When They Keep Showing Us Who They Really Are, It’s Time We Believe Them

Estimated Read Time: 13 minutes

Some DCSD Leaders Continue to Cultivate Relationships with Extremist Organizations

We examine discussions with a panel of speakers that were moderated by one of the leaders of this new “parents’ rights” organization. There were four individuals advertised as speakers, but one of them (Bill Cadman) was not present, and his slot was filled by Deborah Flora. This portion of the event was recorded and can be accessed here. Throughout this blog, we refer to timestamps from this recording.

First, let’s dive into what happened at the launch event…

The Event

DCSD Superintendent Erin Kane and DCSD Board of Education Directors Becky Myers, Mike Peterson and Christy Williams all attended the launch of a new “parents’ rights” organization this past week.

The Colorado Parent Advocacy Network (CPAN) hosted a launch event on Sunday, Nov. 13, at St. Thomas More Catholic Church. The meeting was noticed on the DCSD website Meetings and Public Notices, with only the date, time and location; no other details were provided. 

What is CPAN?

A Google search and a review of the CPAN website quickly reveal that this group is not about supporting public education. CPAN's main focus appears to be “parents’ rights,” the rally cry for the false narrative that parents do not have rights in regards to their children’s education.

The website’s Vision section is filled with coded language like “curriculum transparency,” “accessibility to school choice,” and “restore.”

Also included is the statement "work together to restore a rigorous, non-political, safe and fulfilling educational experience for all students." The words “non-political,” “safe,” and “all students” are clearly out of alignment with both the majority of the speakers at the event and the award recipients, all having ties to extreme partisan groups.

The site’s Mission section offers a “CPAN Seal of Approval” to schools demonstrating a commitment to their ideals such as curriculum transparency, parent partnerships and academic excellence. Of course this all insinuates that these things are not currently in place, which is not true. CPAN’s mission also includes school-based audits, mentorship, and advocacy at the state level for parents’ rights and accessibility to school choice. It even mentions alternatives for professional protection, hinting that teachers’ unions add no value.

Even if we suspend our disbelief and presume that CPAN’s intentions are to support public education and uplift teachers, the rhetoric from their featured speakers at the event and the organizations they recognized with “Champion Awards,” demonstrate that CPAN is anything but a public education supporter.

Speakers Reframe Public Schools as “Government Schools”

There were several references made throughout the event condemning public schools, where multiple speakers used the moniker “government schools” when referring to public schools.

This is deliberate and is used by many anti-public education groups that fervently advocate for alternatives to traditional public schools and push “choice” and vouchers in their efforts to dismantle our public school system. Political Research Associates, explains, 

"PSE's (Public School Exit) use of the phrase "government schools" (in their press release and on their website) as a pejorative replacement for "public schools" is a hallmark of Christian Reconstructionism, a movement founded by R.J. Rushdoony that has exerted powerful influence on the development of homeschooling and Christian school curricula over the last half-century."

Former President Trump used the phrase in a State of the Union address in February 2020, while urging Congress to implement federal tax credits for scholarships to private schools. He used that term (usually leading with “failing”) during most of his tenure in office; former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos had been using the phrase for a long time.

According to an article published in The Washington Post, 

“Government schools” is invoked mostly by people who are suspicious of public institutions and see government as a problem rather than a solution. That sentiment was perhaps best encapsulated by President Ronald Reagan in an Aug. 12, 1986, speech in which he famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

In this line of thinking, schools should be operated like businesses because the private sector and competition always produce better results, which critics say is not supported by evidence. Many of the people who use the term ‘government schools’ also oppose unions and have been antagonistic to the two major teachers unions — the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — and the right of public workers to bargain collectively.”

One of the promoted speakers, Bill Cadman, did not attend the event, and Deborah Flora filled his speaking slot. Flora is a familiar face at DCSD BoE meetings, often claiming indoctrination and pushing CRT in our schools. She recently produced a movie called “Whose Children Are They?” that claims to expose the hidden agenda in America’s schools.

At the event Sunday, Flora said that “government schools” were racist, bigoted and Marxist. Later in the program, she claimed that they (government schools) were “exploiting” children by indoctrinating them. This is both untrue, and something that both Kane and Peterson have, on multiple occasions, denied is happening in DCSD.

At another point (:15), Flora mentioned that “government schools” have lowered the academic bar so low that Advanced Placement (AP) and Honors classes are being removed. Her rationale was that there are fewer minorities in AP/Honors classes, and instead of finding out why and how to help them, “they” just lower the bar to zero so there is no issue of representation.

One of the speakers, Erec Smith, called this “hard bigotry,” having no expectation, as compared to “soft bigotry,” he explained, where expectations are simply lowered (16:55).

The irony to this nonsense is that promoting equity in schools focuses on understanding why fewer minorities are enrolled in higher level classes to be able to identify and remove the barriers to access, quite contrary to Flora’s outright manufactured and baseless theory. The barriers are not always grades and never aptitude; instead, the barriers often are linked to representation of content and in educators as well as a lack of encouragement and identification of gifted minorities early in the public education system. This is the purpose of educational equity, creating a positive impact on student outcomes and upward economic mobility that in turn positively impacts national economic growth in education.

In underfunded and overcrowded schools, the lack of Honors and AP class offerings means fewer seats available to minorities. Flora’s claims are one of the many examples of her ideology rooted in made-up theories to undermine the public school systems. They are not backed by any evidence and are talking points from national extremist organizations waging the current culture wars. What is apparent is that some schools are eliminating AP courses as the AP designation isn’t helping most kids complete college any earlier. When faced with more interesting provocative courses, students choose classes other than AP and just perhaps with the climax of students AP enrollment, the AP designation has lost its former prestige. Given the last few years of the Christopher Rufo-incited manufactured moral panic over Critical Race Theory (CRT), AP classes are at risk of losing their AP designation when they eliminate content (that the “anti-woke” agenda pushers falsely define as CRT) essential for the class.

The CPAN event also targeted Social Emotional Learning (SEL), claiming it as a Marxist idea. This may be an important time to remember that SEL has been a priority in public education and DCSD for decades. This year, it was incorporated with the Colorado Essential Skills (CES), which incorporates CASEL’s SEL in addition to other categories, such as Entrepreneurial Skills. In fact, CES is one of Superintendent Kane’s “big rocks” this school year, as she stressed to DCSD educators at the beginning of the year.

There is documented evidence that SEL facilitates students' academic performances by laying “self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making” onto learned skill sets already occurring in school. Yet, at the CPAN event, SEL was demonized and weaponized for the sake of politics.

Teacher Demonization Continues

The appalling and unforgivable suggestions about nefarious activities by public school teachers was one of the most horrifying things about this event. Not only did speakers accuse our teachers of teaching pornography, they also diminished their intelligence and profession. 

***If you are a teacher reading this, please be aware that what you are about to read is deeply disturbing, and may be triggering.***

One of the featured speakers, Cain Young, asserted that ”schools are not safe, not safe for your kids” (37:50). He encouraged audience members to remove their children from all public schools and recommended homeschooling, private schools (a few charters were mentioned) and microschools (also private) (37:37). Not only is this an attack on our public schools, but it also implies that teachers are not to be trusted and directly accuses our professional educators of harming children. Nothing is further from the truth, and this type of rhetoric is most certainly a contributor to the mass exodus of so many teachers.

Young said that teachers “no longer have to show up to school and tell a little Black girl ‘you get to take the Black kids test’” (37:05). This misinformation that teachers are lowering standards for minority students (what event speaker Smith called “soft bigotry”), was baseless and inflammatory, and you could almost hear the pearl clutching from the audience. It gets worse…

Smith (45:10) encouraged parents and grandparents to ask their children/grandchildren every single day if someone at school (lists many of the adult roles in a school) makes them feel upset about their race or someone else’s race or someone’s gender.

“Ask them that. Every. Single. Day. And one day they are going to break down and tell you ‘yeah, my teacher told me I could be a little girl today and change my name from Johnny to Josephine’.” 

The harm this causes to the morale and to the hearts of our teachers, not to mention our children, is almost unfathomable. It teaches children to demonize and distrust their educators.  How can they learn when they are told that they are not safe at school and cannot trust the adults there? Undoubtedly, teachers being falsely accused of awful misdeeds is a contributor to this national teacher shortage. Not only is the content of what these speakers said without merit, it was presented as truth and a foundational belief that teachers are actively harming students.

Ironically, speakers claimed to be “pro-teacher” by planting the sole blame of their allegations of teachers harming students, on teacher’s unions. According to the panelists, teachers are intentionally harming our children, teaching pornography at the request of the teachers’ unions, lowering academic standards for minorities and secretly making our children feel uncomfortable about their race, sex and/or gender and this is all due to and orchestrated by the teacher unions. 

Flora elaborates (4:30) that children are back in school, post-pandemic, and claims that the National Education Association (NEA), has chosen to focus on standing against Israel and directing teachers to refuse to call parents “mother” and “father,” but to instead, use only the terms “birthing parent” or “non-birthing parent.”

Flora also recommended providing teachers with alternatives to union membership by mentioning a new pathway for teachers to get insurance and professional development and educational resources outside of unions. In fact, CPAN notes this on its website under its Mission statement.

These accusations are so vulgar, they are worthy of admonishment by all public school educators and those elected to promote public education. We welcome a public rejection of this rhetoric from the DCSD leadership who attended that meeting.

“Two World Views”

Flora verbalized “Two World Views'' several times at the event. She used the phrase in the context of “western civilization based on Judeo-Christian values and Marxism.” At (29:40): 

“Western civilization based on Judeo-Christian values that says every single human being has intrinsic worth, individual rights, part is the right to a great education”...  “and over here, which we will not settle for, is that dark Marxist ideology that's led more people into misery because it is about the collective. What is CRT? It’s the collective.”

This limited worldview is not only harmful to anyone who doesn’t subscribe to Judeo-Christian beliefs, but a signal of the end goal to remove Separation of Church and State from public education and instill a dominant Christian worldview. This should concern us all. 

With a large, diverse population, America has many religions, many cultures and multiple denominations of Christianity. This “Two World View” narrative is a clear violation of the freedom of religion guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. This is “parents’ rights for choice” for only some parents, and affirms that the “parent’s rights” movement is a false flag and a dog whistle for Christian rights.

Reflections and What’s Next?

DougCo Collective issued a statement earlier this week, condemning the event and the participation and embrace of it by our superintendent and three of the BoE Directors. 

CPAN and the people and partnering organizations that participated in its launch event are representative of this national extremist campaign of false propaganda under the guise of “parents’ rights.” It is a window into the mistruths, convoluted versions of history and the future tactics being amplified with this movement. As noted by several national far-right advocacy group leadership (including Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project PAC) earlier this week, the strategy will continue to focus on “parents’ rights” and securing more control of school boards.

It is outrageous that our superintendent would willingly accept an award from an organization that fights everything she claims to stand for, and right alongside other award recipients who have deliberately worked to destroy public education and sabotaged the recent 5A/5B MLO/Bond initiatives. And after campaigning on and continuing to claim they are taking politics out of the classroom, three BoE members unapologetically sat through that event. 

When faced with criticism from the public and the media this week, Kane tried to spin the award as some sort of proof that she/DCSD was being recognized for not doing something that CPAN and most every speaker at the event accuses DCSD of doing. Peterson tried to shut down BoE Director Susan Meek with the gavel at the BoE meeting on Nov. 15, every time she pointed out how divisive the event was and asked for the BoE to speak out against the many false and harmful claims made there. Williams remarked at that same meeting that Meek was “not helpful” to bring it up at all. Numerous community members emailed Kane, asking her to disavow the rhetoric from the event, and in her replies she continued to insist that the award signified her continued commitment to the community to assure that there is no “woke” agenda being implemented in DCSD. This willful ignorance is going to continue to make it even more difficult to build community support over the next year to pass an MLO/Bond.

Then again, perhaps they are more self-aware than it seems, as Kane’s award and the event itself were not mentioned in this week’s “Superintendent Week in Review” email.