Under Biden administration Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, it isn’t about the kids actually learning and attempting to recover what was lost during lockdowns. It’s about the virtue signaling.

It has become undeniable that public schools in this country are not dedicated to actually teaching children the presumed basic literacy and math skills that are necessary to be a functional and participating member of society. It seems the only focus of the public schools is making sure that kids are allowed to “express themselves” after the teachers tell them exactly how many gender options there are, and then explicitly tell the students that their parents never need to know about any of this.

In California, the San Diego Unified School District is telling students that they can “change” their gender, and staff will help them conceal that from their parents.

Also in California, the state attorney general, Rob Bonta, is currently SUING the Chino Valley Unified School District because their policy IS to inform parents of students who are telling staff that they are transgender. Why does the state of California have a vested interest in concealing that kind of life-changing information from parents, I wonder?

The AG argues the policy violates anti-discrimination and privacy laws and threatens students mental well being, according to the suit filed in San Bernardino Superior Court on Monday — three weeks after classes started in the district on Aug. 7.

The policy places transgender and non-binary students “in danger of imminent, irreparable harm form the consequences of forced disclosures,” as the students will be forced to choose between walking back their constitutional right to gender identity and expression “or face the risk of emotional, physical and psychological harm from non-affirming or unaccepting parents or guardians,” the suit charges.

Bonta also claims the Board of Education in the district enacted the policy out of animosity toward transgender students, which was made clear at a July 20 board hearing where members claimed trans students were suffering from “mental illness” or “perversion” and were a threat to families and the country as a whole, according to the filing.

The meeting made national headlines when California’s state superintendent of schools Tony Thurmond was kicked out after he clashed with Chino Valley school district official Sonja Shaw.

Bonta says he brought the suit to protect students from potential trauma, bullying, harassment or potential violence.

And when parents band together to stand up for their children, the education establishment and the state rear its ugly head to declare “all your children are belong to us.” While there are cases like Jessica Konen and her daughter’s (which Lisa covered here), it is currently a different story in Montgomery County Public Schools, where a large group of parents, standing together in religious solidarity, are currently being told that they cannot even opt their children out of the district’s LGBT lessons.

On Thursday, a Maryland district court sent a clear message to parents at Montgomery County Public Schools: you don’t get a say in what your kids read at school.

Or more specifically, as the court concluded, a parent’s right to opt out of a public school curriculum that “conflicts with their religious views is not a fundamental right.”

The ruling was a shock to parents, the majority of them Muslim and Ethiopian Christians, who supported a federal lawsuit against the Montgomery County Board of Education earlier this summer in response to new requirements that their children—many as young as prekindergarten age—would be mandated to read (or have teachers read them) books about LGBT topics, regardless of their parents’ objections. “It’s very disrespectful,” Shaykh El Hadji Sall, the parent of three children who attend a school in the system, told me at a rally organized by parents Thursday. “It’s ignoring the will of the people.”

The parents are not done pursuing their challenge to the school district policy in the courts, but to add insult to injury, the school district is now attempting to bill the parent group for their public records request.
https://twitter.com/nickineily/status/1694823612799156458
Which leads us back to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. Is he focused on school test scores dropping and gains being wiped out? Nope. Is he focused on the shocking state of learning in places like Baltimore? Nope. Is he focused on how school attendance has dropped for enrolled students? Nope. Secretary Cardona is busy virtue signaling on Twitter/X and getting ratioed into the ground.

Books teach our students tolerance.
When we limit the books on our students’ shelves, we limit their knowledge and perspective.

— Secretary Miguel Cardona (@SecCardona) August 30, 2023

The replies are very telling. The always helpful Libs of TikTok reminded everyone what Cardona is talking about with visuals. And yes, these are graphic novels or books with a lot of graphic illustrations involved. You see, when you don’t teach the kids to read, you HAVE to use books with pictures in order to plant all the ideas in their heads. But Secretary Cardona should set the example and read these “banned” books for all to hear… right?

Far too much of a coward and hypocrite to do that.

— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) August 31, 2023

Now, Cardona IS too cowardly and hypocritical to do that. The school boards who demand that these books be available in school libraries are the same, as they consistently freak out whenever a parent reads from these books during school board meetings. Cardona wants all the benefits of the leftist virtue signaling without having to actually defend it.

It’s also important to point out that these books in question are not “banned.” These books are still available to purchase at Amazon or Barnes & Noble or other bookstores (unlike, say, Abigail Shrier’s “Irreversible Damage,” which Target refused to sell, and Ryan T. Anderson’s book “When Harry Became Sally,” which Amazon pulled off their website), and are available at public libraries. The parents who have been kicked out of school board meetings for reading these books out loud are pointing out that this kind of material should not be available IN SCHOOLS. There are a LOT of books that don’t make it to school libraries, and that is never called “censorship” or “banning.”

Parents are going to have to continue to push back against schools, either by fighting them in court, the court of public opinion, or by removing their children from schools altogether. Every parent has to make that decision for themselves, while remembering that the price of a “free” education in a public school is constant vigilance. And shaming Miguel Cardona on Twitter/X for being a coward isn’t a bad idea, either.

Featured image: Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, official portrait, cropped, public domain