Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) added two prominent parental rights in education groups to its 2022 hate and extremist list on Tuesday.
The group lists 1,225 groups or organizations that Southern Poverty Law Center deemed hateful and against the government. Moms for Liberty, a coalition of parents fighting for transparency in education and Parents Defending Education (PDE) were noted as hateful and/or extremist.
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A Pennsylvania state senator is working on legislation to abolish the commonwealth’s new Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CR-SE) guidelines that impose leftist ideology on teachers and students.
The document instructs teachers to “know and acknowledge that biases exist in the educational system,” biases the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) specifies as “racial and cultural.” Educators are further called on to “believe and acknowledge that microaggressions are real and take steps to educate themselves about the subtle and obvious ways in which they are used to harm and invalidate the existence of others.” Another guideline tasks teachers with “disrupt[ing] harmful institutional practices, policies, and norms by advocating and engaging in efforts to rewrite policies, change practices, and raise awareness.”
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A Massachusetts school district has spent more than $30,000 to conduct “social-emotional learning” (SEL) surveys on students and staff led by an educational organization founded by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s son-in-law, according to a public records request by Parents Defending Education (PDE), a parental rights in education group.
From 2018 to 2023, Old Rochester Regional School District spent $30,620.25 to partner with Panorama Education through January 2024 to conduct SEL surveys and trainings, a learning concept that has been accused of laying the foundation for Critical Race Theory (CRT), according to a public records obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Panorama Education has previously come under fire by parents for its connections to Garland, who directed the FBI in 2021 to “use its authority” on parents who protested at school board meetings.
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Twenty Republican members of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives this week called on acting Pennsylvania Education Secretary Eric Hagarty to reverse controversial state guidelines concerning schools’ treatment of sex and gender.
On a webpage titled “Creating Gender-Inclusive Schools and Classrooms,” the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) calls “binary gender,” e.g., the idea that gender and biological sex are properly denoted as either “male” or “female,” a “faulty concept.” The document also suggests that teachers host a “gender-neutral day” for students above the second grade wherein kids would identify ways in which they will eschew gender stereotypes on that day. Elsewhere, the guidance counsels teachers to ask a student his or her gender identity before assuming the right pronouns by which to call the child.
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Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) on Tuesday denounced guidelines the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has outlined for the treatment of controversial gender issues in public schools.
The senator, who is running for governor against Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, particularly objected to recommendations that teachers consider utilizing nonconventional pronouns like “ne, ve, ze and xe” that some who claim to be neither male nor female have begun using to refer to themselves. Mastriano also criticized Governor Tom Wolf (D) and PDE for denying the link between biological sex and the gendered terms (i.e., male and female) that correspond to it.
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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) announced on Friday that his Secretary of Education Noe Ortega is stepping down and that Wolf’s Deputy Chief of Staff Eric Hagarty will replace him.
The administration said Ortega will be presently dedicating his free time to his family and mulling potential next career steps.
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A National School Boards Association (NSBA) executive reportedly knew about Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memorandum targeting concerned parents before it was published, according to new information obtained by Parents Defending Education.
Chip Slaven, then-interim executive director of the National School Boards Association (NSBA) knew about Garland’s memorandum that called on the FBI to “use its authority” against parents who threaten or use violence against public school officials, according to an email obtained by Parents Defending Education (PDE) through a public records request.
“I understand Chip knew about the U.S. AG Directives before they were published,” Alabama NSBA member Pam Doyle told Florida NSBA member Beverly Slough in an Oct. 5, 2021 internal email exchange. “So much for communicating with the BOD,” she added.
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A high school in Oregon gave a presentation featuring a “Pyramid of White Supremacy” that discussed concepts like “white fragility” and “white saviorism,” according to documents obtained by Parents Defending Education.
Grant High School in Portland, Oregon, taught students about equity and racial justice as part of its “Race Forward” project from December of 2021, according to documents obtained by Parents Defending Education (PDE).
The presentation defined “whiteness” in connection with “the belief that white people are the standard in society” and said “white fragility” is demonstrated by white people showing discomfort and defensiveness “when confronted by information about racism,” such as “bringing up having family members or friends who are Black.”
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