Here’s somewhat of a shocker for you. Illinois, one of the deepest blue states in the nation, is opting out of complying with the National Sex Education Standards (NSES). Apparently, most of the state’s school districts are not on board with pushing extreme progressive ideas on sexuality and gender to children.
Democratic state lawmakers passed a bill in 2021 that would put Illinois schools in line with the national model. However, they included a provision that would allow districts to opt out. It appears most of the districts decided to exercise this particular option.
Only 20 districts have chosen to follow the national standards, while a whopping 534 opted out, according to the website Awake-Illinois, which also noted that “Illinois is the ONLY state adopting the second edition of the perverse National Sex Education Standards.”
The Center Square reported:
In accordance with the National Sex Education Standards, the Illinois State Board of Education said elementary students, including kindergartners, will learn about consent, gender identity, hormone blockers and healthy relationships. Middle schoolers will learn about dating violence prevention, different types of sex and sexual harassment. High schoolers will learn more about their bodies, pregnancy and sexual health.
According to the Sex Education Collaborative, “[i]nclusive and honest sex education goes beyond delivering information” and “provides young people with opportunities to explore their own identities and values along with those of their families and communities.”
The NSES documentation claims that the standards “were originally developed to address the inconsistent implementation of sex education nationwide and the limited time allocated to teaching the topic.”
Interestingly enough, it also notes that “41.3% of districts in the US have adopted” the standards and that “teachers provided an average of 6.2 hours of instruction on human sexuality in high school courses,” and “5.4 total hours of instruction on human sexuality” to middle schools. The document laments the fact that educators have “provided only 1.9 hours on human sexuality” to elementary schools.
The document also argues that “sex education should avoid cisnormative, heteronormative approaches, aim to strengthen young people’s capacity to challenge harmful stereotypes, and be inclusive of a wide range of viewpoints and populations without stigmatizing any group.”
This is not the only situation in which people in blue states have rejected woke instruction in K-12 classrooms. The Washington Free Beacon reported in 2021 that “[t]housands of Massachusetts parents opted their children out of a federally funded sex education curriculum that teaches kindergartners about genitalia.”
Of course, this does not mean that schools in Illinois will not be presenting far leftist ideas on race, sexuality, and gender identity to children. But it does show that there are extremes to which even the bluest of states will not go. This is not a definitive sign that progressives are losing this battle, but it is an indication that should still be taken seriously. Parents are not as gung-ho about progressives trying to trans their kids as Democrats would like.
Even further, it is another indicator that when parents find out about what is going on in so many of America’s classrooms, they are not on board with it. This is why the nation saw such a widespread backlash from the public. People on both sides of the political divide took issue with what educators were introducing to their children.
If we want to win this battle, we have to keep exposing what these people are trying to do to our kids. We have to use every legal means necessary to effect change. We will not want to see what will happen if we fail to defeat these attempts to indoctrinate the nation’s children.
