A coalition of Republican lawmakers led by U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced legislation to shut down the U.S. Department of Education, arguing that there is no constitutional authority for the controversial bureaucracy to exist. Top Republicans from Reagan to Trump have called for such a move but it has remained elusive thus far.

The bill, dubbed “H.R. 899 – To terminate the Department of Education,” is just one sentence long: “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2023.” If approved, the federal agency would have to cease operations prior to next year, with control reverting to states and local communities.

The liberty-minded Kentucky lawmaker, who announced the move on Twitter on February 14, has been a longtime champion of ending federal involvement in education. “Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development,” the congressman said when he filed the same bill in the previous Congress.

“States and local communities are best positioned to shape curricula that meet the needs of their students,” he said. “Schools should be accountable. Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school, or private school.”

Massie expanded on his views in an interview with this writer shortly after Trump’s election. Noting that the outfit was established by unpopular President Jimmy Carter as a “re-election tactic, as a ploy,” Massie said his own legislation was originally a response to constituents concerned about federal indoctrination of their children under then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Seizing on the opportunity, Massie filed the bill, putting liberals in the very awkward position of having to defend the Trump administration’s involvement in the education of children if they wanted to keep the department. “The left understands that this is where you win or lose — in the schools and in the teaching of the children,” Massie said.

Other lawmakers who joined Massie by co-sponsoring the bill include the influential former U.S. House Freedom Caucus Chairman U.S. Representative Andy Biggs. Also co-sponsors are U.S. Representatives Mary Miller of Illinois, Russ Fulcher of Idaho, Georgia’s Mike Collins, Lauren Boebert from Colorado, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, and Chip Roy of Texas.

The Department of Education has been a key player in the dumbing down and radicalization of public education across the nation. Whistleblowers such as the late Charlotte Iserbyt, who served as senior education adviser in the Reagan administration, warned that it was filled with subversives working to dumb down Americans and undermine the principles the nation was founded on.

U.S. Parents Involved in Education, a national grassroots group working to end all federal involvement in education, celebrated the bill. “Now more than ever, parents and other freedom-loving Americans see the nefarious influence of USED and want to end its unconstitutional authority over education,” said USPIE President Sheri Few, praising Massie for his persistence on this key issue.

Shutting down the department would represent a “first, big step,” said Few. However, there are other agencies unconstitutionally meddling in education as well, she warned, adding that USPIE has a blueprint with five steps to fully get the feds out of education. Considering the atmosphere in D.C., USPIE is currently working on a plan for states to extricate themselves from Fed Ed on their own, she added.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email to your U.S. Representative encouraging him/her to co-sponsor H.R. 899. Remind your representative that unelected federal bureaucrats are too far removed to understand or dictate policies for local school districts in Illinois. They should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development. Local school boards, elected by local voters, are best equipped to determine education policy.

More, you may want to point out that reducing the size of the federal government may help let taxpayers keep more of their hard-earned money.

From the president on down, we’re seeing a welcome pushback against Marxist indoctrination in our colleges, government agencies, and even the military.

It had better happen soon, too, because in K-12 schools, hapless children are being subjected to the awful, anti-American 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter curricula. But at least there is movement at the top of the academic and government food chains.

In Maine, Republican state State Senator Lisa Keim has written a forceful letter to the University of Maine System board, objecting to University of Southern Maine President Glenn Cummings’ order for everyone on campus to “align” with Black Lives Matter.

After explaining that “racism, in any form, has no place in our state,” she lays out BLM’s radical agenda, which is “antithetical to many Americans’ political and religious views.” She quotes anti-police statements from BLM’s website such as: “law enforcement doesn’t protect or save our lives. They often threaten and take them.”

She adds, “These slurs are fueling hate and violence all over our country.”

BLM, which is openly Marxist and demonizes white people and America, calls for defunding the police and “disrupting the Western prescribed nuclear family structure.”

In Washington, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently shocked the academic community by outing Princeton University’s embrace of BLM’s agenda.  She cited Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber’s open letter declaring Princeton full of “systemic racism.”

On Sept. 22, President Donald J. Trump let the other shoe drop by signing an executive order barring federal funds from contractors who employ Critical Race Theory in diversity training, including in the military, where unity and trust are paramount.

“It is difficult to imagine a more demoralizing course of instruction for officers who will soon lead soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines into combat,” writes Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelley in The Federalist. “Unresolved accusations and suspicions of racism eviscerate mutual trust and team cohesion, two things essential for survival and mission accomplishment.”

Since 1971, the Defense Race Relations Institute has conducted racial sensitivity training. Among the materials were Robert Terry’s 1970 book “For Whites Only,” which “taught militant black separatist ideas to white audiences,” according to Capital Research Center filmmaker Joseph (Jake) Klein.

Other federal entities such as the FBI used the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source for materials and identification of “hate groups” until their far-Left agenda was exposed.  It took an SPLC-inspired gunman attempting mass murder at the Family Research Council in 2012 to alert people to the SPLC’s smear campaign against Christian groups that continues to this day.

Contempt for religion and family is a major part of BLM and the Left’s culture war on America, as explained by Maine State Senator Keim in her letter opposing BLM’s inroads.

“A family unit of one man married to one woman is not only a Western prescription for family; it’s a Biblical one,” she writes. “Therefore, mandating the University’s faculty, students and staff to subscribe to BLM’s political message arguably violates those individuals’ freedom of religion.” Spot on.

If America is going to rise beyond the current climate of Marxist race-baiting, it’s going to take more leaders like State Senator Keim and Russell Vought at all levels.  Plus, a president who gets it and keeps doing something about it.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.
His website is roberthknight.com.

Written by Makenna McCoy

The U.S. Department of Education recently announced a new rule that aims to protect the First Amendment rights of students, teachers, and student organizations at public colleges and universities.

The final rule, entitled Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities, serves to defend First Amendment rights in two primary ways. First, in order to receive grants from the Department of Education, public colleges and universities must uphold religious liberty and free speech rights. Second, public colleges and universities must treat religious student groups the same as any secular student group, providing them with the same rights, funding, and privileges.

In announcing the rule, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos declared, “Students should not be forced to choose between their faith and their education, and an institution controlled by a religious organization should not have to sacrifice its religious beliefs to participate in Department grants and programs.”

Although the same guidelines for public universities do not apply to private universities, the rule does require private universities to abide by their own policies on freedom of expression in order to receive Department funding. WORLD also notes that the rule lays out “a shield for religious schools” by establishing that Title IX’s prohibition of discrimination based on sex, which some now claim encompasses sexual orientation and gender identity, is not binding for colleges “controlled by a religious institution.”

The new rule has been particularly beneficial for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a Christian campus ministry. Greg Jao, Director of External Relations for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, pointed out that the rule was necessary because universities were accepting some faith-based student groups and refusing others. Most often, he says, the groups that were rejected were those that required their student leaders to comply with the group’s religious beliefs.

Jao also recognizes that the rule not only benefits Christian groups, but all religious organizations because “universities should welcome all religious groups equally, in order to encourage tolerance, pluralism and religious diversity.”

The Department of Education rule will go into effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register sometime in November.

This article was ordinally published at NCFamily.org.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is slated to hear a case regarding the use of tax-payer dollars for private education. It seems that the more conservative judges will support this concept. Interestingly, although it grows the tax burden and increases government reach not merely over public school, but extends it over private schools as well, Republicans and Christians are two groups that almost always support this kind of legislation / ruling.

Espinoza vs. Montana Department of Revenue centers on the Montana Supreme Court’s decision to end a state program giving students scholarship aid to attend private schools. The court based its decision on the state’s constitutional provision barring government money from going to religious schools. The SCOTUS is scheduled to hear the case in the Summer of 2020.

President Donald Trump and Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, have both previously expressed their desire to see not only state funds, but federal funds allocated for private school and homeschooling programs. While there is a desire on the part of many conservative taxpayers to see their tax money going to something that would support their own beliefs and values, I suggest we should step back for a moment and look before we leap at the offer of government money.

Here are some questions we should ask:

1.) Is it Constitutional?

Whatever is not explicitly directed as a role of the federal government in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights is the responsibility of the individual states. The U.S. Constitution does not make a provision for the federal government to guide, oversee, and direct education. That means that any such decisions need to be handled on a state level. The U.S. Department of Education should be closed. We don’t need it because it isn’t Constitutional.

2.) Is it Biblical?

As Christians, the Bible gives us guidelines of what God expects from the civil government, the church and the family.

The Civil Government

First Peter 2 and Romans 13 tell us that God gave the power of the sword to the civil government for them to punish those who do what is evil. They are to protect the God-given rights of the individual, the family, the church, etc. They are not supposed to be involved in raising children. That is an assignment given exclusively to families.

The Church

While it surprises many who have never specifically studied the issue, there are no verses in the New Testament where the church is commanded by God to teach children as a segmented group. Children in the early church learned with the rest of the congregation but were never separated out by age or grade for specific instruction. That model is one that churches imported far later (often from the government school system).

The Family

Fathers and mothers (and in a couple of places grandparents) are the only people commanded by God in the Bible to teach and instruct children. Parents (with the help and instruction of Biblically qualified church elders and a loving Christian community) are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the education of their own children. While it is not forbidden in Scripture for children to be taught by people other than their parents (in a supplementary role), God does not allow parents to neglect their own duties in this matter.

3.) Is it Wise?

Even if we can get government funding for private schools or homeschools, do we truly want that? If there is one lesson that should be abundantly clear from history it is that whatever the government funds, it controls. If you want your children to receive an education that is free from leftist bias and propaganda, you are going to need to pay for that education yourself. I have written elsewhere about why I believe tax-funding for private education (especially religious instruction) has strings and should be avoided.

4.) It Makes Government Bigger

Spending tax dollars for private education not only compromises its own integrity and autonomy, it also increases the already crushing tax burden on working class Americans. Increasing government spending for private schools only makes government bigger, a concept that most conservatives claim to be against. We need to remember that the government doesn’t have any money. It only has what it takes by force from its citizens. Do we really want our private schools being funded by money taken by force from our neighbors who did not choose to give it? Is that the goal of privatized education?

5.) You Must Allow All Religious Schools Equal Access

Many Christians are inconsistent with their application of how tax funds could/should be used for private education. When I ask them if they like the idea of tax dollars being used to fund religious instruction in Christian schools, many say they favor it. But when I ask them if they are fine with their tax dollars going to fund Islamic instruction in a Muslim school, they suddenly get quiet, or oppose the idea outright. Fair is fair when it comes to public monies. You can’t encourage the idea of atheists paying for religious instruction for your children in your private schools, and then complain about a Wiccan school, or a transgender private school receiving the same funds.

Keep Private Education Truly Private

As conservatives, we should be looking for ways to decrease taxation for all schooling, and support tax incentives for businesses and individuals that allow them to keep their own money in their own pockets. Private education is successful because the private sector is always more efficient than the government. Given the opportunity (and adequate capital), privatized schools will always out-perform (on the average) government-controlled schools. There are many changes that can be made to the tax law that help encourage private education (privately funded savings accounts, tax deductions, etc.) that leave money in the pockets of the citizens/businesses, rather than take them away, and apportion some of it back with strings attached. I’d encourage you to consider strongly that what looks like a carrot dangling at the end of a rope may end up being a noose that kills the freedom of private schools to completely control what they teach.

IFI is hosting our annual Worldview Conference on March 7th at the Village Church of Barrington. This year’s conference is titled “Thinking Biblically About Our Corrosive Culture” and features Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Rob Gagnon. For more information, please click HERE for a flyer or click the button below to register for the conference.

Spouting absurd gibberish about “inclusivity,” the feminist company Thinx, which makes “washable, reusable undies” to “replace pads, tampons, liners, and cups” for women’s menstrual cycles, just released a bizarre ad featuring nine different images of biological males menstruating:

The ad concludes with this baffling statement: “If we all had them, maybe we’d be more comfortable with them.”

What do the makers of Thinx panties mean by “comfortable”? It’s true that girls and women don’t particularly like menstruation—it is, after all, messy and often accompanied by physical discomfort—but would they experience less discomfort if men menstruated? Of course not. So, what does “comfortable” mean in the ad? What is their goal with this perverse and unseemly ad? There are two possibilities, both of which are troubling.

It appears “progressives” have again mistaken the virtue of modesty for pathological shame and are trying to eradicate it. They wrongly believe women’s reluctance to discuss personal bodily functions with or in the presence of persons of the opposite sex with whom they are not intimately involved is caused by pathological shame about menstruation. But there exists no epidemic of unhealthy shame among women about menstruation. Most girls and women are completely comfortable talking (and joking) about their periods when they’re among female friends, colleagues, and relatives.

Many women do, however, feel reluctant to discuss menstrual matters with unrelated men—not because of shame—but because of feelings of modesty that naturally develop and can be either respected and reinforced or disrespected, devalued, and undermined. Thinx is doing the latter.

But is it a cultural problem that girls and women exercise discretion when talking about personal bodily functions? Is cultural erosion of modesty a good thing? Is a society where everyone talks openly about their personal bodily functions a better society or a coarser society? Does undermining modesty foster healthier, more respectful relationships between boys and girls, or men and women?

Thinx leaders have another motive for the freakish ad—a motive equally insalubrious.

Thinx is in thrall to the science-denying and destructive “trans” ideology that promotes the preposterous idea that there exist “men” with uteruses who menstruate and “women” with penises who don’t.

The Thinx blog illuminates the transgressive motives behind the mad ad. Here’s the September 26 post from Amber Leventry, a “non-binary” lesbian activist who was sexually abused by a female relative from infancy through age 12 and with her female partner is now raising a daughter and twin sons, one of whom, Leventry claims, began identifying as a girl by 18 months:

Bleeding from your vagina, and everything that comes with it, can suck. But when you are a nonbinary, trans masculine person like me, having a uterus to begin with *really* sucks…. For me, being nonbinary means that I am neither specifically male nor female; I am a mix of two genders.

…

It is not the responsibility of transgender people to make any physical changes in order to live a life of feeling accepted. Some of us make social transitions by changing our pronouns, name, hair, or clothing. Others make medical changes using hormones or gender affirming surgery. But none of these things need to be the answer to fitting in nor should they be viewed as something we have to do to be accepted. The transition that needs to happen is in the way people understand gender…. That’s why we should stop treating menstruation as an if-then statement.

What we really need to do is normalize the fact that all genders and body types may bleed. It’s hard enough to get your period, but if you are a person who uses the men’s bathroom, it’s a real bummer if you are caught off guard and there are no tampons or pads available. This is why it’s so important to make these products accessible in all bathrooms and locker rooms. And when you talk to your kids (or your friend’s kids or your sibling’s kid) about sex and reproductive health, talk about menstruation. Be clear that some boys bleed and some girls don’t.

…

Companies that sell menstruation products and their accompanying ads need to present outside of a gender binary and offer support to men, women, nonbinary, and genderfluid folks. This needs to be in language and imagery on their packaging.

Thinx leaders are committed to “menstrual equity” and believe there exists a “universal right” for public school students to be provided with free period products, so they are calling on Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and “all city councils, school boards, and schools to provide period products for free in all schools restrooms”—and by “all,” they mean all.

No such ad would have been conceivable in a pre-“trans” America where biology, rather than ontological alchemy, held sway over the minds of both the well- and poorly educated masses. Today, however, the masses pretend to believe the emperor is menstruating and needs free pads.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MENstruating-Men.mp3

This article was originally published at SalvoMag.com.

Written by Jane Robbins and Emmett McGroarty

In 2013 Michael Cohen of Achieve, Inc. (an organization integral to developing and marketing the Common Core national standards) testified in New York that Common Core is a long-term education experiment on our children: “The full effects… won’t be seen until an entire cohort of students, from kindergarten through high school graduation, has been effectively exposed to Common Core teaching.” Four years later we may not be seeing the full effects, but heaven help us when we get there.

The most recent red flag comes from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), an international assessment of the reading skills of representative samples of fourth-graders. As reported by the Washington Post, the 2016 PIRLS results show U.S. students tumbling from fifth in the world to thirteenth. Scores fell by seven points from those achieved by fourth-graders in 2011, the last time scores were released.

Hmm. What could have happened in schools between 2011 and 2016 that might have affected the academic performance of eight-year-olds? A Harvard education professor speculated that the 2009 recession and that old reliable — poverty — could have been the culprits. Education Secretary and on-again off-again Common Core supporter Betsy DeVos couldn’t identify a specific factor but suggested we need to “rethink school.”

Maybe. But Latvia — one of Europe’s poorer countries — outperformed the U.S. And the school structure that DeVos says we should rethink was pretty much the same in 2016 as in 2011. So what could it be?

As Congress moves the tax reform legislation into a Conference Committee, the U.S. Senate version of the bill has an amendment that is not in the U.S. House bill.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (r-TX) explains what this language is at his website. The “Cruz Amendment” (Sen. Amendment #1725) “seeks to expand 529 College Savings Plans to include K-12 elementary and secondary school tuition for public, private, and religious schools, including K-12 educational expenses for homeschool students.”

Sen. Cruz delivered these remarks on the Senate floor:

By expanding choice for parents and opportunities for children, we have prioritized the education of the next generation of Americans, allowing families to save and prepare for their children’s future educational expenses. Expanding 529’s ensures that each child receives an education that meets their individual needs, instead of being forced into a one-size-fits-all approach to education, or limited to their zip code.”

Adding homeschoolers and expanding plans in general will help ensure that each child receives an education that meets their individual needs, instead of being forced into a one-size-fits- all approach to education. The expansion of 529 plans to include K-12 expenses will help working class and middle-income families save and prepare for their children’s educational expenses.

This amendment has the support of the Trump Administration — here is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos:

Expanding 529’s to include any educational option is a common-sense reform that reflects the reality that we must begin to view education as an investment in individual students, not systems.

Will Estrada, the director of federal relations for Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), told Illinois Family Institute this:

HSLDA is grateful to Senator Cruz for introducing this amendment which contained HSLDA’s language ensuring that homeschoolers are able to use their own 529 plans for k-12 homeschool expenses. We support this amendment, and are grateful that it was included in the Senate’s tax bill.

Estrada explained that HSLDA “strongly opposes ANY federal funds” be given to homeschoolers. “We have vigorously opposed past attempts to give federal money to homeschool families, and will continue to do so.”

Clarifying further, Estrada said:

The bottom line is that a 529 plan is your own money, not government money. You put it into your own account after taxes. You decide whether and how to use it, or even whether to create a 529 plan for your children. HSLDA is grateful to Senator Cruz and Congress for ensuring that homeschoolers have another tool in their toolbox as they educate their children at home.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Representative to encourage him/her to keep Sen. Amendment #1725, and allow parents to put money they save for their children’s college costs toward private K-12 education, including expenses to home educate.  Urge him/her to keep the Cruz Amendment and expand educational opportunities for parents and students.

The need for action by Illinois supporters of homeschooling is very important because two Illinois U.S. representatives are on the conference committee. “The senate’s language,” Estrada said, “needs to remain in the final bill that comes out of the conference committee.”

Here is Senator Cruz introducing his amendment on the U.S. Senate floor:

Please don’t delay in communicating with our federal lawmakers in Washington D.C.

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