The following is an excerpt taken from the new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Good-Alliance-Reason-Culture/dp/1684515521/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1GFMCFEDYOQP2&amp;keywords=fight+the+good+fight+jay+richard&amp;qid=1707772698&amp;sprefix=fight+the+good+fight+jay+richard%2Caps%2C67&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fight the Good Fight: How an Alliance of Faith and Reason Can Win the Culture War</a>,” by Jay Richards &amp; James Robison (Regnery/Skyhorse Publishing).
When God created the heavens and the earth, He ended Day Six by speaking to Himself:
<blockquote>&#8220;&#8216;Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.&#8217; So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, &#8216;Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.'&#8221; (Genesis 1:26–28)</blockquote>
<h4>Male And Female He Created Them</h4>
God creates each of us in His image. Yet we can’t fulfill His command to multiply and fill the earth without the difference of male and female. Why? Because it takes one fertile male and one fertile female to reproduce after our kind. It’s not just that males and females are different; it’s that we’re complements. When we come together in the right way, we’re much greater than the sum of our parts. One man and one woman can give rise to the entire human race.
Even without special revelation, everyone knows the following:
<ol>
<li> There are men and women.</li>
<li> Men aren’t women.</li>
<li> Women aren’t men.</li>
<li> Men can’t become women.</li>
<li> Women can’t become men.</li>
<li> It’s not possible to be a man but have a woman’s body or to be a woman with a man’s body.</li>
</ol>
Until recently, these six claims would have seemed trite. But we live at the shocking moment when our cultural elites deny them all and seek to silence those who resist. In what seems like a flash, “gender ideology” has overrun our schools, our media, our laws, the HR and C-suites of most corporations, the United Nations, and even many churches and synagogues. This ideology has deep roots going back centuries, but it has really picked up steam in the academy in the last few decades.
In 2015, so-called transgender people, such as Caitlyn (formerly the Olympic decathlete known as Bruce) Jenner, suddenly appeared on dozens of magazine covers. A few years later, a collegiate male swimmer, “Lia” Thomas — a male who “identifies” as a woman — won the women’s 500-yard freestyle in the NCAA Division I national championship.
A twenty-six-year-old man, Dylan Mulvaney, started acting like a parody of a 1950s teenage girl and instantly rose to fame with his picture emblazoned on cans of Bud Light. A male sex offender “identifying as a woman” was sent to a women’s prison, where he then raped a female prisoner. Meanwhile, the acronyms kept growing: LBGT morphed into LBGTQIA with a + added to keep the options open. 
What produced the backlash from normal people was the assault on kids: Children have been bombarded with sexual content. Schools stock shelves with explicit porn, such as the notorious &#8220;Gender Queer.&#8221; Activists are teaching young kids to “queer” (that is, blur the boundaries of) reality at drag queen story hours at libraries nationwide. The popular Twitter feed, Libs of TikTok, contains videos of young children twerking and gyrating at drag shows in ways once reserved for dark adult bars.
And amidst it all, teachers and social media influencers are telling children they might have been born in the wrong body. Doctors are “treating” troubled minors with sterilizing drugs and surgeries. When word of this first got out, activists tried to pretend it wasn’t really happening. When that became implausible, they pivoted. Sure, it’s happening, they conceded. In fact, it’s great, and how dare you object, bigot!
Twenty years ago, everyone — left, right, and center — would have denounced such scenes. But overnight, approval became the litmus test for tolerance and taste. These are the worst ideas of our time—the mutant spawn of some nameless demon set free to roam the earth and devour our children.
<div id="attachment_695547" style="width: 392px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-695547" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-695547" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/9159oO4tANL._SL1500_-382x576.jpg" alt="Cover image: Regnery/Skyhorse Publishing" width="382" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/9159oO4tANL._SL1500_-382x576.jpg 382w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/9159oO4tANL._SL1500_-199x300.jpg 199w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/9159oO4tANL._SL1500_-768x1159.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/02/9159oO4tANL._SL1500_.jpg 994w" sizes="(max-width: 382px) 100vw, 382px" />Cover image: Regnery/Skyhorse Publishing</div>
<h4>What Can We Do?</h4>
To escape this freak show, Christians, Jews, and everyone else on #TeamReality need to offer a better view of the human person — one that captures human beings in their fullness, body and soul. That means that, among other things, we must also defend basic biology. This battle will define our politics for the next decade at least. As we write this, one political party fully promotes gender ideology, while the other, with fits and starts, opposes it. The Biden administration has turned the federal government into the globe’s most powerful mission effort of the gender cult. Until that changes, we’ll play defense in Washington.
The red states can be safe zones, but we must fight in every nook and cranny — at school board meetings, in the workplace, with our investments and shopping choices. Every red state should protect kids from these medical procedures. They should also define “male” and “female” in state law, prohibit secret social transitioning in schools, purge gender ideology from school curricula, protect teachers and others from being forced to use fake names and pronouns, and reverse laws that allow people to change the sex on their birth certificate based simply on how they “identify.” Well-crafted parents’ rights bills can help here, and red states have passed several in the last few years.
We suspect the gender clinics will be sued into oblivion as more of their young victims come of age. But we can’t wait for that to happen. We need to fight gender madness as if our children’s lives depend on it. And even when the clinics close their doors, that will be but one victory in a larger battle to defeat a fanatical force that makes twentieth-century communism look tame.
Gender ideology attacks who and what we are. But it also marks an inflection point. We’re being offered a glimpse of the deadly path ahead. Either our culture will see it for what it is and reverse course — or it will suffer costs we can’t begin to imagine.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Good-Alliance-Reason-Culture/dp/1684515521/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1GFMCFEDYOQP2&amp;keywords=fight+the+good+fight+jay+richard&amp;qid=1707772698&amp;sprefix=fight+the+good+fight+jay+richard%2Caps%2C67&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fight the Good Fight: How an Alliance of Faith and Reason Can Win the Culture War</a>,” by Jay Richards &amp; James Robison (Regnery/Skyhorse Publishing). Copyright © 2024 Jay Richards &amp; James Robison. Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., is director of the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and executive editor of The Stream.
James Robison is the founder and president of LIFE Outreach International, a worldwide Christian relief organization, and the founder and publisher of The Stream.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

All Gender Restroom

New Book Explains Why We Must Defend Basic Biology And Fight Leftist Lunacy

Biden Administration

Books

Christianity

Gender

gender ideology

Leftists

Readers Pass

Schools

Transgender

Sirius XM radio host Megyn Kelly laid into MSNBC host Joy Reid over a Friday evening interview that aired on &#8220;The Reidout.&#8221;
During the interview in question, Reid repeatedly attempted to attack Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice — and in doing so, she found herself defending pornographic materials in schools and in the hands of children.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Moms For Liberty Founder to MSNBC host Joy Reid:
“In what context is a strap on dildo acceptable in a public school?”
🎥 <a href="https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TPostMillennial</a> 
 <a href="https://t.co/r4rUibSbmf">pic.twitter.com/r4rUibSbmf</a>
&mdash; Oli London (@OliLondonTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1749061995989484007?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Reid began the segment by complaining about some books — particularly some with explicit LGBTQ+ themes — being &#8220;banned,&#8221; but Justice pushed back immediately, noting that there was no actual ban in effect.
&#8220;No one is banning books. Write the book, print the book, publish the book put the book in the public library, sell the book, right? We&#8217;re talking about a public school library,&#8221; she said, saying that it wasn&#8217;t a ban so much as a move to ensure that inappropriate materials would not end up in the hands of young children.
Reid continued down the same path, however, complaining that conservatives were advocating book bans without knowing what was actually in the books or by taking certain key words from those books &#8220;out of context&#8221; in order to make them sound offensive.
&#8220;In what context is a strap-on dildo acceptable for public schools? Tell me what the context around a strap-on dildo or the rape of a minor child by a teacher?&#8221; Justice asked in response.
Justice was not alone in her assessment of the book Reid mentioned — &#8220;All Boys Aren&#8217;t Blue.&#8221; Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) read an excerpt of the book aloud on the Senate floor during a hearing last September, prompting an awkward response from Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias.
&#8220;Those words are disturbing coming from your mouth,&#8221; Giannoulias said to Kennedy — but he said nothing about the fact that Illinois allows children access to those same &#8220;disturbing&#8221; words.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Sen. Kennedy reads passages from pornographic books Genderqueer and All Boys are Blue.
The Illinois Sec. of State Alexi Giannoulias responds by saying &quot;those words are disturbing coming from your mouth.&quot;
His state&#39;s new law stops parents from being able to remove it from… <a href="https://t.co/eDehdhctQL">pic.twitter.com/eDehdhctQL</a>
&mdash; Greg Price (@greg_price11) <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1701628434894446999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Reid went on to argue that Moms for Liberty should not have the right to &#8220;ban&#8221; such books, saying that stories like the one in question might allow an LGBTQ child to &#8220;feel seen.&#8221; Instead, she asserted that the parents of those children should have the right to demand that their children have access to them.
The argument continued, and Justice suggested that perhaps the more explicit books should be kept where younger students would not stumble across them by accident.
&#8220;Maybe we can just put all the books with all the graphic sexual content — the dildos, the raping &#8230;&#8221; she began, but Reid interrupted.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
&#8220;I&#8217;m so sorry, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me! I have seen tapes of what Moms For Liberty does, and you all go into school board meetings and you read graphic stuff,&#8221; Reid complained, suggesting that parents drawing attention to the graphic content was more egregious than the content itself.
&#8220;Joy, this is a disingenuous conversation,&#8221; Justice shot back. &#8220;America used to understand that there&#8217;s a thing called age-appropriate content.&#8221;
Kelly&#8217;s response to the entire exchange — and Reid&#8217;s position in particular — was simple: &#8220;This idiot actually wanted to know what &#8216;expertise&#8217; [Justice] has to object to minors in school reading about strap-on dildos &amp; incestual pedophilia.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This idiot actually wanted to know what “expertise” <a href="https://twitter.com/4TiffanyJustice?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@4TiffanyJustice</a> has to object to minors in school reading about strap-on dildos &amp; incestual pedophilia. <a href="https://t.co/kv2xi7toey">https://t.co/kv2xi7toey</a>
&mdash; Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) <a href="https://twitter.com/megynkelly/status/1749260353978925540?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 22, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Megyn Kelly

Megyn Kelly Torches ‘Idiot’ Joy Reid Over Interview Defending Pornography In Schools

Megyn Kelly Torches 'Idiot' Joy Reid Over Interview Defending Pornography In Schools

Joy Reid

Media

Pornography

U.S.

A friend of mine and her family live near Lebanon, Connecticut, a small, rural town in the southeastern corner of the state. She recently contacted me, sharing her concern over a new club for young learners at her local elementary school. The name of the club – and this is not a belated Halloween joke – is “<a href="https://www.ctinsider.com/connecticut/article/after-school-satan-club-lebanon-ct-18483405.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After School Satan Club</a>.” 
 
Yes, Satanists are running a club at an elementary school. In fact, they advertise it on a flyer designed with cute colored pencils. While the club is not “approved or sponsored by the school district,” the first meeting is set for December 1, 2023. 
The middle of the flyer contains this disclaimer:
<blockquote>The Satanic Temple is a non-theistic religion that views Satan as a literary figure who represents a metaphorical construct of rejecting tyranny and championing the human mind and spirit. After School Satan Club does not attempt to convert children to any religion. Instead, The Satanic Temple supports children to think for themselves.</blockquote>
<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-655827" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image-2-461x576.png" alt="" width="461" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image-2-461x576.png 461w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image-2-240x300.png 240w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/11/image-2.png 540w" sizes="(max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px" /></div>
Sounds like the sort of nonsense we should expect from the father of lies. A little more digging around, however, reveals that a larger organization is behind the new club, <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Satanic Temple</a>. And while the title of the organization is foreboding, it appears to be a group dedicated to promoting a leftist agenda — unique only in that it has adopted the prince of darkness as its mascot.
Those upset with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, for example, will be pleased to know that The Satanic Temple has <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">petitioned</a> the state of Texas to allow their members to undergo voluntary abortions as part of a religious ritual. 
And since Justice Samuel Alito was the primary author of the Court’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, members can also send in donations to the Temple’s fundraiser for the “Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Abortion Clinic.” How nice.
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In addition to shilling for Big Abortion, The Satanic Temple is also dedicated to going after those children who&#8217;ve escaped the womb and actually succeeded in being born. They do it by targeting those schools that allow Bible study groups to meet after school.
Wherever there&#8217;s a Bible study club on school grounds, they want a Satan club.
“The After School Satan Club does not believe in introducing religion into public schools and will only open a club if other religious groups are operating on campus,” the group <a href="https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/after-school-satan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explains</a>.
So far they’ve been successful in setting up after school clubs in rural elementary schools in <a href="https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/after-school-satan-club-to-hold-1st-meeting-at-chesapeake-primary-school/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Virginia</a> and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3981851-federal-judge-rules-pennsylvania-school-district-must-allow-after-school-satan-club/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pennsylvania</a>. The one in Virginia was even <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/virginia-democrat-pushed-after-school-satan-club-and-has-a-fixation-on-the-demonic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promoted by a Democrat</a> candidate for office, The Daily Wire reported last month.
Like many other schools across the country, Lebanon’s elementary school recently authorized a “<a href="https://www.cefonline.com/ministries/goodnewsclub/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Good News Club</a>” to hold after school meetings. Good News Club, a ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship, is a weekly interdenominational Christian program for 5- to 12-year-old children featuring a Bible lesson, songs, memory verses, and games.
In 2001, the Supreme Court handed the organization a major victory, holding that the club was entitled to the same access as other groups to provide after-school programs promoting &#8220;moral and character development&#8221; to elementary school students in Milford, New York. In the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/99-2036P.ZO" target="_blank" rel="noopener">words</a> of Justice Clarence Thomas: “When Milford denied the Good News Club access to the school’s limited public forum on the ground that the Club was religious in nature, it discriminated against the Club because of its religious viewpoint in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.” 
 
Last weekend, the superintendent of Lebanon public schools wrote to parents explaining that “by opening its facilities to outside groups offering non-curricular activities, the District legally must allow access by various groups without regard to their religious, political, or philosophical perspectives, as long as the organizations comply with the view-point neutral criteria set forth in Board policies.” 
 
But must it? 
 
The Lebanon School Board <a href="https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/494208/1007_-_Use_of_School_Facilities.pdf">policy</a>, consistent with Connecticut <a href="https://law.justia.com/codes/connecticut/2020/title-10/chapter-170/section-10-239/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a>, permits “the use of any school facility for nonprofit educational or community purposes.” There is nothing “educational” about the Satanic Temple&#8217;s farce of an after school club. It is tailor-made to mock the principles of the First Amendment by targeting schools where religious clubs have been established. This is a strong reason to deny use of school facilities, but don’t bet on the school board doing so. They are certainly aware that when a school board in Pennsylvania denied the club access, they were hauled into court by the ACLU, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and Dechert LLP on behalf of the Temple.
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Of the 336 pre-K to 4th grade students attending Lebanon Elementary School, the parents of <a href="https://www.ctinsider.com/connecticut/article/after-school-satan-club-lebanon-ct-18483405.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nine</a> children have given them permission to join the after school club for its inaugural meeting on December 1. That&#8217;s a very small proportion, but let&#8217;s be clear about what is happening here.
Those nine children face the prospect of indoctrination by pro-abortion, gender ideology fanatics who, despite their invocation of the ultimate symbol of evil, enjoy the support of powerful lobbyists friendly with the current administration. Which is headed by someone who tells us he is a devout Catholic. The Satanic Temple may not be Devil-worshipers, but make no mistake about it: their beliefs, which on key issues align closely with those of progressives claiming to be Christians, are truly diabolical.
Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is director of the <a href="https://conscience-project.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Conscience Project.</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Empty Black Board in Classroom

Why School Boards Should Reject ‘Satan Clubs’ In Elementary Schools

Connecticut

Education

Freedom of Religion

satanic

School Boards

There was a time, way back in another era, when the goal of the education system was to educate students. Back in those days, this goal was pursued through a merit-based approach. Kids were graded and ranked based on their performance. High performing students were advanced, low performing students were held back. Well behaved students were rewarded, poorly behaved students were punished. This was the general idea.
But this strategy has fallen out of favor in recent years. It was too mean, we were told and racist, too, somehow. Piece by piece, the system of merit-based education in public schools was dismantled, until finally there was nothing left. And into that gap came “equity&#8221; to replace it.
What does &#8220;equity&#8221; mean, exactly? That&#8217;s a question you&#8217;ll never get a real answer to. But in this case, we know what &#8220;equity&#8221; means from a practical perspective. It <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/10/22/school-spending-up-test-scores-down/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">means</a> spending more money for worse schools. It also means creating new schools, from the ground-up — because the only way to guarantee that you&#8217;re not perpetuating White Supremacy is to start from scratch. 
One of these new, non-racist schools was founded five years ago in Akron, Ohio, with help from NBA All-Star LeBron James. This was a big deal, we were assured at the time. NBC Nightly News was on the scene when the school launched:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="NBA Star LeBron James’ I Promise School Opens For First Day | NBC Nightly News" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TAF7zAThTus?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
NBC News touts this school as a &#8220;new approach to fix an old problem.&#8221; The &#8220;most important thing,&#8221; LeBron James says, isn&#8217;t test scores, or grades, or any objective sense of achievement whatsoever. Instead, the key is giving students, &#8220;the sense that someone cares about them.&#8221; But that’s not really an educational approach at all. It’s simply a cliche — and not a new one either. But it&#8217;s one that taxpayers in Ohio have been compelled to fund. As one local news <a href="https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2018/08/whos_paying_for_lebron_james_n_1.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> put it, &#8220;the district will pay more than half the costs [for the school] &#8211; perhaps around 75 percent.&#8221; That total <a href="https://www.outkick.com/lebrons-i-promise-school-posts-shockingly-poor-test-results/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">amounts</a> to nearly $10 million a year, charged to taxpayers.
Yet the experiment was well worth the cost, the media reassured us, over and over. You can go back over the past several years and find many, many media reports gushing over LeBron’s school and calling for more schools just like it. Maybe we should even make LeBron James the Secretary of Education, while we&#8217;re at it. Why not? NBC News would certainly be on board with that. Just a month ago, they were on the scene again to do this glowing follow-up story on the I Promise School. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Inspiring America: LeBron James gives at-risk youths opportunities through I Promise School" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WhLnKw66cdQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
To recap: 1,600 students have attended the school; they promised to make healthy choices; and LeBron James cares about them. Et cetera. It all sounds pretty good.
But wait a minute, NBC News. How are the students actually performing in the classroom? That bit of information was left out of the report, which seems a little odd. Wasn&#8217;t the whole point of the school to help these children? Just a month later, now we know exactly why NBC News overlooked that little detail. A new piece in the Akron Beacon Journal reports that, &#8220;This fall&#8217;s class of eighth graders at the I Promise School hasn&#8217;t had a single student pass the state&#8217;s math test since the group was in the third grade.&#8221;
To restate: They haven&#8217;t had a single student in the eighth grade class pass the state math test since they started at the school in the third grade, five years ago. Well, that&#8217;s not encouraging. And to be honest, it&#8217;s a little surprising, because not all that long ago, the school claimed in a documentary that its students do extremely well on mandatory proficiency tests, including the so-called &#8220;MAP&#8221; standardized test.
The documentary is titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuzDfEEzhfo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Every Child Deserves A Chance</a> and it&#8217;s from YouTube Originals. It&#8217;s quite long, so watch it when you can and see what impression you come away with. We can tell you LeBron James says the students &#8220;destroyed&#8221; the standardized tests. Later in the film, a thrilled administrator says that the students were at the 25th percentile and below — but that now, &#8220;91 percent of students&#8221; are &#8220;meeting their goals.&#8221; They&#8217;re all very happy about this.
But if you parse what they&#8217;re saying carefully, it sounds like an apples-to-oranges comparison. The administrator makes it sound like the students went from 25th percentile in the district to the 91st percentile. But in fact, the 91% number just refers to students who are meeting their &#8220;goals,&#8221; whatever that means and however that&#8217;s defined.
They&#8217;re presenting the data like this in order to suggest — falsely — that their new method of education was working and specifically, enhancing standardized test scores. But in fact it was doing the exact opposite. And in a brief moment at the very end of the documentary, we get some confirmation of that as an official with the school admits that the district isn&#8217;t happy with students&#8217; performance.
Following this? There&#8217;s all this celebration from LeBron James and all the taxpayer-funded administrators about how good the school&#8217;s test results are. And then they admit that, despite this success, the school has somehow received an &#8220;F&#8221; from the district for student achievement. They don&#8217;t elaborate. They don&#8217;t tell you that, in fact, zero of the students in one class had ever &#8220;met their grade-level markers&#8221; for math.
That seems like a significant discrepancy — one that the media, and taxpayers in Akron, would be very interested in, and yet none of the media outlets that have fluffed this school in the past few years have bothered to cover it. That documentary has been out for almost two years. NBC News must have missed it. 
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1194-lebron-james-founded-a-school-based-on-equity-it-is-an-unmitigated-disaster-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
The truth is that corporate media didn&#8217;t want to look too deep into the data, because it&#8217;s not just bad — it&#8217;s terrible. It keeps getting worse the more you read it. As the Akron Beacon Journal reported, the English scores for the 8th graders weren&#8217;t much better than the math numbers: &#8220;When the school&#8217;s first class of eighth graders graduated from I Promise, just 11% of them tested proficient on the state English language arts test.&#8221;
The article goes on: &#8220;Two of I Promise&#8217;s biggest subgroups of students, Black students and those with disabilities, are now testing in the bottom 5% in the state, landing the school on the Ohio Department of Education&#8217;s list of those requiring targeted intervention.&#8221;
You&#8217;ll often hear the counterargument that this is a school for troubled children, so of course their scores will be low. But that doesn&#8217;t explain why the scores are going backwards. According to the data, &#8220;last year&#8217;s sixth graders lost ground. When they were in fifth grade, 7% were proficient on the reading test. In sixth grade, just 2% were.&#8221;
Now, the point isn&#8217;t to gloat over the failure of this experiment. In some ways it was a noble effort. Admittedly, I&#8217;m not a fan of LeBron James personally. He&#8217;s a woke virtue signaler to such a degree that he pretends to read books about Malcom X. You&#8217;ve probably seen this clip before, but honestly it&#8217;s too good not to share again. Here it is:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Lebron James was asked what his biggest takeaway was from the book ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VdOtyUPcRxg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
That&#8217;s the guy who&#8217;s going to re-invent our nation&#8217;s educational system with his bold new approach. The guy who is still failing his book reports at the age of 38. In any event, even if it’s kind of funny to have a school run by a guy who pretends to read books, and even if, aside from that, LeBron James is a reckless liar who regularly promotes BLM propaganda and slanders police officers, I can still respect a rich celebrity athlete at least attempting to do something productive. 
But the reason for the school&#8217;s failure is what&#8217;s instructive here. According to the accepted narrative, kids from &#8220;marginalized groups&#8221; struggle in school, especially inner city schools, because of systemic racism and a lack of funding — two issues, we’re told, which are related. So here is a school founded by a wealthy black man, with an extraordinary amount of funding both from tax payers and LeBron&#8217;s foundation — a school where everyone gets free lunch, and they have access to all of the state of the art educational tools, and everyone graduates with a scholarship, and so on — yet still the kids are failing. When it comes to math, literally all of them are failing.
In fact, they seem to be doing worse than they would in one of those allegedly &#8220;under funded&#8221; schools where the vestiges of systemic racism are still allegedly present. We have data on that. The way I Promise selects students is via a lottery, in which students who place in the bottom 25% of test scores in the district are eligible. But if you compare the I Promise students with kids in the bottom 25% in the district who *did not* attend I Promise, the kids who didn&#8217;t attend are doing better by some metrics.
This tells us a few things — all of them are forbidden truths. The most important is that all of the funding and inspirational platitudes in the world can&#8217;t make up for broken families and bad culture. Poor black kids come from both (and the two are obviously related). You will not be able to measurably improve any aspect of life for these kids — especially their educational performance — without addressing the fact that the culture they come from is deeply sick and their families are in absolute disarray. Talk to any teacher who has experience trying to teach these so-called “marginalized groups.” Very often their behavior and attitude in class isn’t just bad, it’s appalling. These are kids who have not received any kind of intellectual or moral formation at home or in their communities. In many cases their parents do not care about their education, or about anything else. The culture they are brought up in encourages them to act in outrageous ways and reject and disrespect all authority. That’s the fact of the matter. LeBron James can’t solve this on his own, of course, but he could start by at least acknowledging it and talking about it. But he won’t even do that.
As always, the Left seeks to solve problems without addressing the underlying fundamental issues. It&#8217;s like their genius plans to solve homelessness by putting the homeless in hotels or giving them free housing. You can give a homeless guy a room at the Ritz-Carlton and the place will look like a garbage dump within the span of three hours. Soon he&#8217;ll be right back out on the street. That&#8217;s because the homeless guy&#8217;s problem isn&#8217;t that he doesn&#8217;t have a home. Any halfway competent and sober person can manage to find some kind of housing. His problem isn’t a lack of housing, but that he&#8217;s a drug addict, or psychotic, or both.
It would be one thing if some coherent principle was at play here. But there&#8217;s nothing coherent about it. Consider that the Left&#8217;s solution to education and homelessness is to throw money at the problem, but their solution to law enforcement is to do exactly the opposite. Somehow the education system will improve if you give it more money, but the justice system will improve if you give it less money. How does that make sense?
You&#8217;ll never see any contemplation from the Left on this. Instead, they&#8217;ll continue to push the most destructive policies imaginable, only to backtrack when the consequences of their destruction are too obvious to deny. That&#8217;s happening now in Oakland. The president of the NAACP&#8217;s Oakland chapter just announced that: &#8220;Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life-threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals.&#8221;
Oh, you think? Congratulations, NAACP, you’ve finally realized that crime is bad. A stunning revelation. But of course, they are also incapable of tracing the problem down to its roots. The NAACP supported BLM&#8217;s insanity when it gave them power; now they&#8217;re against it when it embarrasses them. That&#8217;s all there is to it.
What happens next? It&#8217;s possible that, once these people are sufficiently embarrassed by what they&#8217;ve done to public schools in this country, they&#8217;ll stop experiments like the one that&#8217;s going on in Akron. But by that point, as if by design, it&#8217;ll be far too late. LeBron James will have moved on. The children won&#8217;t have that luxury. They&#8217;ll be uneducated, poor, and totally dependent on the government that pretended to care about them. 
Most people would call that a disaster. But our leaders have another name for it. They call it equity.
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Matt Walsh 2

LeBron James Founded A School Based On Equity. It Is An Unmitigated Disaster.

LeBron James

Matt Walsh

Ohio

The Matt Walsh Show

America’s most elite universities have factored race into admissions for years now. Cornell University, for example, lists diversity and inclusion as one of its <a href="https://president.cornell.edu/initiatives/university-core-values/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">core values</a>. In fact, the concept of admitting students from different backgrounds is rooted in Cornell’s motto. As Cornell&#8217;s founder Ezra Cornell said, “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” From the beginning, Cornell has been open to students of all races. In recent decades, Cornell and the other Ivy Leagues and elite universities have used affirmative action policies to boost their numbers of black and Hispanic students. Racial diversity is not just a concept they give nominal respect to; it is a core facet of these institutions’ identities.
Now that the Supreme Court has <a href="http://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-race-f83d6318017ec9b9029b12ee2256e744" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ruled against</a> affirmative action in higher education, deeming race-based admissions policies unconstitutional, Cornell and the other elite universities across the nation will have to abandon their current race-based admissions policies. But it’s unlikely that any of them will abandon their goal of pursuing woke diversity. So how do they move forward?
The end of affirmative action in admissions is a good thing for our country. It puts an end to discrimination against Asian students and the practice of lowering certain standards based on the race of the applicant, a practice which is not only discriminatory, but also sets up black and Hispanic students to fail if they come from an education background that did not prepare them for the rigor of elite colleges. But it is true that Americans of every race should have equal opportunities to succeed and excel in life. It is also true that cultivating a highly talented student body of people from diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and experience is a worthy goal for universities. The way to get there is to support school choice.
In a recent opinion piece for The New York Times, Harvard professor Roland Fryer <a href="http://nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/05/opinion/affirmative-action-college-admissions.html#affirmative-action-high-schools">pointed out</a> that, outside of summer enrichment programs, elite universities don’t intervene for minority students in their critical K-12 years. “They don’t teach the higher order skills that students need to get into college,” he wrote. “They don’t cultivate the grit and resilience kids need to navigate a challenging curriculum after they are admitted. They rely on existing schools to do that.” Fryer argues that staying out of K-12 education is a mistake for these colleges. If elite universities truly value diversity, he argues, they should fund middle and high schools that qualify and prepare disadvantaged students to attend these colleges.
Fryer makes a salient point. Elite universities could change the futures of thousands of minority kids by pouring into K-12 education. But they do not necessarily even need to set up their own schools. They would simply need to support the growing number of unique schools already in existence by funding low income students and their families and encouraging state and local governments to expand school choice.
32 states and Washington, D.C. have<a href="http://usnews.com/education/k12/articles/what-school-choice-is-and-how-it-works#:~:text=Currently%2032%20states%20plus%20Washington,that%20advocates%20for%20school%20choice." target="_blank" rel="noopener"> some type of school choice program</a>, which empowers families to pay for education options they otherwise could not afford using public funds. The availability and robustness of school choice programs varies widely from state to state, however, meaning that low income students still face many barriers to good education depending on where they live. The growing number of states with school choice programs has the power to transform the lives of minority students. 
And many unique schools already exist that could prepare disadvantaged students for elite colleges and would benefit greatly from expanded school choice. In New York City, for example, there are already over 200 low-cost private schools set up with the explicit purpose of providing low income students with a great education. Author Kerry McDonald <a href="http://forbes.com/sites/kerrymcdonald/2023/03/02/the-not-so-secret-world-of-low-cost-new-york-city-private-schools/?sh=2b4959323d2c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a> that these schools charge an average yearly tuition of only $6,065. The nonprofit Children’s Scholarship Fund provides scholarships to low income families so their students can attend these schools. The three NYC schools that McDonald focuses on in her article are all founded by people of color and serve low income minority students. And schools built to support low income and minority students are popping up across the country, not just in New York City. 
Black Minds Matter, an organization that advocates for better education options for black K-12 students, has a <a href="https://www.blackmindsmatter.net/black-owned-schools-directory/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">directory</a> of schools founded by African Americans on its website. Earlier this year, Black Minds Matter and Step Up for Students conducted a <a href="http://reimaginedonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Black-Founders-Survey-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> of black school founders. The survey results demonstrate that school choice empowers education entrepreneurs to create a wide variety of schools that cater to individual families’ needs. 64% of founders surveyed are former public school teachers. 53% identified as Democrat, indicating that school choice is not merely a conservative talking point. The majority of schools surveyed serve predominantly black and low income students, and most of their students were formerly enrolled in public school, where they often performed below grade level.
 This dispels the myth that private schools, charter schools, and other schooling options outside of public school will leave disadvantaged students behind and only cater to high achieving, well-resourced students if empowered by school choice. On the contrary, school choice empowers low income parents by giving them the funds they need to provide their children with high quality education, and it empowers the hundreds of schools that want to help disadvantaged students achieve excellence and keep their doors open. The three founders in Kerry McDonald’s article, as well as 54% of founders in the Black Minds Matter survey, said that support from school choice organizations would greatly help them in their mission to provide high quality education to the students whom public schools have failed for decades.
If Cornell and other elite universities really want to admit more black and Hispanic students, they should support school choice. They don’t even necessarily need to create their own new schools, as Fryer suggested. They could partner with the hundreds of unique schools around the country that are already helping minority students succeed. They could use parts of their endowment to provide scholarships so that more students can attend these schools. Cornell University could be on the front lines of nationwide change.
Emmie Lo is a Latin teacher and staff writer for <a href="http://colorusunited.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://colorusunited.org&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1689870524844000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1swFnvQLYWXgsaX1kKg1Tc">Color Us United</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Cornell University As Ivy League Prices Push $90,000 A Year

After Affirmative Action, School Choice Could Be A Positive Way Forward

Affirmative Action

American Universities

Ivy League

This article is adapted from Sunday&#8217;s Morning Wire episode. To listen to the podcast version, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire/the-real-reason-glendale-parents-protested-pride-7-9-23" target="_blank" rel="noopener">click here</a>.
Problems have been brewing in a Los Angeles County school district for years now. A recent clash with Antifa over LGBT Pride policies, however, finally garnered legacy media headlines. 
The Daily Wire spoke to numerous parents of students at Glendale Unified School District about why they were protesting. The parents pointed to issues with transparency, inappropriate LGBT curriculum and policies, and directed us to shocking videos related to district policies.
“I’m not a political guy in any way,&#8221; Ervin, a father of two students at Glendale told The Daily Wire. “I’m just a regular dad.&#8221;
While Glendale is a notoriously liberal area of Los Angeles, where registered Democrats <a href="https://www.laalmanac.com/election/el18.php">double</a> Republicans, Ervin, like other parents who spoke to The Daily Wire, didn&#8217;t consider himself particularly political.
&#8220;When I started seeing these things pop up locally, and people are complaining about it, I decided to go to a couple of school board meetings and see what the fuss is about,&#8221; Ervin said. &#8220;And we learned quite a few things that happened. This all kind of got kicked off in my opinion when COVID happened, and some of the parents discovered what was being told to the students, especially the younger ones in elementary school.&#8221;
Ervin is referring to the day parents protested an LGBT Pride Day assembly at Saticoy Elementary School, which is in the neighboring Los Angeles Unified School District. The school planned to <a href="https://sherman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/sherman-denounces-burning-of-pride-flag-at-saticoy-elementary#:~:text=Sherman%20Denounces%20Burning%20of%20Pride%20Flag%20at%20Saticoy%20Elementary,-May%2031%2C%202023&amp;text=North%20Hollywood%2C%20California%20%2D%2D%20An,hate%20crime%2C%20according%20to%20LAPD." target="_blank" rel="noopener">teach</a> children about “LGBTQ+ identities.” Some parents disagreed, saying they don’t want sexuality discussed at school and many of them kept their children home on the day of the Pride assembly. It was <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/06/05/antifa-urged-to-battle-california-parents-over-elementary-schools-lgbtq-pride-day/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that only 40% of the students showed up to school that day. 
“Why do elementary kids need to learn about sexual orientation or who they want to have sex with?&#8221; Ervin questioned. &#8220;Like, eight, nine-year-olds are not thinking about who they&#8217;re gonna have sex with.”
More than 100 parents protested outside the elementary school. Protesters held up signs and chanted things like, “Leave our kids alone,” “There’s no pride in grooming,” and “Teach our kids math, science, and English.” A physical fight broke out between protesters and counter-protesters, and a small Pride flag placed outside an elementary classroom was reportedly burned — the flag allegedly belonged to a teacher at the school who identifies as transgender.
Parents also claimed some of the counter-protesters didn&#8217;t have a connection to the district. 
“I tell them right now, you don’t have a child here,&#8221; one father <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EegCCm01PPw&amp;t=246s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. &#8220;You cannot say what my child should learn or not. If the parent who has a child here comes and says, ‘Hey I feel offended&#8217; — I can talk to him. But they’re here to provoke us.” 
Glendale parents said the issue of transparency has been raging for a long time.
Another parent, Marina Vivar, brought her complaint to a Glendale city council meeting and was captured on video. Her daughter — an autistic ninth-grader who has a brain injury — was taught about gay sex in class. Vivar said she opted her daughter out of certain portions of sex-education, but her request was not followed by the school. 
“My daughter was taught subjects such as ‘scissoring’ which seems to be two females who decide to have sex with each other,&#8221; Vivar <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbm_4ZmnUho">said</a> at the meeting. &#8220;The good thing is they at least taught you to use female condoms, because if you don&#8217;t use female condoms then two females can get pregnant, which is not something that can actually happen.&#8221;
&#8220;When my daughter did express that I did opt her out of these classes, she was called a bigot by her teacher and her aide, she was called intolerant, and she was also called homophobic,&#8221; Vivar continued. &#8220;I don’t feel that a teacher or a staff member’s personal opinion, or beliefs, or lack of, should be considered on the clock. That’s not what you guys are paying them for. We’re not paying teachers for their opinions, to share their opinions, or push their opinions, or agendas on children.”
Principal Benjamin Wolf, according to <a href="https://thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-glendale-high-school-accused-of-disciplining-special-needs-student-for-using-wrong-pronouns-teaching-lgbtq-sex-lessons" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reporting</a> from The Post Millennial, told Vivar that her daughter, Thelma, was mistaken, and this incident never happened. He also told her that parents are not allowed to specifically opt out of LGBTQ content for their children, and must opt out of the entire course. Wolf did say, however, that the form Vivar filled out was “in need of updating&#8221; and would be for next school year. 
“Then how did my daughter come home explaining to me what scissoring was and asking me how two females can have sex and must use protection … or else they can get pregnant?&#8221; Vivar pushed back. &#8220;How else would my daughter come home knowing the word ‘transphobic’? &#8230; that’s what I would like to know.” 
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Marina Vivar on GUSD’s mistreatment of her special needs child" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pbm_4ZmnUho?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Vivar also said that her daughter’s aide in school is a woman who now <a href="https://thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-glendale-high-school-accused-of-disciplining-special-needs-student-for-using-wrong-pronouns-teaching-lgbtq-sex-lessons">identifies</a> as a man and uses male pronouns. Her daughter didn’t understand this due in part to her special needs, Vivar said, and was allegedly being sent to an office repeatedly and disciplined for messing up these “preferred pronouns.” 
&#8220;I got in trouble for it because I wasn’t exactly sure,&#8221; Thelma said. &#8220;I never knew what it was. My teacher says I used the wrong pronouns &#8230; I got in trouble for it many times, either through adults or students.&#8221;
Thelma was told over and over that her aide is now “a man.” Vivar said the school kept these incidents from her and she found out weeks later.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Special needs student Thelma Gonzalez on GUSD’s mistreatment" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tRa_gY85EQw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Additionally, a middle school teacher from the Glendale district gave a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tyTErSu9EQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">presentation</a> at the 2019 California Teachers’ Association LGBTQ Issues Conference, where she directs other teachers about how they can start a “Gay-Straight Alliance” club – also known as a “Gender-Sexuality Alliance” club or a GSA in their schools. During the presentation, Rosemont Middle School English teacher Lisa Avery describes starting a GSA without permission from the school principal, who told Avery the children were too young for such a club.
&#8220;By the time school started again in the fall, we were done asking for permission,&#8221; Avery said during the presentation. &#8220;We went to our administrators and said, ‘By the way, we’re starting a GSA, just so you know. This is what’s happening.’” 
When they received pushback from the principal, Avery described how her husband — then the school’s Mental Health Counselor — used colorful language when confronting her. 
“Right before we wanted to take our club public, [the principal] wanted to pull it out and be like, nope, we can’t do it. She totally got cold feet, and my husband had a little conversation with her in the parking lot where he used some really choice four-letter words and basically said to her, ’Look, these are the kids on campus that are looked down on by everyone else, … if you wanna make the club stop — you can show up to our next meeting and you can tell them yourself.”
One of the most notorious portions of the presentation, though, came when Avery said that she “poached” the school’s most unstable children for leading the GSA. “Our leaders were unreliable,&#8221; Avery said. &#8220;Remember, we had poached them from the counseling office, right? They were not the most emotionally stable students on campus. Actually, they were the least emotionally stable students on campus, right?”
On June 6, things came to a head at the school district, when some 500 people reportedly protested outside a school board meeting.
“They need to stop asking little children what they sexually identify as,&#8221; one protester said, as seen in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8iWOrXSy2w">footage</a> from a FOX affiliate. Another said, &#8220;Anybody could come to the principal and say, ‘Ya know what, I’m transgender,’ and walk into the girls’ bathroom.”
There were physical altercations at the protest that gained much media attention. Parents who were in attendance said they were being agitated by outsiders. They said those who started trouble had no connection to the school and some were dressed in riot gear.
It’s been reported that members of the Southern California chapter of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/antifa">Antifa</a>, a Left-wing political group known to use violence to shut down dissenting voices, <a href="https://www.foxla.com/news/punches-thrown-outside-a-glendale-school-board-meeting-over-student-pronouns">showed up</a> to the protest. 
“Where were they two weeks ago? Where were they four weeks ago? Where were they? Six weeks ago? Why is it that they showed up on June 6th? Were they there to antagonize people?&#8221; Ervin asked. &#8220;And that&#8217;s exactly what happened. That&#8217;s exactly what happened.&#8221;
&#8220;We had a peaceful protest going on,&#8221; the father added. &#8220;And then, I mean, you could poke the bear so many times, eventually it&#8217;s gonna strike back.”
Weeks later, on June 20, parents gathered to protest outside the last school board meeting of the year. That culminated in one arrest when protesters and counter-protesters again clashed. Almost immediately following that board meeting, Glendale Superintendent Dr. Vivian Ekchian announced her retirement, which was effective on June 30. Ekchian made no reference to the ongoing disputes between parents and administration on her way out, but she <a href="https://www.gusd.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&amp;DomainID=1&amp;ModuleInstanceID=37215&amp;ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&amp;RenderLoc=0&amp;FlexDataID=50136&amp;PageID=1">said</a> the “transformative work being done throughout the district” would continue.
This wasn’t the only high-profile departure from the district. Ray Shelton, a 5th-grade teacher with decades of teaching experience also left over the transgender policies. He went viral in April when he spoke out at a Glendale school board meeting.
“Two plus two equals four. The world is not flat. Boys have penises, girls have vaginas. Gender is binary and cannot be changed. Biology is not bigotry. Heterosexuality is not hate,&#8221; Shelton <a href="https://spectrumstream.com/streaming/gusd/2023_04_18.cfm">said</a> at the meeting. &#8220;Gender confusion and gender delusion are deep psychological disorders.&#8221;
&#8220;No caring professional or loving parent would ever support the chemical poisoning or surgical mutilation of a child’s genitalia. Transgender ideology is anti-gay, it is anti-woman, and it is anti-human. And I can also say this as a gay man &#8211;,&#8221; Shelton continued before his mic was cut off. 
Shelton was subsequently suspended from his teaching position, The Daily Signal <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/06/06/award-winning-gay-teacher-suspended-for-speaking-out-against-transgenderism/">reported</a>. Hours after that viral moment, another teacher named Alicia Harris filed a complaint against Shelton, suggesting he was pro-Nazi. 
For now, parents in Glendale are continuing to speak out. While The superintendent is on her way out, parents still don’t yet know who will replace Ekchian. And another issue that parents are concerned about is a <a href="https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB596/id/2701905#:~:text=(a)%20Any%20parent%2C%20guardian,is%20guilty%20of%20a%20misdemeanor.">bill</a> currently working its way through the California legislature that could chill future attempts to speak up at school board meetings or even on social media. The bill would criminalize harassment or threats toward school employees after school hours, but the bill doesn&#8217;t specify what counts as harassment. Convictions could carry up to a year behind bars and a $1,000 fine. This bill claims to &#8220;protect&#8221; school employees from parents, but parents say the bill is designed to silence them. 
“Like I said, I’m not some huge political guy, but now I’m gonna be,&#8221; Ervin told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Right now, I’m gonna get more involved. I’m gonna protest &#8212; like they say, I’ve been activated now. Nobody wants to be an activist; it&#8217;s a pain in the a**. But if we’re dragged into it, we’re forced into it, we will be.”

Glendale School Board meeting

The Real Reason Parents In Los Angeles County Protested ‘Pride’

The Real Reason Parents In Los Angeles At Glendale Unified School District Protested 'Pride'

California

LGBTQ

Los Angeles County

Pride

Casey DeSantis made her first solo appearance for her husband’s campaign on Thursday as she <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12273171/Casey-DeSantis-shines-solo-campaign-appearance-Iowa.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">launched</a> the national version of “Mamas for DeSantis” in Iowa, where the 2024 presidential season will begin with the Iowa caucuses.
Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis’ wife first launched the statewide version of “Mamas for DeSantis” in 2022, when her husband was reelected governor in a landslide by a whopping 19 points. She signed up over 1.1 million mothers to support her husband, as he won female voters by 9%.
“It’s one thing when your policies come out after us: the mamas. It’s another thing when they come after our children. And that&#8217;s when the claws come out,” she told Iowa voters at the public event.
DeSantis also conducted a public back-and-forth with Iowa Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, who told the audience, “I didn’t run to preserve the status quo; I ran to get things done. I am a woman on a mission and I think you’re a woman on a mission, too.”
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DeSantis <a href="https://twitter.com/TeamDeSantis/status/1677113636152659968" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spoke of her battle</a> with breast cancer:
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<blockquote>
There was a time in my life when I didn’t know if I was going to see my kids graduate from kindergarten, let alone high school. And I was able to beat that back, but I had some really long, difficult battles. As a matter of fact I remember — and the governor was getting criticized for doing this with me — but I remember every single chemotherapy appointment that I went to, and there were six of them and they were very long and they were very hard, and I had to wear this dumb cold cap on my head that was like an ice cube, you’re like in an igloo for six or seven hours, and he held my hand during every single one of them and he never left my side.
</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote>
And I’ll tell you what: when you go through something like that, and you’re in the middle of the night, scared, and you don’t know what’s going to happen, and you crawl into bed with your kids, and you’re getting hope for tomorrow that you can have some more time with them, and then you realize that God has given you more opportunities to be able to live, when you’re given that opportunity in life, what do you do with it?
</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
“Do I care about what a headline says? No. I care about the innocence of my children and your children,” she concluded to applause.
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We will not allow you to exploit the innocence of our children to advance your agenda.
When you come after our kids, we fight back.
We are no longer silent.
We are united.
We are Mamas for DeSantis.
&#8230;and we will elect <a href="https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RonDeSantis</a> President of the United States.
Join our… <a href="https://t.co/jo6HUATaVa">pic.twitter.com/jo6HUATaVa</a>
&mdash; Casey DeSantis (@CaseyDeSantis) <a href="https://twitter.com/CaseyDeSantis/status/1677061896317353988?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Speaking to voters, DeSantis turned to a prime concern for parents after the 2020 COVID pandemic debacle of children had kept from school across the nation, as her husband had championed opening schools while other states kept them closed. “It should be up to the parents to decide what education they think are best for their children. And government should, again, get out of the way,” she stated.
“It was COVID that was really what led to a lot of this parental empowerment revolution because for the first time parents were peering into the classroom, and they did not like what was being taught they saw: the sexualized curriculum being thrust in front of 5-year-olds,” she said.
She said that her husband had enabled parents “to be able to go to the schools to say ‘I want to see what kind of curriculum you&#8217;re teaching our kids.’ And if they didn&#8217;t give that information to the parent in a timely manner, they then had a right of action to be able to sue.”
DeSantis also focused on the woke issues her husband has confronted during his tenure, saying, “They&#8217;re not doing the woke Olympics, by the way, in the state of Florida. There&#8217;s no discrimination if you use the wrong pronoun.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

Casey DeSantis Launches National Campaign ‘Mamas For DeSantis’ — In Iowa

2024 Election

Casey DeSantis

Iowa

Mothers

Ron DeSantis

Women

If you believe the Legacy media, a craze for banning books and curriculum in schools is sweeping across the United States. One publication called it an “<a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/book-banning-has-come-back-to-bite-us-conservatives/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Inquisition,</a>” with parents and officials seeking to ban anything that mentions homosexuality, racial injustice, or evolution.
The supposed inquisitors are conservatives.
But many forget that progressives in the U.S. have a recent history of banning ideas they don’t like. One topic they have repeatedly sought to ban from the classroom is intelligent design.
Intelligent design, or ID, is a scientific theory which holds that many aspects of life and the universe are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected one like natural selection. It is not “creationism.” It’s endorsed by scientists from top institutions and in papers published in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Yet many enlightened elites think ID-friendly arguments should never reach the ears of students.
In November 2004, for example, the Dover Area School District in central Pennsylvania adopted a policy that required biology teachers to read a short, four-paragraph statement that briefly mentioned ID. The most offensive language said the following:
<blockquote>Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin&#8217;s view. The reference book “Of Pandas and People” is available for students to see if they would like to explore this view in an effort to gain an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.</blockquote>
Those 49 words — suggesting that students consult a library book if they wanted to learn more about a scientific idea — were too much for the thought police. 
Twenty-five days later, the ACLU helped file a lawsuit against the Dover Area School District, Kitzmiller v. Dover, seeking an order requiring the removal of the reference to the book in question from the school curriculum. With the ACLU’s backing, the lawsuit successfully removed any mention of ID and the reference to &#8220;Of Pandas and People&#8221; from public schools in Dover.
Following this success, anti-ID forces rallied to ban the study of ID not just from high schools but also from universities.
The president of the University of Idaho retaliated against one of its biology professors, who had testified in support of Dover’s ID policy, by <a href="https://www.discovery.org/a/3077/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">enacting</a> a campus-wide speech code where “evolution” was “the only curriculum that is appropriate” for science classes. Cornell’s interim president devoted an entire State of the University Address to attacking intelligent design as a “religious belief” and an “invasion” to be resisted by the faculty. And in 2013, in response to an elective seminar taught by a physicist that had favorably mentioned ID, Ball State University’s then-president issued her own speech code, declaring “intelligent design is not appropriate content for science courses.” A prominent University of Chicago evolutionist, <a href="https://evolutionnews.org/2021/10/doublethink-censor-of-the-year-calls-for-free-speech/">Jerry Coyne</a>, got the Ball State physicist’s class canceled. Bizarrely, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAH2qOFHggE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coyne</a> some years later would transition to a lionized spokesman for “free speech.”
It gets weirder. After the ACLU scrubbed the reference to the pro-ID &#8220;Pandas&#8221; book in Dover, one Wikipedia user dared to add the textbook to a Wiki page listing banned books. Anticipating the intellectual lure of banned ideas, Wikipedia’s masked editors then removed the &#8220;Pandas&#8221; textbook from the banned books page, and locked the page from further edits, alleging it had been “vandalized.” In this Orwellian world, admitting a banned book is a banned book is itself a thought crime.
Yet despite the efforts of these genuine inquisitors, the concept of ID has continued to grow and progress as a science. The same year that the ACLU banned intelligent design in Dover, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist at UC Berkeley, <a href="https://newsarchive.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/06/17_townes.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Charles Townes</a>, cited the fine-tuning of the universe to argue that “Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real.”
Flash forward to 2019. A Yale computer scientist, David Gelernter, in praising a book by pro-ID philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer, announced that he too was “<a href="https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/giving-up-darwin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Giving Up Darwin</a>.” In 2020, a peer-reviewed paper in the <a href="https://evolutionnews.org/2020/10/breakout-paper-in-journal-of-theoretical-biology-explicitly-supports-intelligent-design/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Theoretical Biology</a> noted that ID “has gained a lot of interest and attention in recent years, mainly in the USA, by creating public attention as well as triggering vivid discussions in the scientific and public world.” It cited “irreducibly complex biochemical machines in living cells” and the “highly specified shape” of proteins to argue that “fine-tuning is even more extreme in biological systems” and this could potentially lead to “a Design Science.” In 2021 another Nobel Prize-winning scientist, <a href="https://returnofthegodhypothesis.com/book/endorsements/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brian Josephson</a> at Cambridge University, said “intelligent design is valid science.”
Leftists can ban curriculum and books about intelligent design, they can ban teachers from mentioning intelligent design, and they can even ban people from talking about the fact that they banned intelligent design. But they can’t change the scientific evidence that is driving more and more people — including scientists — to embrace the case for intelligent design.
<a href="http://www.caseyluskin.com">Casey Luskin</a> is a scientist and an attorney with a PhD in geology from the University of Johannesburg and a law degree from the University of San Diego. He works as Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at <a href="http://www.discovery.org/id">Discovery Institute.</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Concept of science.

As Progressive Inquisitors Purge Classrooms Of Intelligent Design, ‘ID’ Continues to Grow

As Progressive Inquisitors Purge Classrooms Of Intelligent Design, 'ID' Continues to Grow

Charles Darwin

Science

With schools busy teaching everything LGBTQ+ nowadays, children are more confused than ever, a new study finds.
Google searches about sexual orientation and gender identity have soared 1,300% since 2004, according to an <a href="https://www.culturalcurrents.institute/insights/lgbtq-identity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from the Cultural Currents Institute.
The queries on the search engine include questions such as “Am I gay?&#8221; “Am I lesbian?&#8221; and “Am I trans?&#8221; Other searches include the term “nonbinary,&#8221; the analysis found.
&#8220;The evolution of social attitudes around sexual orientation and gender identity over the last two decades has been profound — surprising even some of the foremost political consultants and public affairs practitioners who observe opinion in the space,&#8221; the institute wrote in its report.
&#8220;This shift in public conversation and awareness has, for many, given rise to questions about their own sexual and gender identity. Google Trends data from 2004 to 2023 presents a unique opportunity to explore this evolution from a novel angle, revealing a staggering 1300% increase in specific searches that may indicate that a user is questioning their sexual identity,&#8221; researchers said.
The analysis found that Utah, Iowa, Indiana, West Virginia, and New Hampshire are the top states for the query &#8220;Am I gay?&#8221; Utah, Connecticut, Kentucky, Washington, and Colorado were the top states for &#8220;Am I lesbian?&#8221;
“The regional differences highlighted below are significant, offering a geographical landscape of self-questioning and discovery across America,” the analysis says. “Utah, a state with traditionally conservative social values, surprisingly tops three out of five search term categories. This might indicate a significant underlying questioning of identity among its internet users, possibly driven by the conflict between personal feelings and societal expectations.”
The analysis mirrors the findings of a survey released last month by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
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The survey’s findings suggest nearly one in five U.S. high school students either identify as something other than heterosexual or are questioning their sexual identity. &#8220;A majority of students self-identified as heterosexual (77.5%); 13.2% self-identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual; and 9.3% self-identified as other or questioning,&#8221; the CDC’s Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/su/su7103a1.htm?s_cid=su7103a1_w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Survey</a> of more than 7,900 high schoolers found.
That study echoes <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/supplemental-mmwr/students_by_sexual_identity.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">another</a> from the CDC in 2021, which found that roughly one in four high school students identifies as homosexual, bisexual, or is questioning their sexuality. The CDC&#8217;s annual report of 17,232 students also said about three-quarters of teens ages 14-18 claimed to be attracted only to the opposite sex.
Teens today are being inundated about sexuality, with narratives moving away from binary to a broad spectrum. That has left many confused about their own sexuality.
And it&#8217;s only going to get worse.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

LGBTQ+

‘Am I Gay?’: Google Searches On Sexuality Skyrocket 1,300% In 19 Years, Analysis Finds

'Am I Gay?’: Google Searches On Sexuality Skyrocket 1,300% In 19 Years, Analysis Finds

Social Issues

Republican lawmakers in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/texas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Texas</a> failed to pass a bill requiring public schools to display the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/popular-megachurch-pastor-says-10-commandments-no-paul-bois" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ten Commandments</a> in classrooms.
A midnight deadline came and went at the end of Tuesday without a final vote on the legislation, which means it is effectively dead with this session coming to a close, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/24/texas-legislature-ten-commandments-bill/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Texas Tribune reported</a>. The bill was approved by the state Senate in a <a href="https://journals.senate.texas.gov/sjrnl/88r/pdf/88RSJ04-20-F.PDF#page=4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17-12 vote</a> along party lines and had the <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/04/20/texas-senate-passes-ten-commandments-bill/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vocal support</a> of Texas Republican Lt. Governor Ken Paxton.
The text of Senate Bill 1515, proposed by state Sen. Phil King (R), <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/SB01515E.pdf#navpanes=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">demanded</a> each public school classroom display &#8220;in a conscious place&#8221; a copy of the Ten Commandments &#8220;in a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.&#8221;
&#8220;I think this would be a good healthy step for Texas to bring back this tradition of recognizing America&#8217;s religious heritage,&#8221; King said, <a href="https://www.fox26houston.com/news/texas-senate-bill-proposes-a-copy-of-the-ten-commandments-in-every-classroom" target="_blank" rel="noopener">per Fox 26 Houston</a>.
&#8220;Senate Bill 1515 restores a little bit of those religious liberties that were lost and most importantly will remind students all across Texas of the importance of a fundamental foundation of America and Texas law and that being the 10 commandments,&#8221; he added.
While proponents pointed to a Supreme Court ruling last year in a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rules-coach-public-school-prayer-case-rcna31662" target="_blank" rel="noopener">public school prayer case</a> as justification, critics of the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), raised concerns about preserving the separation of church and state.
&#8220;This bill was an unconstitutional attack on our core liberties that threatened the freedom of and from religion we hold dear as Texans. It should never have gotten this close to passage,&#8221; ACLU of Texas lawyer David Donatti said in a <a href="https://www.aclutx.org/en/press-releases/aclu-texas-reacts-ten-commandments-bill-dying-texas-legislature-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>.
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&#8220;Whether trying to place the Ten Commandments in every classroom or replacing school counselors with unlicensed chaplains, certain Texas lawmakers have launched a coordinated effort to force state-sponsored religion into our public schools,&#8221; Donatti added. &#8220;We cannot overlook their attempts to push legislation that would sanction religious discrimination and bullying. The First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities — not politicians or the government — the right to instill religious beliefs in their children.&#8221;
Democrats who opposed the bill were able to employ a delay tactic known locally as <a href="https://lrl.texas.gov/whatsnew/client/index.cfm/2011/5/23/Filibusters-and-Chubbing#:~:text=Chubbing%20refers%20to%20the%20practice,slow%20down%20the%20legislative%20process." target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;chubbing,&#8221;</a> in which members debate legislation to run out the clock, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/24/us/texas-ten-commandments-legislature.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to The New York Times</a>. Their strategy was effective in preventing the GOP-led state House from getting to a vote on a number of bills.

Ten Commandments Display in Texas

Texas Bill Requiring Schools To Display Ten Commandments Fails

Public Schools

Religion

Texas

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/randi-weingarten-is-gaslighting-us-she-fought-to-keep-schools-closed-not-open" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Randi Weingarten</a> thinks you are an idiot.
The American Federation of Teachers union president, a lady who makes a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aft-president-randi-weingarten-salary" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> nine times the average teacher&#8217;s salary, is on a bit of a torrent to rewrite COVID history. As she tells it, she wasn&#8217;t hellbent on holding your child&#8217;s education hostage during the pandemic; she wanted to get those kids back in school as quickly as possible. As supposed &#8220;proof&#8221; of her heroism, Weingarten has been touting a report from Politifact that artificially absolves her from any wrongdoing or feet-dragging during COVID.
Don&#8217;t let her — or Politifact — <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-users-set-the-record-straight-after-politifact-says-randi-weingarten-advocated-for-reopening-schools-during-pandemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">get away with the whitewashing of history</a>. Her actions stunted an entire generation of kids and unleashed a deluge of negative consequences as a result of keeping kids out of school for so long.
For example, Weingarten is now saying that since the spring of 2020, she wanted schoolchildren back in classrooms and learning from teachers.
&#8220;We spent every day from February on trying to get schools open,&#8221; Weingarten testified before Congress last week. &#8220;We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
AFT President Randi Weingarten: &quot;We spent every day from February on trying to get schools open. We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/1qNL05VD3u">pic.twitter.com/1qNL05VD3u</a>
&mdash; Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) <a href="https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1651307624418164736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 26, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
But in the spring of 2020, she said schools could only re-open if done &#8220;safely.&#8221; What did &#8220;safely&#8221; look like to Weingarten? Well, at the time she said that in-school learning could only happen if teachers across America received at least an “additional 19% — $116.5 billion — from pre-virus funding levels to stabilize budgets and then reopen safely.&#8221;
The New York Times, which also is running cover for Weingarten, noted that her union had a list of demands in April reopening:
<blockquote>The A.F.T. had issued its <a class="css-yywogo" title="" href="https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/media/2020/covid19_reopen-america-schools.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">own reopening plan</a> in late April, calling for adequate personal protective equipment, a temporary suspension of formal teacher performance evaluations, a limit on student testing, a cancellation of student-loan debt and a $750 billion federal aid package to help schools prepare to reopen safely and facilitate “a real recovery for all our communities.&#8221;</blockquote>
What does advocating limiting the number of tests or forgiveness of student-loan debt have to do with re-opening safely? Nothing. Weingarten used the pandemic to push for more and more demands and to demonize members of the Trump administration.
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As pointed out by <a href="https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/05/03/politifact-is-trash-n548159" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HotAir&#8217;s David Strom</a>, “Congress wound up passing $190 billion in funding to meet her demands, and it still didn’t move her.&#8221;
In Strom&#8217;s excellent piece, he also flagged a terrific montage showing the myriad ways from 2020 to 2021 that Weingarten delayed in-person learning — even after the science suggested it was safe to do so.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Outstanding compilation of footage of teachers’ union leader Randi Weingarten calling for COVID school closures throughout 2020 and 2021, contrary to her now casting herself as a bold advocate for schools reopening.<a href="https://t.co/UcWjfmqpno">pic.twitter.com/UcWjfmqpno</a>
&mdash; Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelpsenger/status/1653804555895988224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
That video is pretty good, but it is nothing compared to the shellacking Weingarten has been receiving thanks to the Community Notes feature — crowdsourced fact-checking — on Twitter.
For example, Politifact tweeted, &#8220;Teachers union President Randi Weingarten advocated for reopening schools with pandemic safety measures. She criticized the Trump administration’s 2020 calls to reopen schools fully, but it’s misleading to claim that she opposed reopening at all.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Teachers union President Randi Weingarten advocated for reopening schools with pandemic safety measures. She criticized the Trump administration’s 2020 calls to reopen schools fully, but it’s misleading to claim that she opposed reopening at all. <a href="https://t.co/Km8FkMkXd2">https://t.co/Km8FkMkXd2</a>
&mdash; PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) <a href="https://twitter.com/PolitiFact/status/1653749253720666115?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Politifact&#8217;s conclusion, as the Left would say, is &#8220;missing context.&#8221; What sort of &#8220;context&#8221;? Well, the kind that shows Politifact&#8217;s ruling is complete nonsense.
&#8220;Politifact is misrepresenting Weingarten&#8217;s positions,&#8221; the Community Notes added, replete with notes backing up the assertions. &#8220;She called attempts to reopen schools in the fall of 2020 &#8216;Reckless, callous, cruel&#8217; <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1cvl2hr r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" role="link" href="https://t.co/lBQqTXA04Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">theguardian.com/us-news/2020/j…</a> Her union pushed aggressively at the local level <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1cvl2hr r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" role="link" href="https://t.co/eBOG2NLfas" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">edweek.org/teaching-learn…</a> They continued in 2022 <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1cvl2hr r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" role="link" href="https://t.co/QZVPzIRn34" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">nytimes.com/2022/01/08/us/…</a>&#8220;
In January 2021, a CDC study found low transmission of COVID in schools with proper safety precautions — such as social distancing and staying home when sick, and other commonsense guidelines. In other words, the science showed it was safe to be back in school.
The science was not enough for Weingarten. She said it was still too stressful for teachers to go back at the time.
&#8220;All the risk is on the educators, in terms of going back to school buildings,&#8221; she <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2021/02/05/teachers-union-president-weingarten-vaccinations-arent-precondition-for-school-reopening-but-need-to-be-priority" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> at the time. &#8220;The science is one thing, but the moment — psychologically — you [return to in-person classrooms], you’re always wondering if you’re the case, if you’re the one in 100.&#8221;
While Weingarten was running around doing media interviews, mental health problems for America&#8217;s youth were skyrocketing, as were drug addictions, and learning loss.
When it became patently obvious that untold damage was being done, and that maybe kids should have been in school long before they finally returned, Weingarten said it was no biggie because &#8220;kids are resilient.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/danprimack?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@danprimack</a>: Is there a point at which kids&#39; lost education isn&#39;t recoverable?
AFT president <a href="https://twitter.com/rweingarten?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@rweingarten</a>: &quot;No, I don&#39;t believe that. I believe that kids are resilient and kids will recover. But we as adults have to meet their needs.&quot; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AxiosOnHBO?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AxiosOnHBO</a> <a href="https://t.co/Dc4H0Hherc">pic.twitter.com/Dc4H0Hherc</a>
&mdash; Axios (@axios) <a href="https://twitter.com/axios/status/1363682689962901504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Weingarten, and Politifact for that matter, each get a big fat &#8220;F” for their COVID revisionism. We&#8217;ll let CNN Senior political analyst and father of four Scott Jennings have the final word.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/ScottJenningsKY?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ScottJenningsKY</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/rweingarten?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@rweingarten</a>: &#8220;I am stunned at what you have said this week&#8230;I think you&#8217;ll find that most parents believe you are the tip of the sphere of school closures&#8230;I hear no remorse whatsoever about the generational damage that&#8217;s been done&#8230;&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/gVCDgpP3dN">pic.twitter.com/gVCDgpP3dN</a>
— Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) <a href="https://twitter.com/KevinTober94/status/1651778019277537282?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 28, 2023</a></blockquote>
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Randi Weingaretn

Randi Weingarten, Politifact Each Get A Big Fat ‘F’ For COVID History Revisionism

Randi Weingarten, Politifact Get Big Fat ‘F’ For COVID History Revisionism

American Federation of Teachers

COVID

PolitiFact

Randi Weingarten

Students in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/flint" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Flint, Michigan</a>, school district will not be allowed to carry backpacks to school for the rest of the year.
The Flint Board of Education voted unanimously last week to ban students from carrying backpacks. The decision came after two separate safety incidents occurred at Southwestern Classical Academy in Flint, both of which prompted officials to close schools in the area. The policy went into effect on Monday.
&#8220;School safety remains an important topic for districts across the country, including here in Flint,&#8221; Superintendent Kevelin Jones wrote in a <a href="https://www.flintschools.org/apps/news/article/1757528" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to parents Thursday. &#8220;As a district, we are taking a 360-degree approach to create safe spaces for children’s academic journeys. To that end, we have reached a point where we must make difficult decisions and ask our school community to demonstrate flexibility, understanding and a shared sense of urgency when it comes to safety.&#8221;
As of Monday, students are <a href="https://www.flintschools.org/apps/news/article/1757540" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not allowed</a> to carry backpacks into school buildings. Small purses carrying personal items, clear plastic bags with gym clothes, and lunchboxes are allowed within reason, the letter noted, but those bags will still be subject to search. If a student brings a backpack to school, the office will not keep the student&#8217;s belongings. Instead, he or she will be sent to the school office and a parent or guardian will pick up the student&#8217;s belongings. Athletes will also have to drop off their equipment at the front office every day.
&#8220;Across the country, we have seen an increase in threatening behavior and contraband, including weapons, being brought into schools at all levels,&#8221; Jones wrote. &#8220;Backpacks make it easier for students to hide weapons, which can be disassembled and harder to identify or hidden in pockets, inside books or under other items. Clear backpacks do not completely fix this issue. By banning backpacks altogether and adding an increased security presence across the district, we can better control what is being brought into our buildings.&#8221;
According to <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2023/04/backpacks-banned-at-flint-schools-for-rest-of-academic-year-due-to-safety-concerns.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MLive</a>, the board had suggested the same proposal earlier this year, but it was voted down. At that time, Jones suggested allowing only clear backpacks, but that was also rejected. It is not the first time that Flint district has banned backpacks; they previously did it in 2007.
&#8220;This is a difficult decision, but it is one that will immediately benefit our district and the safety of those we serve,&#8221; Jones wrote. &#8220;This has been approved by the Flint Board of Education, the district’s administration and principals, with support from the Flint Police Department and other safety advocates. We have thought long and hard about this decision, knowing that it will impact how scholars and families prepare for their days and operations in the classroom. However, based on the issues we continue to see across the country regarding school safety, we believe that this is the best solution for those we serve.&#8221;
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The decision was motivated in part by two separate incidents that prompted schools to close; both incidents happened at Southwestern Classical Academy. First, in <a href="https://www.fox23.com/news/trending/student-17-arrested-after-threat-to-shoot-flint-school-like-oxford/article_a5a45ab2-4a4d-5d8d-a7b1-3ff753e900c8.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">December 2021</a>, a student at the school was riding a school bus when she recorded a &#8220;rap-style&#8221; video threatening to commit a school shooting &#8220;like Oxford,&#8221; a reference to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-several-injured-in-school-shooting-near-detroit-suspect-in-custody" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2021 school shooting</a> in nearby Oakland County. The school closed in response.
Then in <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2023/04/flint-southwestern-closes-april-20-after-lockdown-due-to-threat.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">April</a>, the school closed due to another threat.

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Flint, Michigan School District Bans Backpacks After Multiple Violent Threats

Flint, Michigan School District Bans Students From Carrying Backpacks After Multiple Violent Threats

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