Art Club - Full Movie Family's Story of Indoctrination & Transgenderism

Kevin Lundberg, along with the Lee family, have spent the last year producing this first-hand account of their family’s experience with public school indoctrination and the transgender social contagion.

This film takes an intimate look at this important issue, incorporates expert testimony, and offers advice for any parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or friend to protect the children in their lives and stand up for truth.

Learn more at artclubmovie.com

Christian Education Report by E. Ray Moore

Christian Schools & Home School Report
- E. Ray Moore

John Gresham Machen was an influential American Presbyterian theologian in the early 20th century. He was the Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary between 1915 and 1929, and led a conservative revolt against modernist theology at Princeton and formed Westminster Seminary as a more orthodox alternative. This split was irreconcilable, and Machen led others to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Biden's Backwards Education Policies Are Hurting Our Children

By  Mike Pompeo, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs October 28 4 min read

SCHOOL CHOICE

As parents, Susan and I were insistent that our son, Nick, got a high-quality education.  It was the foundation upon which he was able to build his life.  So I was understandably heartbroken and angry when the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the Nation’s Report Card (NRC), published its analysis of the state of American education this week.  The report was much anticipated, for it is the first such assessment to be made that captures the true effects of the pandemic lockdown measures on our children’s education.  With the numbers in, we can now confirm what many of us, including myself, have argued all along: The pandemic school lockdown policies deserve a failing grade.

Compared to pre-pandemic levels, the decline in national average scores in mathematics was the largest ever recorded.  Two decades of rising scores were wiped out in just two years.  The reading numbers were not much better.  Progressives and the teachers’ unions kept our kids locked out of school; and when parents wanted to go to school board meetings to express their dissatisfaction with these lockdowns or the woke curriculum, these same forces wanted them branded as “domestic terrorists.” Progressives and teachers’ unions turned our children’s education into a political weapon, and the NRC lays bare what a disaster this has been.

Now, this likely comes as no surprise to parents across the country who, throughout the pandemic, were called on to become de facto, emergency teachers when school was forcibly moved from the classroom to the kitchen table.  If Biden had listened to these parents, instead of unions, activists, and radicals, our children would be much better off.  Unfortunately, that did not happen.  In fact, it seems that this Administration is committed to pursuing even more heavy-handed policies.

President Biden’s Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona called the NRC report a “moment of truth for education.” But the Biden Administration has not learned its lesson.  Reports indicate that since 2020, over 2 million students have left public schools, with parents opting instead for homeschooling, private, or charter schools.  But instead of having funding follow the child, the Biden Administration is doubling down on failed big-government solutions.  Biden’s proposed 2023 budget sets aside $468 million for “community schools.” What exactly is a community school? According to the Administration’s grant requirements, it is a program that provides for the “social, emotional, physical and mental health, and academic needs” of the students who attend it.  In effect, the Biden Administration is embracing a school model that supplants the family in favor of the government.  This is in line with Team Biden’s other anti-family policies, which I wrote about here recently. This should terrify us all.

We all know the Biden Administration’s education priorities, and real education isn’t one of them.  Earlier this year, it published its requirements for schools hoping to receive some of that $468 million; nowhere can one find any stipulation that a school seeking funding must demonstrate it can, or will, actually meet high standards of academic excellence.  Determining those standards is left up to the unions and activists that control the Biden White House.  Instead of relying on results and merit, the Administration will rely on other factors to determine funding and grants.  For example, it will rely on its proposed priorities for American History and Civics Education, which the Department published in April this year.  These priorities begin with a proposal titled, “Projects That Incorporate Racially, Ethnically, Culturally, and Linguistically Diverse Perspectives into Teaching and Learning.”  The entire focus of our children’s education threatens to shift under President Biden: away from academic excellence, and toward wokeness.

We have to fight back.  For though these shifts happen in the classroom, they spread outward to the rest of our country.  So many of our nation’s problems – from wokeness in our military, to failing public trust in a mainstream media that prioritizes politics over truth, to a seriously divided political culture – can be traced back to the degradation of our educational system at all levels.  We have to teach our children, our younger generations, so that they grow to be exceptional stewards of America and all that it stands for, not seek to tear it down.  And parents should be able to make choices about where their children will receive the best education.

This needs to be the guiding vision for conservatives in our approach to education.  To execute, we must continue to empower parents in their efforts to roll back wokeness in our nation’s schools.  And we must seize our opportunity to course-correct this November.  If we elect the right leaders, Congress can hold the Biden Administration accountable by preventing it from using the budget to corrupt and destroy our children’s education.

Mike Pompeo, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs

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Mike Pompeo is the former Secretary of State and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He is currently Senior Counsel for Global Affairs at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).

Truth and Lies in American Education

USPIE is working to finish the Truth & Lies in American Education documentary. Follow the link to learn more and donate to complete this film: https://truthandliesfilm.us/donate

April Few, a young mother of two, embarks on an eye-opening exploration of the current state of American government schools and makes some alarming discoveries regarding agendas kept hidden from the eyes of both students and parents like her. Through a series of interviews with educational experts, she explores the following questions:

- Are public schools forming a wedge between parents and children?

- Are children being trained to become political activists for the political left?

- What is the true aim of so-called comprehensive sexuality education?

- How much transgender influence is there in government schools?

- How is Critical Race Theory indoctrinating American children?

- Is there a federal education scheme to control the nation’s workforce?

April meets the authors of several books that guided her journey of discovery and gave her a newfound mission—to educate parents of school-aged children about the indoctrination taking place in government schools.

Preferred Pronouns and More: What I Saw at Teachers Union Convention

Brenda Lebsack / July 12, 2022

As a teacher, I attended the National Education Association convention last week, and my worst fears were confirmed. 

Public schools are no longer a safe place for families who hold traditional values or for families who believe gender (as in male/female binary) is biologically determined. 

It was also evident that the teachers union is a lobbying arm of the Democratic Party. 

The NEA seems to think there are many gender options, and that’s why teachers and students must always address themselves with their “preferred” pronouns. It thinks this pronoun practice is essential and will create a more inclusive society. 

That was demonstrated firsthand when each state delegate who spoke during the three-day convention July 4 to 6 was encouraged to state his or her name and “preferred” pronouns before addressing the assembly.

Pronouns I heard were he, she, they—and hex. One delegate even announced “they” had a uterus before addressing the assembly, apparently because that was something we all needed to know.

In the teachers union’s preamble, it says, “NEA is to be the national voice for education managed by and for the public good, to advance the cause for ALL individuals.” 

However, as I read the 70 new business items and 40 amendments of bylaws, legislation, and resolutions, and listened to the platform speeches, it was obvious the NEA only represents those who hold the same ideologies and radical leftist political views. 

From what I observed, the NEA’s goal is for public education to be a training ground for political activism, while demonizing anyone—including students and their families—who does not share those same political and sociological beliefs. 

The NEA does not want public education to be neutral ground in developing critical thinkers with an emphasis on academic achievement.

Its priorities were apparent, because of the 110 motions discussed and voted on, only four remotely addressed student academic achievement. Those four dealt with student financial literacy and resources for English learners and language acquisition. 

Nearly half of the motions dealt with identity politics, social justice, and ways to promote the goals of the Democratic Party. 

Some examples: broad-brushing police as biased and corrupt; mocking the Second Amendment as a societal harm; fighting for preferential treatment for any and all groups considered “marginalized,” especially nonconforming genders and infinite sexual identities; fighting misinformation in the media (that is, any media outlets that do not agree with their views); increasing abortion rights; adding seats to the Supreme Court; and advocating for more queer representation on school boards. 

Some other outlier items addressed environmental issues, hiring illegal immigrants as teachers, funding research concerning autism as it relates to gender identity, and funding global feeding programs.

Close to 40% of the motions were related to protecting teachers’ jobs and increasing their benefits and their right to be social justice cadres.

Although the NEA says it fights for nondiscrimination and civil rights, the only state delegates able to attend the Chicago event in person were those fully vaccinated. Any teachers who didn’t have vaccination cards could only attend virtually, regardless of whether they tested negative for COVID-19 or their reasons for not getting the shots.

The vaccinated delegates, who attended in person, had all expenses paid by their union local, while unvaccinated teachers were excluded and stigmatized as a “harm” to attendees. For a group that screams “My body, my choice,” the double standard is appalling.

On a positive note, the NEA voted down a new business item trying to mandate that all teachers in the nation be vaccinated. It lost, with 84% of the vote opposing. 

Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the gathering on July 5 and repeatedly called Republican leaders in Washington “extremists.” The NEA’s executive director, Kim Anderson, said, “The Supreme Court has removed the right to marry someone of a different race.” (That’s flat-out false.) 

She went on to say, “This Supreme Court and a significant number of radicalized elected officials have walked away from ‘freedom for all’ for an extreme discriminatory, exclusionary, misogynist, homophobic, out of touch, racist, cruel, corrupt ideology!”  

I spoke up during a debate opposing a new business item to create a smear list of organizations seeking to “dismantle public education due to diminishing freedoms of sexual and gender identities and honest education” (a smokescreen for critical race theory). 

This was my virtual statement: 

I, Brenda Lebsack, oppose [new business item] 15. NEA says they strive for a safe school climate for all, yet forget that, according to the 2021 Pew Research, 56% of Americans believe gender is based on biological reality. NEA does not believe this. NEA believes that a child can choose their gender based on their feelings and that there are infinite options and pronouns. How can public schools be a safe place for all students, when NEA leaders demonize over half of the families represented in our public schools?

If NEA creates a fact sheet of the organizations “dismantling” public education, please include NEA on that list. 

As founder of the Interfaith Statewide Coalition and a teacher in California, I can tell you that many orthodox Muslims, Jews, Catholics, and Christians no longer feel public schools are a safe place. 

Your social justice goals to assault family cultures that do not match your own, and to use public education to propagate extremist views, is wrong.  This is an abuse of power. That’s why I, as a teacher, support parent rights and school choice.

I was tempted to state my “preferred” pronouns as “Com, U, and Nism,” but I resisted the urge to do so.

In conclusion, with respect to almost everything the NEA accuses others of doing, it is one of the biggest offenders. 

America is in desperate need of educational reform because this powerful union, the National Education Association, has a delusional messiah complex and is using teachers and students as its political pawns.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

The School Closures Are a Big Threat to the Power of Public Schools | Ryan McMaken

05/14/2020Ryan McMaken

Twenty twenty is likely to be a watershed year in the history of public schooling. And things aren't looking good for the public schools.

For decades, we've been fed a near-daily diet of claims that public schooling is one of the most important—if not the most important—institutions in America. We're also told that there's not nearly enough of it, and this leads to demands for longer school hours, longer school years, and ever larger amounts of money spent on more facilities and more tech.

And then, all of sudden, with the panic over COVID-19, it was gone.

It turns out that public schooling wasn't actually all that important after all, and that extending the lives of the over-seventy demographic takes precedence.

Yes, the schools have tried to keep up the ruse that students are all diligently doing their school work at home, but by late April it was already apparent that the old model of "doing public school" via internet isn't working. In some places, class participation has collapsed by 60 percent, as students simply aren't showing up for the virtual lessons.

The political repercussions of all this will be sizable.

Changing Attitudes among the Middle Classes

Ironically, public schools have essentially ditched lower-income families almost completely even though school district bureaucrats have long based the political legitimacy of public schools on the idea that they are an essential resource for low-income students. So as long as the physical schools remain closed, this claim will become increasingly unconvincing. After all, "virtual" public schooling simply doesn't work for these families, since lower-income households are more likely to depend on both parents' incomes and parents may have less flexible job schedules. This means less time for parents to make sure little Sally logs on to her virtual classes. Many lower-income households don't even have internet access or computing equipment beyond their smartphones. Only 56 percent of households with incomes under $30,000 have access to broadband internet.

Nonetheless, working-class and lower-income parents are likely to return their children to the schools when they open again. Many believe they have no other choice.

Attitudes among the middle classes will be a little different, however, and may be more politically damaging to the future of the public schools.

Like their lower-income counterparts, middle class parents have long been happy to take advantage of the schools as a child-care service. But the non-educational amenities didn't stop there. Middle-class parents especially have long  embraced the idea that billions of dollars spent on school music programs, school sports, and other extracurriculars were all absolutely essential to student success. Sports provided an important social function for both the students and the larger community.

But as the list of amenities we once associated with schooling gets shorter and shorter, households at all income levels will start to wonder what exactly they're paying for.

Stripped of the non-academic side of things,  public schools now must sell themselves only as providers of academic skills. Many parents are likely to be left unimpressed, and this will be all the more true for middle class families where the parents are able to readily adopt homeschooling as a real substitute. The households that do have the infrastructure to do this are now far more likely to conclude that they simply don't need the public schools much of the time. There are now so many resources provided for free outside the schools—such as Khan Academy, to just name one—that those who are already savvy with online informational resources will quickly understand that the schools aren't essential.

In addition to this, many parents who were on autopilot in terms of assuming they were getting their money's worth may suddenly be realizing that public schools—even when they were physically open—weren't that much of a bargain after all. As Gary North recently observed,

For the first time, parents can see exactly what is being taught to their children. They can see the quality of the teachers. They can learn about the content of the educational materials.

Many parents may not like what they see, and as many increasingly take on the job of providing in-person instruction, school teachers won't look quite like the highly trained heroes they have long claimed to be.

Budget Cuts

With the image of schools as indispensable social institutions quickly fading, the political advantage they have long enjoyed will rapidly disappear as well. It wasn't long ago that schools could go back to the taxpayers again and again with with demands for more money, more resources, and higher salaries. Teacher unions endlessly lectured the taxpayers about how getting your child into a classroom with one of their teachers was of the utmost importance. Voters, regardless of political ideology or party, were often amendable to the idea.

That narrative is already greatly in danger, and the longer the COVID-19 panic ensures that schools remain closed, the more distant the memory of the old narrative will become. As school budgets contract, school districts from Las Vegas to Denver and across the nation are bracing for furloughs and layoffs.

With smaller staff, fewer teachers, and smaller budgets, expect virtual public learning to become even more bare bones, and less rewarding and engaging for students.

What Will Things Look like This Fall?

Even if schools open this fall, the reforms currently being pushed will ensure that schools continue to lack many of the amenities many have come to expect. If these reforms are adopted, students can forget about social events. They can expect shorter school days, and an ongoing role for online schooling. Team sports will be gone. Old notions of universal mandatory attendance and long days will seem increasingly quaint and old fashioned—or possibly even dangerous.

For many parents, this will just reinforce their growing suspicions that public schools just aren't worth it anymore. Maybe they never were.

New High School Ethnic Studies Curriculum Passed Unanimously By State Board of Education

Curriculum will be voluntary, not mandatory, for school boards to follow

By Evan Symon, March 19, 2021 3:46 pm

On Thursday, the California Board of Education approved a statewide ethnic studies curriculum for high schools, with board members voting unanimously 11-0 in favor of the new lesson plans.

First planned in 2018, the statewide ethnic studies program curriculum has gone through numerous changes in the past three years. Originally focused solely on the ethnic studies of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American groups, many groups soon fought to be included, including Jews, Arabs, Sikhs, and Armenians. These groups were quickly added, with the board noting that they all contributed to California.

However, this soon fanned the flames of more fights over what was to be included, with Asian groups arguing that they were still being largely discounted and Jewish and Arab groups fighting over how the other would be presented. After the first draft was released in 2019, both groups fought over the definition of anti-Semitism and how Israel should be presented, among other issues. Asian groups also challenged whether or not if Arabs should have their own part of the curriculum as Arab countries fell under the geographic banner of Asia.

Many educators also warned that attributing the problems solely to certain groups would only lead to more tensions and would undue racial understanding and empathy that happens organically in the diverse California school system.

But despite lingering tensions, as evidenced by over 150 callers pleading before the board for hours on Thursday not to pass the curriculum due to charges that it was anti-Asian, anti-Jewish, and anti-Arab, the 900-page Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum was ultimately passed. Many board members noted that the George Floyd protests of last year and the recent upswing of violence against Asian Americans in California proved how much the curriculum was needed.

Based off of college-level ethnic studies courses, the final curriculum is centered on four main groups: Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans. Additionally, Jewish Americans, Arabs, Sikhs, and Armenian Americans are also represented with courses.

The 33 non-mandatory lesson plans, which can be tailored to fit the ethnic makeup of respective communities and school districts, include lessons such as discussing police brutality incidents against blacks in relation to Black Lives Matter, Japanese American internment during WWII, and Korean American and black strife during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Many notable ethnic leaders praised the boards passage on Thursday and Friday, noting that the curriculum will improve racial relations and racial understanding by looking at the history and struggles of groups not usually seen in history classes.

“This is a pivotal moment in our California education history,” noted Karen Korematsu, the daughter of Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American who challenged Japanese internment all the way to the Supreme Court in Korematsu V. United States. “As my father said, ‘Stand up for what is right.’ Prejudice is ignorance, and the most powerful weapon we have is education.”

Famed labor leader Dolores Huerta also threw her support behind the curriculum before the vote on Thursday, noting the importance of such classes for students in the state.

“Si, Se Puede!” exclaimed Huerta on Thursday. “We can make it happen. And it’s time.”

Continued criticism over the new voluntary ethnic studies curriculum

However, many educational leaders noted that the passage of the curriculum doesn’t mean that schools have to use it, with many noting that ethnic studies is already widely taught throughout California without the optional curriculum.

“This is still ultimately pointless as it’s not mandatory,” Paul Barker, a former educator and current private school classroom advisor, explained to the Globe. “First of all, private schools can still do their own thing, so that’s a non-issue for many already. I believe the term the school board used for this was ‘voluntary guidance.’ But the big thing is that the lesson plans can be fit for communities. This already happens. I’ve helped advise schools in predominantly black areas where they were teaching young kids who (former NAACP leader) Roy Wilkins was. It’s impossible to find a classroom in California that doesn’t already cover Latino issues and leaders such as (former labor activist) Cesar Chavez. Many LA schools have Jewish or Armenian topics already in. We already have this. So even if a school board chooses some of these lesson plans approved of on Thursday, chances are they already have something close to it.”

“What this is going to do is simply allow different areas to choose what groups they want to focus on. So while regular history class will be there, these lesson plans will give it a different ethnic view and personalize it.”

CA Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)

“Now if ethnic studies is made mandatory, as it nearly was last year before being vetoed by the Governor, then it becomes a more serious discussion, as it would physically add a class requirement for graduation. But right now, it’s just simply optional, with whatever ethnic groups being represented in a certain place just getting a little more focus in the classroom.

“But it is worrying because all of these fights we saw among ethnic groups over the curriculum will now happen more locally, and that may cause some issues if taught.”

However, state leaders also acknowledged these issues on Friday, specifically noting that they expect criticism to continue over the curriculum.

“This criticism will continue. I can guarantee you that,” said former Assemblywoman California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Thursday. “We will not find the perfect curriculum, but we have one that is strong. Perfect should not be the enemy of good.”

Upon passage of the ethnic studies lesson plans on Thursday, California became the first state to have a statewide ethnic curriculum in the United States. AB 101, a reintroduced bill to make an ethnic studies class mandatory for graduation in California, is currently awaiting a committee hearing in the Assembly.

A teacher who was at the board meeting yesterday said they would only do an interview if the Globe didn’t say in the article that the curriculum is voluntary. The Globe declined. This is the first time in many years of reporting and journalism that a source said they didn’t want certain facts to go in for an interview.