Who’s Schooling Who?
August 10, 2023 | Washington, D.C.
by Eagle Forum Executive Director, Tabitha Walter
Parents, Authors, and Lawmakers Team Up to Protect Children
As parents are stocking their shopping carts with pencils, paper, and other classroom items, the cost at the cash register isn’t the biggest thing weighing on their minds. With politics and extreme agendas driving curriculum in public schools, parents are concerned about what their children will face and if they will be able to advocate for their child’s well-being. Incredible responses to this agenda from individuals, organizations, and conservative members of Congress have assured parents that they are willing to stand alongside them in this fight for our children.
It’s not a stretch to see that our children live in a world completely different from the one in which we grew up. Radical gender ideology has rapidly infiltrated schools forcing girls to share bathrooms with boys. Books involving explicit sexual material are readily available on school library shelves. Even drag queens who perform for sexual entertainment are now welcome to perform in children’s spaces. Accompanied by the rewriting and watering down of our American history, our public education system looks more like brainwashing sessions rather than critical and classical learning.
Parents have been particularly disgusted with the sexualization of children in the public arena. In an attempt to provide a wholesome alternative to drag queen story hours in libraries, publishing company Brave Books created an annual event named See You at the Library Day. They teamed up with actor and author Kirk Cameron and Moms for Liberty to take this event nationwide. On August 5th, 300 libraries across 46 states hosted story hours with books promoting traditional values. These types of story hours are hosted by local organizations and parents on a regular basis. Check with your library or local conservative organizations like Moms for America to see what events are being held near you.
Montgomery County Eagle Forum Note: Check out Two Moms and Some Books, a local organization started by two moms advocating to keep children safe in public libraries by holding story hours.
Before Congress embarked on its August recess, the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 (H.R. 2670). This bill tackles many aspects of military readiness such as healthcare, administrative policies, training, and so on. One component that is often overlooked is education for the children of military families. Even though Congress passes comprehensive education bills for the public school system, those policies do not always apply to schools under the Department of Defense.
House Republicans ensured that these schools were not forgotten. The House-passed NDAA included language that prohibits Critical Race Theory (CRT), pornography, and gender ideology books in military schools. It contains a Parents Bill of Rights allowing parents to know what their child is learning and what accommodations are being made for students identifying as another gender. Drag queen story hours would be prohibited on all military bases if this bill is signed into law.
The House is also working on appropriations for the Department of Education (DOE). Even though the best course of action is to eliminate the DOE, this endeavor is impossible in the current makeup of Congress. For now, Eagle Forum will encourage lawmakers to craft conservative policies that not only chip away at the current funding levels but also restore education back to traditional learning methods.
President Joe Biden’s proposal of funding the DOE at $90 billion was beyond ridiculous. House Republicans have now set the funding level at $67.4 billion. This includes a 25 percent cut to the Office of Civil Rights and the elimination of the Office of Communications. The bill includes language to prohibit CRT, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), and gender identity and sexual orientation interventions. We can expect this language to be more heavily debated when Congress comes back into session in September.