I Asked What My Daughter Would Learn in Kindergarten. Then the Teachers Union Sued Me.

The Goldwater Institute is a leading free-market public policy research and litigation organization that is dedicated to empowering all Americans to live freer, happier lives. We accomplish real results for liberty by working in state courts, legislatures, and communities nationwide to advance, defend, and strengthen the freedom guaranteed by the constitutions of the United States and the fifty states.

The following column is by Nicole Solas, a mother in Rhode Island and a client of the Goldwater Institute.

I’m just like any parent—when I enrolled my daughter in kindergarten, I wanted to know what she would learn. In response, our school district bullied, harassed, defamed, evaded, and stonewalled me. Then the teachers union sued me. I left public school because I no longer felt safe but I’m still taking action to get answers.

Kindergarten is a precious milestone. Our babies are not babies anymore: They go to school for full days. Parents want to know their children are safe at school, and they want to feel confident that their children are receiving a quality education. I knew many public schools across the country have been politicizing lessons, so I called my principal in the South Kingstown School District in Rhode Island to ask if they teach concepts of Critical Race Theory or gender theory. That question and the events that followed changed my life.

The principal said they don’t call children “boys” and “girls,” and teachers embed values of gender theory into classroom lessons. They ask kindergartners, “What could have been done differently on Thanksgiving?” How can five-year-olds answer such a bizarre question that shames them for their American heritage? The principal told me these were “common practices” but could not define a “common practice” or tell me when these “practices” originated. Now I wanted to know these “common practices” and the educational pedagogy supporting them, but the school refused to answer my questions.

Instead, my school did everything in its power to evade me. The school told me to submit public record requests, but when I submitted what they considered to be too many requests, the school publicly threatened to sue me. They held a special public meeting to target me and treated me as if I were on trial. There, they publicized my public record requests and my personal emails. They allowed community members to speak in support of me or against me, and one woman whom I’ve never met turned directly to me and called me racist. The school even hired a PR firm to smear me in the national media. Later, the local teachers’ union had a meeting with 250 teachers where they put my name and picture on slides characterizing me as “threat to public education.” Two months later, the Rhode Island branch of the National Education Association filed a frivolous lawsuit against me to silence me and send a message to other parents that they could be punished for asking questions too.

This is all because I did what the school told me to do: submit public record requests about Critical Race Theory and gender theory. I became the target of an organized and vicious attack—all because I dared to ask questions about my child’s education.

But it backfired. Treat parents like adversaries, and they will respond like adversaries.

The Goldwater Institute has stepped in to defend me against this bullying litigation and to help me access the public information to which all parents are entitled. Without the help of a public interest law firm like Goldwater, it would be nearly impossible to pay for my legal defense and challenge a powerful public school district. But parents should not need a lawyer to know what their children are learning. Parents should not be sued by a $300 million dollar union just for asking questions.

All parents have the right to know what their kids are taught in the classroom. There is absolutely no reason why our public schools should keep this information under lock and key. Instead of being transparent, school districts bully parents like me who challenge their woke activism. If schools are so proud of what they teach, why do they go to such great lengths to hide it?

I now understand what it means to be abused by government power. If South Kingstown School District and the teachers union can so viciously target a parent, what will stop them from targeting a vulnerable child? I could not subject my daughter to such a hostile learning environment that attacks anyone with questions or a different point of view.

In stark contrast, I asked my new private school whether they taught or practiced Critical Race Theory and gender theory and the answer was simple: no. I had a tour, met the kindergarten teacher, and had my curriculum questions answered in one day. None of that was possible in the South Kingstown School District.

I hope that my story encourages more parents to ask questions about what their children are learning in public school. Remember that your taxes fund public school, and you are entitled to know exactly what you are paying for. I know the risk of retaliation is real—it happened to me—but our kids are worth the risk, and I’m still here fighting back. We have to show our kids how to stand up for themselves. If we don’t teach them that, who will?

Beg to Differ!

One Hundred Reasons to Abandon Public Education Now
By Daren Jonescu

In a recent article, I noted in passing that “there are a hundred compelling reasons for removing your children and grandchildren from the public schools, regardless of any practical or financial inconveniences this may cause you.” My choice of the round figure one hundred was purely a rhetorical flourish — there are actually far more than a hundred reasons to abolish public education, one child at a time if necessary.

By way of proving this point, I offer the following list for your consideration and dissemination:

(1) John Dewey. “The father of modern education” — including modern Soviet education. Critic of Western rationalism, socialist, enemy of ethical individualism.
(2) Bill Ayers. Weatherman communist, Deweyite — and influential voice in early childhood education.
(3) “Benevolent” would-be oligarchs explicitly conceived of modern compulsory schooling as a means of forcibly stunting intellectual growth in order to produce a submissive worker class. (See below)
(4) Standardized curricula and testing. Coerced uniformity of goals and methods — the “death panel” of education.
(5) Reduces family home to glorified bunkhouse for state-raised children. (See below)
(6) Undermines family’s historical role as nature’s buffer between individual and state.
(7) Sex education. Mechanistic reduction of sex spells the death of Eros — life’s central mystery — and hence of sublimated passions, high art, and the pursuit of wisdom.
(8) Psychiatric branding and drugging of non-compliant children.
(9) “Gun-free zones.” Public school: “Hundreds of weak, undefended targets here.”
(10) Benjamin Franklin. Little formal schooling; a printer’s apprentice at twelve.
(11) Jane Austen. Little formal schooling; read books and wrote stories at home.
(12) Alexander Pope. Little formal schooling; major poet and literary critic at twenty-three.
(13) John Keats. Medical apprentice (and orphaned) at fourteen, professional surgeon’s assistant at twenty, licensed apothecary at twenty-one, greatest English poet of his era at twenty-three (dead at twenty-five).
(14) Under compulsory schooling, only two entries in Keats’ biography (item 13) would have been possible — “orphaned” and “dead at twenty-five.” Think about that.
(15) School environment designed to make life easier for teachers, not better for children.
(16) Public school teacher certification requires “successful” indoctrination in government-approved pedagogy. (See items 1 and 2)
(17) Public school teachers belong to powerful unions with radical leftist leadership and agendas.
(18) Rare talented, earnest teachers are completely hamstrung by government/union social and academic goals.
(19) “Barack Hussein Obama, mm, mm, mm.”
(20) Obama Youth singing “Yes We Can.”
(21) Bullying. Anti-rational mass children’s education fosters coercion, mob intimidation.
(22) Anti-bullying programs. Government creates Lord of the Flies; proposes to correct it by creating Nineteen Eighty-Four.
(23) Government classroom encourages mindless obedience and uniformity (”Because I say so!”) — training children in subservience to irrational, generic authority.
(24) Emphasis on group activities and forced sharing discourages individual initiative and respect for others’ property and achievement. “You didn’t build that.”
(25) Socialization: a progressive catchword which means learning how to mold oneself to the shape of any presiding majority, i.e., conformity.
(26) Fear: the constant emotional undercurrent for “different,” “quiet,” or “unpopular” children thrust into the midst of hundreds of their “peers” and told to “get along.”
(27) Power lust: one of the two common means of reducing the fear of being trapped among an irrational collective. (See items 23-26.)
(28) Bootlicking, currying favor: the other common means of reducing fear.
(29) Homeschooling.
(30) Thomas Jefferson. Studying multiple languages and the natural world at nine years old under a Presbyterian minister.
(31) David Hume. Entered University of Edinburgh at twelve. Completed the most important philosophic treatise of the Scottish Enlightenment at twenty-six.
(32) “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” — Albert Einstein
(33) “In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.” — Mark Twain
(34) “Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.” — Benjamin Disraeli
(35) “Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men’s natural abilities as to restrain them.” — Baruch Spinoza
(36) “Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they’re not tempted to think about any other role.” — William T. Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889 (See item 3)
(37) “Peer pressure.” The moral intimidation of a child whose character is not yet firmly established, by an ever-present group with the power to condemn with ostracism.
(38) 12,000 hours (counting only mandatory class time) of wasted opportunities for family guidance and conversation, practical skills development, remunerative employment, apprenticeships, reading, exploration of nature, and musical training.
(39) Unrelenting boredom. Stifles natural curiosity — “the devil’s playground.”
(40) “The children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone would be interdependent.” — Dewey
(41) Nationalized standards, e.g. America’s new Common Core. Imposing universal, increasingly idiosyncratic standards is intended to render alternative education practically impossible.
(42) History curriculum designed by post-Marxist revisionists.
(43) The entitlement mentality.
(44) Natural attachment to the “provider.” Abstract state replaces concrete parents as the object of future obligation and duty.
(45) “Gender role” and “alternative lifestyle” lessons. (See item 7)
(46) Unceasing Marxist critique of Western civilization: sexism, systemic oppression, capitalism is racist, the rich get richer, etc.
(47) Public education requires lowest common denominator approach. Stifles natural intelligence.
(48) Discouraging female modesty.
(49) Discouraging male admiration for female modesty. (See item 7)
(50) Ayn Rand’s essay on education, “The Comprachicos.” (I first read it while hiding out in my high school library, probably cutting class. It is the one Rand essay I’ve recalled frequently as an adult.)
(51) The downward ratchet of expectations and achievement. (See item 47) Most teachers are products of the public system at earlier stages. The results:
(52) English teachers who never cared for poetry beyond Bob Dylan.
(53) History teachers who teach Oliver Stone or Howard Zinn, but have never read Tacitus or Gibbon.
(54) Music teachers whose idea of broadening their students’ horizons is the “Mission Impossible” theme or “Imagine.”
(55) Teachers too ignorant and incompetent to discern or meet the interests or character of their students. My 10th grade English class, which by chance was comprised of only boys, was forced to read the clammy pop-psychological novel Ordinary People. One day, when we were being particularly ornery about it, our teacher finally stormed out on us, after screaming furiously, “This is one of the greatest novels of the 20th century!” Even then, I could only wonder whether she knew any others.
(56) “All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.” — Sir Walter Scott
(57) Man-made global warming indoctrination. Anyone who works with government-educated children in any developed nation on Earth encounters this intractable faith.
(58) Typical age of entrance at Scottish universities during the 18th century (i.e., the Scottish Enlightenment): fourteen. Hume, Francis Hutcheson, and Adam Smith all attended at fourteen or younger. (Scotland’s beloved national poet, Robert Burns, never attended university, and was mostly home-educated.)
(59) The U.S. federal Department of Education’s budget for primary and secondary education alone was over $40 billion in 2012 — more than the entire national budget of Singapore. Results? See the other ninety-nine items on this list. Tax expenditure on education rises continuously; civilization nosedives continuously.
(60) Thomas Edison. Judged addle-minded by his teacher; withdrawn from school and educated by his mother; began a nomadic life of entrepreneurial endeavors and scientific experiments at twelve. Today, he would be on Ritalin at six, urged to make friends by his mother, and likely bored out of his skull and a failing student throughout his teens.
(61) “Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.” — Beatrix Potter
(62) How can coercion to surrender your child to a state-controlled school regimen until young adulthood be squared with a belief in individual liberty?
(63) “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” — Vladimir Lenin
(64) John Taylor Gatto’s Underground History of American Education.
(65) Imagine twelve years of being forcibly prevented from doing anything of any practical importance.
(65) Artificially prolongs childhood, stunting character development. (See item 3)
(67) Thinking is by definition a private enterprise. Great thinking is often likened to being alone on a mountaintop. Public education seeks to prevent children from ever really being alone, or climbing.
(68) “In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands.” — Occasional Letter Number One, General Education Board, 1906. (See item 3)
(69) “From my cold, dead hands.” As I have said before, if you stand proudly against state confiscation of your firearms, how can you not feel at least as strongly about state confiscation of your children?
(70) Public schools are deliberately calibrated to limit spiritual achievement, by waiting out (i.e., wasting) the natural period of boundless energy and enthusiasm that drove men to self-development in the pre-public school era.
(71) Feminism.
(72) Political correctness.
(73) “Fairness.”
(74) “Diversity.”
(75) “Creativity.”
(76) “Individuality.”
(77) “Truth is relative.”
(78) Banning Christmas.
(79) The moral ratchet: Yesterday’s vice, today’s “experiment,” tomorrow’s “basic right.”
(80) Drugs. America has its first proud drug-user president — there is no turning back within the public system.
(81) Textbook publishing oligopoly. Crony capitalism makes government curriculum decisions a racket, in addition to being a joke.
(82) “High quality, public education is a human right.” — NEA website. “The child is entitled to receive education, which shall be free and compulsory.” — UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959. (A compulsory “right”?) Doesn’t this make private or home schooling a rights violation?
(83) A monopolistic pyramid disperses corruption at the top throughout the affected community. And monopoly breeds corruption.
(84) Parents are now increasingly relegated to the roles of funding machines and support workers for state child-rearing.
(85) The push for public pre-schools. The trajectory: universal, compulsory government raising of children from the beginning of language use to the completion of character formation and thought process habituation.
(86) “The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.” — Karl Marx
(87) Answer to “learning social skills” argument: family, church, neighbors, hobby or study groups.
(88) Answer to “learning about real life” argument: public school is the antithesis of real life.
(89) If “real life” looks increasingly like public school, that’s because universal public education has formed a society in its image: infantile, amoral, collectivist, driven by fear, power lust, and pandering.
(90) Education requires a desire for knowledge; desire requires a sense of need; concrete circumstances give rise to need. Compulsory schooling withdraws a child from such concrete circumstances; everything is abstract and impractical. No need; no desire; no education.
(91) “The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.” — H.L. Mencken
(92) Genuine education breeds self-reliance; public school breeds dependency.
(93) “Every educated person is a future enemy.” — Martin Bormann, Hitler’s personal secretary
(94) Compulsory government schooling is the exception, historically speaking. It has not always existed. It need not exist.
(95) Public education did not make modern prosperity possible — exactly the opposite, in fact. As Tocqueville warned, modern prosperity weakened men’s resistance to the siren song of “soft despotism.”
(96) Private schools, religious and secular, exist.
(97) “I can undo the school’s damage at home.” If the government mandated that your child be force-fed rotting “state food” for each meal, would you say, “No problem — I can feed him healthy food on weekends”? Then how do you justify allowing the state to force-feed its spiritual rot to your child’s mind?
(98) “I can undo the school’s damage at home.” All of it? Are you completely certain? Children indoctrinated under totalitarian regimes go home after class, too. Their parents probably tell themselves the same thing — but they, unlike you, have no choice.
(99) A better car or your child? A bigger home or your child? Early retirement or your child? Freedom to do as you please or the child you freely chose to bring into the world?
(100) Every child who attends a public school will be less than he might have been, and the deficit — in reasoning, knowledge, character, sensibility, motivation — can never be fully overcome. (And yes, I include myself among the victims.) This monumental waste of valuable time and invaluable emotional energy is irreversible. Can you live with that?

Again, Public Education is CHILD ABUSE!!!!

TAKE YOUR PRECIOUS CHILDEREN OUT OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

Imagine that the Lord gave you a precious son and at 5 years old you made the decision to send him off to a public “school” where he will spend the next 13 years of his life. In this school they are taught lots of things.

• They teach him that man came from apes and that life has no real meaning.
• They teach him that the mention of God was illegal.
• They teach him that there are many types of families and that they were all healthy.
• They teach him that he was to accept all types of behaviors as normal.
• They teach him not to judge other’s because there is no such thing as right and wrong.
• They teach him that every type of behavior was normal but some needed “protection.”

What if they told you your precious son was going to be included in a classroom with 20 other students, collected from around your community. Your son would spend 7 hours a day hanging out with these children yet:

• You knew very little about any of the other children.
• You didn’t know what kind of home life they came from.
• You didn’t know if any of them were on any types of “medication.”
• You knew nothing about the “behavior issues” some were dealing with.
• You knew nothing about what they did in their spare time.
• You knew nothing about their moral compass.
While they were at the school you felt confident leaving them with the “teachers” even though:
• You knew very little about the teachers’ personal beliefs.
• You knew very little about the teachers’ personal lifestyle.
• You knew very little about the personal stress the teacher was under.
• You knew very little about what was actually being taught.
• You knew very little about the condition of “others” in the teachers’ life.
• You knew very little about what the teacher viewed in his/her private time.
Imagine that:
• Everyone in town knew where there were a bunch of little kids.
• No weapons were on sight to protect them from an intruder and everyone knew it.
• You forfeited your parental rights when the child walked into the school door.
• Educational “experts” were permitted to do psychological studies on your child.
• Non-medical experts were permitted to recommend “medication” to control behavior.
• A child’s expression of religious beliefs was discouraged, and deviancy was accepted.

I thought of many things when I heard the news.
I thought of the thousands of pre-born children who died daily in this land.
I thought of the millions of born-children who daily were spiritually dying from the secular-poison being fed to them.
I thought of the heartbreak of millions of parents weeping over “lost” teenagers and wondering what had happened to them.
I thought of the billions of dollars being poured down the secular rat-hole teaching a philosophy to children that was totally based on lies.
I thought of the thousands of pastors who will spend Sunday morning encouraging their flock to “pray for the schools” instead of blowing a trumpet of retreat from the secular hell where they teach doctrines of demons to God’s precious little souls.

I thought of the parents who used the schools as a babysitting service while they chased after the American dream with a life full of more “stuff.”
I thought about my granddaughter. I thought about my Lord. I thought about our Spiritual blindness.
I thought of the grief of those parents in Connecticut. I wonder if they knew yesterday what they knew today if they would send them back through those doors.
You know. We all know. It is time we faced it.

“To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” -Teddy Roosevelt.

Guns don’t kill people. Amoral-education does.

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