Covid was the pretext for the implementation of many new policies at state and federal level. Of course with these new policies comes taxpayer funding. This week the White House announced New Actions and Resources for Increasing Student Attendance and Engagement as Part of the White House Every Day Counts Summit.
The alarms went off for me when I saw that visits to homes is included in this new plan to address chronic absenteeism amongst k12 students.
This year in Washington we had SB 5850, to support students who are chronically absent. This bill did not make it across the finish line, thankfully. A couple of issues in this bill that really concerned our team were the “home visits” and the “celebrations” for good attendance. The reward of going to school is that you get an education, you can function in life and ultimately, you can contribute to society and provide for yourself and family because you have the education and skills needed to do so.
(I would imagine that other states have similar legislation as I have noticed most of these bills are a “copy/paste” from a higher level. Judging by this notice from the White House, it definitely is a bigger agenda than just a state level)
As a mom who had 4 students still in school in 2020 when schools shut down across the country - nearly two years for my students in Washington state - I can easily see how the adjustment of reverting back to in person school from “join the class on your Chromebook from bed…if you even want to” is very difficult for many students. We completely disrupted the routines of our kids and then we expect them to go back to the regular routine of school? Good luck!
Which makes me wonder…is this yet another instance of “never let a good crisis go to waste?”
Let’s look at the attendance issue:
Chronic absenteeism has doubled since the pre-Covid numbers from 2019-2020.
“The trends suggest that something fundamental has shifted in American childhood and the culture of school, in ways that may be long lasting. What was once a deeply ingrained habit — wake up, catch the bus, report to class — is now something far more tenuous.”
Bigger than the routine, habit and culture of going to school is the fact that bringing the classroom into the kitchen gave parents a first-hand look at what is really going on in schools and subsequently destroyed the trust of many parents.
Many parents have realized that their students aren’t getting an academic education in the public schools, therefore, maybe attendance isn’t that important to them anymore. I know if my kids were still in school, I’d be happy to keep them home to avoid another woke lesson in English class.
The NAEP reported a decline in every subject between the 2019-2020 school year and 2022-23 school year. We hear a bit about “learning loss recovery”, but we hear far more about SEL, DEI, CRT and sexuality from our schools than we do actually helping our students get back on track academically.
Additionally concerning in the Biden announcement is the focus on community schools:
“Meeting the basic needs of students and families, including through investing in Full-Service Community Schools, which, among other features, connect families to supports such as health care, housing, and child care.”
The Communist Agenda of Community Schools
In January the Dept of Health and Human Services announced $50M in grants to increase the number of full service community schools across the country, with a goal of 25,000 by 2030.
This week I wrote an article about the new Homeschool Hub published by Johns Hopkins (also the pioneer for so-called gender affirming child mutilation surgeries) and I found it very interesting to see Johns Hopkins mentioned in this brief for providing a “digital backpack” of resources for how to address chronic absenteeism.
Always follow the money. Education is big business, well funded and yet, student success is at an all-time low nationwide! $250 MILLION dollars in grants to address absenteeism.
“This month, the U.S. Department of Education issued a Notice Inviting Applications for the Education Innovation and Research grant program, making available approximately $250 million to create, develop, implement, and replicate evidence-based solutions that accelerate student achievement, including those designed to reduce chronic absenteeism and increase student engagement.”
The solution to our education issues is not more money. Not more NGOs cashing in on grants to make new data-collection sources, websites with pretty graphics about how to get your kids to go to school, hire people to come out to your house to “check on things”…get back to basics! Teach our children how to read, how to do math, actual, real science. Get them off their digital devices - have them interact with staff and peers, let them play outside. Deliver a quality project instead of the woke junk that is dumbing down an entire generation of Americans.
This fact sheet was released by the White House on Wednesday this week (5/15/24). You probably heard nothing about it. These are the policies that happen quietly, under the radar, and most citizens are none the wiser.
I highly recommend homeschooling your children if they are school-age. There is no way to insulate them from the communist agenda happening in America’s education system today.
Around 20 years ago, when I started homeschooling, I believe I read something about the UN wanting home visits by the government. These programs could be handed down by the globalists. As you knew, they want to abolish the family.
I appreciate your article and your Substack column. So ~ Thank you 🙏🏼
I would say there’s more than one way to interpret White House Every Day Counts Summit. Will they be actively “counting” each & every day to summit the mountains of SEL, DEI & CRT to name a few?
Teaching (or should I say grooming?) kids to know what porn is, to show them what satan has to say about sex, is not an option for a topic in the school curriculum or even having these materials online or in any library. It was once illegal to look at pornography online. How do these children’s educational materials differ?
It’s clear the department of education has succeeded at the goal of dumbing down our youth while grooming them to become sinners in society.
This causes students to be groomed into a mindset they can’t escape unless their parents have a Christian based home to raise them in. I say this as the moral compass is likely to be imbedded into their lives in the formative years. Therefore the student can discern whether they’re fed literal garbage or not.
The biggest problem is the clear limitation of not allowing students to do their own research, write their own thesis, probe resource centers for actual factual information and data. All the while, over the last several decades, students have been held back by being forced to memorize materials which are clearly not fact based, made up nonsense. They don’t teach real history or civics any longer. Mathematics professors are holding back from giving out all the rules to perform the functions. And parents wonder why their kids can’t do math . . .
That said, the students who are in this classification of forthright knowledge, will be shamed and scorned by the teachers who were taught how to groom their students to learn the rote forced down their own throats.
The school system has been completely destroyed. It has broken our students in the last several decades and especially since convid.
Whether we can recover from this egregious situation or not is beyond my knowing.
It takes a generation to shift a society from one solid foundation to another more weak one. The time is 12-18 years in the education system.
I listened to lectures from Yuri Besmenov (on YouTube) an asylum seeker from Russia in the early 80s who explained how to infiltrate an entire country step by step ~ destroying it from within. It’s happened.
The only way to get these issues solved is to end the big government behemoth and start over with small communities which are governed by the locals.
Education is good if it’s purposeful. Trade schools are magnificent. Not everyone needs to go to a college or university. I recall seeing a PhD grad selling cars because he couldn’t find a job in his field. One instance of millions . . .
We need to stop being lazy, letting government do everything for us. We need to get back to doing life “for” others. Stop being so selfish and self centered. We need to reach out to our communities to help those in need.
Stop buying things we don’t need or even want just because we se an ad for it. Stop feeding the beasts.
If we stopped buying from all these huge corporations for two weeks and supported local businesses these behemoths would be put out of business. But we’re too selfish to do it.
We’ve made our bed. We need to sleep in it.
I was all over the board with my response. I beg your forgiveness.