The Activist Network Infusing Gender Ideology Into K-12

Radical gender theory has made sudden inroads in America’s schools. Many parents have watched in confusion as their children repeat the movement’s slogans and adopt synthetic sexual identities such as “non-binary,” “pansexual,” and “genderqueer.” The next question for many families is: Where does this surge in left-wing sexual ideology come from? One answer: from a network of professional activists, who have smuggled university-style gender theory into more than 4,000 schools under the cover of “gender and sexuality” clubs, or GSAs.

The main national organization behind this campaign, the GSA Network, is a professionally staffed nonprofit with a multimillion-dollar annual budget. GSA Network serves as an umbrella organization for more than 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” across 40 states. Once called the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, the group rebranded in 2016, reflecting a new focus on “the limits of a binary gender system.” The individual chapters, which operate in elementary, middle, and high schools, often use the language of “LGBTQ inclusion” and “anti-bullying” in their public relations, but behind the scenes, the central organization is driven by pure left-wing radicalism that extends far beyond sexuality.

According to the organization’s publicly accessible materials and administrative documents, the GSA Network’s ideology follows the basic framework of radical gender theory: white European men created an oppressive system based on capitalism, white supremacy, and “heteronormativity”—that is, the promotion of heterosexuality, the male-female binary, and bourgeois family norms. In order to fight back, racial and sexual minorities must unite under the banner of “intersectionality” and dismantle the interlocking “systems of oppression.”

The GSA Network isn’t subtle about its political objectives. In a manifesto, the organization calls for the “abolition of the police,” the “abolition of borders and ICE,” the payment of “reparations” to minorities, the “decolonization” of native lands, the end of “global white supremacy,” and the overthrow of the “cisgender heterosexual patriarchy.” The organization is also explicitly anti-capitalist: its literature is littered with references to “anti-capitalism” and, during one board meeting, its leaders fantasized about what life would be like “after capitalism falls.”

The specific practices of the GSA Network and its affiliates rely on cult-like programming techniques. A toolkit instructs children recruited into the clubs to do the “self work” of analyzing “how [their] actions, lack of actions or privileges contribute to the ongoing marginalization” of the oppressed. After establishing a baseline of identity-based guilt, the children identify their position on the intersectional hierarchy and categorize themselves as part of “groups w/ systemic power (privilege)” or “groups w/ less or no systemic power (oppressed)” along the axes of race, sex, gender, and national origin. Straight, white, cisgender male citizens are deemed the ultimate oppressor; gay, black, trans women immigrants are the ultimate oppressed.

Next, children are encouraged to atone for their privileges and perform acts of penance. “Doing the self and collective work to analyze how we contribute to the oppression of Trans, Queer, Non-binary / Gender Non-Conforming, Black, Indigenous, youth of color is tough, but we must commit to dismantling these systems for collective liberation,” the organization says. Specifically, the adults leading the clubs are instructed to tell the “privileged” children that they must “implement the use of pronouns,” “offer a land acknowledgment,” “listen to the Trans community,” “center conversations around Black liberation,” and “use your privilege (and your physical and monetary resources) to support Trans, Queer, Non-binary / Gender Non-Conforming, Black, Indigenous people of color, issues, businesses, and projects.”

All this activity, the group believes, is best kept secret from parents. The GSA Network tells the adult club “advisors” that they should keep a child’s involvement in the club confidential. “Know the laws in your state around students’ privacy rights and what you do and don’t have to tell parents/guardians/families,” the organization says in its official handbook. “When calling youth, it may not be safe to mention ‘GSA club’ or another trans or queer reference. Alternatively, club leaders can say they are from a student leadership program.” In many school districts, teachers not only can encourage a child’s participation in a “gender and sexuality” club without notifying parents but can also facilitate a child’s gender or sexual transition, including the adoption of a new name and set of pronouns, with the default policy requiring teachers to keep it a secret from that child’s family.

This strategy of the “gender and sexuality” clubs is deeply cynical. As independent journalists Colin Wright and Christina Buttons have documented, many teachers who serve as adult “advisors” to these clubs are intentionally concealing the sexual and political nature of their activities from parents, deliberately misleading families with vague language about “acceptance, tolerance, diversity, and identity.” This might work in the short term, but in the long term, they are playing with fire. School districts that allow adult employees to discuss sexuality with children secretly are creating a dangerous system that could easily be exploited by child predators. Clinical psychologists are already raising the alarm, warning that some of these practices resemble the tactics of such predators.

One solution for this problem is total transparency and the restoration of parental authority. Schools should adopt policies that parents must be notified about their children’s participation in curricular and extracurricular activities involving sex, gender, and sexuality, with the default being that parents are required to opt in explicitly to any such programs. Furthermore, as Governor Ron DeSantis has done in Florida, state legislatures should ban all instruction on sex, gender, and sexuality in at least kindergarten through third grade. Beyond that, schools should be required to post all training and teaching materials on their websites so that parents can easily review all curriculum and documentation associated with gender and sexuality programs.

https://www.city-journal.org/gsa-clubs-smuggle-gender-ideology-into-k-12-education

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New York hands out worthless diplomas to high school ‘grads’

A new report by the New York Equity Coalition confirmed what this page has been saying for years: Lowered standards have inflated statewide high school graduation rates.

The statewide rate jumped to 86.1% last year, as the city’s rose to 82%. But the report notes that 70% of grads used at least one state test exemption to “earn” a 2021 diploma, after the Board of Regents and the State Department of Education seized on COVID to relax graduation standards. That’s up from just 10% in 2020.

Sebrone Johnson of the Urban League’s Rochester chapter, one of the groups in the Equity Coalition, told The Post that relying on these exemptions “devalues the very premise of the diploma.”

And they’re still at it: In May, the Board of Regents approved a “temporary” measure that lets high schoolers with failing scores of 50-64 on a Regents test appeal their score if they pass the classroom subject. This will lift graduation rates once again. After all, schools in New York City (at least) regularly get caught committing grade fraud to boost those rates.

Now parents are wising up to these games. No wonder families are abandoning the regular public schools in droves

https://nypost.com/2022/08/10/new-york-doe-hands-out-worthless-diplomas-to-high-school-grads/

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Majority of Texas teachers are considering quitting: survey

A majority of Texas teachers are apparently on the verge of quitting, according to a new survey.

The study, which was conducted by the Texas State Teachers Association, says that 70% of the 688 teachers surveyed are seriously considering leaving their profession.

The number is the highest recorded by the TSTA, which has been tracking teachers' concerns in the Lone Star State for over four decades. The survey recorded that 53% of the teachers they asked considered leaving their jobs in 2018.

About 94% of surveyed teachers attested to the pandemic increasing stress in their professional lives, while 84% said their workload and planning requirements increased. Around 41% of respondents said they took on extra jobs throughout the year.

According to TSTA, the main reason is discord between Texas teachers and legislators – with teachers feeling they are not listened to or paid adequately.

"If situations don’t improve, if the political climate doesn’t improve and the members of the legislature don’t start spending more money on public education and teacher’s salaries, it may get worse," Texas State Teachers Association Clay Robison told KTBC. "The people that suffer are the school children. Their learning loss could get worse and that puts the future of Texas at risk."

"I think a lot of that [discord] built up and a lot of teachers said, ‘well, I’m out of here," Robison added.

The news comes as the U.S. experiences a teacher shortage, with districts from New York to Minnesota experiencing vacancies. DeKalb Independent School District in Texas shifted to a four-day weekly schedule on Monday. The district hopes that the extra day off will give teachers adequate time to prepare for the week.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/majority-texas-teachers-considering-quitting-survey

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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