Good News: Help Is Here for Schools!
Tamra Farah, SMART Families Network Director
Women for Families & Freedom
Happy New Year, friends! We’ve been busy over the last six months creating a new movement for you to connect with—”Schools Making Academics Return to Truth-- the S.M.A.R.T. Schools Project”!
We’re going to turn up the fun and effective engagement that schools and families really need! And we’re going to revive Truth and Academics-First into our schools.
Arizona Women of Action (AZWOA) will run “SMART Schools” which recruits and prepares school board candidates and members.
Our new (501 c(3), tax-deductible organization) Women for Families & Freedom (WFF), (also a non-profit, but donations are tax-deductible) will run “SMART Families Network”, which will recruit and engage families and citizens around their local school boards and area schools.
This week we’re excited to introduce you to the Director of SMART Families Network, Tamra Farah! She’s bringing her decades of experience in effective activism and policy work, especially in issues of education, among others.... Welcome Tamra!! ~ Kim
SMART Families Can Stand Up for Their Kids!
By Tamra Farah, SMART Families Network Director
Women for Families & Freedom (Affiliated 501 C3 of Arizona Women of Action)
Every loving parent wants their child to succeed in school. Preparing for success to achieve the American dream – including academic excellence – is the hallmark of our great country. This is why we have launched SMART Families Network, a Women For Families And Freedom initiative, a 501(c)3 organization affiliated with Arizona Women of Action. The SMART Families Network is devoted to supporting those who share a desire for “Schools to Make Academics Return to Truth” in Arizona, hence our acronym S.M.A.R.T. We have an academic focus, transparency, and collaboration and stop the sexualization of kids in schools by equipping, informing, and building communities of parents, grandparents, and citizens to help schools return to truth.
I am a boomer, and academic opportunity and success were the mantra of my generation and the generations that came before me. Yet now, we find ourselves in a broken education system, hijacked by forces that seek to destroy the path to the pursuit of personal happiness and nurturing of individual liberty, which often begins in the classroom.
I remember the first time I said the Pledge of Allegiance. The American flag hung proudly next to the alphabet strung across the top of the chalkboard. The Pledge had not been introduced to me before that morning in Mrs. Anderson’s first-grade class. As I put my hand over my heart and said the poetic words, I was also introduced to God, as He was mentioned in the pledge. At that moment, my eyes welled up with tears, and my heart swelled with pride for America. As that school year unfolded, a strong sense entered my young heart that the world was being opened to me through history, science, and the English language in all its glory.
In those days, the teachers' association provided teachers with prayers and poems to encourage students' young hearts and minds with strength and motivation to do their best. Grievously, soon after, the organization was co-opted by those who created the teacher’s union, which has proven not only the enemy of core academics but the promulgator of sexualizing and genderizing first graders and more at the expense of sound academics.
Fast forward, and we find academic proficiency in the tank. According to the US and World Report, Arizona is shamefully ranked 48th in the nation in pre–K–12 education. The learning loss of 2020 school shutdowns is notable, but two years later, according to the 2022 NAEP national report card, Arizona 8th graders are only 24% proficient in math and 28% in reading. (Check out this link for academic proficiency in specific Arizona schools.)
This is discouraging news, but parental desire for their kids' success remains paramount. My husband of 40 years and I raised two kids, so I get it. We wanted the best environment possible for our kids’ education. We were privileged to serve on the founding steering committee of one of Colorado's largest classical charter schools, The Classical Academy in Colorado Springs. Our kids flourished at the school for years. Then, for reasons we felt were best for our kids' success, we homeschooled in junior high for our daughter and senior high for both.
As parents, we all face challenges as we are devoted to raising our children in an academic environment where they can flourish. Schooling presents not only academic challenges but also social challenges. And these vary as kids grow and get particularly spicey when they hit puberty. As a parent, we do our best to help them navigate raging hormones, cliques, and fashion demands.
So, imagine the current environment and the impact it has on the ability of students to focus on science, math, and language arts when their teachers are introducing, presenting, and offering sexualized materials in the library and the classroom daily.
It doesn’t take much to infer a negative impact on kids' ability to focus on academics, along with run-of-the-mill peer pressure in this mix. I can only imagine the conversations around the lunch table and on the playground: “What are your pronouns? Well, mine are…”. Out the window is an ability to focus on preparing for the math test. You don’t need a fancy study to prove these points if you are a mom or dad.
And this isn’t the only poison in the classroom. Reverse racism through CRT and its cousin, so-called social justice, has wreaked havoc in the social environment of schools. As Keri Ingraham, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, points out, “Student misbehavior, disrespect, and violence have become standard features of traditional public schools. Instead of imposing firm consequences, woke ideology – under the guise of “restorative justice” – produces dangerous classrooms.” That same social justice mantra has also corrupted academic courses, replacing objective truth in science and math with a racial bias that demands new math, for example, where there are no correct answers.
The forces behind this agenda that have trampled traditional academics include the teachers' unions, with a record of training teachers to weave gender ideology into every subject, and the influential non-government organizations whose agenda is to sexualize kids. Through classroom materials, young children are being targeted with this agenda and transmuted into something other than who they were born to be at school. But why?
Some scholars say we could go back thousands of years. Still, looking at Hungarian Marxist Gyorgy Lukács, deputy commissar of education in the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 and founder of Western and cultural Marxism, is a good place to start. Lukács called for the sexualization of children in schools to separate them from their families and their religion. Lukács knew it was essential to destabilize the family unit and shift culture by separating children from their families to achieve his goal of building a Marxist society. As a result, the state captured the allegiance of the next generation, transforming them into activists for the Marxist cause.
So where do parents come into the fight against this K-12 public education Goliath? First and foremost, parents must be encouraged and equipped to understand their fundamental and supreme rights in the upbringing and education of their children. It is not necessary to enshrine this fundamental truth in law however, here in Arizona, we have a clear legal framework that details the rights of parents in their child’s education. This includes but is not limited to the right to opt their child out of any class or lesson that does not comport with what they believe is best. And schools still hide information from parents who have a clear right to it. At SMART Families, we will equip you to understand and act upon your parental rights. We will connect you with like-minded parents in your area and help you gain mutual support and comradery to strengthen you as you stand for truth in your child’s classroom.
There are many examples of schools in Arizona ignoring and abusing the rights of parents. A gender support plan used in the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) has been reported that appears to be taken from Gender Spectrum’s template, keeping parents in the dark regarding their children’s gender identity. It has also been reported that an SUSD school librarian had a document promoting hormone replacement therapy in official school communications. Parents need to know they have the legal right in Arizona to request to see any written or digital information recording on their child at school. It has been reported that Paradise Valley Unified School District considered math textbooks that use algebra to teach students about racial bias and claimed conservatives are more racist than liberals. A board member of Liberty Elementary School District No. 25 was reported using their position to promote transgender issues and advocates for withholding information from parents. These are just a few of the twenty incidents in Arizona schools reported by Parents Defending Education.
The reality is Americans are not in favor of these goings on in K-12 public schools. A Fox News survey found that 57% of parents think there's too much focus on sexual orientation in schools. As for core academics, 50-54% want more emphasis on reading and writing and math and science, respectively. On the sports front, Gallup also found that 69% of Americans believe transgender athletes “should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.”
After twenty years in politics and policy, I have devoted the last several years to fighting for kids in K-12 education by networking, equipping hundreds of parents, and interacting with numerous education organizations across this great country. At SMART Families, we will continue to support parents on every level so they can successfully engage with their kids or grandkids' education meaningfully and effectively. If you are one of those parents, we want to hear your story and concerns and come alongside you as you fight for your kids to receive the education you want them to receive. To get involved, submit your information and I’d love to get you connected!