Socialists are coming for your school-age children — and that’s no hyperbole

In a post on its website, the Democratic Socialists of America writes, “Why Socialists Should Become Teachers.”

And from there, the DSA of West Virginia explains how the success of a socialists’-led teachers’ strike in that state in 2018 that brought them a 5% pay raise could segue into long-term reform within America’s public schools.

Without understating, this seems a danger to America. It’s an attempt to crumble the country from within, by instilling the youth with anti-American viewpoints.

In another decade, that would be called seditious. Nowadays? Nowadays, it’s called freedom of speech.

But let’s be clear: What the DSA is advocating is a strategic infiltration of America’s public school systems to bring about socialist policy — and ultimately, teach socialist policy to the nation’s most vulnerable, the children.

“The West Virginia strike didn’t happen by chance,” DSA.org wrote. “It was the result of creative shop floor organizing by teachers with socialist policies. These teachers introduced a fundamentally different vision of their state than what was on offer from either elected officials or union leaders. And they were able to do this because they had organic connections to their co-workers.”

They were inside, and they used their inside access to spread their socialist messages. They openly acknowledge that — and openly advocate for more of the same.

“[The DSA] argues that socialists should take jobs as teachers (and other school-based workers) for the political, economic, and social potential the industry holds,” the DSA website states.

This is horrifying. America’s children are being targeted by forces who stand in utter opposition to all this country represents, to all upon which this government was founded.

The risk is real. The fate of our country hangs in the balance.  The minds of our nation’s children are in jeopardy.

“There is a growing network of educators in DSA working to transform our schools, our unions and our society,” DSA wrote.

And they have no intention of slowing or going.

If conservatives, patriots, Christians, traditionalists, constitutionalists and others with love for the America that’s supposed to be — the limited government one envisioned by our framers — don’t get going and run for the school board, or seek out more teaching positions themselves, it won’t be long before socialism’s roots are unable to be dug.

It won’t be long before socialist teachers train socialist students how to lead in a socialist America and the democratic-republic, the whole Great Experiment Called Free America, becomes just a thing of study for the history books.

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A Nascent College Accountability System

Holding institutions of higher learning accountable for rising tuition and loan defaults.

Quite likely, most Americans have never heard of Harvey Mudd College. Yet when the salary-comparison site PayScale analyzed alumni salary data of 3.5 million respondents representing more than 4,000 colleges and universities across the U.S. for its 2019-2020 College Salary Report, the undergraduate science and engineering institution in Claremont, California, topped the list. Its graduates earn $88,800 in their early careers, and $158,200 in their mid-careers. Making data like that easily available might influence thousands of students’ choices regarding which college to attend. The Trump administration has begun doing something about that — something with the potential to upend a contemptible status quo where by thousands of students are drowning in college-loan debt with little or nothing to show for it.

“In November, the Department of Education released post graduate earnings and debt data broken down by college program — which will have a revolutionary impact on higher education,” columnist Andrew Gillen explains. “Students (and policymakers) can now get accurate information about how much recent graduates earned by college and degree (e.g., a Bachelor’s in Physics from Ohio State University).”

Unfortunately, the data set is limited. It includes only students receiving federal financial aid and, as of now, those students’ earnings only one year after they’ve graduated. But when one considers the reality that hundreds of billions of dollars from federal, state, and local governments are provided to institutions of higher learning on an annual basis — with no consideration for the actual outcomes produced by those institutions — one suspects the political pressure ultimately brought to bear in a nation besieged by skyrocketing tuition costs and $1.5 trillion of outstanding student-loan debt with be impossible to ignore.

The Trump administration is not the first one making the attempt to increase transparency. In 2014, President Barack Obama championed a government rating system aimed at holding the nation’s 7,000 colleges and universities accountable for the $150 billion in federal loans and grants they were receiving at the time.

Quite unsurprisingly, those who’ve benefited from this arrangement were appalled. “Applying a sledgehammer to the whole system isn’t going to work,” Robert G. Templin Jr., former president of Northern Virginia Community College, complained at the time. “They think their vision of higher education is the only one.”

Adam F. Falk, former president of Williams College in Massachusetts, agreed. “As with many things, the desire to solve a complicated problem in what feels like a simple way can capture people’s imagination,” but, he added, it is likely to be “oversimplified to the point that it actually misleads.” Charles L. Flynn Jr., president of the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx, insisted a rating system “cannot be done well and that the initiative was "uncharacteristically clueless.”

Ultimately, the Obama administration precipitated Gainful Employment regulations, whereby vocational programs that engendered too much student debt would no longer be eligible for federal financial aid. The Trump administration rescinded the regulations because they targeted for-profit programs while exempting most public and nonprofit programs.

Moreover, the Obama administration’s efforts to bypass Congress created unnecessary partisan rancor belied by the reality that a federal accountability system applied to all colleges is something both parties favor. In February 2019, Sen. Lamar Alexander, GOP chairman of the committee, proposed overhauling the Higher Education Act by streamlining federal student-aid applications, simplifying student-loan repayments, and holding colleges accountable for repayment rates on student loans. Two months later, Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy proposed four measures of accountability: graduation and loan-repayment rates, whether loan debt is too burdensome for graduates, and the release of data showing the proportion of low-income students who are admitted and graduate.

In a nation as polarized as this one, such bipartisanship is rare. And despite the aforementioned rule recision, Gillen believes Gainful Employment would make an excellent starting point for the Trump administration’s effort to precipitate the next level of accountability. “Adjusting the original Gainful Employment rules to account for differences in the student cohorts as well as differences in the earnings and debt measures, we can apply what I call Gainful Employment Equivalent (GEE), to explore what a similar accountability system might look like,” he states.

It is likely GEE would not be well received by those being held accountable, because it would reveal some highly damning data. As Gillen reveals, approximately one million graduates per year “received federal financial aid to attend a college program that does not pass a reasonable debt-to-income test.” The same test reveals that 69% of students attending law school — where the average student-loan debt for 2015-16 graduates was a whopping $145,500 — would also fail to receive an adequate bang for their buck.

The other part of the equation is just as critical. “For years we’ve asked students to make one of life’s most important decisions essentially blindfolded,” Gillen rightfully notes. “We’ve told them a college degree is the surest path to success but have given them little guidance on where to go to college or what major to choose once they get there.”

Again, such a rating system, whereby students wold be pointed toward statistically well-paying majors or the most lucrative parts of risky ones would be utterly anathema to a number of colleges not only replete with worthless majors, but those with ever-expanding bureaucracies invariably tied to some aspect of “social justice” or “diversity” — all of which drive up tuition costs.

“Not every college or program will survive,” Gillen warns. “But those that do will be stronger.”

Yet one more thing is critical to the mix: Colleges must be held accountable for some percentage of student-loan defaults. Those defaults are currently underwritten in total by taxpayers, and this contemptible dynamic allows colleges to raise their costs with impunity.

It also precipitates bone-headed plans like Elizabeth Warren’s assertion that she will implement student-loan forgiveness by executive fiat. Such a disastrous “solution” not only fails to incentivize colleges to rein in their costs, it engenders moral hazard on steroids, as in the idea that freely made personal commitments can be “justifiably” cast aside.

No doubt that resonates among some younger Americans, long-marinated in a cultivated sense of “grievance,” whereby some broken promises are perfectly acceptable. But such capriciousness is utterly catastrophic for any society other than one that embraces anarchy.

Maybe if we finally hold colleges truly accountable, some of those socialist/Marxist wannabes will get a clue.

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British schools 'gaming' the system to boost league table position, warns Ofsted boss

Secondary schools are entering almost every child into an English foreign language GCSE in a bid to “game” the league tables, the head of Ofsted has revealed.

Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools in England, has warned headteachers over putting their own interests over that of their pupils.

She said that schools should not feel “under pressure” to boost their position in league tables by entering children for pointless qualifications simply because “the school down the road is doing it”.

Speaking at the launch of Ofsted’s annual report, Ms Spielman cited one school where inspectors noted that every child was required to take a GCSE in sports science, regardless of whether they took any interest in the subject.

Meanwhile, other schools entered practically every pupil for a GCSE in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), even though they were “nearly all” native English speakers.

Ministers acted on Ofsted’s calls to close this loophole, and the league tables published last month were the first time that ESOL qualifications did not count towards a school’s performance.


Questions on an ESOL specimen paper include one where pupils are asked to describe in up to 150 words a person who “has played an important part in your life”.

Another question asks students to write between 70 and 90 words on how they celebrated their last birthday.

Ms Spielman said that a “minority” of schools are failing children by attempting to boost their reputation at the expense of delivering a well-rounded education.

She explained: "In schools, if we see actions that appear to be taken in the school's own interests, this may be a type of 'gaming', by seeking to make things look better than they are.

"Some actions that schools take may have a beneficial impact on the school's performance data but be of limited benefit or even at odds with the best interests of pupils."


Ms Spielman used her speech to accuse ministers of failing to support primary schools in Birmingham which faced picket lines and protests from their local Muslim communities over the introduction of LGBT lessons.

She said there was “no swift condemnation” from governments over these protests, and “remarkably little” from politicians.

Ms Spielman went on: “The powerful voices that should have supported the children and the school were largely muted. “Headteachers spoke of being isolated. Where leadership was desperately needed, it was lacking.”

After months of demonstrations a judge banned the protests in November, which he said had caused distress and anxiety to teachers and pupils alike.

Ms Spielman also criticised schools which segregate pupils on gender grounds and censor textbooks, as she condemned politicians for failing to properly tackle these issues.

These findings should have led to “proper public discussion”, Ms Spielman said but added that “very few” people are willing to engage in discussing “sensitive areas” such as these.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that the majority of schools do not “game” the system but urged ministers to overhaul league tables so that headteachers are not presented with false incentives.

“Performance tables currently penalise schools which have more pupils in challenging circumstances, such as those with low prior attainment and special educational needs,” he said. “This is wrong. The system should incentivise inclusivity and performance tables must be reformed.”

Ofsted’s report showed that 86 per cent of schools in England are rated good or outstanding, along with 96 per cent of nurseries and 81 per cent of further education and skills colleges.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “This report shows that the majority of schools, nurseries and childminders, and colleges and other organisations delivering further education and training, are now rated as good or outstanding, and there have been improvements in children’s social work.

“These improvements are only possible because of the hard work of those working in these professions striving for the best education and care for our young people.

“But we are not complacent, and one of the key functions of a good regulator is that it highlights areas of concern and we will work with Ofsted, schools, local authorities and others to address the issues this report identifies.”

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