he&#8221; pronouns, so we&#8217;re going to go ahead and use &#8220;she&#8221; to describe her, because it seems like it&#8217;s probably the most accurate option. Charlie says that she also has a trans middle-schooler, which of course is maybe the least surprising revelation imaginable. If trans activists are good at anything, it&#8217;s indoctrinating their own children. In any event, here&#8217;s Charlie&#8217;s big moment, where she reads from an Illinois law that&#8217;s supposedly about &#8220;human rights&#8221;:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="009 PRIVATE OPTION" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KH2sGW13jyU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This is the extent of the concessions that these people were willing to offer. They&#8217;re saying that anyone who &#8220;wants more privacy,&#8221; under the law, can use a separate bathroom. They can request some other accommodation.
Put aside the fact that, in this case, that other accommodation apparently wasn&#8217;t provided. What they don&#8217;t address is the obvious question, which is: Why can&#8217;t the boy request the &#8220;other accommodation,&#8221; in this scenario? Why do all of these girls have to request their own accommodations, but the male doesn&#8217;t? The reason is apparently that it would make him feel bad if he isn&#8217;t included in the girl&#8217;s locker room. But the fact that his presence makes girls feel bad — feel unsafe and vulnerable — simply doesn&#8217;t register. As you heard from that trans activist, the girls&#8217; feelings of &#8220;discomfort&#8221; are simply considered invalid. The trans activist never explains why this discomfort is invalid. Neither does the Illinois law.
But we all know the explanation, which is that these activists, above all else, are sadists who crave power. They relish the prospect of forcing women and girls to take part in this charade. From their perspective, the more degrading the process is, the better. Everyone must be forced to participate. Whatever mental harm 10 or 20 middle-school girls might suffer as a result, they simply don&#8217;t care. Their only goal is to ensure that the male in the scenario gets his satisfaction.
The argument from these trans activists only got worse from there. Here&#8217;s a couple of them:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="010 LOT OF TRANS PEOPLE PASS, INSPECTIONS" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PmPJEy0c9Fc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
So the second woman just yells about pronouns. Nothing new there. And the first woman makes a familiar logistical argument, saying some trans-identifying children supposedly &#8220;pass.&#8221; And therefore, unless we want to inspect their bodies, we need to just accept whatever those kids say.
First of all, of course, it&#8217;s not true that any &#8220;trans-identifying&#8221; middle-schoolers actually &#8220;pass&#8221; for a member of the opposite gender. The child in this situation certainly didn&#8217;t come close to passing. And for that matter, none of the activists at this school board meeting came close to &#8220;passing,&#8221; either. Humans have evolved for a very long time to develop certain sex-specific traits, and to perceive those traits in others. A child who throws on a wig from Party City isn&#8217;t going to overcome that.
But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that some child somehow manages to fool everyone at school into thinking he&#8217;s really a girl, it&#8217;s still completely insane to endorse the idea that he should then have access to girls&#8217; locker rooms. Just because he manages to fool people and sneak into those locker rooms doesn&#8217;t make his actions justified. It&#8217;s like saying a bank robber is justified if no one notices he pulled off the heist. Deception is still wrong, whether it&#8217;s detected or not.
This is a basic moral principle — one of many basic moral principles that trans activists have abandoned. If this school board meeting demonstrates anything, it&#8217;s that these people are never going to become more moderate or sensible, no matter how badly they lose national elections. As I&#8217;ve pointed out before, most of the adult trans activists who continue in the fight are either trans themselves or have trans kids — or in some cases, both (as we saw at this school board meeting). They will never let it go, because to let it go would be to admit that they&#8217;ve maimed and mutilated themselves or their children. That is a level of self-reflection and acceptance that trans activists, as the ultimate narcissists, are simply incapable of achieving.
What that means is that it&#8217;s now the responsibility of law enforcement officials, at both the state and federal levels, to prevent trans activists from continuing to abuse children. There are clearly no limits to their depravity at this point. If we want to end this sickness, executive orders and court cases simply aren&#8217;t enough. The school officials who embraced this perversion need to go to prison. The school districts that enforce these policies need to lose federal funding. Simply put, there is no legal penalty too excessive for child abusers. And if we want to protect children and prevent anything like this from happening again, it&#8217;s time that the people responsible started facing those penalties.

MixCollage-18-Mar-2025-01-49-PM-3339

Trans Activists Hijack A School Board Meeting To Verbally Attack A Concerned Mother

Bathrooms

Illinois

JB Pritzker

Matt Walsh

School Boards

school district

Transgender

Gov. Brad Little (R) came through for the families of Idaho last Thursday morning by signing House Bill 93, the <a href="https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/h0093/">Parental Choice Tax Credit bill</a>, into law shortly before the 11:46 a.m. deadline. Idaho now has a school choice program for the first time in the state’s history.
The bill enacts a $50 million private school choice tax credit program with all schoolchildren statewide eligible. Idaho becomes the 14th state in the nation to enact universal (or near-universal) school choice, joining Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia.
Upon signing the bill, Gov. Little <a href="https://gov.idaho.gov/pressrelease/gov-little-signs-house-bill-93-creating-the-parental-choice-tax-credit-program/">declared</a>, “With the passage of the $50 million Parental Choice Tax Credit program, Idaho boasts even more abundant schooling options for Idaho students and families.”
Early in February, the state House passed the bill by a vote of <a href="https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/h0093/">42-28</a>, providing hope to parents that Idaho may finally see school choice become a reality. The longtime Republican-controlled state had been void of any form of private school choice, resembling its Democratic-controlled West Coast neighbors of Washington, Oregon, and California.
On February 16, President Donald Trump weighed in with strong support by <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114015581630558522">posting</a> on Truth Social: “Congratulations to Governor Brad Little, and Idaho Legislators, who are fighting to bring School Choice to their beautiful State. $50 Million Dollars to empower parents to provide the very best Education for their child – GREAT news for Idaho families. This Bill, which has my Complete and Total Support, MUST PASS!”
Then, on February 19, the Idaho Senate voted <a href="https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/h0093/">20-15</a> in favor of the bill, which sent it to the Governor’s desk for signature.
Yet, in uncanny measure for a red state governor, who already had the votes from the legislature and public support from the President of the United States, Gov. Little signaled it was not a given that he would sign the bill.
Before the bill reached his desk on February 21, Gov. Little’s Office had quickly placed an automatic voice message for all incoming calls. The message instructed callers to press one if the call relates to House Bill 93. From there, the voice recording stated that the Governor’s Office was only receiving calls from Idaho residents and only one call per household. It continued, “If you would like Gov. Little to sign House Bill 93, please press one. If you would like Gov. Little to veto House Bill 93, please press two.”
Within a few days of the bill reaching the governor, Press Secretary Joan Varsek <a href="https://www.eastidahonews.com/2025/02/thousands-of-phone-calls-flood-governors-desk-as-school-choice-bill-awaits-his-decision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the Governor’s office received “thousands of calls, emails, and voicemails on both sides in reference to H.B. 93.”
On Monday, the specific number of responses was released, which totaled <a href="https://www.idahoednews.org/state-policy/governors-office-received-more-than-32k-requests-to-veto-house-bill-93/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37,457</a>. Only 13.6% of those who reached out were in support of the governor signing the bill, while 86.4% were in opposition.
Yet, these last-minute cries for a veto were far from an accurate reflection of Idahoans’ support of school choice. A <a href="https://www.clubforgrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/securepdfs/2025/02/CfG_ID_ParentalChoiceTaxCredit_PollingMemo1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">February 11-12 poll</a> showed that “nearly three-in-five Idaho voters support passing the Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit bill.” The favorability of parental choice in education is nothing new as a 2024 poll of Idahoans by Boise State University found that <a href="https://www.boisestate.edu/sps/2024-idaho-public-policy-survey/#education" target="_blank" rel="noopener">49%</a> strongly favor or somewhat favor education funding following a student to a “private or religious” school whereas only <a href="https://www.boisestate.edu/sps/2024-idaho-public-policy-survey/#education" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41.1%</a> somewhat or strongly oppose it.
While the Governor may never reveal why he waited until just a few hours before the deadline to sign the bill or why his office set up the phone poll when the results didn’t sway him, parents with schoolchildren statewide are grateful nevertheless that he delivered.
With House Bill 93 now law, parents who opt for a different education avenue than the failing public school system will be eligible to receive a refundable tax credit of up to <a href="https://idahocapitalsun.com/2025/02/19/private-education-tax-credit-bill-heads-to-idaho-governor/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$5,000</a> per student. The amount will increase to <a href="https://idahocapitalsun.com/2025/02/19/private-education-tax-credit-bill-heads-to-idaho-governor/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$7,500</a> per student for those with special needs. Both amounts are thousands of dollars less than public schools spend per student, with unacceptable educational outcomes.
As evidenced by the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress Exam scores, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024219ID4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">60%</a> of fourth-grade and <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024219ID8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">69%</a> of eighth-grade public school students in Idaho are not proficient in math. Reading is worse, as <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024220ID4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">69%</a> of fourth-grade and <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024220ID8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">68%</a> of eighth-grade public school students in Idaho aren’t proficient. That’s nearly seven out of ten children failed by the system and robbed of their future.
Idaho is long overdue for allowing parents the freedom to select a better learning option for their children. Parents should not be bound to a failing system and left hoping their child will be one of the three out of the ten students who learn to read and perform math proficiently by the eighth grade.
The Office of the Governor website, on the “About Governor Brad Little” page, <a href="https://gov.idaho.gov/our-governor/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">states</a>: “Governor Little is committed to making decisions through one lens: the lens of ensuring Idaho’s children and grandchildren have the best opportunities to stay in Idaho and for the ones who have left to choose to return.
While it may have been in the eleventh hour, Gov. Little took action, recognizing that school choice is the solution to ensuring Idaho’s children and grandchildren have the best opportunities. Continuing course without an exit option for families from schools failing to provide students with proficiency would plague not only each child’s life but the state’s future. Not to mention, families with schoolchildren who have left Idaho would not have been incentivized to return when school choice abounds in other red states.
But thanks to a monumental signature last Thursday, that won’t be the case for the Gem State.
* * *
Dr. Keri D. Ingraham is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a Senior Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Idaho State Capitol sunset, Boise

This State’s Governor Delivers On School Choice In The Eleventh Hour

Charter Schools

Idaho

Parents rights

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a relatively new term for most people, so it’s understandable that few are speaking out against this program. And while I’ve known for a long time that SEL is dangerous, I never sat down to dig into its underlying concepts until recently. It turns out that ignorance truly is bliss, because I was much more blissful before realizing the magnitude of SEL and the tentacles it sends into our children’s precious minds.
Researching SEL generally only turns up rave reviews and studies talking about how this program will solve the world’s problems. Many websites explain SEL as a method in which children learn to develop skills to self-regulate their emotions, develop healthy identities, build positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. Additionally, SEL programs always claim to be “evidence based,” creating “lifelong learners.”
Such headlines and websites make it hard to argue that SEL is a bad program for children. But peeping behind the curtain reveals that SEL is nothing more than unlicensed therapy shoved down your child’s throat on a daily basis in public school.
There are several organizations that push SEL, but <a href="https://casel.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning</a> (CASEL) is the front runner. Their website boasts that they have “been a leader of the SEL movement since first introducing the term over two decades ago.”
In the CASEL program, there are five standard competencies that students are measured against: (1) self-management, (2) responsible decision making, (3) relationship skills, (4) social awareness, and (5) self-awareness. All seamless topics, until you realize these are all about regulating emotions, which is 100% therapy.
Aside from being unlicensed therapy, SEL is a continuously improved program that aids schools in ensuring “equitable and optimal outcomes.” But in order for the program to be continuously improved upon, data is required — lots and lots of school and student data.
How do schools obtain this data? The answer is simple yet terrifying: surveys.
Some surveys require parental input, but most do not. I decided to spend time scrolling through my son’s school issued Chromebook and I quickly found a plethora of surveys on an app called &#8220;Quizizz.&#8221; After reviewing several of the surveys, it’s easy to see all these surveys are geared toward emotions – nothing to do with actual educational competencies such as reading or math.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-863477 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Student-1.png" alt="" width="512" height="179" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Student-1.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/Student-1-300x105.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></div>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-863483 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-2.png" alt="" width="512" height="136" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-2.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-2-300x80.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></div>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-863487 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-3.png" alt="" width="512" height="139" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-3.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-3-300x81.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></div>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-863491 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-5.png" alt="" width="512" height="138" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-5.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-5-300x81.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /></div>
<div id="attachment_863499" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-863499" class="wp-image-863499 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-7.png" alt="All screenshots credits: Quizizz.com" width="512" height="135" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-7.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/student-7-300x79.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />All screenshots credits: Quizizz.com</div>
In addition to surveys focused on children’s emotional states, other surveys focus on school environment. Below is an example of a <a href="https://schoolguide.casel.org/resource/student-survey-how-i-feel-about-my-classroom-and-school/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">school survey</a> I found from CASEL in which students are asked a series of questions about how they feel about their classroom and school.
<div id="attachment_863501" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-863501" class="wp-image-863501 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-4.png" alt="Credit: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). https://casel.org/" width="512" height="437" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-4.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-4-300x256.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />Credit: CASEL.org</div>
<div id="attachment_863503" style="width: 522px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-863503" class="wp-image-863503 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-5.png" alt="Credit: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). https://casel.org/" width="512" height="436" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-5.png 512w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/chart-5-300x255.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" />Credit: CASEL.org</div>
The questions themselves aren’t overly concerning – at least they aren’t asking kids if they are gender confused – but they are concerning in that they create doubt in a child’s mind. As <a href="https://www.abigailshrier.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Abigail Shrier</a> points out in her book, “Bad Therapy,” people are not overly happy beings. If we are constantly thinking about our emotional state, it eventually leads us to realize that we are unhappy, which leads to more serious mental health issues.
With that in mind, imagine how a child would feel after completing this survey, realizing they responded “disagree” on questions that their friends agreed with. The potential damage from a simple survey could have serious impacts on young children – all while the parent is clueless the survey is even happening. How can parents help a child understand their poor feelings after completing the survey if parents aren’t even aware of the survey in the first place?
SEL advocates claim these programs have positive and long-lasting impacts on the student’s and school’s success. They suggest that SEL improves academics, reduces negative social behaviors such as bullying, and creates positive school environments. But one of the major issues with this logic is that life will not always be a “positive climate,” so why are we fixated on children growing up in an environment they will never experience in real life?
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At its core, SEL is nothing more than social engineering and group think – make kids believe they must take control of their natural emotional reactions and project a calm, “approved” behavior to not hurt another person’s feelings. This is what I call “forced tolerance and acceptance training.” I remind my son daily that “tolerance is not a Commandment” therefore we are not called by God to tolerate beliefs and behaviors that we believe to be anti-Christian.
What happens when these SEL competencies conflict with the values of parents and religious teachings? What happens when children suddenly realize they have internal conflict between SEL teachings and those of their parents or church? How do kids resolve those feelings?
The reality is that our kids will grow up and realize the world doesn’t care about a “positive climate.” Real life is tough and it doesn’t stop because your feelings get hurt. Sadly, SEL is making our children emotionally weak, meaning they will likely crack at the slightest sign of conflict. This is exactly what Abigail Shrier documented in her book “Bad Therapy.” Children are less socially engaged than children 10+ years ago due to fear of failing.
I personally believe SEL results in major confusion for children, which ultimately is feeding the increased mental health issues we’re seeing in children. Mental health programs were not an option when I grew up. We had actively engaged parents, less violence in schools and higher graduation rates.
Maybe instead of taking billions of dollars from the federal government for these so-called mental health programs, the Department of Education should start restricting SEL in our schools. SEL is not the answer to what is plaguing our children – more parental participation and less government involvement is the answer.
* * *
Emily Jones is a native of North Alabama and leads the Madison County Chapter of Moms for Liberty. She also hosts a podcast titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@rightsideradio459/videos" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Controversial Mom</a> on YouTube.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Students raise their hands during class

Why ‘Social Emotional Learning’ Is Nothing More Than Unlicensed Therapy

Why 'Social Emotional Learning' Is Nothing More Than Unlicensed Therapy

Therapy

Thanks to the overwhelming efforts of everyday American parents who have refused to bow to the radical Left, the war on Christmas seems to have gone cold.
In recent years, public fights and lawsuits over Christmas events and displays dominated the headlines every December. This season, however, they appear to have subsided.
Parents have bravely pushed back against woke propaganda in the schools, elected better leaders, and have fought for their children’s education over woke indoctrination.
Most teachers and administrators no longer want the hassle, the conflict, or the public attention and scrutiny that these disagreements bring. While in some aspects this is good news, the reality is the damage has already been done — the status quo implemented during the period of lawsuits and school board debates remains.
Students are treated to inoffensive and meaningless “holiday” and “winter” events that look more like low-octane paganism than anything actually believed by the critical mass of the student body.
Of course, this was the long-term goal all along. Even if the Left lost in the courts, in too many cases they won in the classrooms. Because most teachers and administrators don’t want the hassle, the end result has been the same as if they had actually won in the courts and the legislatures.
This is a tragedy for our children and for our culture. Instead, this should be an opportunity for educators and parents to share not only the tidings of the seasons, but also the importance of our country’s robust history of religious liberty.
Public schools, of course, are not meant to be a means of taxpayer-funded evangelization. At the same time, they should not be places where such voluntary discussions are stifled or drowned out by artificially inoffensive celebrations. They should not be an excuse for our educators to look away from the role that religious liberty played in our founding and what it means today. Many of our founders’ ancestors braved the difficult voyage across the Atlantic and carved out new lives in an uncertain and unforgiving wilderness, driven by the need to live out their beliefs in accordance with their consciences. There’s a reason the freedoms of conscience are the first to be included in our Bill of Rights, after all.
When we fail to teach children the foundational things, we do them a grave disservice. Children are going to take in values from whatever they are taught. They learn just as much from the absence of a thing as they do from the thing itself. Instead of learning that we live in a country where beliefs both matter and are respected, they learn to relegate them to the back of their minds and hearts as mere matters of taste and preference.
That’s no way to go through life, and it’s no way to form citizens who are ready to inherit the kind of republic our founders intended for them.
At the same time, America’s school children are still being instructed in values and beliefs from the front of the classroom, just not traditionally religious ones. For years, they’ve been instructed in Critical Race Theory and gender ideology, thanks to the dictates and incentives of the federal Department of Education. Now, that’s about to change.
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With a new administration, we have an opportunity to push out all of the woke, anti-American bureaucratic rot at the top of the national education system. Really, we should not have a national education system. The best way to address the problems coming from Washington would be to get rid of them altogether and eliminate the Department of Education like President Trump has promised.
In addition to creating a bureaucratic nexus to indoctrinate our kids from Washington, it has done absolutely nothing to improve education outcomes since its inception. Since Jimmy Carter established this indoctrination machine in 1980, every academic statistic has only declined. We need to return control of education back to the states, where parents are in the driver’s seat, not some D.C. bureaucrat dictating decisions from their ivory tower.
People forget this country — the greatest country in the history of the world — was built without a federal Department of Education. The minds who built this country and sustained it through its most trying times were educated in one-room schoolhouses. The generations who defeated the 20th century axis powers and put a man on the moon for the first time in human history were the product of state-run education systems. We do not need federal bureaucrats to flourish — we need parents to be empowered to help their children prosper. After all, students are the next leaders of our great nation. This Christmas season, we can start preparing them for it.
* * *
Ryan Walters is Superintendent of the Oklahoma State Department of Education. You can follow him on X: <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanWaltersSupt">@RyanWaltersSupt</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Christmas crib.

Thanks To Brave Parents, The War On Christmas Has Turned Cold 

Christmas

Critical Race Theory

Leftists

Oklahoma

Woke Culture

There was a massive red wave last Tuesday night across the nation, and Texas was no exception. 
Texas Governor Greg Abbott took to <a href="https://x.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1854328594245312722" target="_blank" rel="noopener">X last week,</a> once again making his commitment to education freedom known: “Parents know their kids better than anyone, &amp; they want to put them on the best path to success.” He <a href="https://x.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1854328594245312722" target="_blank" rel="noopener">continued</a>, “With last night’s election results, we can provide school choice for every Texan.” 
Less than 90 minutes later, the governor <a href="https://x.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1854350583047802994" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> a pledge, “Texas will deliver school choice.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
School choice is supported by all demographics in Texas.
Texans of all backgrounds, including Black &amp; Hispanic parents, strongly support school choice.
School choice improves educational opportunities for minority &amp; low-income students.
Texas will deliver school choice. <a href="https://t.co/NOVfwA9jOP">pic.twitter.com/NOVfwA9jOP</a>
&mdash; Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) <a href="https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1854350583047802994?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Texas, known for freedom, has been an outlier among historically conservative states when it comes to the rights of dads and moms to have education options for their children outside of the public school system. This is despite only <a href="https://edchoice.morningconsultintelligence.com/texas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37%</a> of Texans thinking K-12 education in the local school district within Texas is headed in the right direction. 
Abbott’s commitment to empowering parents with education options is nothing new. He has advocated for school choice in the Lone Star State <a href="https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/advocates_praise_governor_abbotts_call_for_expanded_school_choice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">since 2017</a>. 
During the Texas fourth legislative special session in November 2023, the school choice effort died by an amendment to House Bill 1, which removed a school choice provision from the education spending bill by a House vote of <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/28/texas-primary-runoff-school-vouchers-abbott/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">84-63</a>. The 21-point defeat resulted from 21 Republican representatives from rural areas in the state voting with Democrats against school choice.
With the Texas legislative session convening only every other year, Abbott used the intervening time effectively to campaign to get those anti-school choice Republican representatives out of office and, in turn, elect pro-education freedom candidates.
The Texas primary election in March was successful to this end, as six Republican representatives who voted against school choice lost their seats. The March <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/texas-houses-shift-to-the-right-expected-to-cause-contention-at-state-capitol/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">run-off election</a> resulted in another three Republican anti-school choice representatives getting voted out of office. 
Added to those numbers were <a href="https://www.discovery.org/education/2024/06/05/greg-abbott-went-to-war-for-school-choice-he-appears-to-have-won/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">five others</a> who forwent seeking reelection, knowing a reckoning was coming. Each of those representatives was replaced by a pro-education freedom candidate. A total of 14 seats were flipped from anti-school choice Republican representatives to education freedom champions. That 14-seat pick-up translates into a 28-point positive swing for school choice — giving Abbott the numbers needed in the Texas House to pass a sweeping school choice bill for families. The Texas Senate had not been the barrier.
The November 5 general election results are still coming in, but it has been <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/05/adam-hinojosa-morgan-lamantia-texas-senate-rio-grande-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that Republicans have flipped one Texas Senate seat, resulting in a <a href="https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2024/texas-2024-general-election-results/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20-11</a> Republican majority. The victorious Republican candidate Adam Hinojosa, referred to by the <a href="https://x.com/SchoolChoiceNow/status/1854161544239632650" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Federation of Children</a> as a “school choice champion,” is the <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/05/adam-hinojosa-morgan-lamantia-texas-senate-rio-grande-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first Republican</a> to win the Rio Grande Valley since Reconstruction. 
In the Texas House, similar results are still being reported, but it is currently anticipated that Republicans will flip two seats, making their majority <a href="https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2024/texas-2024-general-election-results/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">88-62</a>. It’s no surprise that Abbott is confident this time around — not just that it’s possible to enact education freedom in Texas, but it is probable with the new legislators. 
As of 2023, of the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">52.1</a> million K-12 public school students in the United States, nearly <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_203.20.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5.7 million</a> lived in Texas. That translates to 11.88% of all students nationwide. Should Texas pass a universal school choice bill, that would increase the total number of public school students with school choice access in America from <a href="https://www.discovery.org/education/2024/10/03/historic-education-freedom-is-happening-and-it-is-worthy-of-a-celebration/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18.9 million</a> to 24.6 million — from <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/engage/educational-freedom-and-choice-hits-escape-velocity-end-of-session-wrap/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36.3%</a> to 47.21%. 
The benefits of education freedom are significant for each individual child, their family, and community. Additionally, widespread school choice programs <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/22/the-school-choice-programs-democrats-hate-have-saved-taxpayers-up-to-45-billion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">save a state enormous sums of money</a> because the funding provided to the family to take to an alternative education option is generally only one-third to half the amount public education spends per student. 
As Martin F. Lueken <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/school-choice-saves-taxpayer-dollars-education-policy-c4b32b6b?page=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in The Wall Street Journal, “a recent EdChoice <a href="https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/EdChoiceOct2024.pdf?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> of 48 school-choice programs across 26 states through 2022 estimates that school-choice programs generated cumulative net fiscal benefits for taxpayers worth between $19.4 billion and $45.6 billion.” That number is dramatically on the rise because, since that time, ten states have joined West Virginia and Arizona in signing universal or near-universal school choice into law. 
With the current K-12 public education spending on Texas students topping <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/state_fast_facts/texas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$70.6 billion</a> annually, massive savings will result in the years to come. Therefore, empowering parents with education freedom for their children is not only the right thing to do but also has positive fiscal benefits for the state’s bottom line. For Texas, that will be billions of dollars saved each year once Abbott’s persistent leadership in delivering school choice is across the finish line. 
The great news for Texas families is that the reality of education freedom could be merely months away.
 * * * 
<a href="https://www.discovery.org/p/ingraham/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Keri D. Ingraham</a> is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a Senior Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

MixCollage-12-Nov-2024

Abbott Set To Deliver On Texas School Choice In 2025

Budget

Greg Abbott

School Choice

Texas

WASHINGTON, D.C. &#8212; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> on Friday told hundreds of moms from across the country that Democrat policies are harming children, and that a second Trump administration will prioritize the rights of parents.
He spoke for an hour at a conference organized by Moms For Liberty just two blocks from the White House, which some pledged to “fight like a mother” to make his home once again.
Trump said that the Biden-Harris open border policies, which include letting any child across the border as long as they are “unaccompanied” by a parent, cruelly lead to Hispanic children being placed in vulnerable situations.
“Massive percentages of women are being raped and beat to hell coming up in the caravans,” he said. “Mothers give their daughters big bottles of birth control because they know it’s bad coming up.”
The loophole for “unaccompanied minors” persists even under Biden’s recent executive order tightening the border, and Harris’ Democratic National Convention platform reaffirms its commitment to it. Trump suggested that the exemption induced family separation, encouraging children to split off from their parents and come to the U.S. alone, where they are at the whims of traffickers. “We’re getting them to come up, telling them you’ll get free [things],” he said.
Nearly 500,000 “unaccompanied minors” have crossed the border, and Biden eliminated DNA testing requirements and reduced vetting, sending them to live with unrelated “sponsors.” About a third of children <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/whistleblowers-detail-how-85000-unaccompanied-minors-went-missing-after-biden-admin-dropped-them-off-with-sponsors">go missing</a> after being sent to live with sponsors.
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1724211156439000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2-L2DitSaIUj5wz8v0bgxx">Tickets for “Am I Racist?” are on sale NOW! Buy here for a theater near you.</a>
Trump said American children also suffer from the migrant influx. “They’re going into the classroom, carrying disease and they don’t even speak english. It’s crazy,” he said. “I thought New York had no money, yet they’re spending billions of dollars on illegal immigrants. … When you think that 21 million people came into our country, that’s bigger than New York. Nobody can take that.”
Trump said foreign leaders are getting rid of criminals in their society by dumping them on the U.S., and that American youth are “being killed by illegal aliens” &#8212; two words he said Democrats don’t want people to use because “they want to take away all the words so you can&#8217;t talk about the subject.” He said that two days ago, he was at the border with parents who had lost a child due to migrant crime.
He said he believes 85-90% of the country does not want to be flooded with illegal immigrants, and that he will deport them. “The highest deportation was a pretty moderate guy, but he hated that our country was being swamped, Dwight Eisenhower,” he said.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-789049" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-2.jpg" alt="" width="2400" height="1300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-2.jpg 2400w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-2-300x163.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-2-1024x555.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-2-768x416.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-2-1536x832.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-2-2048x1109.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 2400px) 100vw, 2400px" /></div>
Trump said he would restore rights to parents, citing the story of the Loudoun County transgender rape coverup broken by The Daily Wire in which the victim’s father was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/glenn-youngkin-grants-absolute-pardon-to-loudoun-dad-arrested-at-school-board-meeting">prosecuted</a>.
“You have these parents that get in fistfights at school board meetings, and they mean well. Especially in Loudoun County,” he said. “The parents truly love the kids. Some of these people on the boards, I think they don’t like the kids very much, with what they’re doing. You have to give the rights back to the parents. This administration, the FBI goes after the parents. We’ll change that on the first day.”
He also said he would ensure that girls can compete in sports without being thwarted by mediocre boys. “Who would want men playing in women’s sports?” he asked. “The Olympics was the best thing I’ve seen because you really see when these boxers come out, it was so ridiculous … it’s so demeaning to women.”
Parents are a key constituency for Republicans as Democrats have rapidly politicized public education, even fighting against merit and rigor — such as gifted and talented schools — in the name of “equity.”
Trump was introduced by Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who attributed his own success to his mother vigilantly monitoring his treatment at the hands of New York’s public schools.
Moms for Liberty formed three years ago out of anger at extended school closures pushed by Democrats at the behest of teachers unions. It is now widely accepted that the moms’ position was the correct one.
Democrats have sought to simply act as if the misstep never occurred, but many at the Moms for Liberty convention believed that children are still suffering from a year of lost learning, and that Democrats should pay a price at the ballot box.
Yet one person wore a mask to Trump’s speech in 2024: a reporter camped in a press area, who was also one of the few not to stand for the national anthem.
<div id="attachment_789047" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-789047" class="size-full wp-image-789047" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1920" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/08/m4l-3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />A journalist wears a mask to be around conservatives in 2024</div>

Trump at Moms for Liberty

Trump Makes His Case To Parents In Moms For Liberty Speech, Citing Effects To Children Of Open Borders, Transgender Ideology

Byron Donalds

Donald Trump

Elections

Immigration

Loudoun County

Politics

A healthcare organization that operates clinics inside Seattle public schools says it can now offer “gender-affirming” hormone treatment to children, emails from a health center program manager reveal.
Emails obtained by The Daily Wire reveal that Neighborcare Health, a healthcare organization that runs clinics in middle and elementary schools in the Seattle Public Schools district, announced in January 2023 that hormone treatments were now included in the “gender-affirming care” it could offer.
“The Neighborcare Health team wanted to share an exciting new update to our School-based Health Center services,” the email from a Program Manager for Neighborcare Health, which was obtained by Parents Defending Education through a public records request, reads. “Our program will begin offering comprehensive, evidence-based, gender-affirming care services to our students and families who need them.&#8221;
The change meant that the group could now give hormone treatments to children, it explained. &#8220;While our School-based Health Centers have long offered a continuum of gender-affirming care services including supportive student counseling, promotion of social identity, and health education, this step will allow us to begin offering families access to important medical interventions including hormone treatments,” it states.
The offerings mark one of the boldest efforts to create what Manhattan Institute Fellow Leor Sapir has <a href="https://x.com/LeorSapir/status/1561733046507917318">dubbed</a> the &#8220;school-to-clinic pipeline&#8221; whereby young school children are encouraged to undergo irreversible medical interventions that seek to change their sex.
Neighborcare, which runs 14 different <a href="https://neighborcare.org/services/school-based/">school-based clinics</a> in Seattle Public Schools and Vashon Island School District, states that its mission is to &#8220;help students do better in school by working to address health concerns, prevent serious illness, and promote healthy lifestyles.&#8221; The clinic does not, however, openly admit to providing so-called &#8220;gender-affirming care,&#8221; which is conspicuously absent from its &#8220;services offered&#8221; list despite announcing that it would begin offering hormone therapies at some of its school-based clinics over a year ago.
The company official stated in the email that its foray into hormone treatment for children would initially be to a pilot program and that the administration of the irreversible drugs would only occur with parental approval.
“These services will be a small pilot available to students and families within the existing schools we serve,” the email went on to state, also noting that hormone therapy will only be administered to those who have the approval of parents or legal guardians.
The company defended its decision to offer cross-sex hormone therapy to children in a comment to The Daily Wire, claiming that it was a form of &#8220;life-saving care.&#8221;
&#8220;Gender-affirming care in its many forms represents life-saving care for many of the youth and their families who choose it,&#8221; spokeswoman Mary Schilder told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Neighborcare Health offers care for transgender and non-binary students that align with best practices defined by regional and national pediatric care authorities and is aimed at meeting needs expressed by the students and families we serve.&#8221;
Rhyen Staley, a researcher for Parents Defending Education, which obtained the documents through a public records request, called the administration of irreversible treatments to children in schools &#8220;unconscionable.&#8221;
&#8220;It is deeply concerning that the institutions Americans have traditionally trusted with keeping children healthy and safe are now giving them access to harmful medical practices,” Rhyen Staley, a researcher for Parents Defending Education, told The Daily Wire. “It is unconscionable that this is happening within the K-12 school setting.&#8221;
A separate email from an unidentified individual working in public health for Seattle and King County flagged the Neighborcare Health email to people associated with the Seattle Children’s Hospital and Seattle Schools.
“I know many of you are already providing different levels of care and support for your students around gender and I simply wanted to share this,” the email states, before pointing out that “there is the possibility of media interest” in the program.
Though medical institutions that turn a profit by administering irreversible cross-sex hormones to children claim that transgender medical interventions are &#8220;life-saving,&#8221; European countries to the left of the United States have recently restricted the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy. <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230208-sweden-puts-brakes-on-treatments-for-trans-minors">Sweden</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/13/uk/england-nhs-puberty-blockers-trans-children-intl-gbr/index.html">England</a> have both taken steps to limit the availability of medical interventions that seek to change the sex of patients. The Scandinavian country stopped hormone therapy for minors with few exceptions while England’s National Health Service stopped prescribing puberty blockers.
Some of the most vocal advocates in favor of administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children actually receive funding from the very same <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pfizer-sponsored-group-pushing-child-transgenderism-profits-from-puberty-blockers-hormone-therapy">pharmaceutical companies</a> that manufacture the drugs that are given to children suffering from gender dysphoria, Daily Wire investigations have revealed.
Seattle Public Schools, which did not respond to a request for comment, has pushed medical gender transitions more blatantly than perhaps any other school district, but it is far from the only one to encourage children to undergo irreversible medical interventions intended to modify one’s sex.
The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-how-one-of-americas-largest-school-districts-became-a-pipeline-for-a-trans-youth-clinic">revealed</a> that the Los Angeles Unified School District reached out to a transgender youth clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles after staff found out that a student was considering going on testosterone therapy. The district, which frequently pushes transgenderism on students through its lesson plans, book readings, and spirit day celebrations, had just recently hosted members of the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles to advertise the transgender clinic’s offerings to parents.
Conservative journalist and activist Chris Rufo <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/unholy-alliance">revealed</a> that public schools in Chicago teamed up with the Lurie Children&#8217;s Hospital of Chicago to promote pro-transgender curriculum and &#8220;gender-affirming&#8221; books aimed at children.

Syringe

EXCLUSIVE: Health Centers At Seattle Public Schools Offer ‘Gender-Affirming’ Hormone Therapy To Children

K-12

trans

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/parents-rights" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Parental rights</a> group Parents Defending Education released a report on Monday warning about the widespread adoption of “restorative justice” disciplinary practices at schools, saying that the new policies may lead to dangerous and disruptive classrooms.
The <a href="https://defendinged.org/investigations/list-of-school-districts-using-restorative-practices/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> found that there are at least 18,808 schools across 506 school districts with restorative justice policies in place. Restorative justice policies in practice often focus on conversations between offender and victim in contrast to more traditional discipline techniques like suspension and expulsion.
&#8220;Restorative justice has proven to be a disaster for school safety and school culture,” Erika Sanzi, the director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, told The Daily Wire. “Are there minor infractions for which it can work? Sure. But in an effort to juke the discipline statistics and feel good about themselves, school districts have allowed their schools to get out of control in terms of defiance, disruption and even violence. It can&#8217;t continue.&#8221;
According to the report, there are at least 11,540,428 students who go to schools with restorative justice policies. Some of these students go to schools in conservative states like Alabama, Texas, and Tennessee.
“Restorative justice is a philosophy for student discipline where reconciliation between the offender and the victim is the ultimate goal,” the report explained. “In many school districts, restorative justice has REPLACED exclusionary discipline in schools, so the response to a violent action in class is not a suspension or expulsion, but to clear the classroom and have a restorative conference.”
Parents Defending Education found that districts in Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, and Wyoming all used restorative justice techniques.
The state with the most districts by far was California, with at least 335 districts having some guide of restorative justice practice in place.
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“In restorative justice, reconciliation, not punishment, is the goal. The ‘Western’ view of crime and punishment is thought to be a byproduct of colonialism,” Parents Defending Education President Nicki Neily <a href="https://twitter.com/nickineily/status/1790372082573803976" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on X. “This approach to discipline is failing students, teachers, and families.”
The organization noted that its list is not comprehensive and that there could be more school districts with similar policies across the country.

Empty high school corridor with lockers lining the walls

Parents’ Rights Group Warns About New Disciplinary Technique Sweeping The Nation

U.S.

Virginia’s largest school division put a “sex therapist” who promotes “kinky” acts like BDSM — a form of physical abuse geared to those who are aroused by humiliation — in charge of deciding whether to heed parent complaints about books that may be inappropriate for children, The Daily Wire has learned.
Fairfax County School Board chair Karl Frisch, a gay activist who recently became chairman of the school board, appointed Laila Cooper, the sex therapist, to the Challenged Materials Interdepartmental Review Committee <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/goto?open&amp;id=CWPPMH65065D">on January 25</a>, according to public school board documents. The appointment put Cooper in position to assess any request received by the school district about books.
&#8220;This Committee is activated only if a Fairfax County or City resident, without a student enrolled in a school, submits a formal request to remove a book or other media from FCPS,&#8221; it explained. &#8220;If a request is received, committee members will review the request, read or view the material identified, evaluate and discuss the request, and submit an individual <a href="https://www.fcps.edu/aggregator/sources/16" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vote to uphold or deny removal</a> of the material from FCPS.”
The appointment of Laila Cooper, the sex therapist, is a provocative gesture intended to signal that although the school system <a href="https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CSMQ4Y674B1A/$file/R%203009.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">technically has a process</a> for registering complaints about obscene materials, such complaints are likely to be essentially thrown in the trash, parents told The Daily Wire.
In a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/laila-cooper-fairfax-va/127057" target="_blank" rel="noopener">professional bio of Cooper</a>, she states, “I work from an affirming and social justice approach with the LGBTQIA community and people of color, and I am kink- and non-monogamy informed and affirming&#8230; My work is focused on sex and gender issues (including transgender issues), sexual orientation, kink/BDSM, and interpersonal relationships (including couples, polyamory, family dyads).”
Cooper’s work, according to her <a href="https://archive.is/5kfQ2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>, “includes but is not limited to: navigating non-monogamy (i.e., polyamory, open relationships, swingers, monogamish, throuples, etc.), kinky sex (e.g., BDSM, group sex, fetish), painful sex, difficulty with orgasm, erection issues, shame and anxiety related to sex, out of control sexual behavior (aka sex addiction), sexual orientation, and gender transition.  I work with all genders, sexualities, and relationship formats from an informed, non-judgmental, affirming, and celebratory stance.”
Her practice also includes providing paperwork that people can use to get gender surgery. “As ethically possible, I provide all documentation necessary to do this following a consultation with you,” she says. “I work from an informed consent model, wherein my goal is to advocate for and help you achieve the care you need and desire.”
She also writes doctor&#8217;s notes intended to help illegal immigrants convince a court that they need asylum. “As a longstanding advocate for the human rights of immigrants, I offer psychological evaluations (in English and Spanish) that accompany other legal documentation for asylum, human trafficking, and other immigration-related cases,” her website says.
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After The Daily Wire asked Frisch and Cooper about the appointment, Cooper said she has stepped down from the committee to avoid political damage to Frisch.
“Yes I was recently appointed to the Challenged Materials Committee,&#8221; Cooper said in an email. &#8220;I applied for the committee as an involved mother who cares about the school community and, in particular, about access to diverse reading materials. Although that was the extent of my discussion with Mr. Frisch regarding my desire to be on the committee, I understand that my professional background is causing distraction from the important work being done by him and other members of the school board; thus I have stepped down from the role. My work as a licensed clinical psychologist is unrelated to my desire to be on the committee,” she said in an email.
The appointment has not previously been reported, and she did not say when she tendered her resignation.
Frisch did not respond to a request for comment, and Fairfax County Public Schools spokeswomen Hellen Lloyd and Julie Moult did not reply to a request for the names of current committee members.
Brooke Corbett, a Fairfax mother, said she feels “like FCPS school board members live in an alternate reality” for thinking that out of all the county’s 1.4 million residents, someone who makes their living “affirming” “kinks” would be the right person to decide whether residents are correct to think a book is inappropriate. 
“A ‘professional’ with such credentials, assigned to a panel to adjudicate what is deemed appropriate material flagged by concerned taxpayers, will most certainly be biased in the determination of what’s appropriate to sit on our kids’ school library shelves, what’s presented to them in the classrooms and assemblies, in Family Life Education/sex-ed instruction, and what’s sanctioned to be presented in after-school clubs,” Corbett told The Daily Wire.
“The biases someone like Cooper brings to this role promote and enable grooming behavior of our children, plain and simple. It makes me suspicious and want to know what is Frisch’s motivation in supporting individuals and groups who normalize sexually explicit, disordered, adult practices to children… I hope all parents and concerned citizens take note of Frisch’s decisions,” she added.
Frisch is a career Democrat operative who in 2019 ran for school board despite the fact that he had no children and no college degree, the book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Race-Bottom-Uncovering-Destroying-Education/dp/0063056720/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Race to the Bottom</a> reported. After he was elected to office, his Twitter account, on which he often posted school board content, followed multiple accounts dedicated to tweeting hardcore pornography, it found. 
When he was sworn in this year for his second term, he took his oath of office with his hand not on a Bible, but on a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/school-board-member-sworn-in-on-stack-of-gay-porn-instead-of-bible" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stack of books depicting gay sex</a>.
Sexual orientation is a primary focus of his interest in policy, the book reported. In 2012, he warned that if Mitt Romney won the presidency, Romney would modify the U.S. Constitution and force gays to leave the country.
He won his seat on the suburban school board in 2019 by nationalizing a local race, raising money from leftist activists across the country by invoking gay issues. Tapping people in places like California to fund a school board race in Virginia, he raised $183,000, far more than anyone had ever raised for the position. One school board fundraising event advertised an appearance by a drag queen.
In 2021, a Fairfax review committee voted to keep <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/american-library-association-transgender-gender-queer-comics-schools">“Gender Queer”</a> in schools, claiming that the cartoon is “scientifically based” and that its images, including of a woman performing oral sex on a transgender person, “do not qualify as obscene.” In the book, the narrator visits the headquarters of a porn company that produced films called “Public Disgrace,” “Bound in Public,” and “Hardcore Gangbangs.” The book’s author, Maia Kobabe, said she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/author-of-infamous-gender-queer-book-i-dont-recommend-this-book-for-kids" target="_blank" rel="noopener">does not recommend it</a> for children.
A review committee said that the book Lawn Boy — which includes the words, “What if I told you I touched another guy’s d***? What if I told you I sucked it? I was ten years old, but it’s true. I sucked Doug Goble’s d**&#8221; — has “literary value as a narrative representing the <a href="https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/policies-regulations-and-notices/school-library-collections/library-books-challenge-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">perspective of a significant portion</a> of students in Fairfax County Public Schools.”
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Laila Cooper, left, was appointed to a committee by Fairfax school board chair Karl Frisch, right. (drlailacooper.com / YouTube)

Virginia’s Largest School District Put A ‘Kink-Affirming’ Bondage Specialist In Charge Of Reviewing Parent Complaints About Books

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