It would make you blush. It is “pure pornography” according to a parent in Washington State, yet it is written for 14-18 year olds and is available at your local library.
The book, a graphic novel located in the biography section, appeals to teenagers. The explicit drawings are pornographic filth, including erotic pictures of sex and masturbation.
Thankfully, the book has been a topic of controversy across the United States and has been removed from some public school libraries. But it remains on the shelves within the public libraries of Oklahoma County.
If my 14 year old son were browsing the shelves of Belle Isle Library to find a biography for a school project, he could easily find Gender Queer, check it out, and take it home. The fact that this obscene book is marketed to minors is despicable.
Our libraries, where children have browsed books safely for decades, have caved to a disturbing trend in our woke culture, sexualizing our youth.
Call Larry White, the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Library System. Call legislators, spread the word. It is time to stand up for our children. We do not want our local libraries to market sexually explicit material like Gender Queer: A Memoir to our youth. It’s called pedophilia, and it’s wrong.
This book containing this picture of a bearded man having sex with a child is available to minors at your local Oklahoma County library. More pornography available at your local library!
I was sent this screenshot from a fellow conservative activist who received it from a friend whose child is enrolled in Elk City Public Schools.
Beyond being COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE on its face, moreover, its’ hopefully a wake-up call FOR PARENTS about how many ways schools are contacting your children without YOU as the parent knowing about it.
First, let’s tackle the Genders and Sexualities Alliance (GSA).
The following can be found on their “Mission” page:
Our overall strategy for fighting for educational justice is to work with grassroots, youth-led groups and GSAs, empowering them to educate their schools and communities, advocate for just policies that protect LGBTQ youth from harassment and violence, and organize in coalition with other youth groups across identity lines to address broader issues of oppression.
All of our work with students focuses on leadership development and activism that prioritizes building alliances not only across sexual orientation and gender identity lines, but also across race, ethnicity, and class lines, and our resources and trainings are designed to facilitate coalition building.
Genders and Sexualities Alliance (GSA)
They also take an active role in “training youth leaders“, which includes recruitment for clubs. This page has numerous videos available prepared to do just that. In fact, GSA also has significant resources for use inside and outside of public schools, which include curricula and ‘took kits’.
This page is devoted to Civic Engagement and includes ideas such as:
Engaging in collective practices with a group is shown to increase resilience! This can be as simple as working on art or creative projects together, making music, dancing, or singing together, or trying out collective breathing or meditation. Our Virtual GSAs Resource Page and Queer and Trans Wellness Resource Page has many different activities you can try out!
What’s Wrong Here
1. This survey came as a Google Document, apparently via email: Google Documents are easily hacked so, despite what the email says, personal information can be collected and shared. Unfortunately, just because something says one thing, that doesn’t mean it’s done the way it was promised.
2. The survey was given to Elk City high school students by a counselor, bypassing parents. In many blogs, I’ve called attention to the American School Counselor Association and its link to SEL, which very much plays into the idea that equity includes LGBTQ students. From CASEL (Collaborative for Social Emotional Learning).
We imagine communities in which all young people—across race, ethnicity, family income levels, learning abilities, home language, immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other factors—have the skills, relationships, and environments to thrive.
NOTHING AT SCHOOL SHOULD GO TO AN UNDERAGED STUDENT INDEPENDENT OF PARENTS
4. Schools have several pipelines through which LGBTQ resources are perpetuated inside the district and the classroom even beyond the School Counselor: A. The CDC offers a great deal of information regarding LGBTQ youth the use of which schools justify because it’s CDC-provided. B. “Safe and Supportive Schools” – a concept developed at the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. to stop bullying, also provides resources and information to schools – perpetuating the LBGTQ lifestyle. The CDC actively promotes the GSA as a resource for ‘advancing safe schools‘.
5. The GSA isn’t the only LGBTQ resource to ‘recruit’ students and incite activation in LGBTQ issues. GSLEN is another organization that has made its way onto school campuses. Over a decade ago now, ROPE found something called “The Day of Silence” in which students pledged to spend the day in silence in solidarity to LGBTQ issues and – before they stopped publishing the list of schools participating – we found many Oklahoma schools were taking part.
GSLEN is an excellent example of how something is made to look ‘supportive’ of students, but has a backstory full of sexually disgusting depravity.
The founder of GLSEN is Ken Jennings – Obama’s Safe School Czar. The link over his name will take you to a Mass Resistance page which has documented information about this man, including The Fistgate Conference attended by students as young as 12.
6. Much has come to light following the Louden County VA rape case in which a ‘transgendered’ boy raped a girl in the girl’s bathroom and the Superintendent covered it up. Continuing to allow LGBT activism can – and will – only result in further such cases – especially when many schools simply refuse to discipline students anymore.
7. Anti transgender activist Walt Heyer, has made a career of warning parents about the evils of transgenderism since receiving treatment as a transgendered woman that allowed him to return to life as a man. In a Federalist article from this year, Heyer warns parents about the 5 steps used by transgender activists to GROOM children about which he says:
Children are attracted (and groomed) through the influence of their peers, social media, and teachers.
It’s easy to see why a child who hits a rough period emotionally, or feels socially awkward or isolated, would be drawn to identifying as transgender as a means to acceptance and attention.
These school clubs allow LGBTQ ideology to create an ‘affirming’ space where children who need affirmation or want attention, find a place they are welcomed. In fact, one mother of two transgender children explains it this way:
You get love-bombed online, you get love-bombed on at school, your social status goes up by at least 10 ranks. As soon as you say you’re trans, you turn into a star. And kids are thirsty for that kind of affirmation.
PARENTS: THIS HAS TO STOP, but the only way to stop it is to know exactly what’s going on with your child at every point possible. Here are some ideas for ways to help you correct this issue in your school.
1: Find a group of parents who are interested in the issue and are willing to come together to remove LGBTQ clubs and resources from your school. Working as a united front will help your school administration see you as a force with which to be reckoned.
2: Confront your school board and continue to confront your school board about the issue until they act. If you are able to create a group, make sure that each of your members says something about the issue at each board meeting. Eventually the Board will tire of hearing about it if they are not sensitive to your initial concerns.
3: Create a social media account and post articles about the fallout the LGBTQ lifestyle causes in children. Post videos from GSA and GLESN that show how they organize and activate students to to get attention from parents.
4. Write opinion pieces in the local paper (if they’ll take them) drawing attention to the issue as a way to create awareness in the community about what is going on in the schools their taxes support. Remember – angry taxpayers can be great allies!
5. DON’T GET FRUSTRATED AND QUIT! I often tell exasperated parents who have tried for an entire school year to make something happen that wouldn’t, that it took us four solid years of work here in Oklahoma to repeal Common Core from state law. Taking back school districts that have been allowed to flourish into parent-destroying, authoritarian-loving black holes on their own with minimal parent participation aren’t going to turn around in 15 minutes. But that’s okay. The victory will be even sweeter once it comes!
In a post made to the Edmond Public Schools website, Superintendent Dr. Grunewald addressed what she characterized as “negative and sometimes false comments” made by parents at the 11.1.21 Board Meeting. On the playground we used to say, “It takes one to know one.” Dr. Grunewald’s response to parents in this missive is either deliberately false, or – worse – uninformed by reality. Here’s how we know.
I have known Molly Jenkins – like every other ROPE Board Member – for 8-10 years. She’s tough and smart and like the rest of us, VERY concerned about what is happening to our children in public education.
In the Spring of 2021, she was very troubled by an assignment that was brought to the attention of the EPS Board at a regular Board meeting by a parent who was alerted to the assignment by their child who was completing work online due to COVID.
The class was reading The Absolutely True Diary of A Part Time Indian, a book about a native American boy who lives on a reservation, has troubles in school, reads books and draws cartoons.
Unfortunately, what might be a really interesting book, centers a great deal on the differences between Native Americans and white people from his perspective. Another book in a long litany of books for young adults that introduce race (or sexuality) as a way of indoctrinating readers into certain worldviews.
In May, after the passage of HB1775 preventing the teaching of Critical Race Theory ideals, Molly – still concerned about the “white vs indian” assignment she’d seen – drove to the EPS Administration building and asked for a meeting with Superintendent Grunewald.
She wanted to speak with the Superintendent personally to make certain they were going to follow HB1775 after seeing what she felt to be a completely inappropriate narrative. An appointment was made and on the day she returned for the meeting with Dr. Grunewald, she was interested to find 10-12 copies of a book sitting on a table in her office with the word ‘equity’ in the title.
“That looks like an interesting book,” she remarked to the Superintendent who then suggested she take a copy to read.
During the meeting, Molly shared her CRT concerns with Dr. Grunewald who assured her they were not teaching CRT tenets in Edmond Public Schools. So, with little further to say after that ‘assurance’, Molly headed home to read the book she was given.
Once home, it took her just about four hours to read the book from cover to cover, she found it so unnerving. On nearly every page she made notes to herself about what she was reading and how it directly connected to the ideals which derive from CRT – the ones specifically outlawed by HB1775.
After reading the book, she immediately contacted EPS Administration to make a further appointment with Dr. Grunewald, which was granted.
At that meeting, she explained to the Superintendent what she had found in the book and that she found CRT tenets on nearly every page.
She asked Dr. Grunewald if she had read the book in its entirety and was told NO, BUT SHE HAD SCANNED IT.
Molly asked the Superintendent who she was giving the book to read – since there had been numerous copies on the table. Dr. Grunewald would NOT give her a clear answer, saying only, “some people around here”. She felt that the Superintendent was very dismissive with her – almost a “you do you we’ll do us” kind of attitude.
Look at the first bullet point. Now, look at this:
What Dr. Grunewald said was simply a talking point described by leftist educators to defend against the use of CRT in schools. In literally means nothing. It’s a deflection for parents who have done their homework and know better.
Bullet point 2 – no one has said it was a standard. Another deflection.
Bullet point 3 – this point references the book we’ll discuss in the next frame – “Belonging Through A Culture of Dignity”.
Bullet point 4 – SEL=CRT. Guest poster Emily Wright (EPS mom of 3) made that abundantly clear in her blog of this week. You can find that here. SEL is Social Emotional Learning, another education fad created by a bunch of leftist teachers in order to indoctrinate children. If you don’t believe me, read this page. Talk about mumbo-jumbo, word salad – not to mention that children’s EMOTIONS are strictly the territory of PARENTS, not schools.
In this portion of her response, Dr. Grunewald claims she’s read the book “Belonging Through a Culture of Dignity”. Here’s what WalMart said about the book when I went searching for it.
“Once these fundamental human needs are understood, educators can gain clarity of the barriers to meaningful student relationships, especially across dimensions of difference such as race, class and culture…Through their work, the authors aim to equip educators with the tools necessary to deliver the promise of DEMOCRACY through schools by breaking the cycle of equity dysfunction once and for all.”
Belonging Through a Culture of Dignity: The Keys to Successful Equity Implementation Kindle Edition by Floyd Cobb (Author), John Krownapple (Author), Brenda CampbellJones (Foreword)
FULL STOP. There is so much wrong with those sentences it’s hard to breakdown in a blog, but let me do it by asking some questions:
How did public schools create students OF EVERY COLOR and sex smart enough to put a man on the moon without this tripe?
Has anyone looked to see what the National Assessment of Academic Progress scores of Oklahoma students are in Math, Science and Reading? (I have – they’re dismal and have been for a decade) Have schools been teaching, or modifying behaviors?
If you specifically hone in on race, class and culture do you make disparities clearer to children or less clear?
Since when are schools a DEMOCRACY?
Who says there is a “cycle of equity dysfunction” except for the people like Dr. Becky Bailey who stand to make a KILLING on all the stuff she sells to promote ‘dignity’ through SEL programming? Is this about money or the welfare of kids?
Molly read the entire book. Here are some of the most horrifying nuggets from the book:
Pg 42: “Schools routinely offer our students on the margins (e.g., impoverished and minoritized) inferior academic experience to students of affluence and cultural dominance. – Nor did it require educators to prioritize a sense of belonging for students racialized as Black (or otherwise) who were displaced and had to leave the safety and belonging of home schools and move into often unwelcoming school cultures that were exclusively White. Thus a “belonging gap” emerged within racially integrated schools. (Hilariously, ‘bussing’ was created by liberals believing that black students couldn’t possibly get a good education in black schools – a racist notion in and of itself – so they moved them from their homes into white areas to get equal access to education excellence. Yet another one of the ‘liberals screw it up and screw it up worse trying to fix their original screw up’ because they simply have to find fault with something all the time.)
Pg 62: The whole page is filled with racist nonsense, but here are a few examples: “To redress inequity and create a socially just system of education, ensuring access is not enough For educational equity, access and belonging are both vital”. “Historically marginalized identity groups are most vulnerable to the stereotype threat and belonging uncertainty when aspiring to achieve in the dominant culture.”
pg 76: “Perhaps the concept of race (being White, more specifically) is the most prominent example of social exclusion and belonging in US history.”
pg 77: “Whiteness, as Joe Feagin (2013) argues, is more definitely characterized as the absolute right to exclude and, ultimately the entitlement to determine who belongs.” “Entitlement has determined, among other things, where groups of people can live or work, whether or not they have basic rights (e.g., voting, health care), and what type of social activities and relationships they can have with whom (e.g. marriage). In 2018 and 2019, the hashtag #LivingWhileBlack went viral on social media, documenting racial exclusivity Droves of videos show White Americans calling the police on everyday people – Black, Latinx, Muslim, Americans – going about their lives (without markers of Whiteness in places where they are perceived not to belong: Starbucks, swimming pools, golf courses, fitness centers, sidewalks, parks, picnic tables, libraries, college campus tours, and more. To this day, the markers of race often determine the extent to which people feel they belong in any given environment.”
Look up HB1775 and then compare that to these book excerpts. Everything here DEFIES letters a, b, f, g and h of that bill, causing the book – and Dr. Grunewald by pushing it – to violate HB1775.
Now let’s look at her next statement:
Once again, we find that Grunewald has little to say but echoing the talking points of others in the public education cabal.
And now, how about the concept that we must ‘heal the child before we can educate the child’? That’s a concept that’s been pushed since John Dewey wanted to take control of society by getting between parent and child since parent wouldn’t necessarily bring the child up to be a democratic socialist the way he envisioned children should be brought up. (Read more about Dewey in “John Dewey & the Decline of American Education: How The Patron Saint of Schools Has Corrupted Teaching & Learning” – It was VERY enlightening about why public education is the way it is.)
Now look at her last bullet point.
So they’ve increased the number of counselors. Why? Because the state Department of Education gave schools money to hire counselors – $35 million dollars in ESSR funds to be exact – because, well, COVID. Schools pay half – the state pays half – everyone’s happy. Except that the “School Counselor Corps” as they are being called, apparently come mainly from the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) – an organization that says:
School counselors work toward cultural competence and engage in anti-racist actions by advocating to change racist policies, procedures, practices, guidelines and laws contributing to inequities in students’ academic, career and social/emotional development
American School Counselors Association
You can see more about the ASCA here. The ASCA also pushes SEL, driving more CRT tenets into children through counseling and data-collection surveys (from the company owned by the husband of the daughter of Merrick Garland, the federal Attorney General who told the FBI to investigate parents at school board meetings – oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.)
So, yet again, Superintendent Grunewald seems to literally be falsifying information or have no idea what she’s reading, what she’s saying or what goes on in her own schools.
Clearly EPS is saturated with SEL and clearly, SEL is the pipeline for CRT pushed by counseling services and Dr. Grunewald herself through “Belonging Through a Culture of Dignity”.
In closing, Dr. Grunewald is doing little more than many Superintendents do anymore when confronted by parents who actually care – they are either outright lying, or are too soaked in their own indoctrination to understand what they’re doing to our kids.
This is another excellent reason why SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS ARE PARAMOUNT. School boards can literally get rid of these kinds of Superintendents and hire ones that actually care about kids, not merely pushing what the education cabal wants pushed on kids.
GET INVOLVED IN SCHOOL BOARDS AND SCHOOL BOARD RACES IN YOUR DISTRICT TODAY!
History and Concept The classical model of homeschooling was used by many of the great thinkers of the past, such as Aristotle, Plato, C.S. Lewis, and Thomas Jefferson. One main differentiation between classical homeschooling and the other main styles is that it separates learning into three stages, collectively called the Trivium: grammar, logic (or dialectic), and rhetoric. Originally featured in Plato’s writings and used extensively in ancient Greece, these were only named the Trivium in the Middle Ages. Trivium means “the place where the roads meet” in Latin. The stepping stones are to teach children the mechanics of language and to use their own five senses (grammar), use complex thought and analysis (logic), and finally to instruct and persuade others with that gained wisdom (rhetoric).
Who might this work best for? Home educators who are “less concerned about whether students can handle iPads than if they can grasp Plato” might enjoy the classical education model. It emphasizes truth, goodness and beauty over rote memorization of facts and leads educators and their students to explore classically regarded books and resources. It also gives the learner a palpable feeling of continuity with other students through the ages. Classical education’s main goal is to cultivate a passion for lifelong learning, to seek sound logic over chaos, and to focus on depth of learning over breadth.
So, parents, please know; this is a trend that started years ago and is quickly getting progressively worse. There’s really no choice but to stop it NOW!
Those of you who have been followers know my story, but for those who don’t, suffice it to say that putting my kids into a nice public elementary in the nice neighborhood where I grew up as a kid, didn’t go the way I planned. You can read about some of our adventures here, here and here that led me to homeschooling three kids through high school with one still in high school left to go.
I didn’t begin parent life with the notion that I would be spending 24/7 with four kids, but that’s how life turned out and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Neither did I have any idea that I’d become an education researcher and activist, but putting my kids into public school sent me down that road, leading me to many, many days where I homeschooled with one hand while researching and writing a blog with the other. After seeing what I’d seen in our “Blue Ribbon” elementary in a nice, well-to-do neighborhood, I knew I HAD to wake up parents to either make their schools start educating their kids or get them to take them out!
Throughout our homeschool years, I’d take the kids to Half Price Books. They offer a 10% discount for homeschoolers/educators, plus, it’s always a great place to find any kind of reading material.
Unfortunately, my second-oldest daughter, Barbara, always seemed to pick out the most awful books every time we went – they had no compelling story line, there was nothing edifying or uplifting in them and they all seemed to be about vapid boy/girl relationships. I wouldn’t let her read them and we’d usually have some kind of argument, but my point always has been; why spend time reading something that doesn’t elevate you either mentally or spiritually, or teach you something you didn’t know?
She had been telling me she wanted to read some Judy Blume books – and I had heard they were fine – so one day while we were at Half Price Books, she pulled out several Judy Blume books to look through. One of them was a paperback called, “Forever“. It was used and without a cover for research so I skimmed several pages.
Unfortunately, I involuntarily screamed aloud (Barbara nearly died of embarrassment because people actually looked at us) when I reached a page with such sexually explicit detail that there was no way to refer to it but as pornographic!
Immediately I approached the young girl working close to us, held out the book and reported that it was NOT material for young teens. I then asked her to remove it from the Teen section. She shrugged affably, but seemingly uninterested so I thrust at her the page that had caused me to scream. Surprisingly, even this young, pierced and tattooed girl gasped and promised to immediately remove the book to the adult section where it would be away from young girls.
Not long after that incident really, I got an email from a member of our (previous board) telling me that one of her friends was really mad about the reading list in Edmond Public Schools, and asking if she could put her in touch with me.
After meeting with the mom, I wrote, “One Mad Momma Takes On Edmond School Board Over Sexually Explicit Books Assigned to Sophomores“, published in 2014. Today it has 9000 reads and 16 comments. I urge you to read them. It’s readily obvious someone read the blog and hit social media with a post about it claiming we were trying to “ban” books. Trust me when I say, leftists use the ‘straw man’ argument constantly and this was a perfect example. No one suggested the books should be banned, just not offered as class reading material to sophomores in high school, but that doesn’t matter. Leftists love to call names if for no other reason than it completely stops conversation on the topic. If someone is labeled a “BOOK CENSOR”, discussion stops in exactly the same way it does when you’re labeled a ‘racist’.
Interestingly, THIS blog only got 889 views and only 4 comments, one of which was mine in response to leftist education political organizer Claudia Swisher, who – of course – called the mother and I “book banners” and “disingenuous” for ‘cherry-picking’ passages – because explicitly detailing everything in a sex scene needs context, right? <<insert rolled eyes emoji>>
So as not to relive the entire post here, check out the blog for the x-rated ‘cherry picked’ passages that made me a “disingenuous book banner”.
Not long after that, I received an email from a friend, Macey France, in Oregon who had found Tony Morrison’s, “The Bluest Eye” on the Common Core reading list. A blogger herself, she quoted portions of the book – including the unbelievably explicit child rape scene – in her blog and then linked it to the CC reading list, earning her a virtual firestorm of name-calling and derision from the Left all across the internet.
With everything in my blogs echoing what Macey was saying about the Common Core reading list and “The Bluest Eye”, I decided to pitch an article to my longtime editor Joy Pullman at the Federalist about the smutty books kids were being fed in public school through the eyes of the parents that were objecting to them – in 2014!
That article was my first for the Federalist, has been read thousands of times and is still – sadly – very timely today. I urge you to stop and read the whole piece because it explains very well WHY sexually explicit literature is not appropriate for K-12 students. There are reasons other than, “I just don’t want my kid reading that”.
But, I digress a bit. This is the article I wrote on our old website back in 2011 archived through the Way Back Machine (btw – support them so we don’t end up like 1984!) I recounted the story about Barbara, but here’s the IMPORTANT part. My Co-Founder, Julie McKenzie had gone out to the Norman High School Library website and pulled down the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA – which appears not to be a serviceable organization any longer) 2009 Best Books For Young Adults, copied the books and their descriptions and pasted them in the document. You can see all of them at the link, but let’s pull out a few here:
Geerling, Marjetta. Fancy White Trash. Penguin/Viking. 2008. 978-0-670-01082-0 $16.9 Abby Savage is determined not to be like her mother and sisters-each became pregnant as teens-but her only confidant is Cody who has his own sexual issues.
Harmon, Michael. The Last Exit to Normal. Alfred A.Knopf. 2008. 978-0-375-94098-9 $18.99 To get him on the right track, Ben Campbell’s dad and stepdad accompany him to Montana, where he encounters small town life, homophobia, an abused boy, and a special girl.
Scott, Elizabeth. Living Dead Girl. Simon and Schuster/Simon Pulse. 2008. 978-1-4169-6059-1 $16.99 Abducted at the age of ten, Alice has lived as a live-in rape victim for Ray for 5 years until he informs her that she’s “too old” for his love.
Okay, that’s enough, you get the idea. Sincerely? How many of you want your kids reading ANY of those? This was 2010!
WHERE HAVE PARENTS BEEN?
You think The Glass Castles is bad, try the new and improved Sequoyah Reading List for 2022, which you can conveniently find through the Oklahoma Library Association portal (with the convenient URL of OKLIBS).
We’ll tackle that in the next post – What Does The Library Want Your Child Reading? Shouldn’t You Know?
The last in the series will be, What To Do About Inappropriate Books in Your Public Libraries to give you a method to clean up your public reading spaces.
In the meantime, check out “Molly’s X-Rated Reading Room” on our website where ROPE Board member Molly Jenkins and our friend Andrea Crouch take on the inappropriate and awful books for kids in public school and the public library! Sign up to be alerted of their posts, so you don’t miss one!
This is a guest post by an Edmond Public Schools (central Oklahoma) parent with three children in elementary grades.
Dear Dr. Grunewald,
Three of my children have attended Heritage Elementary school for 2 years and have had a wonderful experience. The teachers, counselors and administrators are amazing!
I met with Mrs. Frank and the counseling staff on November 4 to discuss my children’s participation in the SEAL classes. I inquired about the curriculum and themes/topics covered in the sessions.
The curriculum being used is Conscious Discipline. The counselors at Heritage write their own lessons based on this curriculum.
I was slightly familiar with Conscious Discipline since it was used at Clyde Howell where my oldest child attended pre-k, 8 years ago. I borrowed a book from the teacher and found it to be comparable to Love and Logic. These I feel were wonderful programs for elementary kids. However, upon returning home I decided to visit the Conscious Discipline website.
I was quite shocked at the description that popped up before clicking on the site link: Home – Social and Emotional Learning It reads: “Conscious Discipline believes that trauma-responsive social and emotional learning (SEL) is a lens through which transformational change in the areas of racial equality, equity and inclusion is not only possible but essential.”
This sounds like a CRT, social justice, whatever you want to call it, platitude to me. A political indoctrination program for kids.
CRT is not just a legal theory taught at the college level. CRT is a movement, a conduit of identity politics which promotes the analysis of many aspects of society through the prism of racism and Marxist victim-hood mentality (oppressor vs. oppressed).
It’s clear to me that CRT has been repackaged and renamed SEL.
Until recently CASEL downplayed the leftist political bent of SEL, however CASEL CEO, Karen Niemi, announced in December 2020 that her company “has revised its definition of and framework for ‘socio-emotional learning’ to highlight the value of SEL as a weapon for social justice.”
Karen Niemi. “We know from research that attention to students’ holistic learning and development can promote high-quality educational opportunities and outcomes for all children across race, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation and other differences.
Importantly, SEL has potential to promote the academic, social and emotional development of all children. SEL can also help adults and students co-create more equitable schools and communities.
While SEL alone will not solve the deep-seated inequities in the education system, it can help adults and students build more meaningful relationships and develop knowledge, skills and mindsets to interrupt inequitable policies and practices, create more inclusive learning environments and nurture the interests and assets of all individuals.
CASEL will work alongside researchers, educators and policymakers to address issues of identity, agency and belonging that are fundamental to human development”
This is obviously a CRT/SEL school curriculum publisher’s clearinghouse. The NoVo Foundation is a funding partner of CASEL. NoVo focuses heavily on abortion rights, LGBT interests and left-wing economics.
CASEL is basically a political lobbyist group promoting SEL programs in schools and in the workplace.
Here is just a sample of more articles and/or statements that raised CRT red flags from the Consciousness Discipline website: Conscious Discipline – CASEL Program Guide – This is the curriculum description “Strategies supporting educational equity””Conscious Discipline offers strategies for working with bias. This includes training for adults to examine bias and understand how it creates barriers to authentically connecting with students, assessing students SEL needs, and responding to conflict constructively and impartially. “Supporting Racial Equity: Essential Next Steps for Conscious Discipline – The screenshot below captures what Dr. Becky Bailey said on July 29, 2020:
“Conscious Discipline believes that trauma-responsive social and emotional learning (SEL) is a lens through which transformational change in the areas of racial equality, equity and inclusion is not only possible, but essential.” (See more in the screenshot below)
“However, Conscious Discipline recognizes that SEL alone isn’t enough to resolve longstanding inequities. We must directly promote equity, listen and learn from one another, and have conversations that feel challenging or uncomfortable.”
I guess “conversations that feel challenging or uncomfortable” means showing my kids Raising Antiracist Kids: 9 Steps from Ibram X. Kendi – the guy who thinks my kids are racist because they have white skin – but here he is promoted by Conscious Discipline.
Dr. Grunewald, does CASEL’s revised definition of and framework for SEL align with our SEAL program?
How do you ensure EPS SEAL curriculums are not promoting the tenets of HB 1775?
I beg to differ and I now believe Consciousness Discipline to be rooted in CRT.
How is EPS using this – or any other CASEL-approved program or curriculum – NOT violating HB 1775?
The EPS website does not have any information regarding SEAL curriculum. While trying to find out what curriculum was being used SEAL, I came across a June 22, 2020 write-up: Sunset Counselor Wins Award and $10,000 Prize – Edmond Public Schools. The article states:”Ms. Bointy” has been a pioneer in using the Sanford Harmony social and emotional learning program.”At the end of the article, it states:”Sanford Harmony has been recognized by CASEL as a quality program.”I did some digging around on the Harmony page and clicked on the Research tab at the very top of the page.
I learned “Students participating in Harmony reported significantly more diverse friends than did those from control groups. Furthermore, these peer influences were related to improved writing and math performance in classrooms using Harmony, but not in control classrooms.”(DeLay, et al., 2016).
Why is an SEL program concerned about collecting data on students and their friends?
From the Harmony-Inspire Rebuilding Communities Tool-Kit page 9, titled: “How can we foster diversity and inclusion in our communities and support many students who have seen and experienced unrest and inequity?”Item 2 says:”Support students in developing their critical thinking skills and forming inclusive attitudes by providing students the tools to identify and reject stereotypes and seek friendships with a diverse group of peers. These skills help them be advocates for themselves and their families, peers, and community members now and in the future. Explore developmentally appropriate critical thinking skills about stereotypes and developing empathy for other points of view in the “Pop that Stereotype” activity.”
Is Ms. Bointy still teaching this CRT-laced program? If so, she and EPS are violating HB 1775. The U.S. Department of Education has been pushing schools by providing funding and training in physiological, attitudinal and behavioral standards (SEL) for years. ESSER funding can be and are being used by EPS to purchase more SEL curriculum – ostensibly to curb ‘learning loss’. How does SEL address learning loss? I think more academic subjects should be taught to address that issue instead – art class for all elementary students, handwriting, spelling or more of the core subjects.
Who decides what attitudes, mindsets, values and beliefs should be taught and promoted to a child? You? The government?
No. We the parents do. There is subjectivity among adults who develop SEL curriculum that reflects their attitudes, mindsets, values and beliefs that is then taught to a class which is a group.
SEL/CRT is pushing collective values over individual values. Impressionable elementary children and children undergoing puberty with incomplete pre-frontal cortexes are being influenced to act or think how a group or teacher or school district says or does in order to belong or be “canceled” by the group if they have a different viewpoint. Does a school have any business defining these competencies and teaching them? No.
Why is teaching Great Expectations not enough SEL for Edmond Public School students?
I don’t want someone else deciding who my children are – I want my children to develop their own sense of self.
I urge you to read the article – it’s short – but even if you only have time to scan it, read the section that says;
A decade ago, applications for emergency certifications used to be a rarity, with just 32 emergency teaching certificates approved in 2011-12. But as Oklahoma plunged into a statewide teacher shortage, school districts became increasingly reliant on underqualified new hires who had not yet completed the state’s requirements for either traditional or alternative certification. The numbers have increased annually since 2012, save for a one-year dip last year to 2,801.
Okay. This clearly says that until the 2011/2012 school year, there were only about 35 emergency certifications provided by the OSDE. So what happened in 2010 in Oklahoma?
Well, if you don’t know, I can certainly tell you because I wrote about it and studied it furtively and constantly for five years.
In 2010, House and Senate Republicans along with Governor Mary Fallin ushered into Oklahoma law, The FOUR PILLARS OF THE OBAMA EDUCATION AGENDA – Common Core, State Longitudinal Database, Teacher Accountability Measures and Turning Around Underperforming Schools – through an ENORMOUS omnibus bill – SB2033 – made possible by former Democrat Governor Brad Henry’s acceptance of State Stabilization Funds (SSF).
Why in the world would Oklahoma Republicans sign on to law created by a Democratic President with Marxist tendencies?
Because it would result in an ability to receive federal funds to implement something called “Race To The Top“, President Obama’s education initiative. And later, because Congress refused to re-authorize the billion page law called the ESSA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) which President George Bush renamed the “No Child Left Behind Act” (NCLB), President Obama came up with a scheme to provide states with even more money – I mean “flexibility” – not to have to have students meet the NCLB requirement of 100% proficiency in math and reading by 2014. And guess what? Then State Superintendent Janet Barresi applied for and got those funds as well.
Unfortunately, those ALSO required the state to develop all four pillars of Obama’s education reforms.
In 2011, former colleague Lynn Habluetzel and I sat down for 2 days to come up with a map that would show as many of the players in the Obama money scheme that our Republican elected officials had bought into. Here’s what we came up with.
It went viral. You can actually internet search this thing because people were so disgusted by it. Why? Because every group on this ‘map’ exerts some kind of control over YOUR DISTRICT SCHOOL in some way. That’s what federal funds do. They tie states to FEDERAL programs whether they’re good for the state or not.
Now, let’s mosey on up to 2014 and add on to all you see above with the “Dear Colleague Letter” penned by Obama which basically told schools that they could be brought up on Civil Rights charges for disciplining black students.
The consequences of the aforementioned 4 pillars is HUGE, but the latter is the worst of all. Ask ANY teacher why they’re quitting and DISCIPLINE ISSUES are in the top two. Schools do what they’re told by the federal government so they can get federal government money (this is why they DON’T respond to parents – parents don’t have the money carrot there to make it worth it for them in their world view of ‘kids deserve schools with more money’ whatever that means).
If you really want to know what’s causing the teacher shortage, it’s the results of the OBAMA-DIRECTED EDUCATIONAL GARBAGE INFLICTED UPON THIS STATE BY REPUBLICAN ELECTED OFFICIALS. Look no further. Schools got what they wanted – their Obama grants and ESSA money – so stop your griping already. You’re just reaping what you’ve sown!
Here’s the thing: I’m convinced that school officials are one of two things – ignorant of everything I’ve just outlined and documented (like the Board member at the teacher termination hearing last night who didn’t know what her job was) – or they know exactly what goes on and know it’s in their best interest to keep parents as far away from making them accountable for it as possible.
Parents, let’s quit letting the latter category think we’re simpletons who can only do Common Core math (2+2=5). TAKE BACK YOUR SCHOOL BOARDS. It’s the only way to make the madness stop and for schools to once again be accountable to student learning and the will and wishes of parents.
Charlotte Mason was a 19th century educator who believed “the souls of all children are waiting for the call of knowledge to awaken them to delightful living.” Some of the characteristics of a Charlotte Mason education are using living books, keeping a nature journal, and introducing music, art, poetry, and great literature among other resources.
Living books – books which are well-written, engaging, and invite the reader inside – teach not through the dull imparting of facts but through the lives and events of the characters. They include genres such as historical fiction, nature books, and twaddle-free fiction stories such as those of Holling C. Holling. The terms “living books” and “twaddle” are commonly used by those following Charlotte Mason’s educational theories, although they are quickly being picked up in other homeschool circles.
If you’re interested in the Charlotte Mason Method, please see here.
Let children alone… the education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions – a running fire of Do and Don’t ; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way and grow to fruitful purpose. ~ Charlotte Mason
As I worked at the capitol this week with legislators we hope to work with on parental rights legislation, I’d like to make sure you saw this from ParentalRights.org. You can find it online here. Stay engaged parents, your kids are your own! Tracey Montgomery, Parental Rights Director
Will you help us ride the wave?
“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” said Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe in a debate on September 28, 2021. Those twelve words will live on in infamy in electoral politics. Mr. McAuliffe had led every poll until then. His party comfortably won the presidential election in Virginia by ten points just a year earlier.
But telling parents that they should not be in charge of their kids’ education was a monumental miscalculation, especially in a year when many parents saw what their kids’ education actually looked like through a Zoom window; in a year when school boards began adopting social engineering above education; in a fraught year involving masks, vaccines, and in-person versus remote; in a year when many parents learned that they have real options other than public schools, like homeschooling, pods, and micro-schools.
I live in Virginia and followed this election quite closely. If ever a moment could be pointed to when the momentum shifted, that debate was it. That single sentence may be the best example of a “Kinsley gaffe”—a phrase coined by journalist Michael Kinsley several years ago. “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth—some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.”
Sometimes politicians mistakenly say what they really mean. This single truthful sentence tipped the first domino that led to the Virginia election earthquake.
And parents led the way. Parents who don’t agree that they should sit down and shut up. Parents who want to be involved in the education and lives of their children. Parents who want their schools to answer to them, not the other way around.
Parents like you and me.
The Parental Rights Foundation needs your help to keep this wave alive. Earlier this year we sued the District of Columbia when it passed an ordinance that allows children as young as 11 years old to receive vaccinations without their parents’ knowledge or consent—and then hides the fact from the parents.
Just last week,we sued Virginia over a new statutethat tells parents of faith that they may not consider religion when hiring a babysitter. That’s right: Virginia has become the ultimate nanny state, making it a human rights violation to want a babysitter caring for our children to share and support our religious beliefs and training.
Next month, I will be traveling to San Diego to the American Legislative Exchange Council to introduce a model fundamental parental rights bill that could be used to introduce similar statutes around the country .
The country is awakened to parental rights like never before.
Would you consider making your best donation to help us elevate our presence and ability to take advantage of this new momentum?
Wearing one of my other hats—my vice president of HSLDA Action hat—I interviewed Mr. McAuliffe’s opponent, Glenn Youngkin, after the gaffe but before the election, to decide whether HSLDA Action could endorse Mr. Youngkin. Referring to Mr. McAuliffe’s education statement, Mr. Youngkin said he believed parents should be deeply involved in the education of their children.
After talking about some of his education policy preferences, he enthusiastically referred to a Virginia statute that says parents have a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent’s child. He said it as if he thought it would be a surprise to me.
It wasn’t a surprise.
Trying not to blow our own horn too loudly, I politely told him that we had been instrumental in drafting the bill that became the statute and in shepherding it through the Virginia legislature in 2013.
Would you consider helping us to bring bills like this to even more states in the coming year? And to prosecute lawsuits like the ones in D.C. and Virginia?
Moments like these rarely occur with such clarity. Parental rights have been on the defensive in many ways. But pendulums do swing, and when they do, we need to strike.
We need your help now more than ever.
For freedom’s sake,
James R. Mason President
PS: HSLDA Action did endorse Mr. Youngkin—and in case you haven’t heard, he won.
