New Parent’s Group Opposes the Preaching of Critical Race Theory in Schools

A new parents' group called Parents Defending Education. I heard about this when Erica Sanzi (who is part of PDE) described the organization on Tucker Carlson's show on FOX.

From the About Page of the PDE website,

We believe our children’s education should be based on scholarship and facts, and should nurture their development into the happy, resilient, free-thinking, educated citizens every democracy needs. Our classrooms should include rigorous instruction in history, civics, literature, math, the sciences, and the ideas and values that enrich our country.

Yet in recent years activists have targeted public, private, and charter schools across the country with a campaign to impose toxic new curriculums and to force our kids into divisive identity groups based on race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. Many schools have already embraced this campaign, and many more are preparing to embrace it.

This new educational mission is not only at war with basic American values, but with our kids’ happiness and ability to succeed in life. Couched in vague slogans such as “social justice,” the new curriculum divides our children into “oppressor” and “oppressed” groups. To one, it teaches guilt and shame. To the other, grievance and anger. To all students, it spreads unhappiness, radicalism, and failure.

Schools are adopting this illiberal mission at the behest of a narrow group of activists — without the consent of the students, parents, and communities whose interests the schools are supposed to serve. Those who dissent risk being attacked as bigots and shamed into silence.

This must stop. If you are disturbed by these destructive developments, you are not alone. If you want our schools to return to teaching our children what they need to grow and succeed, please join us. We come from diverse races, religions, economic backgrounds, and political orientations — but we all agree that it is time to join together and stop the madness in our schools.

The organization's website includes an "Indoctrination Map," upon which one can click to find reported school misconduct in the various states. This map contains information regarding numerous incidents.

I clicked on Missouri and found a disturbing report from the Rockwood School District. I have no independent knowledge of whether this information is correct. I'm merely reporting on an email found on the PDE website. If this email is authentic, it is outrageous. The email purports to be from Natalie Fallert, the Literacy and Speech Coordinator for grades 6-12. You can read the document here (if the email was dated, that date has been cut off).  In the email to teachers and principals, Fallert discusses strategies for defusing numerous concerns parents are expressing about critical race theory.  She indicates that parents are complaining. For instance, some parents have complained about lessons on intersectionality.

Fallert advises the teachers to stop using the word "privilege" and to do it "right now."  Instead of using the word "activist," she tells the teachers to use the phrase "take a position."  PDE indicates that the most disturbing thing to the whistleblower who disclosed this email is this: Fallert repeatedly tells the teachers to "Just pull the resource off Canvas so parents cannot see it." She says: "Keep teaching! Just don't make everything visible on Canvas."  She gives additional advice on preventing parents from knowing what their children are being taught.  I'd advise that you click the link and read it for yourself. It's stunning to see a high-ranking member of a school district telling teachers and principals in writing to mislead the parents who they serve.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this.  I would suspect that the parents will be demanding documents from the school.  PDE has a "Resources" section on its website urging parents to file FOIA requests (In Missouri, which is where Rockwood School District is located and where I practice law, the state "FOIS" procedure is called the Sunshine Law, Chapter 610).  Here is what PDE urges re "FOIA":

If you see bad things happening in your school, one of the first and best things you can do to fight it is file a Freedom Of Information Act request with your school district. Because schools are taxpayer-funded institutions, FOIA disclosure applies to them — enabling you to see how much money the school is spending on “diversity and inclusion” consultants and other pricey, destructive initiatives.

Continue ReadingNew Parent’s Group Opposes the Preaching of Critical Race Theory in Schools

No Apparent Solution to Homelessness in San Francisco

Christopher Rufo reports on escalating homelessness in San Francisco. As he reports, the city has tried many approaches, yet nothing seems to be working. It is, indeed, an incredibly complex issue that is taxing experts from many specialties. In his article at Real Clear Investigations, Rufo offers many facts and figures, as well as a concern that the currently favored approach, destigmatizing hopelessness and addiction, leads only to more of the same. Here are two excerpts:

The nexus between homelessness, addiction, and crime is clear: According to city and federal data, virtually all of the unsheltered homeless are unemployed, while at the same time, those with serious addictions spend an average of $1,256 to $1,834 a month on methamphetamine and heroin. With no legitimate source of income, many addicts support their habit through a “hustle,” which can include fraud, prostitution, car break-ins, burglaries of residences and business, and other forms of theft.

Boudin’s plan to decriminalize such property offenses – the mirror opposite of the low-tolerance “broken windows” approach adopted in the late 1980s as crime rates began historic declines – has contributed to the sense that he is not holding criminals accountable. In 2019, the city had an incredible 25,667 “smash-and-grabs,” as thieves sought valuables and other property from cars to sell on the black market. The following year, rather than attempt to prevent or even disincentivize this crime, Boudin has proposed a $1.5 million fund to pay for auto glass repair, arguing that it “will help put money into San Francisco jobs and San Francisco businesses.” In literal terms, Boudin is subsidizing broken windows, under the notion that it can be transformed into a job-creation program.

. . .

The final plank of San Francisco’s policy platform is “destigmatization.” Public health experts in the city have gradually abandoned recovery and sobriety as the ideal outcome, preferring the limited goal of “harm reduction.” In a recent task force report on methamphetamine, the San Francisco Public Health Department noted that meth users “are likely to experience high levels of stigma and rejection in their personal and social lives,” which are “often reinforced by language and media portrayals depicting individuals who use alongside images of immorality, having chaotic lives, and perpetual use.”

On the surface, this is a strange contention. If San Francisco’s perilous trifecta is any guide, methamphetamine use is heavily correlated with chaotic lives, perpetual drug abuse, crimes against others, and various transgressions against traditional morality. The harm reductionists’ argument, however, rests on the belief that addiction is an involuntary brain disease, akin to Alzheimer’s or dementia. In this view, addiction is better seen as a disability, and any stigma associated with it is therefore an act of ignorance and cruelty. According to the Department of Public Health, the goal of harm reduction policy is to reduce this unjustified stigma and focus public policy on “non-abstinence-based residential treatment programs,” “supervised injection services,” “trauma-informed sobering site[s],” and “training for staff on how to engage marginalized or vulnerable communities in ways that do not perpetuate trauma or stigma.”

Continue ReadingNo Apparent Solution to Homelessness in San Francisco

University of Rhode Island Condemns its Women’s Studies’ Professor for Taking an Improper Position in her Op-Ed on LBGTQ

You would think it's a good thing for a Women's Studies' Professor to write an op-ed on an issue relating to LBGTQ. Much of the op-ed written by Donna Hughes criticized the the far right and its violent history and ideology. Her employer, University of Rhode Island had no problem with any of that.But she also criticized a position associated with the far left:

The American political left is increasingly diving headfirst into their own world of lies and fantasy and, unlike in the imaginary world of QAnon, real children are becoming actual victims. The trans-sex fantasy, the belief that a person can change his or her sex, either from male to female or from female to male, is spreading largely unquestioned among the political left.” She added that “[w]omen and girls are expected to give up their places of privacy such as restrooms, locker rooms, and even prison cells.

For criticizing LBGTQ ideology, she was publicly condemned by her employer in a flagrant assault on the First Amendment:

A faculty member’s First Amendment and academic freedom rights are not boundless, however, and should be exercised responsibly with due regard for the faculty member’s other obligations, including their obligations to the University’s students and the University community. As stated in the above referenced documents, faculty have a special obligation to show due respect for the opinions of others and to “exercise critical self-discipline and judgment” and “appropriate restraint” in transmitting their personal opinions.

The University, College of Arts and Sciences and Department of Gender and Women Studies are working to support our students and the community as we move through — and learn from — this situation.

The problem is, apparently, that if you criticize an ideology, it is the equivalent of doing violence to real life people. That's what happens when we make a high art of pretending that people are fragile (what we really need is anti-fragility).

Turley accurately concludes: "The only way that Hughes could not cause such harm would be to stay silent on her criticism of the movement. This is a matter that runs to the very core of her writings as an academic and identity as a feminist. , , The silence of other faculty at the university to support their colleague’s rights to free speech and academic freedom is, again, deafening."

Continue ReadingUniversity of Rhode Island Condemns its Women’s Studies’ Professor for Taking an Improper Position in her Op-Ed on LBGTQ

Baltimore’s Experiment in Policing

From City Journal:

A decade ago, Baltimoreans became lab rats in a fateful experiment: their elected officials decided to treat the city’s long-running crime problem with many fewer cops. In effect, Baltimore began to defund its police and engage in de-policing long before those terms gained popular currency.

This experiment has been an abject failure. Since 2011, nearly 3,000 Baltimoreans have been murdered—one of every 200 city residents over that period. The annual homicide rate has climbed from 31 per 100,000 residents to 56—ten times the national rate. And 93 percent of the homicide victims of known race over this period were black.

Remarkably, Baltimore is reinforcing its de-policing strategy. State’s Attorney for Baltimore Marilyn Mosby no longer intends to prosecute various “low-level” crimes. Newly elected mayor Brandon Scott promises a five-year plan to cut the police budget. Both justify their policies by asserting that the bloodbath on city streets proves that policing itself “hasn’t worked”; they sell their acceleration of de-policing as a “fresh approach” and “re-imagining” of law enforcement.

Continue ReadingBaltimore’s Experiment in Policing