We are betraying a generation of Americans, our youth of today. We are doing it in many ways, and tragically, some are deliberately doing it. The means are varied. Teachers refusing to go back to work, choosing instead to put their own personal desires ahead of the needs of the children they promised to educate. Other teachers are abusing their positions to indoctrinate children on radical concepts, that have nothing at all to do with preparing youth to become productive adults and lead another generation of Americans to success.
In many ways, we are all guilty of negligence, and it is time we boldly speak the truth.
There are two genders. There is the inalienable right of self-determination, and if a man wishes to live as a woman, then that is his personal right. But, it is not the right of anyone to force himself, or herself, or their personal choices, on to other people against their will. Yet, we now have federal efforts to force school districts to allow men to openly compete in women's athletics if they simply "declare" themselves to be women. It is the phony nonsense of an era that has lost its way. Young girls are now having to take the stage, and bravely speak about the clear injustices heaped upon them by adults who are supposed to care more about them as children, than these adults should care about themselves.
But, in the era we live in, too many adults acquired the philosophy that their desires are supreme, whatever they think, whatever they dream, whatever they believe, is not only fit for them, but must be forced upon all others. So, we have males competing in female sports, winning all the titles and making a mockery of the very female sports that only a few decades ago, we recognized needed to be taken seriously, as we had spent far too long robbing women of the fair opportunity to compete in athletic contests.
Now, with Title IX being turned from a good-faith effort to rectify the prior slights to becoming now an instrument to destroy women's athletics, we are officially changing the dynamic. If these leftists were honest with themselves, they would just seek to abolish women's sports, and tell everyone to compete against each other, male and female, and let only the best compete. It would instantly render women's athletics a bygone era, destroyed on a foolish altar of haughty sophistry. There is another honest option, and one we should immediate take -- force reality back into the public square, boldly state there are two genders, allow men and women fair and equitable opportunities for personal success and competition, including in athletics, and stop trying to force alien concepts down the throats of the public.
Bad enough if that was the only avenue of betraying our children. Terribly, there are many more layers.
We have spent over a year denying formal education to our children, because teachers in many areas of America put politics and personal fear ahead of their most sacred duties to the people. There are risks in all endeavors. The risk of children being active carriers of COVID-19 is proven negligible. It's hard to get that message across, because our media is complicit in trying to drive a political narrative, and burying the medical facts. But, even without media complicity, there are plenty of school boards and teachers unions lacking in moral determination to fulfill their duties. Several county teachers unions and school boards, such as the one union in Durham County, North Carolina, have written manifestos, demanding a whole host of leftist policies be adopted as a prerequisite for them returning to the classroom. These political demands have nothing to do with public education, and nothing to do with COVID-19. They just reveal the prime agenda of these leftists masquerading as educators, and those who display their malice this clearly should be immediately fired.
It's always been questionable whether governments should even allow their employees to unionize. The government isn't like a private corporation or personal business. Corporations, and certainly small businesses, have to survive on the revenue they can generate from their own efforts, and that is always a check on how much concession they can make to union work demands. The union employees themselves, if they're intelligent, also should realize that if they obtain too much, they end up putting themselves out of work when their contracts bankrupt the company.
But, governments can always raise taxes, borrow money, and with the federal government, can even just print more money. We now have state government, who for decades, have earned huge public debt from out of control employee costs, demanding and now obtaining huge federal bailouts. There is little, if any, practical limit on what a government can concede to a union. This alone should make the notion of government employee unions illegal. Add in this horrible betrayal of their most basic employee duties, and it should now be enough to cause a national upheaval, that puts an end to these corrupt government unions.
There is another layer.
For even those schools that are actually functioning with working classrooms, there is now an expanding effort to blunt the children from achieving the highest degree of education their talents can allow. Just days ago, the Boston Public School system announced that they would end their advanced learning classes. The reason offered is that too high a percentage of the students in those classes were Asian and white. Too few were Hispanic and black. The stats cited show that while 80% of the students in this district are Hispanic or black, that 70% of the advanced placement students are Asian or white.
Vice work to try to identify any actual racist injustices that might have occurred, instead, the school district decided to end the entire program. If we are actually trying to compete on the international stage, it would seem obvious that we should try to identify those children who show advanced aptitude, and give them a means to expand their skills, and become the best and most talented adults they could become. No one has offered any evidence of racial bias in the program. It was merely enough for this school district that a statistical skew existed, and that was sufficient justification to end the program. Worse, the way they are ending the program is that it will continue merely for this school year. Students already enrolled in these advanced classes will, starting next year, no longer have them available.
These children will be folded back into the regular classes, likely being forced to endure the boredom of being taught material they long ago mastered, and in the process, being robbed of their zeal and intellectual curiosity. There is no worse betrayal of a child than to rob that child of an opportunity to chase his dreams. To destroy that opportunity, for political reasons, is a hideous act.
A more honest and effective action would be to thoroughly investigate the reasons for this racial skew, and work earnestly to address those issues, with the goal of getting every student qualified to apply for the advanced classes. And that's the other part of this, just because these district students qualified to apply, only a few were selected via a lottery draw. The system needed to be expanded, not eliminated. All this Boston district is doing is reducing educational opportunities already inadequate for the demand, vice expand them. In doing this, they are betraying the most earnest needs of the very children who might become our best chances for a vibrant future. Too many educators seem to prefer shackling children to stunted intellectual development, and make them pay the price, so these adults can feel better about their own sense of racial piety. Vice the hard work to improve an inadequate learning environment for all students, these adults in Boston want to take the lazy path, and deny everyone the opportunity for their finest possible education.
As adults, we have no higher duty than to raise our children to replace us. Teachers took an oath to be professionals in that duty, and we dedicate the largest percentage of our property taxes to finance our public school systems. When the teachers abdicate their duty to the children, then they are bereft of any claim to call themselves educators. Teachers who refuse to return to work now, or who only wish to abuse their offices to push radical political agendas, are a danger to our children, and should be driven out of the profession.
Outraged citizens need to run for school board positions in their counties, to drive out those who are negligent. This needs to be a grass roots revolution to take back control of our school systems, get the radicals out of the systems, and restore education to its necessary public role. America spends more money per student than any other nation on earth, and we have among the most incompetent and dysfunctional public education systems in the world. We have tolerated this nonsense too long, and it is time to rectify it.
We have betrayed too many of our children already, and we cannot allow its continuance.
-- Ken Stallings
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