Parental rights advocacy group Parents Defending Education (PDE) released the results of a study showing that efforts to indoctrinate children through government-run schools are not exactly popular with parents.
In other news, water is wet, and President Joe Biden is old.
The poll, conducted in December 2024, found widespread concerns among parents regarding education and avid support for school choice.
PDE’s study found that 96 percent of parents believe they should be empowered to choose the best educational options for their children. About 90 percent believe schools should focus on math, reading, and other vital subjects instead of being influenced to embrace progressive ideas on race, gender, and sexuality.
The study showed that 35 percent of parents support alternative educational options like private and homeschooling. Another 52 percent favored diminishing the influence of the U.S. Department of Education.
Despite what progressives claim, only 19 percent of parents believe schools should help children “transition” students to the opposite gender without informing parents while 80 percent opposed it. Additionally, 79 percent believe schools should inform parents if their child expresses symptoms of gender dysphoria. Several school districts in states like California, New York, and others have imposed policies requiring teachers and school staff to conceal this knowledge from parents.
Even further, about 74 percent oppose schools teaching students about sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary schools.
Yet, the federal government is still using your taxpayer funds to push these indoctrination efforts in the classroom.
PDE released another report in December exposing the federal government’s funding of grants to fund Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in K-12 schools.
The Department of Education (DOE) has funded initiatives to promote far-leftist ideology in government-run schools to the tune of $1 billion, according to PDE.
If this doesn’t show how important school choice is, I don’t know what will.
The DOE “awarded universities, school districts, and nonprofits 162 grants totaling $1,002,522,304.81” to fund DEI and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) initiatives, according to the organization. These initiatives include race-based teacher recruiting and training, youth activism, and restorative justice practices, many of which are modeled on far-leftist ideas.
For example, the School District of Philadelphia received nearly $4 million for a restorative justice program that is “modeled after Oakland Unified School District’s restorative justice MTSS model” and guided by a “far-leftist activist and former Communist Party USA member,” PDE noted.
The issue here is twofold. For starters, taxpayer dollars are being used to push a blatantly political agenda using the school system. Secondly, these programs appear to prioritize political activism over academic achievement.
Some grants, such as those funding “youth activism programming,” essentially trains students to become progressive activists instead of focusing on reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. Indeed, one $4 million grant went to a three-week summer camp that emphasizes “culturally responsive computer science” for historically excluded groups and “social emotional workshops” supposedly aimed at promoting racial justice.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with teaching kids that racism is wrong or that they should treat others with respect regardless of their immutable characteristics. But that has nothing to do with these initiatives, for the most part. DEI has been used to instill progressive ideology in young children who have not yet learned to think critically. These practices have been shown to divide more than unite in many cases.
Many are fighting against the effort to influence young minds using the school system. Plenty of people have raised hell in school board and city council meetings. Some have successfully run for local office to counteract this movement.
But for parents, there is another solution: School choice.
Educational freedom will be a significant issue in 2025 as state lawmakers seek to pass comprehensive school choice legislation to empower parents rather than government-run schools. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee and Republican lawmakers are supporting the Education Freedom Act of 2025. “Every family ought to have the opportunity to choose the best path for their kid. This is a way to challenge and change and bring innovation into an education system that’s grown stale and bloated and bureaucratic,” Lee said.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has reaffirmed his intention to get critical school choice legislation passed in the Lone Star State. The state legislature is set to choose a new Speaker of the House. The governor has reportedly endorsed state Rep. David Cook to fill this position.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Let me be clear:<br><br>I worked this entire year to elect conservative candidates who will pass conservative laws, including school choice.<br><br>To achieve that goal we need a Texas House Speaker chosen by a majority of Republicans in accordance with the Republican Caucus Rules.</p>— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) <a href="https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1866963824345243810?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
School choice is the best next step toward shielding children from efforts to indoctrinate them in the classroom. By giving parents more options, they can better decide where to place their children. They can use funding from school voucher programs to pay for private education without the far-left indoctrination. Parents can even choose to homeschool their kids.
Allowing more educational options for parents is a solution that would work for everyone. If people want their kids to be influenced to become left-wing activists, they can put them in a school that will gladly do this. For parents who would prefer to have sane children who become sane adults, they can take their kids elsewhere.
Of course, not all parents can homeschool their children, so it is still important for parents to be diligent in making sure their local school districts are not being used to advance a political agenda. These fights must continue. But in the meantime, school choice serves as an excellent step toward removing the government from education, which is why we should be fighting tooth and nail in every state to make this a reality.