Tag: education

Degraded Schools

Many students are chronically absent or have dropped out of school.

Nat Malkus, a senior fellow in education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, oversees the Return to Learn Tracker, which monitors chronic absenteeism in U.S. schools. His latest report, released in early February, includes data from 39 states and Washington, D.C.

He states that after reaching a high of 29 percent in the 2021–22 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate—missing 10 percent or more of school days in an academic year—fell by 2.6 percentage points the following school year and by 2.2 percentage points the following school year. This progress was encouraging, but it stalled last school year, with rates falling by just over one percentage point on average. This leaves the average chronic absenteeism rate for most of the country at 23 percent, roughly 50 percent higher than the pre-pandemic baseline.

This chronic absence problem is especially egregious in our large urban areas. In Los Angeles, more than 32 percent of students were chronically absent during the 2023–24 school year. Thirty-four elementary schools have fewer than 200 students, and 29 use less than half of their buildings. Chicago is even worse, with a chronic absentee rate of 41 percent.

Malkus concludes that these patterns suggest that shifts in attitudes and behavior are largely driving the across-the-board increases in post-pandemic absenteeism. Six years into the pandemic, students and their parents are placing less value on attending school each day.

One realistic way to address chronic absenteeism—and save taxpayer dollars—would be to close ineffective schools. But government educrats and teacher union bosses refuse to allow that to happen. In fact, school closures have slowed over time.

An analysis by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics shows that in 2014–15, the closure rate—the share of schools nationwide that were open one year and closed the next—was 1.3 percent, but in 2023–24, the rate was just 0.8 percent.

Another way to alleviate the problem would be to reduce the number of teachers by eliminating the lowest performers, but that will not happen. Teacher union-mandated permanence clauses make it nearly impossible to fire an incompetent teacher. In California, a 2012 court case revealed that, on average, only 2.2 of California’s 275,000 teachers (0.0008 percent) were dismissed each year for unprofessional conduct or unsatisfactory performance.

Chronic absenteeism rates would also improve if students felt a sense of purpose in going to school. Currently, many kids lack interest in showing up. A 2024 report from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation surveyed over 1,000 Gen Z students aged 12 to 18 and found that only 48 percent of those enrolled in middle or high school felt motivated to show up. Only half said they do something interesting in school every day. Similarly, a 2024 EdChoice survey indicated that 64 percent of teens said school is boring, and 30 percent view it as a waste of time.

In addition to the problem of chronically absent students, families are removing their children, especially if they are high achievers, from government-run schools in large numbers.

Joshua Goodman, an associate professor of education and economics at Boston University, authored a study that found that nationally, white and Asian parents are far more likely to withdraw their children from public schools than Hispanics and blacks.

“The question that worries me is whether this means that public schools have now cemented a reputation as not being the place where high-achieving students attend. If you’re a family that’s looking for a challenging curriculum, and you have a talented student, you’re no longer seeing public schools in quite that light,” Goodman said.

Perhaps the leader in the public school exodus is Chicago, whose numbers are particularly grim. Dwindling enrollment has left about 150 Windy City schools half-empty, while 47 operate at less than one-third capacity, leading to high costs and limited course offerings.

Worth noting is that Chicago spends about $18,700 per student. At small schools that have been losing students, per-pupil costs are double or triple that. At one 28-student school, the cost per student is $93,000. (For the sake of perspective, the Latin School of Chicago, among the city’s most expensive private schools, costs about $47,000 per year.)

Not surprisingly, as the number of students declines, school district insolvency is on the rise. Education finance experts say more districts are grappling with this problem, especially those that spent pandemic federal aid on recurring expenses or didn’t scale back their budgets in anticipation of the aid’s end.

As a result, districts are facing increased involvement from their counties and states, ranging from financial monitoring to takeovers. In rarer cases, districts may even declare bankruptcy or consider merging with other districts.

While public schools are bleeding students, school choice of all types continues to grow. Overall, there are now 75 private school choice programs in 34 states, serving more than 1.5 million students.

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Secretary Rubio ‘Parents, Not Schools, Should Raise Children’ – No Indoctrination, No Government in Education

At a Hannity town hall in Florida, Secretary Marco Rubio shared his views on education and the role of families. “It’s neither the government nor the schools’ job to raise children. They’re there to teach,” he said. “Parents raise children. Strong families raise children.” His message resonates with conservative and religious parents who believe schools should focus on academics and allow families to instill values in their children.

Rubio said he does not want the federal government to threaten schools. He argued that if the government wants to fund programs such as free school lunches, that is fine, but there should not be strings attached. “If you don’t let boys play in girls’ sports, we will take away your school lunch money,” he said, criticizing federal coercion.

“What we are doing at the federal level is ensuring that we are not bullying states into adopting policies that, at the end of the day, turn these places from schools into indoctrination centers,” Rubio added. “That’s actually the way Marxism works. They use the schools to indoctrinate and tell the kids, ‘Don’t listen to your parents. Listen to us.’ We cannot tolerate that. We won’t allow it, and that would destroy our country.”

Secretary Rubio’s education agenda centers on increasing competition through school choice and vocational training while aggressively removing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and “woke” ideologies from public institutions. Upon becoming Secretary of State in 2025, he reversed DEI policies within the State Department, replacing them with a focus on strict meritocracy and performance, declaring that “DEI is gone, forever.”

He also supported legislation to prevent socially progressive and divisive flags, including the LGBTQ+ pride flag, from being flown at U.S. embassies, insisting that the American flag alone represents the nation’s values abroad.

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Twelve Thousand Hours of Indoctrination: How K-12 Education Went Wrong

“What we’ve effectively done is handed over a curriculum to the people on the left here, and they have just indoctrinated. Twelve thousand hours hours is about the amount of time a kid spends in school,” John Droz told The Gateway Pundit in an interview.

Droz is a physicist who retired from regular employment at age 34 and has been involved in education for more than 20 years. He applies his skills of scientific inquiry to analyze how the K-12 education system has gone wrong, both in failing students academically and in indoctrinating them into Marxism. In 2012, he spoke on the subject before the U.S. House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee.

“They’re indoctrinated with left-leaning ideology, whether it’s in history, whether it’s in mathematics, whether it’s in English, but particularly in science,” he said, explaining that he believes the ideology has come to dominate not only the social sciences but even the hard sciences and mathematics. He described the current curriculum as teaching liberal ideology that is anti-American and anti-science.

The greatest defense against any ideology is reason, but Droz argues that children are no longer being taught to reason. In fact, the traditional “Scientific Method” (the linear five- to seven-step process often found on classroom posters) is being replaced in many states by a framework called the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Proponents of the NGSS argue that the new “Practices” approach is more inclusive. They believe that by focusing on how students’ own observations and cultural backgrounds relate to science, rather than memorizing a Western-standardized five-step list, they can better engage students from diverse backgrounds.

There is a substantial body of literature coming out of Harvard and other top universities on the concept of scientific racism, which NGSS is meant to counter. Proponents argue that the classical five-step scientific method acts as a “filter.” They claim it prioritizes a specific Western, linear way of documenting results and often ignores Indigenous knowledge or communal observation styles.

They further argue that because it is rooted in a historical tradition associated with the Enlightenment, it can make students from other cultures feel like “guests” in a house they did not build. Some also describe the traditional “Scientific Method” as a “dumbed-down” version of reality.

The formal scientific method dates back approximately 400 to 500 years and has been used in the construction and development of major inventions and innovations, from the steam engine to the moon landing to toaster pastries and Starlink. If it were merely a “dumbed-down” version of something superior, it is reasonable to argue that this would have been demonstrated by now.

Droz refers to NGSS as “Not Good Science.” In reviewing available materials, I was unable to identify a specific invention or innovation developed using NGSS as a methodological framework. No satellite has ever been launched based on inclusion.

He explained that around 2010 a group drafted two documents: the NGSS, which outlined science standards for each grade level, and a 400-page companion document called the Framework, which provided explanations. The Framework introduced “Three-Dimensional Learning” and emphasized a shift toward “Practices.” Inclusion and diversity are discussed in Chapter 11.

Teams consisting of a scientist from the National Academy of Sciences, a representative from an organization called Achieve, and a teacher affiliated with the National Science Teachers Association presented these standards to state boards of education. As of today, 48 states and the District of Columbia have adopted standards based on A Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council 2012).

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Pentagon Fires Sicko Male ‘Transgender Wolf’ Kindergarten Teacher at Fort Bragg After Parent Complaints

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Thursday that a kindergarten teacher at Fort Bragg, North Carolina has been fired after parent complaints about the male teacher dressing as a transgender wolf in class and scaring students with his multi-personality fetish behavior, including wearing women’s clothing and a wolf tail in class, having the children howl and by having them address him as “Ms. Roxxie” or one of several other personalities.

The parents also complained the teacher’s car parked in the school lot in view of the children had among other things, profane messages, a transgender flag and a license plate that read ” “ROX XY 666.”

Liberty Counsel went public with the parents’ complaints in a bombshell letter released Wednesday that was sent to the military on February 9 that featured screen images of the teacher’s violent fantasy postings on social media.

Excerpt from CBN report:

A group of military families at Fort Bragg is expressing deep concern about a teacher at their children’s school who identifies as a transgender wolf.

With the help of Liberty Counsel, they’re calling on the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) to remove the teacher from the classroom. They point to multiple disturbing examples that have confused and terrified their kindergarten and pre-K children at Mildred B. Poole Elementary School.

The Christian non-profit sent a demand letter to DoDEA on February 9, 2026, stating that multiple parents have reported “sexually inappropriate” behavior by the male, trans-identified substitute teacher and teacher’s aide.

The parents are upset that administrators have allowed him to engage in “disturbing behavior” that involves dressing in feminine clothing in class, as well as wearing a dog collar with fetish tags and an animal tail.

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This Is How Bad Public Schools Are

School districts in affluent areas are hotbeds of left-wing activism, but in general, student performance is at least acceptable. Parents ensure that their own children do well enough, and often invest heavily in supplementing public education with specialized tutoring that at least guarantees that their kids do well on standardized tests. 

Kids get a much worse education than they should, and often more than parents assume, but there is a reason many parents are unaware of the parlous state of the public education system as a whole. If you can get your kid into a good school in a prosperous area, it really isn’t that bad, except for the ideological indoctrination. 

I don’t want to oversell even the better public schools. Kids are now entering college without ever having read a book, and often with math skills that require remedial education, even at elite colleges. But parents love the fact that their kids are getting good grades and doing well on standardized tests, and will earn a credential that will likely serve them well. 

Most affluent parents seem indifferent to the left-wing ideological training their kids are being subjected to, although I detect that a backlash is building and will become strong enough to force the lefties to become more subtle in affluent areas. Or not. 

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University Of Houston Pledges To End Indoctrination

As first reported at Campus Reform, “The University of Houston (UH) administration recently sent faculty at the school a non-indoctrination form, through which the faculty were instructed to pledge not to ‘indoctrinate’ their students into any particular ideology.”

Of course, universities were not meant to be centers of indoctrination in the first place; however, they have, in most cases, become just that.

The form asks faculty to agree to five statements namely “(1) that a primary purpose of higher education is to enhance critical thinking, (2) that professors should not indoctrinate students, (3) that he or she understands critical thinking, (4) that his or her courses are designed to improve critical thinking, (5) and that his or her pedagogical methods are used to enhance critical thinking.”

This is a major step for a university to commit to this instead of training social justice warriors and Woke ideologues.

This importantly comes after the passage of Senate Bill 37 in Texas, which allowed students to file complaints against Woke indoctrination.

“For too long, unelected faculty senates have operated behind closed doors, steering curriculum decisions, influencing institutional policy, issuing political statements to divest from Israel, and even organizing votes of ‘no confidence’ that undermine public trust,” said Texas State Sen. Brandon Creighton, a supporter of the legislation, in April.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbot prohibited Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives by signing Senate Bill 17 in 2023. Abbot’s office explained that he wanted to give “people the opportunity to advance based on talent and merit.”

As usual, not all the professors were on board in opposing woke education.

Apparently, indoctrination is a necessity to some professors.

“UH’s chapter of the left-wing American Association of University Professors (AAUP) even drafted a note for faculty members to send to the deans rather than completing the form as requested.”

The University of Houston seems to be one of the few that are actually taking steps to move towards education and away from indoctrination.

All colleges in America should be centers of education and the free exchange of ideas, sadly, however, this is the exception to the rule.

The University of Houston recently closed down it’s Gender Studies Center.

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Scuba school told instructors they were allowed to KILL two students a year, shocking lawsuit from family of girl, 12, who died there alleges

A scuba school told its instructors they were allowed to kill two students a year, according to a lawsuit filed by heartbroken parents whose daughter died while taking lessons there. 

The astonishing claim comes after 12-year-old Dylan Harrison tragically drowned on August 16, 2025, while attending a class at The Scuba Ranch in Terrell, Texas, about 40 minutes outside of Dallas. 

Harrison, who was also known as ‘Dillie Picklez’ by her loved ones, was eager to get her National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) Open Water diving certification so she could join her family members in the underwater activity. 

But sadly, her dreams never came true after she vanished during her training class that summer day. She was found dead about 45ft underwater, approximately 35ft away from the platform. 

Now, a new lawsuit filed on January 30 by Harrison’s mother and father, Heather and Mitchell, detailed the disturbing guidelines the scuba school owner told his employees before being entrusted with students in the water. 

Joseph Johnson, the owner of Scubatoys, a dive and certification shop that the family was using for Harrison, was ‘seen bragging to a roomful of Scubatoys Instructors’ that two students were allowed to die each year and the business would ‘still be fine,’ the documents allege. 

The unearthed footage, filmed in 2017 by an employee, captured a worker telling Johnson not to take lawsuits lightly. 

Stunningly, Johnson appeared to have very little compassion over the statement, shrugging and telling his workers: ‘All I know is we’ve killed what, four people, five people, and we’ve never even done a deposition. 

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Three-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jewish children told ‘the non-Jews’ are ‘evil’ in worksheet produced by London school

British three-year-olds have been told “the non-Jews” are “evil” in a Kindergarten worksheet handed out at ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools in north London, it can be revealed.

Documents seen by The Independent show children are taught about the horrors of the Holocaust when they are still in kindergarten at the Beis Rochel boys’ school in north London.

A whistle-blower, who wished to remain anonymous, has shown The Independent a worksheet given to boys aged three and four at the school. In it, children were asked to complete questions related to the holiday of 21 Kislev, observed by Satmer Jews as the day its founder and holy Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, escaped the Nazis.

The document refers to Nazis only as “goyim” – a term for non-Jews some people argue is offensive.

Emily Green, who used to teach at the same Beis Rochel girls’ secondary school, now chairs the Gesher EU organisation which supports ultra-Orthodox Jews who want to leave the community.

“It’s not uncommon to be taught non-Jewish people are evil in ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools. It is part of the prayers, teaching, their whole ethos,” she said.

Describing it as a form of “indoctrination”, Ms Green added: “Psychologically, you become so afraid of the world out there after being taught how dangerous and bad and evil non-Jews are, that it makes it harder to leave.”

Independently translated from Yiddish for The Independent, the worksheet’s first question reads: “What have the evil goyim (non-Jews) done with the synagogues and cheders [Jewish primary schools]?” The answer in the completed worksheet reads: “Burned them.”

Another question asks: “What did the goyim want to do with all the Jews?” – to which the answer, according to the worksheet, is: “Kill them.”.

“It doesn’t explicitly refer to the Holocaust,” the source said. “It’s a document that teaches very young children to be very afraid and treat non-Jews very suspiciously because of what they did to us in the past.

“It’s not a history lesson – you can’t say that. It’s a parable that is actively teaching the children extremism, hatred and a fear for the outside world.”

A spokesperson for Beis Rochel said that the worksheets would be amended and apologised for any offence. However they argued the phrase “goyim” was not offensive and accusations that they were indoctrinating children were “without basis”. “The language we used was not in any way intended to cause offence, now this has been brought to our attention, we will endeavour to use more precise language in the future.”

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Funding Disparities Rebrands American Gifted Children as Mentally Ill & Paris Hilton Doesn’t Help

America is starving for gifted education while financially rewarding psychiatric labeling. While bringing attention to the ADHD issue is appreciated, Paris Hilton’s recent Business Insider interview admitting “ADHD is my superpower” is a message wrongly pushing the alleged mental disorder as some kind of empowerment.

It is of interest that Hilton would raise the ADHD mental disorder to superpower status while, at the same time, the United States is significantly underfunding gifted education and financially incentivizing psychiatric labeling practices. High-profile figures, like Hilton, who frames ADHD as her “superpower,” contribute visibility to a growing trend in how behavioral conditions are marketed as sources of empowerment.

Hilton describes ADHD as fueling her “drive, curiosity, and creativity,” along with “a million ideas all the time.” She also mentions “rejection-sensitive dysphoria” (intense unbearable emotional pain caused by perceived rejection) as linked to ADHD, calling it “exhausting” and “painful.”

The financial disparities between ADHD funding and gifted programs are telling. The U.S. Department of Education’s appropriation for the Javits Gifted and Talented program is just $16.5 million, compared to estimates that ADHD services cost the U.S. education system $13.4 billion annually. The current system prioritizes mental health funding for diagnosis over the identification of superior educational ability.

Crucially, the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis lacks an objective biological marker… no blood test, brain scan, or X-ray. Put simply, there is no known abnormality that is the alleged ADHD. Instead, diagnoses rely on behavioral checklists and school-based screenings, broadening the label and creating pathways for the behavioral health industry and pharmaceutical market within educational settings.

This system warrants scrutiny beyond treatment facilities; it must also include how labeling pipelines shape outcomes. When behaviors are categorized as disorders, questionable mind-altering medication becomes the default intervention, steering children away from educational opportunities and toward clinical drug management.

Many gifted children, who often display heightened sensitivity and intensity, are instead mislabeled as having behavioral disorders. Characteristics such as defiance, oppositional behavior, hyperactivity, mood fluctuations, and attention difficulties—traits frequently seen in gifted individuals—are too often misinterpreted as pathology. Once labeled, these children are managed clinically rather than nurtured academically, a process perpetuated by the financial incentives inherent in current mental health policy, where the disparity between funding for education opportunities for the gifted receives a little more than $16 million, while ADHD-related programs enjoy nearly $14 billion in funding.

The widespread misdiagnosis of the nation’s gifted is consequential. When institutions classify gifted students as psychiatrically disordered, subject them to medication, and lower academic expectations, the result is lasting harm to individual lives and societal potential.

Historically, under President Eisenhower with the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the U.S. prioritized identifying high-ability students, supporting guidance and testing within schools. However, legislative priorities shifted under pressure from behavioral-health and pharmaceutical interests, moving schools away from talent identification toward managing behavior through diagnostic labeling and medication.

The funding imbalance suggests that gifted students are not overlooked by happenstance and, rather, are systematically converted into patients within a lucrative behavioral management industry.

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Burma’s Conscription Law: Destroying Education and Accelerating Brain Drain

The Burma (Myanmar) military junta activated its conscription law on February 10, 2024, requiring men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 to serve in the military. Professionals, including doctors, engineers, and technical specialists, can be conscripted up to age 45 for men and 35 for women.

Those conscripted are required to serve a minimum of three years. This includes educated adults with engineering, medical, and technical skills, further draining Burma’s already collapsing education and professional sectors.

Conscription means serving a junta that seized power in 2021 by overthrowing the elected government and arresting pro-democracy leaders. It also means being forced into a civil war in which as much as 80 percent of the population opposes military rule.

For ethnic minorities, who make up roughly 40 percent of the population, conscription is especially devastating. It means being ordered to participate in widespread atrocities, including murder, rape, and the burning of villages, directed against their own families and communities.

The International Labour Organization estimates hundreds of thousands have fled Burma to escape conscription since February 2024. Fear of being drafted drove so many young men to flee to Thailand in 2024 that they set a record for the highest annual number of undocumented Burma migrants to arrive in Thailand. The International Organization for Migration estimates over 4 million Burma migrants live in Thailand, about half of whom are undocumented. In addition to the personal hardship, they face as undocumented aliens in Thailand, separated from their families, the conscription law is decimating Burma’s education system.

At the beginning of the revolution, thousands of students walked away from junta-run universities and schools as part of the civil disobedience movement. Many shifted to alternative education options, including community-run higher education institutions in ethnic minority areas and online programs. The conscription law, however, made it unsafe for them to remain in Burma while completing these programs.

As a result, the Thailand Education Fair held in April 2024 saw overwhelming attendance, and the November 2024 fair was extended to two days as attendance doubled. Students whose families can afford it, or who secure scholarships, are fleeing to study at Thai universities. As Burma’s economy collapses, however, this option has become increasingly out of reach. Annual tuition of roughly $3,000 represents about two years’ salary for Burmese families fortunate enough to still have employment.

The law has exacerbated a brain drain that was already causing young people to leave Burma, impacting education and the labor market.

The United States Agency for International Development funding freeze suspended the Development and Inclusive Scholarship Program, affecting more than 400 Burma students pursuing degrees in the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand. Inside Burma, parents are pulling children out of school and sending them to neighboring countries to look for work, driven by fear of conscription. Both inside Burma and across the region, child labor violations involving children aged 12 to 16 have increased as youth fleeing the country or joining resistance forces have created labor shortages.

The crisis extends beyond students. Teachers and professors have either fled to the jungle to join the resistance or escaped the country altogether in search of work. As a result, educated adults and former professionals now find themselves in Thailand and other countries working as day laborers alongside young people who fled before finishing university, or in many cases, even high school.

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