AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Shirley
A San Francisco school has announced that it is terminating its contract with a “woke kindergarten” program that drew national outrage in recent weeks. The incident is both another encouraging example of public pressure working to reign in cultural leftism, while also a disturbing reminder of the extent to which American schools have been turned into institutions of ideological indoctrination.
As Fox News reported, Glassbrook Elementary, part of Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) near the Bay area, spent $250,000 in federal funds allocated to help boost test scores to pay an organization called “Woke Kindergarten.” According to the organization’s website, Woke Kindergarten is dedicated to “supporting children, families, educators and organizations in their commitment to abolitionist early education and pro-black and queer and trans liberation.”
While it is not clear exactly what programming that quarter of a million dollars went toward, some of Woke Kindergarten’s “resources” listed on its website include providing kids with “woke words of the day” such as “ceasefire” and “abolish,” as well as “woke wonderings” about topics such as “challenging the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.”
Woke Kindergarten also says it bases its teachings on the prinicples of “abolitionist education,” a philosophy which views test taking, grading, and virtually any measurement of student performance as an example of “white supremacy.”
Instructing students in “abolitionist education” also involves infusing every subject, even math and science, with “anti-racist” concepts. “Getting the right answer,” along with concepts like “hard work,” students are told, are dangerous, racist ideas.
Despite promises that Woke Kindergarten’s curriculum would improve student engagement and performance, scores fell to their lowest ever recorded levels. By the time Glassbrook terminated the contact, less than four percent of students were proficient in math, and just under 12 percent were reading at their grade level.
Still, Woke Kindergarten likely would have continued hoovering up taxpayer dollars were it not for the work of Glassbrook teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley. The career educator describes himself as a “gay moderate” and began voicing concerns about the curriculum during the Woke Kindergarten teacher training sessions.
Craven-Neeley reported that, during these sessions, he was told that one of his primary focuses should be to “disrupt whiteness” in the school. He raised questions about what that meant, asked why the trainers used the phrase “so-called United States,” challenged the utility of the Woke Kindergarten’s “little comrade convos,” and criticized their curriculum teaching students about “a world without police, money, or landlords.”
After raising these concerns, Craven-Neeley was banned from the training classes. He then went on record with the San Francisco Chronicle to recount what he had seen and heard, and the story quickly made national headlines.
It was then revealed that the head of Woke Kindergarten, Akiea “Ki” Gross, had posted on social media that the United States and Israel have “no right to exist” and said she wanted to see the world “free of” those countries. Gross added that she had been “trying to end y’all,” referring to the U.S. and Israel, further calling those countries “demons.”
Following a series of national media stories slamming Woke Kindergarten and HUSD, Glassbrook cut ties with the organization, ostensibly over Gross’s comments. Michael Bazeley, an HUSD spokesperson, stated, “Although we respect freedom of speech and the right for individuals to hold a variety of political views, the social media and other public statements of the vendor [Woke Kindergarten] do not align with the values of the district and those of many of our community members.”
However, although conservatives can be grateful that Woke Kindergarten got some well-deserved bad press, this story doesn’t exactly have a happy ending.
After announcing that Glassbrook had ended its partnership with Woke Kindergarten, Bazeley also affirmed that “Anti-bias/Anti-racist teaching, restorative practices, multi-language learning, literacy and mathematics will remain a focus for Glassbrook, building on the work that the school has undertaken over the past several years.”
In other words, Glassbrook teachers will continue to peddle the same anti-American racial propoganda to kids, just without the Woke Kindergarten label.
Craven-Neeley, the level-headed teacher who blew the whistle on Glassbrook’s indoctrination of students, has been placed on administrative leave over allegations of “unprofessional conduct.” Though HUSD officials insisted that this was not in retaliation for his comments to the press, that claim seems dubious at best.
Perhaps worst of all, this incident appears to be just a minor setback for Woke Kindergarten and organizations like it. Multiple New York City schools, for instance, have provided students with material from Woke Kindergarten. Millions of taxpayer dollars intended to help kids learn are also still flowing to “outside consultants” like Woke Kindergarten who are completely unaccountable to voters.
At the very least, however, Glassbrook’s Woke Kindergarten fiasco is another national wakeup call about the sorry state of American education.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
