We have been discussing the decline of public education as more families are seeking alternatives in home schooling and voucher programs. Public school boards and the teachers unions are killing public education by lowering standards while pursuing social and political agendas. Those issues have come to the forefront of a “Woke Kindergarten” program in the San Francisco area. Glassbrook Elementary in Hayward, California, spent $250,000 in federal funds, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. After two years with “Woke Kindergarten,” students’ scores declined but a quarter of million dollars went to this controversial group.
“Woke Kindergarten” is headed by Akiea ‘Ki’ Gross who markets herself as “an abolitionist early educator, cultural organizer and creator currently innovating ways to resist, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy, Woke Kindergarten.”
Gross has long been an advocate for extreme views. She has declared that “I believe the United States has no right to exist. I believe every settler colony who has committed genocide against native peoples, against Indigenous people, has no right to exist. Y’all the demons. Y’all are the villains. We’ve been trying to end y’all. Get free of y’all.”
She has also declared that “When I think about a world free of state violence… I think about a world free of the U.S. empire. I think about a world free of Israel.”
She has even advocated the elimination of schools: “I think about land back to Indigenous peoples globally. I think about the fact that we would not have to participate in these systems, because none of these systems would exist. That means kids wouldn’t have to go to school because the world would ultimately be their classroom,”
So the California teachers and administrators selected this group to teach in schools that were already failing their students by not teaching basic subjects like math and English. According to the Chronicle, less than 12% of the students can read at their grade level and under 4% are proficient in math. It fell even further after giving them the indoctrination material with Woke Kindergarten.
Educators like Glassbrook Elementary teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley raised concerns over the material but they were ignored.
Hayward Unified School District Superintendent Jason Reimann actually defended the contract and insisted that it was successful because attendance has gone up almost 20%.
So it seems that kids are attending more classes and learning less.
This is why states are moving toward offering alternatives to parents. Faced with school boards and teacher unions resisting parental objections to school policies over curriculum and social issues, states are on the brink of a transformative change. For years, boards and teacher unions have treated parents as unwelcome interlopers in their children’s education.
That view was captured in the comment of Iowa school board member Rachel Wall, who said: “The purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.”
State Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Wis.) tweeted: “If parents want to ‘have a say’ in their child’s education, they should home school or pay for private school tuition out of their family budget.”
Many are now agreeing with figures like Snodgrass and taking their kids out of failing public schools and seeking more classic educations for their children. What is remarkable is that years of failing public schools, declining scores, and flight of families makes no difference for boards or unions. They are still spending public funds on programs like Woke Kindergarten. It is still career enhancing for these administrators and teachers to support social and political agendas even as their schools fail.
The result is another lost generation of students who are being processed out of public education without basic skills. Of course, there is apparently a fortune to be made if they want to replicate the curriculum of the Woke Kindergarten.
