The Patriot Post® · Rescuing Our Kids From Public School's Pleasure Island

There is a terrifying logic to the leftist infiltration of our public schools. If they control the minds of children, they have their hooks in the future of the country. Aside from the multitude of evils that this is already producing (transgenderism, critical race theory, environmental cultists), kids are failing academically. This is particularly true in the arenas of history and civics.

History and civics actually got the lowest scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — i.e. the Nation’s Report Card — when the test was given to eighth-graders. These represent the lowest scores since the test was first administered in the 1990s. Only 13% of eighth-graders were proficient in civics, and only 20% were proficient in history. Math and reading scores dropped to a distressing level as well. However, history and civics — the subjects dealing with culture and the world — achieving the lowest scores is especially telling.

The Biden administration has blamed the low scores on the pandemic and Republicans. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Kids have lost so much in the pandemic. This is why, when the president walked in, he made [it] … a priority to open schools.” This particular delusion about President Joe Biden being in a hurry to open schools is revisionist history, but the bigger issue at hand is that this score decline has been developing for years now.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Commissioner Peggy Carr has been doing research on the NEAP scores in her job within the Department of Education. According to her findings, these latest scores have made her “very, very concerned, because it’s a decline that started in 2014 long before we even thought about Covid.” She goes on to correctly demand that teachers get this material in front of the kids.

Knowing our Constitution, how our government is supposed to work, and the U.S.‘s story within history are all vitally important so that our next generation of voting citizens is informed and educated.

When it comes to failing students in general and these two subjects in particular, there are many elements at play. There is the political (boards of education and activist teachers), there is the cultural (the sort of environment at play within the schools), and there is the individual student.

Let’s start with the political. When a growing number of people with the power to influence and teach history and civics are increasingly anti-America and anti-Western culture, they are not going to be able to teach these subjects well. As The Wall Street Journal points out: “Dropping scores reflect the falling quality of history and civics lessons taught in American schools, which has been fueled by political acrimony. … Teachers have said controversies over the content of lessons have damped morale. These subjects are considered hard to staff in many districts, according to teachers union officials.”

Who has made teaching this material difficult? The anti-America teachers have made it difficult by actively teaching children to hate their country and all that we have built as a nation. The woke teachers unions, school boards, and school administrators have made it difficult by threatening conservative teachers and dictating what they can and cannot say.

On a cultural level, as our Brian Mark Weber wrote back in 2017: “Universities today are more interested in turning students into political activists than knowledgeable citizens who value the ideals upon which our country was founded. As a result, Americans have a lot to say about 'rights’ that their teachers and professors have conjured up, but they know nothing about the rights in the Constitution.”

Then there is the challenge of the individual student. History and civics are two of those subjects that some kids really struggle with. A good teacher can get them to engage, but even so, in this instant-answer-in-your-pocket age, the information doesn’t necessarily stick.

Then there is the whole other problem that no one outside of the teaching profession is willing to speak out about: Student behavior.

Teaching is a work of heart, but many of these students are straight-up hooligans. These kids have been allowed to do whatever they want. They have no respect for authority and they have no boundaries or consequences that are meaningful or corrective to their abhorrent behavior. This is cause for a high burnout rate amongst teachers. Who wants to teach angry rude student who don’t want to learn?

These next two generations of kids in the public schools are looking and behaving like the kids in “Pinocchio” who run away from home and go to Pleasure Island. Those kids are allowed to do whatever they want — break every taboo, hurt one another — and eventually the kids are turned into donkeys. Our culture and political overlords are creating this Pleasure Island-type mentality for students and literally turning them into Democrat donkeys and ignorant jackasses.

There are several solutions available to parents. You can take your kids out of public school and try private or charter schools. Homeschooling is also a great option. Hope is not lost if parents are invested in educating their children in these subjects. Lead by example and make history and civics come alive for your children. And above all, emphasize the importance of being an intelligent and discerning person.

Our government has shown through its public schools what it is willing to do to ideologically and morally kidnap your students. It’s time to stop letting them get away with it. Our kids are too important.