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There’s a Reason Why Progressives Are Pushing Indoctrination Over Academics

AP Photo/Ron Harris

There’s a reason why education is such a hot-button topic in 2022. Yes, much of it has to do with school districts infusing far-leftist ideology on gender, sexuality, and race into K-12 classrooms. But it goes even deeper than that.

Multiple reports have revealed that academic performance among American students has suffered tremendously. Much of this is due to the lockdown orders that were imposed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, this is not anything new. Indeed, educational performance had already been in decline over the past decade. In a piece for Forbes, author Natalie Wexler wrote:

These reports suggest that the recent history of American education was a sunny tale of continuous improvement until Covid derailed it. Alas, as officials overseeing the national tests themselves recognize, test scores have been stagnant or declining since at least 2009, and gaps between high- and low-scorers have been widening.

There are likely several factors contributing to this problem. But the progressive influence on America’s educational system is surely one of the prime causes.

RedState’s Alex Parker wrote about a California school that is going whole hog into the effort to wokify young minds. San Leandro High School has started hosting a “Social Justice Academy,” which is a novel way to indoctrinate students.

The school’s website says that this endeavor “provides 10th to 12th-grade students with a forum to become the catalysts of social, political, and environmental change” and is designed to “improve San Leandro, and to develop civic-minded leaders and lifelong learners who can be drawn on as a valuable source of active citizenship to support growth in San Leandro.”

But this doesn’t have much to do with inspiring a deeper appreciation for civics and citizenship. Indeed, its true agenda is to inculcate students with the tenets of wokeism. The website also says kids will learn how to “Challenge and criticize power, oppression, capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, cisheteropatriarchy, ableism, and xenophobia on the internal, interpersonal, institutional, and ideological levels.”

But even more interesting is that junior-year students will be trained in “the basics of activism and organizing.” Seniors will learn how to “research, conduct interviews, do field-work and create a mini-campaign throughout the course of the year.”

Meanwhile, students attending this particular high school aren’t doing so well when it comes to reading, math, and other important subjects that might actually prepare them for successful adulthood.

“San Leandro scores 19 percent in math proficiency. And the school may have proselytizing down to a science, but students rate at 21 percent in science proficiency. Still, they won’t be reading anything into those numbers — San Leandro boasts a 57 percent score in reading,” Parker explained.

This is only one example showing how many schools are prioritizing wokeism over academics. Over the past few years, it has become apparent that districts are promoting transgender ideology, ideas inspired by critical race theory, and other types of wokeism to small and older children. Academic performance has become so abysmal that states like Oregon are actually lowering standards to ensure more students manage to graduate. Of course, they’re doing this under the guise of looking out for “students of color.”

Now, I might be sounding like I’m wearing tinfoil on my head, but it is far too difficult to believe this is a matter of incompetence. These people are not stupid. I would submit to you, dear reader, that this is by design.

In fact, San Leandro High School said the quiet part out loud when it said it would train students in “the basics of activism and organizing.”

This is precisely what the far left wants to do in our schools. They are not trying to educate students. They are trying to create a whole new generation of far-left activists that will help them gain more political power in government and in society. It is part of an effort to push the country further toward socialism. If this isn’t stopped, these people will get exactly what they want.

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