Students’ test scores fell abysmally low after one California elementary school implemented curriculum from a progressive teaching company, The San Francisco Chronicle reported this week.
The Bay Area’s Glassbrook Elementary spent three years on a California watchlist for underperforming schools before contracting with Woke Kindergarten — a self-described “global, abolitionist early childhood ecosystem & visionary creative portal.”
Glassbrook paid Woke Kindergarten $250,000 federal grant money for a three-year consulting contract, the Chronicle reports. Two years in, almost none of Glassbrook’s students can read and write.
The chart below shows Glassbrook’s students’ progressive inability to read, write and do math at grade level. The school implemented Woke Kindergarten’s material school-wide in 2022.
Curriculum
Woke Kindergarten’s founder, Akeia Gross, self-identifies as neither male nor female, and describes herself as an “abolitionist educator.” She claims to use Woke Kindergarten to “support children, families, educators and organizations in their commitment to abolitionist early education and pro-black and queer and trans liberation.”
Abolitionist education isn’t “about indoctrinating or imposing politics,” claimed one Berkely education teacher interviewed by the Chronicle, “but making politics apart of the framework of teaching.”
But several Glassbrook teachers expressed discomfort with the “anti-police, anti-capitalism, and anti-Israel” messages mixed into the curriculum.
Gross makes no effort to hide her support of these ideas.
Her “Woke Wonderings” module asks kids a series of questions to encourage them to imagine a world without important institutions and societal norms.
The first question, which Gross designed to “challenge institutional legitimacy,” asks, “I wonder … if we challenge the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, how might we transfer power back to the people?”
The wording inaccurately implies the Supreme Court takes power from the people, rather than being a crucial protection — The Supreme Court prevents the legislative and executive branches of government from becoming too powerful.
Similarly troubling examples of Gross’ “Woke Wonderings” include:
- “P*lice abolition”: “If we abolished the police, what else could we do to keep the world safe?”
- “Eradicating borders”: “If we eradicate borders, how might we build our communities to include and support neighbors from all over the world?”
- “No more militaries”: “If every military in the world was defunded and abolished, how could we use that money for care instead?”
- “Disrupting capitalism”: “If we abolished money, how could people get the most important things they need?”
- “Palestinian liberation”: “If the United States defunded the Israeli military, how could this money be used to rebuild Palestine?”
Woke Kindergarten’s other modules reinforce these themes.
- “Woke Read-Alouds” — videos of Gross narrating children’s books like They, She, He Easy As ABC and It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity.
- “Woke Word of the Day”— printouts of words in the “language of resistance” paired with interpretive definitions.
- “Lil’ Comrade Convos” — materials teaching kids about world power dynamics through an apparently Marxist lens.
- “Teach Palestine” — materials dedicated to encouraging kids to protest on behalf of Palestine.
Videos from Woke Kindergarten’s Instagram page (which has since been made private) went viral after the Chronicle released its story.
One video (time stamp 0:30) shows a class of elementary school students holding up pieces of paper and chanting “No Donald Trump.” In another video (time stamp 1:12), Gross states,
She goes on to call America and Israel “demons” and “villains,” explaining that abolitionists like herself have been actively engaged in trying to “end” them.
Woke Kindergarten’s social media became private shortly after the Chronicle’s story came out.
Children can’t have productive conversations about cultural issues without first learning to read, write and do math. These grade school lessons anchor students’ ability to reason, think critically, interact with others and consider different points of view.
The Daily Citizen would further argue that kids must grow and develop before engaging in such nuanced topics —little brains don’t have the capacity to understand heavy philosophical arguments.
Woke Kindergarten’s reduction of complex philosophy and progressive geopolitics to build “lil’ comrades” embodies the definition of indoctrination. Its deemphasis of foundational school skills in favor of teaching kids to hate the police, capitalism, Israel and the United States is inexcusable.
Federal money shouldn’t be used to fund these kinds of programs, and parents shouldn’t allow their kids to learn from them.
Additional Articles and Resources
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