Children

    Weaponization of Education

    We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated...I love the poorly educated!

    - Donald Trump (probably while pissing his pants for all we know...I can't confirm or deny this and it's simply my opinion so legally can't come after me for just hypothetically throwing out that he could indeed have been peeing his pants)

    Breakdown

    What: We are seeing the breakdown of our education system to manipulate the next generation into accepting new narratives that suit the current administation, increase compliance, and have greater control over people.

    How: Various examples below

    • Putting pro-trump conspiracy theories like the "2020 election fraud" or refraiming the Russian invasion of Ukraine into public school cirrculum in OK.
    • Lousianna is attempting to mandate that all public schools display a copy of the Ten Commandments.

    Why Care: Knowledge is power! Without the facts, future generation's opinions and in-turn votes will reflect the agenda of the current administration. Ew.

    Dismantling the Department of Education

    Girl What?

    You read that correctly, the trump administration wants to dismantle the DOE.

    Why

    • Money first and foremost. Cuts to the DOE will help pay for the billionaire tax cuts.
    • Privitization Kink There's nothing they love more than corporate privitization where rights are more scarce and there's more freedom to do as they please.
    • Racism/Classism Public school is apparently just for blacks, browns, and poors. They don't want to educate those who the greatest threat to them. They've also conveniently forgotten about most of their voters who attend these schools.
    • Christian Nationalism Public schools are too secular and the far right wants these funds put back towards religious institutions

    Consequences

    • Increase in class sizes
    • Loss of nearly 180,000 teaching jobs
    • Removal of Title IX enforcement which will roll back protections against sexual harassment and assult in schools
    • Decrease or complete removal of accomodations for students with disabilities
    • Loss of Pell Grants or other federal student loans leading to more dropouts and fewer options
    • Removal of civil right protections and funding for lower income areas that will directly and disproportionately harm marginalized communities

    Sources

    Protecting Children from Abuse

    The Joy is Not Optional A memoir by writer Aella on growing up in fundamentalist program Growing Kids God's Way