Free Republic

We have long heard the phrase “The dumbing down of America” to describe the effort of the Democratic Party to indoctrinate, under-educate, immigrate and acclimate, to influence the coming elections to favor the Democrat candidates. Usually, when we think about this process, we tend to imagine it to be the poorly educated, illegal aliens, the huddled masses who dwell generationally at the bottom of the prosperity chain, looking for someone to blame their plight on. And such a movement does exist in those echelons as the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party strives to tilt the playing field by hook,...

Garden State Equality claims its curriculum is for the good and safety of vulnerable children. Its teachings, however, result in the exact opposite. A little more than a year ago, the New Jersey Legislature passed, and Gov. Phil Murphy signed, a law mandating the teaching of LGBT subject matter in public school curriculum, beginning in 2020-21.In response to the law, the activist group Garden State Equality has prepared a curriculum, currently piloted in 12 New Jersey schools and planned to be employed statewide in the fall. This is consistent with Murphy’s vision. At Garden State Equality’s 2019 Ball, he said,...

Over the last few years, my own children have reached the age where they would be quite welcome in the Sanders camp. They could support Bernie Sanders, attend Sanders rallies, cheer and pump their fists as they condemn "The Man" and delight over all of the free stuff they think they're going to get. What, you say? Fat chance that my offspring would wind up hardcore lefties after being raised by a black-belt right-wing nationalist such as myself? Well, that may not be quite fair, although I'll gladly accept the compliment. In truth, exposure to reality is never a guarantee...

Retired federal judge Janice Rogers Brown warned Tuesday about the perils of the mob that views politics as all important and ignores objective truth. President Donald Trump has had to contend with a fired-up “resistance” of political opposition that will not recognize his presidency as legitimate, Brown suggested. “Prior to the 2016 election, America had a cherished tradition of peacefully transferring power. No riots in the streets. No military coups. George Washington himself set the standard,” Brown said. “However, we now know elections have consequences only when the correct candidate is elected.” Brown, who served on the U.S. Court of...

The leftist propaganda taught in schools is no accident. It is the logical conclusion of the prevalent educational philosophy that favors skills over content and engagement over rigor. School choice is finally having its moment in the national conversation, to the joy of those interested in school reform. While some states have adopted various school choice initiatives in small doses, most have not. This may change after President Donald Trump publicly brought up school choice in his recent State of the Union address, and Republican lawmakers have introduced a series of bills that would increase federal funding for vouchers.If school...

The girl has never scored below a 96 on any test. She’s No. 1 on the honor roll — and the principal wants her to wear the state-mandated red scarf of the Communist youth organization, los pioneros, or she’s out. Her parents refuse. Her mother is called in for a conference. The women argue. The truce: The price for not wearing the pañoleta is being knocked down to second place for lack of revolutionary spirit. The top spot will go to a boy who is an eager and loyal pionerito (like decades later, a returned Elián González would be, too)....

...Folks, Americans are extremely naive about what’s coming. We just cannot imagine that people who burst into tears in the face of gentle mockery of their political beliefs can ever come to power. They are already in power, in the sense that they have mesmerized leaders of American institutions. I’m telling you, that 2015 showdown on Yale’s campus between Prof. Nicholas Christakis and the shrieking students was profoundly symbolic. Christakis used the techniques of discursive reason to try to establish contact with these young people. None of it mattered. They yelled and cursed and sobbed. The fact that he disagreed...

The first academic semester of 2020 has only recently gotten underway, and colleges and universities around the country seem to be competing with one another in a feverish race to prove which is most committed to advancing the prevailing leftist dogma of the day. The College Fix, a student-led campus watchdog publication, is an excellent resource for anyone interested in keeping apprised of the current scene in academia. It’s a particularly invaluable source for parents who are considering investing tens of thousands of dollars into their children’s “education.” Consider: At Dartmouth College, an institution that charges $75,000 a year in...

Opponents criticized an Iowa bill that would require schools to notify parents before teaching LGBTQ content to children. Lawmakers introduced the Republican-sponsored House File 2201 in January, a bill that would require schools to annually notify parents about any kind of material that discusses gender or sexual orientation. This would then give parents the opportunity to inspect such material and pull their children out of certain classes. The bill is one of 13 pieces of legislation introduced in the Iowa state Legislature that opponents are calling anti-LGBTQ, CNN reported Friday. Republican Iowa state Rep. Jeff Shipley says that the bill...

In the transgender debate, even Bert and Ernie are puppets for the left. Incredibly, “Sesame Street,” the once-beloved kids’ show, is making the best case for defunding PBS yet: inviting drag queen Billy Porter on to teach kids the virtues of gender confusion. Wearing a “tuxedo dress,” Porter, the star of “Kinky Boots,” has already been tweeting about the appearance. “I was tickled to meet Elmo and the gang,” he posted. Parents, on the other hand, aren’t nearly so thrilled. More than 55,000 have signed a LifeSite petition calling on the network to drop the episode. "By contributing to this...

What are they teaching in New York City preschools? At one taxpayer-funded Brooklyn nursery, it isn’t numbers, letters or nap time — but ­racism and victimhood, plus transgender and “queer’’ rights, with a heavy dose of political indoctrination in the mix. “I was kind of horrified,’’ the father of a preschooler told me. “They say they’re trying to reduce racism and discrimination. To me, they’re perpetuating it, fomenting a sense of victimhood that 4-year-olds would never consider on their own.’’ In an e-mail to parents and caregivers on Jan. 16, teacher Rosy Clark lays out lessons based on the Black...

Drag Queen Story Hours started out as niche events on the West Coast, but these events—aimed at children as young as age 3—have spread to libraries and schools across the United States, dividing local communities. These story hours are “just what they sound like,” Drag Queen Story Hour’s official website states: drag queens reading to children. The events are designed to be about 45 minutes long for children aged 3 to 8 years old, intended to capture children’s imagination and help children explore their gender fluidity through “glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.” Books used during Drag Queen Story...

Today the U.S. Supreme Court hears a case that could determine whether parents and taxpayers have any choices about the kind of religion American children are taught with taxpayer funds. Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue concerns whether private donations may support schools that make their religious beliefs explicit. It could also undo a century of U.S. court and legislative decisions that used animus between Protestants and Catholics to attack the faith of both kinds of Christians’ children over the last century.Five years ago, Montana’s legislature enacted a tiny school choice program that allows residents to deduct up to...

Two school districts in the Phoenix, Arizona area have implemented educational programs promoting racial divisions and social justice. The two programs attack students on the basis of their skin color and other characteristics. Chandler Unified School District passed the equity and inclusion initiative in February 2018. Kyrene School District also implemented it. Word has gotten out on how awful these programs are. On November 8, Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired a piece on one of the two programs, called Deep Equity. Carlson described the teaching this way, “America is based on a hierarchy of various oppressions: men oppress women, Christianity...

... California is one of many states to ask teachers and textbooks in recent years to cover the contributions of specific immigrant groups, including Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders, European-Americans and Mexican-Americans. These additions are part of the reason California books are almost always longer than their Texas counterparts. California’s Board of Education adopted an expansive 842-page social studies framework in 2016. Two years later, Texas’ school board streamlined its social studies standards, which are now laid out in 78 tightly compressed pages. Critics of California’s approach say that making state standards and textbooks longer and more inclusive can be overwhelming to...

Social-justice ideology is turning higher education into an engine of progressive political advocacy, according to a new report by the National Association of Scholars. Left-wing activists, masquerading as professors, are infiltrating traditional academic departments or creating new ones—departments such as “Solidarity and Social Justice”—to advance their cause. They are entering the highest rung of college administration, from which perch they require students to take social-justice courses, such as “Native Sexualities and Queer Discourse” or “Hip-hop Workshop,” and attend social-justice events—such as a Reparations, Repatriation, and Redress Symposium or a Power and Privilege Symposium—in order to graduate. But social-justice education is...

A U.S. Department of Education investigation has revealed the extent of foreign influence at America’s universities. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told reporters in December that six universities received $1.3 billion in foreign funds from hostile nations aiming to undermine American interests, including China and Russia. DeVos confirmed that these numbers are just "scratching the surface," and countless other universities likely have entered into similar agreements with foreign governments. China is exploiting the university system in part through their "Thousand Talents program," which has turned legions of Americans in privileged positions throughout the public and private sector into spies. This is...

Professor Stephen Bainbridge is getting a lot of well deserved attention and praise for staring for staring down the academic diversity mafia and throwing its own rhetoric back in its face. Required to submit to what amounts to a loyalty oath to "diversity" in order to qualify for a merit raise at UCLA Law School, he spoke truth to power and discussed his devotion to intellectual diversity — documenting it with footnotes. I take the liberty of reprinting it in its entirety below, taken from his blog, ProfessorBainbridge.com:

Earlier this month I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. As I look back on my time on campus, I can honestly say I am thankful for both the professors who challenged me intellectually and were open to my conservative views — as well as the professors who tried to indoctrinate me, belittled my principles, or allowed me to be verbally bullied by classmates. That’s because both types of experiences taught me how to better defend my beliefs as I enter the next stage in my life: real life. As...

For decades we have said that there is a liberal slant in education, a leftist bias. But the concept of tacit liberal influence is in the distant past. Today, liberalism is at the forefront. Liberalism is the curriculum. Grade schools throughout the country are rewriting their history curriculums based on today's leftist politics. Some Illinois, New York and New Jersey public schools are teaching a collection of New York Times leftist opinion essays known as the 1619 Project as factual objective history. This leftist propaganda project audaciously rewrites our history as a country that was started as a "slavocracy" in...