On April 18, 2023, WGN News in Chicago reported on the 30 best high schools in Illinois, so the Good Soil Good Seed Foundation (GS2) looked into how Illinois students scored on standardized tests. We specifically wanted to know how many students were at grade-level proficiency in two core subject areas — reading and math.

The results may be surprising to some, but not to us. The State of Illinois has grade-level proficiency scores of 30 percent in English Language Arts (includes reading) and 26 percent in math, according to the Illinois Report Card for 2022. Simply put, Illinois Public Schools are failing, and failing infamously.

Between 70-75 percent of students in our public schools are not at grade level in reading and math, yet 87 percent of the students graduate! This reality of poor performance is not new in Illinois. Despite a dramatic increase in spending per student, academic performance has not improved in any meaningful way. According to Wirepoints, spending per pupil in 2019 was $16,227 versus $9,555 in 2007, a 70 percent increase. Proficiency scores have dropped during the same timeframe according to The Nation’s Report Card.

Certainly the 30 best high schools in Illinois (their list is just Chicagoland schools) would all be well above a score of F. See the results below:

Over 50 percent of the “best high schools” (17 of 30) received failing grade-level proficiency scores; 4 schools scored a D; 2 scored a C; 4 scored an A; and 3 did not publish and results.

Congratulations to the 4 outstanding academic schools in this grouping. What are those schools doing that all the others are not? Could it be that their focus is on learning and not on indoctrination into woke ideologies? Could it be that there is a focus on student outcomes and performance metrics that tell the true story of academic success in these schools?

Parents are instructed by God’s Word to raise their children to love and serve the Lord and to love others. The public education system in Illinois, and in America, is not focused on academic outcomes but on indoctrination into ungodly woke-ism.

At Good Soil Good Seed Foundation, we desire to get Illinois children out of academically failing, indoctrination-succeeding public schools and into an academically rich, biblically based education system right now! The Good Soil Good Seed Foundation provides scholarships for children to attend biblically based schools and grants to help organizations start authentic Christian schools.

Please consider donating to this vital mission today. This is America’s mission field. What we do today in our children’s education will literally determine what our country is like tomorrow. We are a registered 501(c)(3) organization, and all donations are tax deductible.

Prayerful consider a donation to GS2 today and thank you for your help.

There’s a grand act of un-creation taking place all across this nation. Leftists are busy with this ugly business of un-creating decency, order, justice, compassion, and beauty, and children play a central role in this ugly business. To leftists, children are both objects of un-creation and tools for un-creating society. If we want to see with greater clarity the plans leftists have for the nation, there is no better place to examine than Illinois. Let’s hover above Illinois for a few minutes to get a bird’s eye view of this dark project.

Abuse in Chicago Public Schools

On Jan. 1, 2023—a Sunday—the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Chicago Board of Education released its annual report on “investigations into allegations of waste, fraud, financial mismanagement and employee misconduct” between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. This year’s report cost taxpayers $6.54 million.

(As a noteworthy aside, the CPS spent $97 million of federal pandemic relief money on “academic recovery + social and emotional learning supports.” Further, CPS plans on spending $430 million more of federal money over the next two years for the same academic, social, and emotional learning problems caused by the refusal of Governor J.B. Pritzker to open schools and the refusal of teachers to teach during the pandemic.)

What is revealed in this report should shock all parents of CPS students and all Illinois taxpayers:

The OIG received 1,825 complaints alleging misconduct, waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement at Chicago Public Schools, including allegations of adult-on-student sexual misconduct.” Of those nearly 2,000 complaints, the OIG opened investigations into fewer than half (39.7%).

Of those 1,825 complaints, 470 were sexual allegations.

Because of a 2018 Chicago Tribune exposé of sexual abuse in Chicago public schools, the OIG “created a special Sexual Allegations Unit” which “has grown exponentially into a team of more than 30 … staff responsible for handling hundreds of sexual misconduct allegations per year.” The OIG report describes the number of cases as “extraordinarily high case volume.”

The complaints include allegations of sexual grooming, sexual intercourse, sexual assault, sexual touching, and graphic sexual texts.

Since many victims are afraid to report sexual abuse, Illinoisans can justifiably assume that the numbers of adult-on-student sexual misconduct cases are far higher than 470.

CPS scores

Apparently, faculty are too busy abusing children to teach them how to read, write, add, and subtract. In September 2022, Wirepoints reported on the abysmal academic performance of CPS:

Student achievement remains badly sub-par at CPS. About 70 percent of CPS students in grades 4, 8, and 11 – and 80 percent or more of its tested black students – aren’t proficient in reading and math. In some schools, reading proficiency is still in the low single digits.

Sex Education Law

Shameful, sub-proficient, and stagnating test scores suggest that Illinois lawmakers—a super-duper majority of whom are leftists—don’t care about educating Illinois children, so where do their interests lie? A recent bill from Illinois Senator Ram Villivalam (Democrat from Chicago of course), points to the educational priorities of Illinois’ leftist ideologues. He proposed a tyrannical amendment to Illinois’ already offensive sex education law.

In 2021, Villivalam sponsored a bill mandating that K-12 schools that offer “health and safety” classes must include indoctrination with leftist gender theories and leftist views of homosexuality. But this bill, which became law, allowed schools to opt out of such indoctrination, which 70 percent of schools did. Can’t have that, thought Big Brother Villivalam.

So, he proposed an amendment during this recent lame duck session to remove the school opt-out option. It didn’t pass during the lame duck session, but mark my words, Big Brother Villivalam will, like the Terminator, be back.

Teachers often defend their teaching about sex by claiming they are “experts,” and by claiming what they teach is “age-appropriate,” so let’s spend a minute discussing purported teacher “expertise” and “age-appropriateness.”

Illinois teachers—including teachers in high performing suburban districts—are rarely “experts” in even the disciplines for which they were hired to teach. Don’t believe me? Ask your children’s teachers if they have advanced degrees, and if they do, ask what field their advanced degrees are in. Relatively few teachers pursue advanced degrees in biology, chemistry, physics, English literature, or history. They don’t, because it’s easier to get an advanced degree—and, thereby, increase their salary—in educational policy as opposed to biology, chemistry, physics, English literature, or history.

If they’re not experts in the field for which they were hired to teach, how are they experts in sexuality? What criteria do they use to establish their sexuality expertise bona fides?

And what criteria do they use to determine the “age-appropriateness” of sex education content. Who established those criteria. So many questions taxpayers never ask.

“Trans” policy

Sex is definitely where the “educational” interests of leftists lie, particularly deviant sexuality. Look no further than the Pritzker family that scurries about the world throwing their money and ample weight behind the effort to promote cross-dressing and child mutilation.

Governor Pritzker’s first cousin, whose transonym is “Jennifer” Pritzker, is the cross-dressing man in woman-face who tried to extort the GOP by proclaiming that if the GOP didn’t toe the line as he toes it in his lady pumps, he would take his money and move to the dark side—which he did.

He and the Pritzker family also use their money to fund university and hospital programs around the world to indoctrinate students into the “trans” cult and to mutilate the healthy bodies of children.

On a local level, upon his first election, J. B. Pritzker created a “trans” cultic task force composed of all lefties to socially construct a plan for “transing” public schools.

Now that leftists control public education in Illinois, our shameless governor/chief propagandist hopes to further diminish the influence of parents on their own children. In Pritzker’s second inaugural speech, he announced his evil plans: “I propose we go all in for our children and make preschool available to every family throughout the state,” and “let’s focus on making [college] tuition free for every working-class family.”

Get ‘em while they’re young and keep ‘em.

Research has long established that college and university faculty and administrations skew wildly left. Further, research has demonstrated that of those students who self-censor out of fear of repercussions, well over half are conservative. And this is the “learning” environment where Pritzker seeks to send more students and at taxpayer expense. Pritzker wants to cram as much propaganda into the minds of as many young people as possible, and wants you, conservative friends, to pay for this indoctrination.

To mix bird metaphors, Illinois is both a canary in a coal mine and a buzzard in a killing field.

Conservative parents, get your kids out of government killing fields now before the buzzards devour them.

Written by Jerry Newcombe

Dr. Richard Land once called our country, “the divided states of America.” How apt — especially when we survey the various responses to the coronavirus. They are lessons in liberty and lessons in tyranny.

To paraphrase what a friend of mine wrote me recently, “We have 50 real-world government examples of liberty or tyranny — 50 real-time experiments in whether state governments moved towards liberty (as in Texas and South Dakota) or absolute control (as in California, Michigan and New York).” As a resident, I would add: Florida’s leadership is doing a great job.

Churches Closed, Planned Parenthood Open

Nowhere can this contrast be better seen than in how the state authorities deal with churches versus how they deal with abortion, ordering churches closed while deeming Planned Parenthood and other abortionists “essential services.”

How fitting. In her classic book, Godless, Ann Coulter postulates that abortion is the left’s “sacrament.” The sacraments of the church are out. The left’s new sacrament is in. The most pro-abortion leaders are the ones who are most cracking down on real constitutional freedoms in their states. If a politician gets abortion wrong, they tend to get everything else wrong too.

This anti-religious spirit at work is exceedingly ironic because America was born as a religious nation. In the Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrims explained their reason for coming: “For the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.”

Our First Amendment declares our first freedom — freedom of religion. The founders stipulated there would be no national denomination and there would be no prohibition on the “free exercise” of religion. They didn’t add, “except in times of pestilence.”

“No Pandemic Exception to the Bill of Rights”

Indeed, Attorney General William Barr sides with the churches (following social distancing guidelines, etc.) in this conflict. He said, “There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.”

But many of the left today have used the pandemic crisis to try and shut down a lot of religious services:

• The mayor of Kansas City, Missouri was demanding that churches hand over a list of anyone who attended any of their services. When Mat Staver and Liberty Counsel threatened to sue, the city backed down.

• The governor of Illinois postulated that church services may need to be banned for a year. This is the same governor who prohibited residents in his state from traveling — while apparently his wife vacationed in Florida.

• Overzealous administrators have sought to ban churches even from holding “drive-in” church services, which follow the mandates to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

If your church parking lot permits, holding a drive-in service is a clever way to worship the Lord together. Usually, the pastor would preach to the congregation in their cars though a low frequency on the FM dial in such services.

“A Lesson to Governors”

But even in the Bible belt, such as in Kentucky and Mississippi, some overzealous administrators have tried to shut such services down. First Liberty Institute has threatened lawsuits, and the cities have relented.

The Wall Street Journal had an editorial entitled, “Caesar, God and the Lockdowns,” in which they note, “A federal court ruling on religious liberty is a lesson to governors.”

The editorial talks about Maryville Baptist Church in Louisville, which held a modest Easter service — with some worshipers inside and others in the parking lot, hearing the service through a loudspeaker.

To harass the worshipers, notes the WSJ, “The police took down license-plate numbers. The church sued.”

A panel on the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of the church: “It’s not always easy to decide what is Caesar’s and what is God’s — and that’s assuredly true in the context of a pandemic. … Why is it safe to wait in a car for a liquor store to open but dangerous to wait in a car to hear morning prayers?”

The Left-Right Divide in Leadership

A new report out of Chicago over the weekend shows the lengths to which the anti-God forces will go. Wirepoints observes that the mayor sought to punish a church, Philadelphia Romanian Church, to prevent it from holding services. They stated, “On Sunday morning the tow trucks descended — not just on churchgoers, but on residents and everybody else, and on a private lot used by parishioners.”

The pastor of the church said, “The mayor is inciting hate against the church which is very sad. A lot of our members risked their lives to escape Communism, only to find it germinating in 2020 under Mayor Lightfoot in Chicago.” Lori Lightfoot is so committed to abortion rights, she helped drive out of office one of the last Democrat, pro-life U. S. Congressmen.

Wirepoints adds, “It should also be a clarion call to the churches across the city as to how far the left will go to crush the faithful of all denominations.”

Freedom-loving Americans can look at a map of the country and see how those on the left versus those on the right are delicately handling the crisis. The abortion-loving, church-hating politicians stand in great contrast with their freedom-loving counterparts in the red states.

Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is a senior producer and an on-air host for D. James Kennedy Ministries. He has written or co-written 32 books, such as The Unstoppable Jesus Christ, American Amnesia: Is American Paying the Price for Forgetting God?, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (with D. James Kennedy) and the bestseller, George Washington’s Sacred Fire (with Peter Lillback). Learn more at jerrynewcombe.com and follow him on Twitter @newcombejerry.

On March 9, Governor J.B. Pritzker issued his first “stay-at-home” emergency Executive Order (EO). That was followed by another EO extending his stay-at-home order through April 30th. Then last week, Gov. Pritzker extended his stay-at-home order for another 30 days, through the end of May. If not extended again, that would constitute a total of 11 weeks of a lock-down for Illinois residents and businesses.

Since Illinois law only grants the governor emergency authority for a period of 30 days, the extensions of Gov. Pritzker’s “stay-at-home” order, which closes businesses and forbids church services and assemblies in excess of ten citizens, constitutes an overreach of executive authority. Thankfully, State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) took Gov. Pritzker to court over this very issue and won an important decision that may lead to a definitive strike-down of the governor’s dangerous precedent. In fact, Clay County Circuit Court Judge Michael McHaney was reported as saying that Gov. Pritzker’s “subsequent executive orders ‘shredded the Constitution.’” The governor has promised to appeal this decision, so it may not be resolved anytime soon.

Gov. Pritzker and state lawmakers need to hear from their constituents about the abuse of power and the infringement of our civil liberties.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Gov. Pritzker and your state lawmakers asking them to end the lock-down and restore our civil liberties. Consider pointing out that our First Amendment rights to freely exercise our religion and to assemble in our churches are essential.

Background

In fairness to Gov. Prizker, the state’s initial response was part of his administrative effort to slow the spread of the disease and “flatten the curve” of COVID-19 hospitalizations. Yet over the past 6 weeks we have learned a lot about the COVID-19 pandemic. For one thing, the initial government predictions of hospitalizations and deaths were wrong. Thank God that these projections have been repeatedly revised downward but, unfortunately, not before contributing to the incitement of great fear and anxiety.

In Illinois, we have not come close to exceeding hospitalization and healthcare capacity. An excellent article by Wirepoints provides evidence of the adequacy of ICU bed capacity and ventilator availability.

Three weeks ago, Governor Pritzker stood before the media complaining about the Trump administration and our great need for ventilators, ICU beds, and other medical equipment. He was wrong. Illinois didn’t use half of the available ventilators and only two-thirds of available hospital beds.

The facts that have emerged over the past few weeks do not warrant Gov. Pritzker’s extended “stay-at-home” order. So, it is not surprising that his announced plans to extend the Illinois lock-down through the end of May is provoking a growing “enough is enough” response.

This past Friday, Illinois State Representative Allen Skillicorn (R-McHenry) issued a press release publicly asking,

Has the Governor lost his mind! How in the world could he possibly think of continuing a statewide lockdown when Cook County and Chicago are 70% of the positive cases, while 84 counties have less than 100 positives of which 75 have less than 50 positives. Just what will it take to convince Pharaoh Pritzker to let people in most of Illinois go!

Additionally, an Illinois Appellate Prosecutors Office’s staff memo sent by David J. Robinson, Chief Deputy Director of the 102 State’s Attorneys across Illinois are forewarned of possible litigation:

A cursory review of the EO (and extension) reveal clear – although potentially justified – infringements on the constitutional rights of Illinois citizens. See Article I, §2 (the State due process clause); Article I, §3 (religious freedom, including “mode of worship” protection); Article I, §5 (right to assemble and petition); Article I, §15 (right of eminent domain); and Article I, §24 (rights retained).

Article I, §23 also specifically accounts for citizen’s being responsible for their actions to preserve liberty, as follows: “A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of civil government is necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty. These blessings cannot endure unless the people recognize their corresponding individual obligations and responsibilities.” Implicit in §23 is idea that emergencies may require adherence to individual responsibility rather than suspension of Constitutional rights.

…

From a strict enforcement standpoint, although well-intentioned on an emergency basis, the EO is very broad and does not appear to meet strict scrutiny – this is not to mention the EO appears to be beyond the framework of the specific Act it cites as support.

Illinoisans must awaken to the truth: the governor’s edicts infringe on our God-given, unalienable rights as set forth in our federal and state constitutions.

Speak Out

Calls and email messages to state lawmakers are vital. Too many politicians are keeping their heads down and have not challenged the abuse of power by the Pritzker administration. They are simply afraid of the media and the negative coverage they may receive as a result of being outspoken. Calls to these lawmakers are needed to get them off the sideline and into the fray. They need to be emboldened.

Our grand experiment in liberty, built firmly on Judeo/Christian (Biblical) truths and values, calls for servant leaders whose fallen human natures were reined in by a system of checks and balances. Let’s return to that vision and fight for the liberty our forefathers bled and died for.

Now is not the time for silence but for mighty prayers and grassroots action.

If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI, please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.  It does make a difference.

Written by Cliff Kincaid

Billionaire George Soros was named “Philanthropist of the Year” by Inside Philanthropy magazine for his “…fight for academic freedom in Central Europe, and his resistance to the rising tide of authoritarianism worldwide.”  The former is a reference to gender studies programs and the latter concerns his ongoing campaign to undermine existing governments, causing chaos that makes more money for hedge fund currency manipulators and short-sellers like himself.

In the United States, he is best known for almost single-handedly creating a narco-nation through legalization of marijuana, causing human suffering and environmental devastation on a scale most people do not yet comprehend.

With the nation focused on the opioid danger, and President Donald J. Trump accusing China of pumping fentanyl into the veins of American victims through Mexico, the marijuana problem has gotten less attention. Indeed, liberal politicians and prosecutors, some of them getting Soros money, are treating the dope as a harmless substance and even a money-maker for local and state governments.

For one of the most sensational examples of a notorious pothead, consider Aaron Hernandez, the former NFL star who became a convicted killer and then killed himself in prison. The subject of a new Netflix series, “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez,” he was a chronic marijuana user throughout college and his NFL career who experienced brain damage from the drug. The case proves a direct link between marijuana, mental illness, and violence.

In California, legal dope was supposed to displace illegal dope. But illicit cannabis cultivation sites are proliferating, offering a cheaper product than the government-approved variety. The Siskiyou County (California) Board of Supervisors voted on a new Declaration of Local Emergency that refers to illegal growers being responsible for “hundreds of pervasive fire hazards, insecticides, pesticides, rodenticides, fertilizers, trash, and unsanitary conditions which severely impact health, safety and quality of life for countless county residents…”

It’s in Barack Hussein Obama’s state of Illinois that we see some of the recent damage being done.

Illinois last year became the first state to legalize the marijuana business through legislation rather than by referendum and placing excise and sales taxes on the “product.” We can already see the predictable result — marijuana-related emergency room visits are on the rise. The local ABC-TV station in Chicago quotes doctors as saying the most common symptoms of the new potheads in Illinois are restlessness, heart palpitations and anxiety, but that “In some cases we are seeing full on psychosis, agitation, hallucinations.”

Incredibly, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton was one of the first in line to purchase the dope. She bought clementine-flavored marijuana edible gummies and paid with cash. The scene was captured by CNN as she was pictured among hundreds of early-morning customers at a Chicago marijuana dispensary.  She probably went to the front of the line, but some people waited hours in order to buy their “recreational marijuana” and get “high.”

David E. Smith of the Illinois Family Institute comments, “Not only have lawmakers failed to do their due diligence before passing this marijuana law, but they also failed to heed the compelling research that indicates how regular use of marijuana affects young people, including an increased risk of psychiatric illnesses and a permanent loss of IQ points.”

In fact, this is the plan – dumb people down so they ruin their lives and then have to be dependent on the state for the rest of their lives. The potheads are fast becoming an important new constituency for the socialist-minded.

Before they actually navigate their way to the polls, they can relieve their pain by employing another “hemp” product – CBD or cannabidiol.  CBD is being hawked all over, even on the Rush Limbaugh show, and is being advertised as a treatment for “muscle soreness” and “everyday discomfort.” But many complaints have been filed with the FDA over the false medical claims made about CBD.

Dr. Kenneth Finn comments, “These products are everywhere, but there is little scientific evidence to support the hype that surrounds them.” He says unregulated CBD products hitting the market might be contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, fungicides, rodenticides, insecticides, molds, E. coli, or fungus.

Official dope distribution is supposed to fill a financial gap. In Illinois, the sixth-biggest state, by population, Politico reporter Theodoric Meyer reports that it has seen its credit rating cut to near-junk status in the decade since the financial crisis. “Its bonds are now considered as risky as those of Russia and Romania,” he notes. “Its pension system is in worse shape than that of almost any other state.”

Writers Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner note that the population of Illinois dropped by 100,000 people between 2010 and 2018 and few of the state’s counties have been spared. “That means that 93 of the state’s 102 counties have shrunk since 2010,” they note. Adam Schuster, Director of Budget and Tax Research at the group, Illinois Policy, reports that 36 percent of the money the state allocates to education will be diverted away from teachers and students to meet required pension payments for retirees.

Former Illinois pension chief Marc Levine is quoted as saying a federal bailout may be required, making this a matter affecting all taxpayers, not just the saps remaining in Illinois.

The “progressive” politicians have virtually bankrupted the state, forcing thousands to flee, and have turned to the cruel exploitation of potheads as a sure-fire money-maker to stave off the final countdown to fiscal oblivion. But legalized dope means more wards of the state who need government help.

Now this is going national. “Once a politically dangerous subject,” notes Trevor Hughes of USA Today, “legal marijuana has become something of a de facto platform plank for the 2020 Democratic candidates: All support either legalizing or decriminalizing its use, and the differences lie in how far the candidates are willing to take it.”

Since 22.2 million people have used marijuana in the past month, this is fertile ground for votes. In a bid for votes, candidate Pete Buttigieg actually toured a “cannabis dispensary” in Las Vegas while commenting that he smoked dope a “handful of times a long time ago.”

President Trump, on the other hand, can just say no. He lost his brother to alcoholism and should consider speaking out against the Soros-funded marijuana craze before more lives are ruined and lost. His Surgeon General, Vice Adm. Jerome M. Adams, is already speaking out about the health risks of marijuana use. He needs the backing of his president.

Roger Morgan, author of Soros: The Drug Lord. Pricking the Bubble of American Supremacy, notes the elevated levels of mental illness, addiction, suicides, traffic deaths and the unseen mental and physical defects to babies and future generations from the use of marijuana and other mind-altering drugs.  He adds, “America can never be great again if a major percentage of its young people are brain damaged, mentally ill, addicted or dead.”​

This article was originally published at USASurvival.org. Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org