State GOP Devises Plan to Limit Influence of ‘Woke’ Teachers Unions

The Alabama Republican Party is on the verge of prohibiting some GOP candidates from accepting campaign donations from the Alabama Education Association, the predominant teachers union in the state.

Alabama GOP Chairman John Wahl announced the proposal ahead of Saturday’s vote by the state party’s executive committee. If approved, candidates running for the Alabama Board of Education, local school boards, and county school superintendent positions would be barred from taking the union’s money.

“So many of our parents and local teachers want to see change in our education system, but how can we expect our superintendents and school board members to stand up against teaching these woke concepts if they are afraid of the money and financial power coming from liberal unions responsible for pushing this type of curriculum?” Wahl said in a statement, adding:

It’s a blatant conflict of interest, and something that needs to be addressed. Our elected school representatives must be responsible to Alabama parents, not special-interest groups.

Under his leadership, Wahl has advocated for school choice in Alabama—an idea strongly opposed by teachers unions, including the National Education Association and its state affiliate.

Despite its conservative political makeup, Alabama ranks No. 27 for school choice on The Heritage Foundation’s Education Freedom Report Card. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

A poll commissioned by the Alabama Republican Party earlier this year put support for school choice at 57% among registered voters. It surveyed 1,610 voters on a question related to the state Legislature’s consideration of school choice legislation.

Even though school choice is popular with voters, the legislation made little headway among lawmakers. In its June 9 newsletter, the Alabama Education Association claimed credit: “AEA worked tirelessly to defeat this legislation,” the organization told its members, 1819 News reported.

Heritage’s Lindsey Burke, director of the Center for Education Policy, said teachers unions have long dominated K-12 education with membership rates hovering around 70% (compared with about 10% among all American workers).

“More school choice potentially means fewer union members, something this special-interest group sees as an existential threat,” Burke said. “This is a dues revenue source the unions will not cede willingly, so they’ll continue to fight education choice even though it can be a life-changing benefit for children.”

Aside from his concerns about a conflict of interest, Wahl said, he’s also “committed to protecting our children from indoctrination in the classroom.” He cited the National Education Association as a purveyor of “transgender and woke policies.”

“Parents should decide what their children learn about divisive concepts, not education unions that have lost touch with the values of the American people,” Wahl said.

The proposed change comes despite the Alabama Education Association’s heavy involvement in state Republican politics. According to the Alabama Daily News, the union was the No. 1 donor to GOP candidates in the 2022 election cycle with $2.9 million going to legislative races. Upward of 70% of the money went to Republicans, according to the union’s own estimates. That’s a sharp contrast to other states and nationally.

“Teachers unions have steadily amped up their political involvement,” according to OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics. “From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million—an all-time high. Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving Democrats at least 94% of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties since as far back as 1990, where our data begins.”

The Alabama union’s executive director, Amy Marlowe, claimed the GOP party chairman was making “irresponsible” and “false accusations” about the organization.

“Our voluntary membership comprises almost 90,000 Alabamians, with 72% identifying as conservative Republican voters,” Marlowe said in response to Wahl’s proposal. “AEA prioritizes all education employees working to teach children in Alabama’s local schools. Our focus is on education with no partisan perspective or fringe ideologies.”

Wahl isn’t backing down, even as the union mounts its own offensive ahead of Saturday’s vote.

“If they are serious about supporting Alabama values, they are free to disassociate from the NEA at any time,” Wahl told Yellowhammer News.

Wahl’s proposal would not apply to Republican candidates running for the state Legislature or governor.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/03/alabama-gop-proposes-ban-teachers-union-donations-partys-candidates

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College Board is ‘playing games’ by falsely claiming Florida law bans psychology courses, says state’s Department of Education

The Florida Department of Education accused the College Board of “playing games” by incorrectly claiming that state law banned Advanced Placement Psychology courses in schools.

According to the College Board, Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, misleadingly referred to by leftists as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, makes it illegal to teach AP Psychology. It claimed the act “effectively banned” the courses.

The law restricts classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity but allows exceptions for state-required academic standards and reproductive health classes.

The College Board explained that the AP Psychology courses require students to “describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.”

“We are sad to have learned that today the Florida Department of Education has effectively banned AP Psychology in the state by instructing Florida superintendents that teaching foundational content on sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal under state law,” the College Board said in a statement on Thursday.

The College Board, which oversees Advanced Placement courses and the SAT test, announced in June that it would not modify any material to comply with the Parental Rights in Education Act because it could cause colleges to reject the credits. On Thursday, it doubled down on its policy.

“To be clear, any AP Psychology course taught in Florida will violate either Florida law or college requirements. Therefore, we advise Florida districts not to offer AP Psychology until Florida reverses their decision and allows parents and students to choose to take the full course,” the College Board stated.

The AP Psychology Development Committee that designed the course supported the College Board’s decision.

“As a committee, we affirm that gender and sexual orientation are essential, longstanding, and foundational topics in the study of psychology,” the committee stated in part.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/college-board-is-playing-games-by-falsely-claiming-florida-law-bans-psychology-courses-says-states-department-of-education

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The battle for the minds of our children is difficult, but it is far from lost

We’ve all heard of the New York Times’s 1619 Project, the subsequent book, and the curriculum spreading throughout our schools. And we know the project is rife with errors, exaggerations, and outrageous claims that portray America’s founding as fraudulent and inherently racist.

There have long been political leaders, academics, writers, and social theorists peddling ideas (or should we say ideology) as part of a movement to delegitimize the principles and institutions that our country is founded upon while trying to teach young people that everything they’ve learned about America is a lie.

Fortunately, people are finally starting to take note and reconnect with the miracle of 1776 that sparked a wave of freedom and prosperity that we all enjoy today.

Back in 2020, President Donald Trump’s administration set up the 1776 Commission on Patriotic Education, partially in response to the deadly, violent, and destructive Black Lives Matter riots that swept across the country earlier that year. The commission also sought to address leftist education programs in K-12 schools, including 1619, until President Joe Biden terminated the project via executive order.

Fortunately, that doesn’t mean the battle for our kids’ minds is lost. For example, Hillsdale College in Michigan continues moving forward with its objective of teaching about the ideals and triumphs of America’s great founding by offering a wide range of courses for students and the public far beyond its own humble campus.

Hillsdale has launched the 1776 Curriculum to bring this education to students in elementary through high school. This didn’t start as a knee-jerk reaction to woke history, though. Far from it. Hillsdale’s The Collegian notes that the groundwork for the curriculum took place more than 40 years ago.

The program is now being embraced and implemented in schools around the country. And the Leftmedia is taking note.

“Amid national battles over what children should learn in public schools,” reports NBC News, “Hillsdale is working to export this vision by setting up charter schools in over a dozen states and publicizing its 1776 Curriculum, which emphasizes American exceptionalism. The college says over 8,400 administrators and teachers have downloaded the curriculum, and a growing number of state and local policymakers are also seeking Hillsdale’s guidance.”

The 1776 Curriculum covers the period from Colonial America through the modern era and does not mandate the teaching of American history in any particular way — unlike the 1619 Project, which forces teachers to frame all lessons and activities around radical race-based theories. 1776 does not overlook America’s mistakes and failures, but those subjects are not taught through an ideological prism. Instead, students learn how the principles of our nation served as a catalyst to overcome these obstacles.

Indeed, the statement in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” obliterated the centuries-old assumption that our rights can only be parceled out by a monarch or other authoritarian ruler. This new belief enabled progress toward making the Declaration’s ideas a reality for millions.

How anyone could oppose such an idea seems unfathomable, especially now that we have nearly two and a half centuries of proof that it works in powerful ways.

But the Marxists and socialists who contributed to the 1619 Project do oppose the words in the Declaration because their vision for humanity requires subservience to a powerful elite, submission to tyranny, and a surrender of individual rights. Then, and only then, will they be able to build a “new” society that takes us back into the oppressive past.

If they think America’s founding documents and history left out some groups of people, imagine if those groups didn’t have these rights to hold onto during the darkest times in our history. Indeed, the ideas of 1776 are what make America an exceptional nation.

In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.”

Even King knew that the words and principles of our founding in 1776 challenged all of us, empowered all of us, to work toward making them a reality for all people. And thanks to the 1776 Curriculum, students across America will soon be learning real American history again.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/99407 ?

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