Opinion

• Earl Watt

Publisher

Last week the Supreme Court listened to a case from parents in Maryland who were forced to put their 3- to 5-year-old children in a class and listen to nothing short of pornographic material.

“Pride Puppy,” according to Chief Justice Neal Gorsuch, refers to drag queens in leather and asked questions relating to bondage and sex workers.

About a children’s book. For 3-year-olds.

What is happening in our schools? And make no mistake, what happens in these far left schools is just a glimpse of what is to come here. During the last school board election, Mike Brack stated that trends that start on the coasts usually end up reaching Kansas.

He’s not wrong.

When this Maryland school district first implemented the LGBTQ curriculum, they allowed parents with concerns to opt their children out.

But so many wanted out the teachers and librarians had a hard time keeping track of who was in and who was out. Instead of realizing that this type of material was not supported or condoned by the parents, the district did what most districts do — remove the ability to opt out and force all kids to be exposed to material that has no place in the public education system.

Notice that this is pre-Kindergarten level stuff. It’s one thing to talk to 16-year-olds about sexual behavior and how some adults choose to portray themselves as the opposite sex, but it is something different entirely to try to normalize behavior with 3-year-olds.

One report stated that a child came home and asked his parents if he was really a boy. When his parents assured him he was, he said he was told that being born a boy didn’t necessarily mean you were a boy.

We need to know with certainty what is being shared in our schools and protect our children from this deviant mind-bending exposure at public schools.

First and foremost, our children go to schools to learn how to read, write and do math. Or at least that is what is supposed to take place.

Schools have become the crucibles of social experimentation.

That was not and is not their role.

Schools should reflect the will of the parents and communities they serve.

Not every school will look the same, nor should they. But these parents are being ignored in Maryland.

The signs the woke efforts to force children to learn about such bizarre concepts has gone too far might have come from liberal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan who said, “I suspect there are a lot of non-religious parents who [also] weren’t all that thrilled” about having their young children exposed to books about gender and sexuality.

The district is fighting these parents because they believe if parents can opt their children out of this part of the curriculum, the district administration couldn’t prevent parents “who wish to prevent their ninth grader from being exposed to evolution, or their sixth-grader being exposed to any pictures of girls who are not wearing a hijab.”

That may be true, but again, it comes back to who sets the standards for education. And this is a trick question but I will ask it — who is responsible for the education of our children, parents or the state?

If it’s parents, then they have every right to opt their children out of any topic they deem inappropriate for their child.

If it’s the state, then the question is who controls the state?

We, the people do, which means the parents of the children in the schools are not just the peasants to be ruled. They are the rulers.

School boards are not some group to receive advisory updates from the staff and simply approve the bills.

They set policy, and the paid staff carries out the directives of those policies.

People do not exist at the pleasure of the schools. Schools exist to carry out the will of the people.

We need an educated populace. In order to do that, we established a public school system that is supposed to provide the foundation of knowledge.

Instead, we are creating social re-engineering facilities designed not to provide the tools to make sure our next generation is equipped to earn a living but to divide our population along political, ethnic and racial lines and advocate for one point of view rather than realizing our schools are made up of all point of views.

Educators, administrators and elected school board members across the nation either don’t understand their role and mission and are therefore incompetent, or they are intentionally defying the will of the parents they serve.

Teaching is no easy profession, largely in part because administrators and boards do not know or understand their roles or live in fear of litigation.

Even far left activist Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of teachers, stated in a recent interview that these types of books would not be something that she would use, and she also said she agreed with teachers who want to hold students who cannot read back a grade until they are academically ready to move on.

But some study said that holding students back was a bad idea.

Garbage.

Studies show that homework is not beneficial.

Garbage.

Many like to discount holding a student back and homework by simply claiming these are outdated concepts and have a negative psychological impact on the student.

It’s called pressure and motivation to try harder.

We are not guaranteed a stress-free life nor should it be a goal. Imagine the stress of sailing across the ocean for the first time, or flying to the moon. What about the stress of making the car payment or rent?

How do we prepare for what life throws at us? By achieving our grade level in reading in the first grade so we can move on to second grade. By getting our homework done on time so we don’t get a zero.

But our system has veered so far from its purpose that we are wondering why children ask their parents if they are really a boy or why everyone should celebrate the trans lifestyle.

Our Declaration guarantees our God-given rights, and among them is the right to determine the curriculum that will be taught to our children. Opting out of biased indoctrination is and ought to be protected.

MY PERSPECTIVE, Gary Damron

Though we've celebrated Easter, I want to continue some thoughts on events leading up to, and the crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah. His trial was unfair and unjust, but He received the death sentence in silence. Two scriptures give insight into His mindset. Luke wrote, "When the days were approaching for [Jesus'] ascension, ...He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51. The writer of Hebrews described how Jesus, "for the joy set before Him endured the cross" (Hebrews 12:2). To the Romans, Jesus was a zealot, a threat to their authority. To the Jews, He was a false Messiah. But to those who believed and chose to follow Him, He was God’s deliverer.

GUEST COLUMN, Jorge Martinez, America First Works

Thanks to the bold leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, America is taking a decisive step toward restoring commonsense and accountability in our Nation’s student loan system.

For far too long, the Biden-Harris Administration used federal student loans as a political tool, prioritizing short-term popularity over long-term stability. Since March 2020, collections on defaulted loans have been suspended under the guise of pandemic relief. Yet even after pandemic conditions subsided, the Biden-Harris Administration continued its reckless “on-ramp” strategies and unconstitutional loan cancellation schemes, leaving taxpayers exposed to hundreds of billions of dollars in unpaid debt. The facts are staggering: Over 42 million borrowers owe more than $1.6 trillion, with nearly 10 million borrowers either already in default or at imminent risk.

GUEST COLUMN, J. Basil Dannebohm

At the beginning of each new month, I receive an email from the manufacturer of my thermostat providing me with a usage report. The report gives me a usage breakdown, lets me know if there are any problems with the HVAC system, provides reminders when it’s time to change the filters, and offers tips on how to improve energy efficiency. Our government used to be a lot like my thermostat. I knew it was working effectively because things felt comfortable. Occasionally, elected officials would provide detailed updates on how things were going. If something didn’t seem right, I could look to the news for a fairly reliable, mostly unbiased explanation. If things were especially dysfunctional within the government, we would vote out the problematic officials during the next election cycle and hope for a return to normalcy.