“Woke Kindergarten” Founded by Anti-Israel and Anti-American Activist Resulted In Lower Test Scores ‘Unexpectedly’

2024-02-04 17:00:40

To absolutely no one’s surprise, including its antisemitic founder’s, “woke kindergarten” has resulted in lower test scores.

It’s no wonder when you check out their website (archived) and learn what they are about.

woke kindergarten is a global, abolitionist early childhood ecosystem &
visionary creative portal supporting children, families, educators and organizations in their commitment to abolitionist early education and pro-Black and queer and trans liberation.

That any school district, even one in California, spent a quarter of million taxpayer dollars on this actual hate messaging is horrifying. What on earth were they thinking? Clearly not about test scores or the children’s academic learning, this is loathsome indoctrination. By a person with loathsome views:

The San Francisco Chronicle reports (archive link):

A Hayward elementary school struggling to boost low test scores and dismal student attendance is spending $250,000 in federal money for an organization called Woke Kindergarten to train teachers to confront white supremacy, disrupt racism and oppression and remove those barriers to learning.

The Woke Kindergarten sessions train teachers on concepts and curriculum that’s available to use in classrooms with any of Glassbrook Elementary’s 474 students. The sessions are funded through a federal program meant to help the country’s lowest-performing schools boost student achievement.

But two years into the three-year contract with Woke Kindergarten, a for-profit company, student achievement at Glassbrook has fallen, prompting some teachers to question whether the money was well-spent given the needs of the students, who are predominantly low-income. Two-thirds of the students are English learners and more than 80% are Hispanic/Latino.

. . . . District officials defended the program this past week, saying that Woke Kindergarten did what it was hired to do. The district pointed to improvements in attendance and suspension rates, and that the school was no longer on the state watch list, only to learn from the Chronicle that the school was not only still on the list but also had dropped to a lower level.

The decision to bring in Woke Kindergarten, rather than a more traditional literacy or math improvement program, aligns with the belief by some parents and educators that the current education system isn’t working for many disadvantaged children.

The solution, these advocates say, is for educators to confront legacies of racism and bias in schools, and to talk about historic white supremacy, so that students feel safe and supported. As such anti-racism programs have spread, several more conservative state legislatures have moved to restrict or ban them.

This idea of “abolitionist education” is toxic and very damaging to students in the near- and long-term. How could it not be?

The San Francisco Chronicle continues:

Woke Kindergarten, aimed at elementary-age students, is founded on the relatively new concept of abolitionist education, which advocates for abolition, or “a kind of starting over,” said Zeus Leonardo, UC Berkeley education professor. The idea is that certain things can’t be reformed, tweaked or shifted, because they are inherently problematic or oppressive. It’s not about indoctrinating or imposing politics, “but making politics part of the framework of teaching,” Leonardo said.

But some Glassbrook teachers have questioned the decision to bring in the program, saying Woke Kindergarten is wrongly rooted in progressive politics and activism with anti-police, anti-capitalism and anti-Israel messages mixed in with the goal of making schools safe, joyful and supportive for all children.

. . . . The Woke Kindergarten curriculum shared with schools includes “wonderings,” which pose questions for students, including, “If the United States defunded the Israeli military, how could this money be used to rebuild Palestine?”

In addition, the “woke word of the day,” including “strike,” “ceasefire” and “protest,” offers students a “language of the resistance … to introduce children to liberatory vocabulary in a way that they can easily digest, understand and most importantly, use in their critiques of the system.”

Teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley said he supports discussing racism in the classroom, but found the Woke Kindergarten training confusing and rigid. He said he was told a primary objective was to “disrupt whiteness” in the school — and that the sessions were “not a place to express white guilt.” He said he questioned a trainer who used the phrasing “so-called United States,” as well as lessons available on the organization’s web site offering “Lil’ Comrade Convos,” or positing a world without police, money or landlords.

. . . . Woke Kindergarten was founded by former teacher Akiea “Ki” Gross, who identifies as they/them and describes themselves as “an abolitionist early educator, cultural organizer and creator currently innovating ways to resist, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy, Woke Kindergarten.”

They established the for-profit company in 2020 in Maryland, although the Woke Kindergarten website says it is “primarily community sustained” and relies “primarily on donations.”

Fox News, in an article published in 2021, has more on this Gross person.

A section of the Woke Kindergarten website titled, “Yerr, It’s Ki,” describes the founder with the following: “Ki (they/them) is an abolitionist early educator, coach, consultant and creative entrepreneur currently innovating ways to unlearn, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy.”

Early education applies to children 8 years old and younger, according to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, a nonprofit group for teachers, parents and other educators.

Social media accounts attributed to Gross and Woke Kindergarten often use the words “f—” and “s—.” Gross even claimed complaints about the swearing caused organizers to drop them from a paid speaking appearance earlier this year.

. . . . Gross has also called for police to be defunded and abolished, condemned capitalism, said the government should “free them all” from prisons and accused the former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang of supporting genocide.

Woke Kindergarten describes its 60-second clips as “big concepts for little people.” Another, titled “Good Trouble,” leans on the famous line from the late civil rights icon and Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.

“Sometimes it’s good to get into trouble,” the narrator states, later hinting that Black and Indigenous Americans are not “free” and need to “get into trouble” to change that.

. . . . Other districts that have referenced Woke Kindergarten videos include Seattle and Gig Harbor in Washington, Buffalo N.Y., and the Wheeler School in Rhode Island, according to Parents Defending Education.

More on this “woke kindergarten” cancer:




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“Woke Kindergarten” Founded by Anti-Israel and Anti-American Activist Resulted In Lower Test Scores ‘Unexpectedly’

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