Subscribe for free to the America First Report newsletter.
The methods, ideologies, and funding of an education plan have come into question after a North Carolina Superior Court Judge ordered state financial executives to fund a plan that one investigative reporter says is more of the same disguised indoctrination programming.
Article by Matt McGregor from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.
Important: Our sponsors at Jase are now offering emergency preparedness subscription medications on top of the long-term storage antibiotics they offer. Use promo code “Rucker10” at checkout!
Lawmakers are saying Judge David Lee’s order to transfer $189.8 million to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), $1.5 billion the Department of Public Instruction, and $41.3 million to the University of North Carolina System for the implementation and management of the plan, is a violation of the separation of powers.
According to a spokesperson for Senate Republicans, the North Carolina State Constitution allows for only legislatures to decide which policies are enacted into law and how much money is spent on those policies.
The plan in question comes from a San Francisco education firm called WestEd, a firm that was hired in 2018 through a task force established by Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.
Local media outlet WRAL highlighted state departments and foundations that funded WestEd in a total amount of $1.52 million, such as DHHS putting more than $600,000 into the report, as well as The Goodnight Educational Foundation, which also donates to state Republican and Democrat lawmakers, putting $250,000 into the report.
Lee’s order stems from a 1997 lawsuit, Leandro v. State of North Carolina, carrying a state Supreme Court ruling that decided children have rights to “sound, basic education.”
Lee oversaw the determination to hire WestEd as the Cooper administration has become a participant in the case through the task force.
The spokesperson said the plaintiffs and the defendants are allies working together to get the judge to order the plan into law.
“In fact, the plan with WestEd was funded in large part by the Cooper administration, so you have the defendant, the Cooper administration, paying for a budget plan that they are supposed to be defending against,” the spokesperson said.
Education First Alliance
Sloan Rachmuth, an investigative reporter and president of Education First Alliance, a parent/teacher-advocacy organization that investigates policies and curriculums in the K-12 North Carolina school system, said critical race theory (CRT) and social-emotional learning (SEL) are at the core of WestEd’s plan.
Though CRT is a Marxist philosophy that claims society is a class struggle between oppressors and the oppressed, specifically labeling white people as the oppressors and all other races as the oppressed, the phrase has come to encompass for many teachers and parents a more expansive trend that incorporates not only issues of race but also themes of sexuality.
According to WestEd’s primer, the concept behind SEL is based on a “comprehensive notion of human development as taking place in and across four domains: psychological, cognitive, social, and emotional.”
“The thesis behind SEL on the Left is that kids need mental health help,” Rachmuth said. “We don’t argue with that. What we say is universal screening for mental health issues is inappropriate and unconstitutional. It’s examining the contents of one’s mind.”
Rachmuth compared the method to Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong’s “Four Olds,” a title that referenced a citizen’s traditional ideas, cultures, habits, and customs that, according to Mao, needed to be eradicated for the party to thrive.
“SEL not only examines the contents of the mind, it then uses psychiatrists who are using a treatment that is based on critical race theory,” Rachmuth said. “It’s reminiscent of the USSR and the abuse of psychiatry that happened there.”
During its reign, the USSR had state psychiatrists who would diagnose political dissidents with multiple disorders such as “sluggish schizophrenia” and paranoia as a condition causing dissent.
“You have to be able to examine a baseline of where the attitudes and beliefs are, then you need repeated trials to make sure that the intervention is working,” Rachmuth said. “The best way to counteract misinformation or an old habit is through narrative, not through facts. That is why you are seeing the abolishment of facts and the insertion of SEL in every single academic discipline because it allows for use of narrative to deprogram.”
- Preserve your retirement with physical precious metals. Receive your free gold guide from Genesis Precious Metals to learn how.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) announced in June 2020 that it would partner with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) to bring SEL standards to the K-12 classroom.
CASEL, a Chicago-based education firm, is largely funded by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropy group Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Despite the SEL program being promoted as a program to help children manage emotions, feel and show empathy, and establish positive relationships, the program uses surveys “to peel copious amounts of private information out of school-aged children,” Rachmuth said, adding that the term “equity” itself, often found throughout the program’s documents, is simply a new name for CRT.
According to WestEd.org, CASEL’s core SEL competencies reflect issues of equity.
Coffee the Christian way: Promised Grounds
‘The Contents of One’s Mind’
Methods intrinsic to SEL programming are surveys, Rachmuth said, with the goals of the survey being identity breakdown using psychiatric intervention, data mining, and a push for a genderless society for the purpose of dismantling the patriarchy, which is often perceived as the core protector of capitalism that a covert infiltration would seek to abolish.
Rachmuth and her team have gathered multiple surveys from different school districts in North Carolina asking K-12 students questions about incriminating behaviors and private thoughts.
From a kindergarten class in one county, she showed a diagram called “The Genderbread Person” that displays a traditional gingerbread man being used to teach kindergarten children about sexual attraction between same-sex genders.
In a 7th-grade SEL survey in an English class, there is the prompt: “Questions I have about my face, hair, chest, and body are,” leaving lines open for answering.
“Social-emotional learning makes it legal for a man to ask children questions like this in an open classroom for discussion,” Rachmuth said. “We have a literacy crisis. We need to be teaching reading and writing.”
Another prompt in the survey Rachmuth showed is, “What if I don’t like my legs, breasts, or lips?”
She displayed a survey for high school-aged children asking if they had “ever bought or sold drugs in school.”
“Here children are being asked to implicate themselves in a felony without a lawyer present,” she said.
Take control of your family’s food security with a Harvest Right freeze dryer. There’s a big sale happening right now….
From another district, she obtained a survey asking 6th through 12th-grade students about their gender identity, if they identify as transgender, and what their sexual orientation is.
One survey asked if students supported the LGBT community.
“This is pretty dangerous because if a 15-year-old doesn’t answer the right way, they will be canceled,” Rachmuth said. “You want to talk about driving a kid to suicide, try outing them when they are gay before they are ready. The same applies to canceling a student if they don’t have the right ‘think.’”
Another survey asked several questions about sexual history, such as how old the student was when they had sex for the first time.
Questions such as how long the student is home alone, Rachmuth said, are troubling, because it could be a trigger for social services to remove children.
“So basically, after grooming children asking these sexual questions, they ask, are you home alone,” Rachmuth said.
Funding
For Rachmuth, the question comes down to funding.
While some Senate Republicans have spoken against Lee ordering state financial executives to fund the plan, those same Republicans have taken donations from Jim Goodnight, founder and CEO of the SAS, a global analytic software company in North Carolina, who contributed $250,000 into the report.
Despite the issues of SEL and CRT being portrayed as what Gov. Roy Cooper described as conservative “conspiracy-laden politics,” Rachmuth has proposed that it has been Republicans, in addition to Democrats, who have ushered these curriculums into North Carolina.
“For me, the writing on the wall is that Republicans will speak eloquently and do nothing,” Rachmuth said.
Five Things New “Preppers” Forget When Getting Ready for Bad Times Ahead
The preparedness community is growing faster than it has in decades. Even during peak times such as Y2K, the economic downturn of 2008, and Covid, the vast majority of Americans made sure they had plenty of toilet paper but didn’t really stockpile anything else.
Things have changed. There’s a growing anxiety in this presidential election year that has prompted more Americans to get prepared for crazy events in the future. Some of it is being driven by fearmongers, but there are valid concerns with the economy, food supply, pharmaceuticals, the energy grid, and mass rioting that have pushed average Americans into “prepper” mode.
There are degrees of preparedness. One does not have to be a full-blown “doomsday prepper” living off-grid in a secure Montana bunker in order to be ahead of the curve. In many ways, preparedness isn’t about being able to perfectly handle every conceivable situation. It’s about being less dependent on government for as long as possible. Those who have proper “preps” will not be waiting for FEMA to distribute emergency supplies to the desperate masses.
Below are five things people new to preparedness (and sometimes even those with experience) often forget as they get ready. All five are common sense notions that do not rely on doomsday in order to be useful. It may be nice to own a tank during the apocalypse but there’s not much you can do with it until things get really crazy. The recommendations below can have places in the lives of average Americans whether doomsday comes or not.
Note: The information provided by this publication or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice.
Secured Wealth
Whether in the bank or held in a retirement account, most Americans feel that their life’s savings is relatively secure. At least they did until the last couple of years when de-banking, geopolitical turmoil, and the threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies reared their ugly heads.
It behooves Americans to diversify their holdings. If there’s a triggering event or series of events that cripple the financial systems or devalue the U.S. Dollar, wealth can evaporate quickly. To hedge against potential turmoil, many Americans are looking in two directions: Crypto and physical precious metals.
There are huge advantages to cryptocurrencies, but there are also inherent risks because “virtual” money can become challenging to spend. Add in the push by central banks and governments to regulate or even replace cryptocurrencies with their own versions they control and the risks amplify. There’s nothing wrong with cryptocurrencies today but things can change rapidly.
As for physical precious metals, many Americans pay cash to keep plenty on hand in their safe. Rolling over or transferring retirement accounts into self-directed IRAs is also a popular option, but there are caveats. It can often take weeks or even months to get the gold and silver shipped if the owner chooses to close their account. This is why Genesis Gold Group stands out. Their relationship with the depositories allows for rapid closure and shipping, often in less than 10 days from the time the account holder makes their move. This can come in handy if things appear to be heading south.
Lots of Potable Water
One of the biggest shocks that hit new preppers is understanding how much potable water they need in order to survive. Experts claim one gallon of water per person per day is necessary. Even the most conservative estimates put it at over half-a-gallon. That means that for a family of four, they’ll need around 120 gallons of water to survive for a month if the taps turn off and the stores empty out.
Being near a fresh water source, whether it’s a river, lake, or well, is a best practice among experienced preppers. It’s necessary to have a water filter as well, even if the taps are still working. Many refuse to drink tap water even when there is no emergency. Berkey was our previous favorite but they’re under attack from regulators so the Alexapure systems are solid replacements.
For those in the city or away from fresh water sources, storage is the best option. This can be challenging because proper water storage containers take up a lot of room and are difficult to move if the need arises. For “bug in” situations, having a larger container that stores hundreds or even thousands of gallons is better than stacking 1-5 gallon containers. Unfortunately, they won’t be easily transportable and they can cost a lot to install.
Water is critical. If chaos erupts and water infrastructure is compromised, having a large backup supply can be lifesaving.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies
There are multiple threats specific to the medical supply chain. With Chinese and Indian imports accounting for over 90% of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States, deteriorating relations could make it impossible to get the medicines and antibiotics many of us need.
Stocking up many prescription medications can be hard. Doctors generally do not like to prescribe large batches of drugs even if they are shelf-stable for extended periods of time. It is a best practice to ask your doctor if they can prescribe a larger amount. Today, some are sympathetic to concerns about pharmacies running out or becoming inaccessible. Tell them your concerns. It’s worth a shot. The worst they can do is say no.
If your doctor is unwilling to help you stock up on medicines, then Jase Medical is a good alternative. Through telehealth, they can prescribe daily meds or antibiotics that are shipped to your door. As proponents of medical freedom, they empathize with those who want to have enough medical supplies on hand in case things go wrong.
Energy Sources
The vast majority of Americans are locked into the grid. This has proven to be a massive liability when the grid goes down. Unfortunately, there are no inexpensive remedies.
Those living off-grid had to either spend a lot of money or effort (or both) to get their alternative energy sources like solar set up. For those who do not want to go so far, it’s still a best practice to have backup power sources. Diesel generators and portable solar panels are the two most popular, and while they’re not inexpensive they are not out of reach of most Americans who are concerned about being without power for extended periods of time.
Natural gas is another necessity for many, but that’s far more challenging to replace. Having alternatives for heating and cooking that can be powered if gas and electric grids go down is important. Have a backup for items that require power such as manual can openers. If you’re stuck eating canned foods for a while and all you have is an electric opener, you’ll have problems.
Don’t Forget the Protein
When most think about “prepping,” they think about their food supply. More Americans are turning to gardening and homesteading as ways to produce their own food. Others are working with local farmers and ranchers to purchase directly from the sources. This is a good idea whether doomsday comes or not, but it’s particularly important if the food supply chain is broken.
Most grocery stores have about one to two weeks worth of food, as do most American households. Grocers rely heavily on truckers to receive their ongoing shipments. In a crisis, the current process can fail. It behooves Americans for multiple reasons to localize their food purchases as much as possible.
Long-term storage is another popular option. Canned foods, MREs, and freeze dried meals are selling out quickly even as prices rise. But one component that is conspicuously absent in shelf-stable food is high-quality protein. Most survival food companies offer low quality “protein buckets” or cans of meat, but they are often barely edible.
Prepper All-Naturals offers premium cuts of steak that have been cooked sous vide and freeze dried to give them a 25-year shelf life. They offer Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin among others.
Having buckets of beans and rice is a good start, but keeping a solid supply of high-quality protein isn’t just healthier. It can help a family maintain normalcy through crises.
Prepare Without Fear
With all the challenges we face as Americans today, it can be emotionally draining. Citizens are scared and there’s nothing irrational about their concerns. Being prepared and making lifestyle changes to secure necessities can go a long way toward overcoming the fears that plague us. We should hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst. And if the worst does come, then knowing we did what we could to be ready for it will help us face those challenges with confidence.
See all the latest videos and articles patriots need to watch and read at Discern.tv.
Coffee the Christian way: Promised Grounds
- Concerned about your life’s savings as the multiple challenges decimate retirement accounts? You’re not alone. Find out how Genesis Precious Metals can help you secure your wealth with a proper self-directed IRA backed by physical precious metals.