RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/banned-books-bunkum/

Mercifully, Banned Books Week, celebrated Sept. 18-24 this year, is over, and we can take a deep breath for the next 51 or so weeks till it once again rears its ugly, hysterical, manipulative, leftwing head.

Whatever righteousness this week may have once held, it has been taken over by progressive sex obsessives and groomers who are trying to legitimize the field once known quaintly as “obscenity.”

Started in 1982, Banned Books Week is proudly promoted by the American Library Association, whose incoming president, Emily Drabinski, is euphoric at the prospect of leading the organization. In a tweet, she gushed, “I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity!”

In a similar pathetic vein, she added on LinkedIn that she’s proud “to have the support of Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers for our campaign for president of the American Library Association. Solidarity!”

Then there is PEN America, an organization that purports to stand at the “intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.” Like ALA, the organization has a far-left agenda, and has no problem with the fact that porn can wind up in the hands of a six-year-old.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-college-boards-racial-pandering-education-k-12-schooling-ap-courses-exams-testing-high-schools-math-reading-propaganda-11664309793?mod=opinion_featst_pos2

Ever wonder why Democrats push so hard to expand the mission of K-12 public education even while the system continues to underperform in its core tasks?

Even before the pandemic, a majority of fourth- and eighth-graders were unable to read or do math at grade level, and outcomes are even worse for minority students. New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks said last year that 65% of his black and Hispanic students never reach proficiency on standardized tests and then quipped, “If everybody in the Department of Education went home and all the kids went to school, you could get those same results.”

Nevertheless, Democrats from President Biden on down advocate for “universal” prekindergarten programs, even though studies have shown little to no evidence that they improve test scores. Progressives also want explicit sex education in earlier grades and have fought successfully to introduce racial propaganda into curricula via the controversial New York Times Magazine “1619 Project.”

The latest evidence that reading, writing and arithmetic are secondary concerns comes by way of the College Board, the nonprofit organization that runs the Advanced Placement program. AP courses are offered to nearly three million students in more than 22,000 high schools across the country. Students who complete the courses take a final exam, graded on a 5-point scale, and those who score a 3 or higher can be eligible for college credit.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/poll-majority-of-americans-disapprove-of-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions/

With the Supreme Court scheduled to hear oral arguments in a pair of landmark affirmative-action cases this fall, a majority of Americans say they disapprove of racial preferences and still favor a meritocratic system in college admissions.

An 85 Fund poll conducted by CRC Research found that 59 percent of respondents disapprove of colleges and universities considering a prospective student’s race or ethnicity when making admissions decisions. Only 29 percent approve, and 12 percent are unsure. Respondents were selected randomly from opt-in panel participants for the September 14–18 polling.

Most Americans, 58 percent, still want colleges and universities to judge applications based on credentials, test scores, and other qualifications rather than racial identification, even if it means that fewer minority students are represented in the student body.

One of the affirmative-action cases on the Supreme Court docket, Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, involves a complaint against Harvard for its alleged discrimination against Asian candidates, who typically submit statistically very high test scores and academic records. The plaintiffs have asked the justices to ban the consideration of race in college admissions, arguing that it disadvantages Asian applicants and violates federal law. Recently confirmed justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself from the case due to her past role on the school’s board of overseers.

Asked to speak to the Harvard situation specifically, 72 percent of conservatives, 58 percent of moderates, and 47 percent of liberals oppose the school’s consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions, the poll shows. Harvard acknowledged in its brief that if it “abandoned consideration of race as one among many factors, representation of African-American and Hispanic students would significantly decline.” It also said that the “lower courts found Harvard uses race . . . only ‘as a plus factor in the context of individualized consideration of each and every applicant,’” seemingly conceding that race can elevate an application of certain individuals but not others.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/25/nowhere-mann/

In a recent New York Times column, “School Is for Everyone,” Anya Kamenetz lavished praise on 19th-century education reformer Horace Mann, who saw public schools as a “crucible of democracy.” His goal was to have the state take over schools and increase taxes to pay for it all.

Mann and his acolytes insisted that shifting the reins of educational power from private to public hands would “yield better teaching methods and materials, greater efficiency, superior service to the poor, and a stronger, more cohesive nation.” He even ventured to predict that if public schooling were widely adopted and given enough time to work, “nine-tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete,” and “the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged.”

On the macro level, Mann was dead wrong. Our nation, with its massive education bureaucracy, is more divided than ever, crime is skyrocketing, and we have more “human ills” than we can handle.

On the micro level, he also misses the boat. In a rebuttal to Kamenetz, former National Review writer Kevin Williamson asks why “some abstract egalitarian ideal should be given predominance over the real-world interests of actual children and young adults whose lives would be improved—not in every case, but in many cases—by access to different kinds of education better suited to their own needs and interests.”

Williamson gets to the heart of the matter. What is the primary purpose of a school? To make good citizens? To teach children how to earn a living eventually? To foster creativity?

The correct answer is that parents should be able to send their kid to a school that shares their own vision and values. The government’s vision—with bureaucrats and teacher union honchos running the show—may be very different than theirs.

In fact, Mann’s vision, nearly 200 years old now, has been fully exposed. Due to the extended COVID-related lockdowns, parents are fleeing the government education plantation in unprecedented numbers for private schools, microschools, homeschools, etc. But Kamenetz bemoans this development, claiming:

This country has seemingly never had a harder time embracing a shared reality or believing in common values. The parents who are showing up at school boards yelling about ‘critical race theory’ and pronouns are trying to get public schools to bend history, reality and values to their liking. I disagree with them vehemently, but I also want them to stay in the argument. It would be far worse if these parents went home and created their own schools. Because their children would then grow up with one set of unchallenged beliefs, while my children and the children of like-minded people would grow up with another—emerging as adults who have no hope of understanding one another, much less living together peacefully.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/24/government-schools-are-teaching-hate-causing-violence/

Government-run, union-controlled schools are increasingly teaching children to loathe their country and fellow citizens. This systematic indoctrination campaign stayed under the radar until forced at-home learning during the COVID-19 lockdowns exposed the curricula to parents throughout the country.

Children normally welcome with enthusiasm the friendship of any child willing to share a toy, a doll, or a game. They naturally build friendships through common interests and activities. In the current educational environment, however, teachers direct children to dwell on superficial differences instead of enjoying similar interests.

Government-run schools also teach children to hate their country and reject their own bodies, as well as the parents who brought them into the world.

Meanwhile, schools are neglecting essential subjects such as math, language and literacy skills, and science. Positive civic education, which recognizes America’s dedication to individual rights and blind justice despite our failings, is also absent. Such malfeasances leave children ill-prepared for gainful work as adults and thereby rob them of independence and the opportunity to better their lot.

The influence of teachers and the power of the education establishment can easily overwhelm parental authority, especially if the educators have that explicit aim, as is now increasingly the case. Generally, children are with their teachers six or more hours per day, and spend far less time with their parents during waking hours. Children are helpless to defend themselves against the skilled manipulation of these professional propagandists, and parents cannot push back the tide.

These divisions promoted by the education culture are sending America’s youth down a dark path toward destruction. Although much of the media bury these stories faster than the victims can be laid to rest, America is suffering a fast-increasing outbreak of senseless criminal violence.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/09/why-are-schools-asking-children-about-their-sexual-histories/?itm_campaign=headline

School surveys have become another means of indoctrination. Parents are right to push back.

In June, Missouri attorney general Eric Schmitt launched an investigation into the Webster Grove School District after parents complained about surveys in which schools collected personal information from their children. As school surveys asking children intrusive questions about their sexual behaviors, political beliefs, mental health, and family lives become increasingly common, so too has pushback from parents.

Parents Defending Education is a national grassroots organization “working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas.” This mission starts with raising awareness. On its website, the group links to a number of these surveys aimed at school-aged children.

Consider the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, which in 2021 sent out an “Integrated Youth Health Survey” to middle schoolers. Questions included: “Have you ever seriously thought about killing yourself?” and “Have you ever done something to purposely hurt yourself without wanting to die, such as cutting or burning yourself on purpose?” The 12- and 13-year-olds were also asked whether they’d had sexual intercourse or oral sex, and, if so, whether they’d used a condom the last time they had sex.

Another 2021 survey, this one sent to Rhode Island middle schoolers, states that “a person’s appearance, style, dress, or the way they walk may affect how people describe them. How do you think other people at school would describe you?” The responses offered for students to choose from include “very feminine,” “very masculine,” and “equally feminine and masculine.” The survey also asks children if they have ever “made a plan” to kill themselves.

California’s “healthy kids survey,” given to high schoolers, states: “Some people describe themselves as transgender when how they think or feel about their gender is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. Are you transgender?” Students are also asked whether they identify as “straight (not gay),” “lesbian or gay,” “bisexual,” or “something else.”