Follow Up: "Chicago schools face nightmare"
The eyes of people who care about government run education are on Illinois these days. The scheme to mandate a radical progressive remake of education in the State--transforming government teachers into tax supported community organizers and students into activists--will undoubtedly serve as a model for the rest of Blue America, if it passes (cf. Ultra-Woke Indoctrination In Government Schools Is Closer Than Most Realize ). The vote was supposed to happen yesterday, but was moved to today.
Fox has a powerful piece today on the situation, which focuses on Chicago's government schools. Those schools, which the radical progressive government teachers union has kept closed all year, are supposed to begin reopening in the lower grades, but Chicago government high schools will remain closed for the entire year. It was all done in the name of allowing government teachers to "feel safe" from Covid--an attitude that study after study has shown to be without any basis in scientific fact. Naturally, those who have been harmed the most by the lockdown of government schools--again, study after study shows it--are the children of the progressive Dem core constituencies, especially black Americans. Yes, those would be the same children who will supposedly benefit from mandated woke indoctrination, rather than learning the Three R's.
And make no mistake about it--those children are being harmed :
Chicago schools face nightmare as Illinois pushes progressive politics
Only 37% of Illinois' third-graders demonstrated grade-level proficiency in English-language arts in 2019
In case you're wondering, the percentage for math is 41%. There's no demographic breakdown for which students are doing worse and which students are doing better, but let's be real--all those studies, including a major one by the Bezos WaPo, leave no doubt of what's going on. White students are doing about the same as usual, but black students in particular are being left in the dust when it comes to acquiring basic educational skills.
The article includes a powerful 9 minute video that I'm unfortunately unable to embed here. Follow the link--you won't regret it. The video is titled: Illiterate Revolutionaries: Chicago schools struggle with basic education as teachers push liberal politics . It begins with one of the interviewees, Nathan Hoffman of Empower Illinois, baldly stating the truth:
Where we are headed today is a slippery slope. We are going to use the public school system as an extension of, basically, our broader politics.
He goes on to focus on the warning signs everyone will recognize from the proposed mandates: the use of the two words "progressive" and "activist". Those words give the whole game away. And there's much more. Including Zhou Baiden stating for all to hear that the regime for which he is the figurehead will launch an all out war on private schools, including the charter schools that concerned black parents have turned to in desperation to save their children from government hellholes:
If I'm president, Betsy DeVos' whole notion, from charter schools to this, are gone!
Just like every other Dem regime, for Zhou and his handlers it's not about the kids--it's about virtue signaling politics.
ADDENDUM: From A Bad Week for The Science™ . No comment really necessary, but I'll just say it--it isn't about science, it isn't about education, and it sure as hell isn't about "the kids":
Monday, we learned that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) was consulting teachers’ unions about whether it was safe to reopen schools.
This might strike you as odd. You probably thought the CDC was following The Science™, and kindergarten teachers, to be sure, are not scientists.
Could it be that our esteemed government scientists are beholden to certain political interests, and not necessarily just to The Science™? Could it be that nobody working for the federal or state governments knows what the hell they’re doing? That doesn’t seem right. These are professional scientists, and The Science™ is sacred, we’ve been told.
And how about this? Is there any evil that these people won't support?
The bizarre far-left effort to label math curricula in schools as racist is being funded to the tune of hundreds of millions by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The link is found on the website homepage of the Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction, the group behind the push to label an entire academic subject as racist. ...
The Gates Foundation is the only donor listed on the group’s website. ...
Pathway ... says that math is “used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.” The propaganda even lists certain “goals” that are to be achieved every month, such as “authentic” inclusion of minority students in November, and “dismantling power structures in the classroom” in May.
... the Gates Foundation ... website says that its donations to education are aimed at “supporting schools in their work to improve student outcomes” for minority students.
They're also helping to fund that experimental "vaccine". Doesn't inspire one with confidence, does it?