by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann
In parts one and two of this series, we’ve examined how Democrats and their poisoned ideology have declared war on America’s children. If anyone has any doubt as to the intention of the Progressive left to poison the minds of children and ruin their future, look no further than America’s teachers’ unions, especially Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers.
Historically working in tandem with the Democrat Party, teachers’ unions are intense advocates for curriculum that does not include basic knowledge to get ahead in life. Rather than actual education, its agenda includes social justice propaganda, racial division, climate change dogma, and promotion of sexual deviancy.
Why would public school teachers and their unions place such emphasis on what many people consider to be a radical agenda to confuse children too young to fully understand what they were being presented? Teachers in public schools are planting seeds in the minds of kids to accept that confusion, gray areas, uncertainties, anxiety, and panic are natural occurrences in life. This allows for kids to grow up into dysfunctional adults, unable to handle the realities of life and, therefore, ideal subjects for government control.
Democrats and their allies in the teachers’ unions are playing a long game here, banking on turning children into mindless adult followers who are easy to control and whose opinions are easy to sway. Stupid, anxious, poor people are much simpler to manage than smart, confident, affluent people. Democrats are the party of government that needs to cultivate compliant citizens for the future. What better place to start than with the young; a captive audience sitting in a schoolroom for eight hours a day, taught by ideologues who know of only one side—their side.
Children are regularly failing to learn anything of value in public schools, and the teachers’ unions know this. A big tell here is how teachers’ unions vehemently oppose standardized testing, claiming comically that “students aren’t standardized,” and therefore they must be evaluated on the basis of “critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and application of knowledge.” Unions even oppose school rankings, claiming that “they tear communities apart.”
They absolutely want nothing to do with measuring actual performance, focusing instead on “equity,” or equal outcome. If a chain is as strong as its weakest link, a school system is as strong as its weakest school, and a class is as strong as its weakest student. Equity in action.
Are school vouchers the answer? It depends on how you choose to parent your child.
If you’re in favor of maintaining the status quo of teachers’ union-dominated control over government-regulated schooling and its rejection of any measurement of performance, you will be against school vouchers. You will consign your child to the public school that is assigned, accept your role as a passive parent that has no say in the education received by your child, and keep quiet about it less you find yourself on the receiving end of harassment by state authorities.
If, however, you take your role as a parent seriously and understand how impressionable your child is during these formative years, you will support school vouchers and your ability to choose which school your child attends based on quality, performance, and outcome. Alternatively, you will simply fund private education for your child out of your own pocket—don’t claim you can’t afford it. Get a second job if you have to.
It is widely known that public school officials and their union bosses don’t view your child or your money as things that belong to you. These people have no compulsion whatsoever to demand complete autonomy over what is taught to your child, and whatever cost per student is required will be taken without hesitation or accountability.
More and more mothers and fathers are aware of this corruption of the public school system and have taken matters into their own hands. The phenomenon of homeschooling has tripled in the past two decades, with over 3 million students currently being taught at home, up from around a million in 2000.
Of course, a surge in homeschooling took place during the COVID lockdowns. (It was during the lockdowns when concerned parents discovered how their children were taught and they clearly didn’t like what they saw.) However, the data shows a significant pre-lockdown trend of growth that was already in place. Public schools have become an option that more parents have been rejecting for years.
Many parents cite the rise of public school violence and “the intrusion of politics into public education” as key reasons for this change. We can confidently add that parents have seen the result of public education and the declining quality of learning, realizing they could do a better job of teaching their kids themselves.
As expected, the legacy media chooses state paternalism over parent’s rights, stating “the lack of oversight is an issue—and not an accidental one.” One child welfare “expert” claimed that home-schooled children are in danger of not “learning about the most basic democratic values of our society or getting the kind of exposure to alternative views to exercise meaningful choice,” meaning, of course, the values and choices of the state.
Democrats and the teachers’ unions believe every child should internalize state-approved narratives regarding history, politics, sex, democracy, economics, nutrition, social justice, emotional health, climate change, race relations… pretty much everything. They will stop at nothing to indoctrinate children, making them weak and easy to fool. Creating, well, the perfect Democrat.
– – –
Richard Truesdell is a former consumer electronics retail executive and automotive travel photojournalist. In the last 25 years, he has visited more than 35 countries on six continents. A former high school history teacher with a BA in Political Science from Waynesburg University, he is a lifelong Conservative moderate who has turned his thoughts and keyboard to political commentary and popular culture. A cross-section of his writings can be found here.
Keith Lehmann is a retired consumer electronics industry executive who has written extensively on technology, transportation, and international travel. Living in Southern California for over fifty years, he has first-hand exposure to societal and cultural happenings of the left and submits decidedly realism-based, Conservative viewpoints, much of which can be found on his Substack.
