Voters once again re-elected all of the candidates running to the local school board a couple weeks ago. This, despite consistent failures in the measured competency of our children in this state and in this district, along with graduation rates a full 10 percentage points below the national average.
When considered with the rate of violent youth offenders in our community, it is easy to see the correlation between kids failing in school and young adults failing in life. It is hard to therefore say, with a straight face, that woke policies like prioritizing a kid’s pronouns are doing our kids any favors in preparing them for the real world. I would argue just the opposite, in fact.
It is no longer politically correct to punish or reward children for their behavior. Everyone gets a participation trophy, and no one is called out on their, for lack of a better term, BS.
A failure to tell a child that they’ve crossed a line by shoving a classmate, or stealing from the teacher, or smoking dope in the bathroom, leads to a lesson on a lack of accountability for one’s actions. A child learns what boundaries they can push and eventually, that there aren’t any real boundaries after all.
Jailhouse phone calls of repeat-offender juvenile delinquents reveal that they know how to play at incompetence so they can be promptly released and face no justice for ever-escalating crimes, up to and eventually including murder.
A child’s education should include critical knowledge that results in an ability to read, write and balance a check book. Every step should lead to success in the real world, as effective adults that can survive whether they go to college, join the military or enter the job market right out of high school.
Not everyone wants to go to college. Stop teaching kids that they have to want college or be doomed to failure. Teach them history, and trades, and life skills, rather than tip-toeing around their feelings so that they never learn the difference between right and wrong.
More critical perhaps is the notion that parents must take an active role in their child’s education. Parents need to stop relying on the schools to raise their kids, because the schools are ill-equipped for that charge. And yet, when parents do get involved, they are vilified for questioning a system built on arrogance even in the face of profound (state test score) failures.
Calls from a group of parents to regulate age-inappropriate reading materials that describe violent sexual acts and even graphic novels about sexual positions with a same-sex, much older partner, are met with accusations of book-banning and (there it is again) Nazi-ism. Questioning whether middle schoolers should be able to access novels that include detailed descriptions of the rape of an infant are met with incredulity.
In fact, the current school board member that most recently ran unopposed, scolded a local liberal radio program to “stop platforming these people” when the program included guests who were asking these exact questions. Turns out free speech only works to justify such damaging novels, not those who might question why these should exist in tax-payer-funded school libraries for 11-year-olds.
But one shouldn’t be surprised, as this school board member is married to a similarly-minded Las Cruces city councilor, who rails at public commenters, or refuses outright to show up for council meetings prior to public comments. Progressive politics runs in the family, apparently.
The Las Cruces City Council is supposed to be non-partisan. And the school board most certainly should be. The success of our students shouldn’t follow anyone’s agenda, especially when the agenda has not been working for many years. Our children should no longer be subjected to the failed policies of a political experiment. Admit the failure of feelings over foundations.
Or are you just preparing them for the eventual victimization that our current political system imparts on their parents, hard-working business owners are told their livelihood pales in comparison to the rights of repeat offenders – the ones created by this same cycle of failure.
Our current education system begets our current judicial system. And all suffer.
Shawna Pfeiffer is a life-long Dona Ana County Resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children. She can be reached at srpfeiffer1@gmail.com.
