OPINION:
It’s nothing new for parents to find alarming things in their children’s backpacks, but now those things are coming from official school channels.
Just follow the money. More parents are beginning to discover what we can call the education-industrial complex: a collusion of politicians and bureaucrats, teachers unions and textbook publishers.
This is how it works: Politicians legislate social engineering because they think it will get them reelected. Bureaucrats implement those policies and make them contingent upon tax dollars; teachers unions then develop training seminars and align lesson plans accordingly; and finally, publishers collect a big paycheck by selling books and supplementary content all singing from that same political hymnal.
You may remember Scholastic Book Fairs from your own childhood. Today, Scholastic nearly monopolizes school book fairs across America. Many of its titles also appear in union-created teacher tool kits and training materials.
Too much of the content brings politics into classrooms, with graphic lessons on gender and sexuality, along with themes of guilt over racism that is often presented as history or as social studies.
Those who pay close attention will get an eyeful, including more than 134 titles in Scholastic’s “LGBTQIA+” category.
Titles for ages 3 to 5 include “My Moms Love Me,” a picture book about a baby with two mothers. There’s also “Llama Glamarama,” a story about a llama who dresses up in bright costumes, perhaps like a drag queen, to dance after everyone has gone to bed.
These teach children that sometimes it’s necessary to hide their activities from parents who “won’t approve” of their “raucous ways.”
Other books divide classrooms with race-based prejudice and reduce human complexity to labels. “Parachute Kids” follows three siblings who are left by their parents as illegal immigrants in America. “Land of the Cranes” presents a “reconquista” idea, which holds that the southwestern United States rightfully belongs to the Aztecs.
Later, the book features a metaphor suggesting people can fly like cranes over arbitrary borders and their “walls.”
When concerned parents objected to such content, former Scholastic CEO Dick Robinson doubled down. “There are still more voices out there that need to be heard,” he said in a 2020 statement. “We will work hard to find and promote them, and provide every child with books where he, she, or they can see the joy and importance of all identities on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum.”
Forget about anyone not on that spectrum.
Another Scholastic episode involves Alex Gino’s “Melissa.” The controversial book about a fourth-grade transgender student struggling with identity had the working title “Girl George,” but the author revealed that Scholastic encouraged him to change it. They knew parents would reject the book if everyone knew what was in it. Scholastic even included the book in its “Gold” line.
The problem is this: Publishers often don’t have to answer to parents because they already have a strong hold on what is distributed in schools. However, they do have a financial incentive to align with teachers union materials, suggested lesson plans and summer reading lists.
Yet teacher-only catalogs, clever labeling and limited transparency can make it difficult for parents to get a full picture.
It matters what the education-industrial complex is putting into children’s backpacks nationwide. What is learned at impressionable ages shapes beliefs carried into adulthood. When something conflicts with what parents are teaching at home, it drives a wedge between children and their families, those who know them and love them most.
Parents don’t have to accept this, but they need alternatives.
That is exactly why PragerU Kids was created and why it is attacked by the education-industrial complex. Politicians have shielded teachers unions and publishers from that complex for years. Yet as parents rise to take back their children’s education, it is becoming more difficult for politicians to maintain that protection and remain in office.
PragerU Kids Book Fairs offer wholesome, values-based books for schools. Titles such as “Otto’s Tales” and the “Trailblazers of America” series introduce students to historical figures and foundational ideas in age-appropriate ways. They emphasize that America is a melting pot, not a “multicultural” salad. Character — not race, gender or family name — defines us.
Most parents don’t have the time to take on the educational-industrial complex, but they can ask a simple question: Are there any serious alternatives for my children? If enough parents stand up, then they can take back control of what their children are reading and who shapes the rising generations.
• Marissa Streit is CEO of PragerU and host of “Real Talk.”
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