The battle to restore parental rights in the education of their own children is making news across America. Sadly, parents who want to protect their kids from inappropriate material are being resisted by “progressive” politicians, recalcitrant school boards and big media hostility. As if that wasn’t enough to overcome, America’s two powerful teachers unions, both firmly controlled by the political left, are working hard to undermine parental rights so that America’s classrooms remain under their control.
The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are using teacher training seminars and conferences to show teachers how to weave lessons on gender identity and LGBTQ+ ideology into every classroom.
A recent report by the conservative leaning Defense of Freedom Institute described what the two unions are teaching the teachers on how to get around parental resistance to the sexualization of children in public schools.
For example, AFT has passed a formal resolution committing to work with LGBTQ+ groups including the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). This corrupt organization gives advice to schools on how to enable students to use pronouns that don’t match their biological sex without needing the consent of their parents.
At AFT’s TEACH conference, teachers were instructed on how to introduce lessons on gender identity into all classroom instruction. One seminar at the conference instructed teachers on how to build and maintain a TGNCNB (transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary) inclusive classroom and school.
Not to be outdone, the NEA is aggressively hostile to any attempt to protect young children from being exposed to graphic information on sex and gender. When the state of Florida passed the Parental Rights in Education law, prohibiting sensitive sexuality material in kindergarten through third grade, the powerful teacher union labeled the law “extreme.” They also routinely refer to the commonsense law as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, even though the statute restricts all types of sexuality material in these early grades.
JDFI has a simple question: Why? Why are powerful teachers unions so committed to exposing young children to radical, godless sexuality indoctrination that is at odds with the values of many parents?
Copious research shows that America’s precious children are falling further and further behind in basic academic skills. Reading and math scores are abysmal. The COVID pandemic worsened well-established trends. Public schools in urban areas, serving large minority and low-income populations, are often failing the worst at instilling academic skills needed to succeed in adulthood. The condition of America’s public schools is by any measurement a crisis. But our country’s major teaching unions appear to be more interested in promoting sex, abortion, trans-mania and anti-American history than in partnering with parents to prepare the rising generation.
JDFI is committed to standing shoulder-to-shoulder with parents and America’s children.