The failure of the Coeur d’Alene School District levy on March 14th has resulted in another attempt to pass it again in May. Superintendent Hocker and the school board showed no self awareness of the failure and instead blamed it on ignorance and stinginess of the electorate. What they failed to mention is their commitment to an agenda that they are not willing to acknowledge or apologize for. The snubbing and rejection of parents who pleaded with parents in the fall of 2020 to drop the mask mandate and have a relatively normal school year was not mentioned. This arrogance resulted with parents voting with their feet. Nearly 10% of the student population left the district for charter, private schools or home schooling. What effect did this have on the budget? They have lost students in the subsequent years, in fact 200 fewer students this year compared to last year. This has all happened in a period of record growth in North Idaho.
The upside of all of this disruption of Covid fear is that it took the mask off what is being taught in the schools and the materials being made available in schools and libraries. Critical race theory, transgender teaching, choosing your own pronoun and trashing of our nation’s history is taking over education. The education establishment is absolutely committed to this teaching.
Having boys in girl’s restrooms, boys participating in girl’s sports, having students decide on their pronouns is not only confusing but conflicts with thousands of years of history and the teaching of truth in the Bible. The attack on families and parental authority is not an aberration but is at the center of what we are up against. Superintendent Hocker calling a halt on school groups using the Skateland property because it is owned by Candlelight Church and “plays Christian music” was a message to the community, even though any instrumental music was fine at the facility. The district quietly adopted the Idaho School Board Policy on how a school board can be woke and be on the vanguard of the cultural rot. Amazingly the local paper or TV stations have no inclination to dig deeper into any of the controversy.
This has also been the year that public education fell into the voracious maw of partisan politics, and schools are losing to school choice and home schooling. The people have been lied to, manipulated, locked down and lost trust in many institutions including education, health care and many local governments. Arizona led the way with education dollars following the student and parental choice in their children’s education. This is growing quickly and evidence shows that after this year nearly a fourth of the states will have a similar option for parents.
It is sad when we walk away from the local government schools, it is not like changing your grocery store or gas station. This is a major split and if you are a parent or patron with traditional values and speak up you are a racist, homophobic, sexist and filled with hate. The school boards and administration will try to make it about money and lies from the uneducated electorate who should follow the wishes of their betters. The media unbelievably is not curious enough to cover the issues or include the opinions of people of faith.
What some have called the “parents’ revolt” is spreading across the country, with parents in numerous other jurisdictions organizing around school-board elections and education policy. The first is the brittle, arrogant and defensive response of our ruling class to any kind of political opposition nowadays. What kind of mind turns parents complaining at a school-board meeting into some sort of “domestic terrorism” threat? (The same kind that turns peacefully protesting truckers into “insurrectionists,” I suppose.) In what previous age of American history would secret targeting and federal investigations of people engaging in a bedrock institution of participatory democracy have been seen as appropriate? Who calls people racist for wanting their kids to learn? To paraphrase the great cultural commentator Greg Gutfield, “The moms are showing up at the school with treats and kicking butt…. and they ran out of trail mix!”
Rather than understanding this reality, Idaho Republicans are often right out there leading campaigns to increase funding to ideologically hostile education systems, rather than using their political power to upend their cultural opponents’ recruiting and indoctrination centers. Like many parents, while observing the terrible outcomes of American education that are impossible to ignore, they seek refuge from doing something about it in cognitive dissonance. You see, doing something about it would require conviction. Will we have the “conviction” to continue the battle in May?
