The recent hubbub involving a local high school social studies teacher whose social media posts seem to indicate that he was disappointed the most recent assassin failed in his attempt to kill the president made local, state, and national headlines. Most of the comments on social media voiced outrage that any person would advocate for the killing of the president of the United States, much less a teacher that has influence and authority over children in his charge. Some posts questioned how a person with these views could ever have been hired as a teacher in the first place or asked why he was not terminated immediately.

If this were an isolated incident in the education system, it would be wonderful if the school board in question would take the necessary steps and we could all go about our merry way and get back to educating our youth.

Unfortunately, extreme political bents like these are shared by many social studies teachers throughout the state and nation. A rising number of teachers (social studies and other) pursue this career path with the express intention of persuading / indoctrinating naïve and passionate young people of all ages to their political viewpoints.

In the past, social studies focused on history (from ancient history to modern times), geography, economics and civics. If passing a civics test was not currently mandated by the state of Wisconsin for graduation, the current social studies model in most larger school districts would not bear any resemblance to what was taught for decades. Much of what currently qualifies as social studies focuses almost exclusively on racial and gender inequality, sexual diversity and alternative lifestyles, climate change, and historical analysis of mistakes and injustices committed by the United States government / people over the past 200 years.

If you would ask a graduating senior to fill out an unmarked map of US states, most would struggle to correctly label half. If you expand that map outside of North America, and ask where China, Brazil or Iran is located, best of luck. More importantly, our students have no understanding of world history and how that history has shaped cultures and wars and economies. Only a tiny minority of our kids know that slavery has been around since the beginning of time; white people conquering and enslaving the white people who lived in the village next to them and brown people doing exactly the same thing for millennium; students would also be shocked to learn that millions of people live in slavery today! Facts like these, which were standard fare in all schools not too many years ago, do not fit the current political narrative that is foisted upon our students in today’s classroom.

The economics curriculum has also taken a turn. A supply / demand curve that graphically denotes that when prices go up, demand for that good goes down, and vice versa, would be as novel as a bag phone to most of our young people leaving high school. Instead of highlighting capitalism as the engine that has improved the plight of billions of people throughout the world, many teachers choose to focus exclusively on those who have misused the powers of capitalism to victimize the poor; at the same time, the feel-good notions of socialism and communism are touted without mentioning the tens of millions of people killed under those regimes over the past century. The wonder and the brilliance of the United States experiment in democracy and the tremendous positive impact our nation has had on people the world over is seldom discussed.

What gets lost in this community activism is what used to be called education. Over the past decade, thousands of outstanding, passionate, qualified, teachers who simply loved math, or history, or science have retired or moved to other career fields due to the chaos in the classroom and the political activism / political correctness of the superintendents, the school boards and the administrators. And the kids are suffering as a result. In spite of the current Superintendent of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s attempt to lower the proficiency bar, only 1 in 3 students are working at grade level proficiency in reading and math. As many employers will tell you, many adults entering the workforce are in desperate need of foundational academic assistance before any actual job training can begin.

We, as parents, need to spearhead the change. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. We just need to return to the common sense, reading/writing/arithmetic approach to education. We must make our voices heard within the public-school apparatus until change occurs. If your public school is committed to protecting an ideology instead of educating your child, look elsewhere. Private schools, charter schools, on-line schooling, and home-schooling are all growing exponentially, and the impressive results speak for themselves.

Make no mistake, the change is coming. In fact, it is already happening. As we’ve watched the collapse of higher education over the past decade due to much of the same nonsense and political activism, parents are finding positive alternatives to poor/misguided public education models. Be a voice for change in your community and be bold as you choose what’s best for your children.