The Age Of In No Sense

 I concluded my last post with a seemingly simple question regarding age appropriate material in our education system.  I wondered how age appropriate materials in school used to be not only simple common sense but also an issue that most reasonable people agreed on.  Parents, teachers, democrats, and republicans agreed that grade level material existed with regards to curriculum and testing.  How then has it gone so wrong with regards to sexual materials and gender discussions?

As a father of 5 children covering a wide range of ages and grades I have had many years of dealing with various changes to how and what our children have been taught.  Given my political leanings and the obvious educational themes that you will see posted here over time I'm sure you expect that figuring out where I stand is easy here.  Let me clarify it for you and you decide for yourself how extreme my views are on this.

One thing that has been agreed to forever, (even if it proves to be only words for some in the education system), is that parents are the first and most important teachers of our children.  That parental involvement and engagement with our kids teachers and education is not only welcomed, but strongly encouraged by educators.

However, over time this has become more and more of an issue that puts many parents at odds with the teachers and the policies of those whom set the curriculum up.  Especially on the issue of gender.  I could show you an endless stream of recent videos like this one.  Take a few minutes for yourself sometime and just look up the various school board vs parents videos online, it's overwhelming.

So let me ask you what is so dangerous about parental consent regarding controversial issues?  How does it make sense to have to get a parental consent form in order to give your kid an aspirin at school but not gender transformation therapy and treatment?

It seems crystal clear where the extremist point of view lies.  We don't even have to take it that far.  For me, this seems like an easy and simple problem to solve in a way that would avert controversy for all involved, no fighting between parents and school boards, no irreversible harm to children, and no ideological propaganda being pushed one way or the other.

Simply put, increase parental involvement rather than decrease it.  Why is that such a difficult position to hold?  Burlington, Massachusetts recently had a huge fight over a sexual survey given to students as young as 11 years old which was of course changed in 2025 to include very explicit questions to be more inclusive to the alphabet mafia, (LGBTQLMNOP2+??), community. 

Read this story for yourself first and then we will move on.

In light of what you just read and saw let me ask my previous question again, what is so dangerous about parental consent regarding controversial issues?  

Perhaps your next question for me would be, what would I know about these kids, especially ones that may be gender or sexually confused?  Well, first I'll give you an answer in the form of a study performed in Germany.

"Administering irreversible endocrine and surgical interventions based on a diagnosis of such poor diagnostic stability is problematic, given the lifelong, irreversible nature of the "gender-affirming" interventions and their lifetime medical burden."

This points out a very obvious point that most reasonable people have been making all along.  We should not be allowing underage children to undergo permanent life altering medical surgeries or treatments before the age of 18.

How fitting that this study comes out of Germany.  I doubt many of you are aware of this but did you know that the first sex change surgery and the first uterus transplant surgery were also performed in Berlin, Germany in 1931?

Meet Dora Richter, the recipient of the first sex change surgery and Lili Elbe, the first man to have a uterus implanted surgically, (which lead to his death due to complications).

I will bring this post to a close with these final points.  Dora Richter was 40 when he underwent a trans surgery.  Lili Elbe was 48 when he underwent the uterus transplant surgery that lead to his death.  These were not children.  

I stated before that you might wonder what would I know about these issues?  I have a gay daughter whom is married to a woman, (she was 15 when she came out publicly as being gay), and my stepson's biological father came out as trans after my stepson was born before I met my wife.

These issues do hit close to home for me and I take them seriously.  Perhaps it is not I whom is speaking out of ignorance on this issue, rather it is those who would label me an extremist without context.  

To push such an important topic with such dire potential consequences, especially for our children, in one direction, and to intentionally not only keep parents in the dark on it, but to vilify them for their very reasonable positions, to me makes no sense.  Hence the title of this particular post.

Over time the point of my new focus here will hopefully become clearer as I not only try to address some of these issues but also see what we can do about it.  This is not about being against education.  Far from it.  Children have been the targets of this progressive machine forever and for obvious reasons.  

Hopefully, we can come up with ways to push back and actually be a voice of reason in an unreasonable world.  We have a lot to do and much to learn.  With any luck, I'm just getting started.

The Commonwealth Is Dirty....Time To Clean It Up

It's been a long time since I was writing anything for a blog.  Like many of you, I stuck to social media posts.  Pointless back and forth arguments that didn't really accomplish anything but fuel bitterness.  The incessant need to get the last word, going back and forth through the comments and not really accomplishing anything of merit or substance.

For nearly 30 years I've been passionate about politics and history especially and to say a lot has changed in that 30 years is putting it lightly.  As I've grown, been married, had children, and now face them growing I have always worried about what kind of future we were handing them, or at least on track to hand them.  

While the back and forth of partisan politics has sadly not changed much over the years, what is being pushed through our education system to our children certainly has.  It is my hope that through these posts and, hopefully, the discussions that will stem from them we can in the very least have civil debate and honest advocacy for ways to improve something we all should be able to agree on, the education of our kids.

To those with whom I share a majority of political alignment with, this would of course be easy.  However, what I hope to accomplish here is more about finding some degree of common ground in education standards and curriculum.  Ground that even those with whom I may disagree on in many regards can stand on and in the very least honestly discuss.

I would like to think that when many kids are graduating from high school with an 8th grade or in some cases below reading level, there shouldn't be a partisan fight to recognize that this is unacceptable.

Let's start here, over time both parties have been trying to find the best solutions to advance education, and both parties have failed miserably to do so.  At the federal level there have been 2 major changes to education curriculum, (it could be argued that President Trump is focusing on enacting a 3rd that is more about reversing the first 2).  At the state level there has been another set of changes, referred to as "common core", which is not a part of the other 2 technically but let's dig in.

The first of these changes were signed into law on January 8, 2002 by former president George Bush, this was called the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001".  Phasing in different standards over time with annual testing starting in 2005/2006.  

Over time this was criticized by teachers, (most likely because many of them hated Bush so it was ok to ignore the democrats support of NCLB and just pin it on Bush), because many felt they had to "teach to the test".  Of course government did what government does, added more problems and less solutions.  This is where the policy of "Common Core" comes into play.

Common Core curriculum changes officially began in June of 2010.  It was now President Obama in office.  Common Core was technically a state led change to the education system that became a nightmare for parents and teachers.  This is a rare case where both the left and the right were opposed to an education policy albeit for differing reasons.

The "right" opposed it because Bill and Melinda Gates were heavily involved in it's creation and implementation, combined with Obama's use of grants to encourage implementation this became a target of the Conservatives as government overreach above states rights.

The "left", teachers unions etc. opposed it for a similar reason.  Too much input from people like Bill Gates and not enough from actual teachers etc.  What's fascinating is that both parents and teachers considered these new educational standards as age inappropriate, (remember that term).

What has happened to our education system over the last 20 years has in fact drawn criticism from both sides of the political aisle.  The conservatives believe that the federal takeover of education on such a massive scale has not only stripped away an important aspect of states rights but has also given us results opposite of what you would expect with new standards.  You would expect better results instead of worse.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, (NAEP), our students proficiency scores have been plummeting for years.  How can this be so with all of these wonderful reforms?  We will explore this in time but for now I will leave you with this thought.

Just a few short years ago parents, teachers, democrats, and republicans understood there was such a thing as age appropriate.  How then in 2025 can so many people in the educational community no longer understand that when it comes to topics of sex and gender?  

I will leave you with that question for now.  Thank you for reading.  You can find me on X.