by Sheila Qualls
Some administrators and teachers intentionally deceive parents, and those who don’t go along with the district’s political agenda are bullied or threatened, according to an Anoka-Hennepin public school teacher.
Alpha News spoke with that teacher, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym for fear of being retaliated against, in season two of “Trapped!: Chaos in the Classroom.”
The first episode in season two of the audio podcast focuses on Anoka-Hennepin Schools, the largest school district in the state. The district serves almost 38,000 students in parts of Anoka, Champlin, Coon Rapids, Blaine, Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Dayton, Fridley, Ham Lake, Nowthen, Oak Grove and Ramsey.
Teachers gave Alpha News a behind the scenes look into what’s happening in the district. They said social justice has become more important than teaching students literacy and numeracy skills.
As test scores sink and student behavior worsens, most parents have no idea what is happening inside schools, “Jenny” said. She wrote an anonymous Facebook post that went viral last month exposing what she described as district practices allowing children to socially transition without parents’ knowledge.
Meanwhile, standardized test scores indicate kids are learning less and less. While only about half of the district’s kids are proficient in reading and math, the graduation rate sits at 86 percent. Across the state, proficiency scores on national math and reading tests are the lowest they’ve been in 30 years.
Jenny said she spoke out because she thinks some parents are being “kept in the dark” as teachers are “made to accept things that we never have before.”
“… Teachers never did these things when we were younger. That’s unheard of. Now, we have teachers who are posting on TikTok saying they’re proud of causing gender confusion in students. It just shows kind of the decline of society, too,” she said in the podcast.
The podcast examines how Anoka-Hennepin educators are edging almost 38,000 kids towards cultural change instead of simply teaching them the basics of reading and writing.
“Parents believe they are getting reading, writing, arithmetic, kind of basic, American values, not partisan values. Values that your standard Democrat and Republican shares are being increasingly subservient to an ideology that basically every single teacher who goes into the classroom is steeped in before they get to class,” Max Eden, an education expert and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said in the episode.
But more teachers are finding the courage to speak out, even if it is under the shroud of secrecy. A growing number of teachers are graduating to whistleblower status. They’re contacting journalists who are willing to tell their stories.
Jenny told Alpha News she’s been bullied for refusing to go along with the district’s political agenda. She said she’s been called to the principal’s office to be questioned about some of her social media posts.
The principal had her “explain every single thing that he did not agree with or that he believed did not support the school’s philosophy or the district’s philosophy,” she said in the podcast.
Her story was corroborated by other teachers in the district, who refused to go on record for fear of retaliation.
Other teachers expressed concern about the use of social emotional learning in the classroom, which is the delivery mechanism through which schools introduce highly politicized ideologies, the podcast explains.
What parents believe they are getting and what they are actually getting are two different things, according to Eden.
“I bet you if you polled people in the community, there’ll be a lot of people that would not have any idea that proficiency scores are where they are, and that some of the issues we’ve had with behavior are where they are,” said Matt Audette, an Anoka Hennepin school board member.
Jim Skelly, executive director of communications and public relations for Anoka-Hennepin Schools, said the district should not be functioning as Jenny described in her Facebook post.
“The allegations in those social media posts aren’t consistent with what should be happening in school,” he said. “That’s not how the district wants to be. In this situation … we’re unable to verify that information, but we still have to take it seriously, and be able to respond to it as if it did.”
– – –
Sheila Qualls is an award-winning journalist and former civilian editor of an Army newspaper. Prior to joining Alpha News, she was a Christian Marriage and Family columnist at Patheos.com and a personal coach. Her work has been published in The Upper Room, the MOPS blog, Grown and Flown, and The Christian Post. She speaks nationally on issues involving faith and family.
