California School Cuts Big Checks for ‘Woke Kindergarten’ Program That Did Nothing for Students’ Test Scores

A school in the Bay Area of Northern California has shelled out $250,000 to an “anti-capitalist” and “abolitionist” organization in an attempt to teach students about the “white supremacist” legacies of American education. The move was made in response to falling post-pandemic test scores, but two years after the school and the organization signed their contract, test scores have only fallen lower. The organization in question, Woke Kindergarten, describes itself as “supporting children, families, educators and organizations in their commitment to abolitionist early education and pro-black and queer and trans liberation.”The organization’s website offers some insight into the key lessons teachers hope to impart on students. The curriculum asks students to imagine a world that has abolished the police, the military, landlords, jobs, Israel, and money itself. It asks students to consider how they can return stolen land to Native Americans. It even muses about the possibility of abolishing education itself. On a different section of the website, Woke Kindergarten teaches students a “woke word of the day.” Past words of the day include cease-fire, protest, abolish, strike, and anti-racist. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, which first reported the program, teachers at a Hayward, California elementary school were uncomfortable when it became clear that the curriculum Woke Kindergarten was offering would do nothing to help students. Students’ test scores have only fallen further since the contract was signed two years ago. Today, just four percent of students are proficient in math, and only 12 percent are reading at grade-level. When one of the lessons offered by the organization included learning ways to “disrupt whiteness” in the “so-called United States,” a teacher said “It slowly became very apparent if you were a dissenting voice that it’s not what they wanted to hear.”The founder of Woke Kindergarten said in a post on Instagram that the United States and Israel should be abolished for their “settler colony” crimes. “I am anti-Israel,” the founder said in a video. “I believe Israel has no right to exist. I believe the United States has no right to exist. I believe every settler colony who has committed genocide against native peoples has no right to exist.”“White supremacy destroys for the sake of destruction,” the founder continued. “Abolition destroys for the sake of creation… I have an unwavering respect for children — an unwavering love and compare and compassion for children.”The decision to hire Woke Kindergarten was made by parents and teachers and approved by the school board in an attempt to reduce absences and falling test scores. In 2023, 44 percent of students — the vast majority of them Hispanic — were considered “chronically absent” from school, which the California Department of Education defines as “absent on ten percent or more of the schooldays in the school year.”Mr. Reimann told the Chronicle that he believed Woke Kindergarten would help lure students back to the classroom by teaching them about political issues. “We are in favor 100% of abolishing systems of oppression where they hold our students back,” he told the Chronicle. “What I do believe is we should pick providers based on their work and how effective they are.”Some think Woke Kindergarten is just trying to be “provocative” to make money while the school can say it’s trying something new. “It doesn’t feel necessarily new, but more common right now is that some schools and some leaders are being intentionally provocative,” said the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute, Jon Valant.Mr. Valant says Woke Kindergarten is just “leaning into these culture battles in schools.”

California School Cuts Big Checks for ‘Woke Kindergarten’ Program That Did Nothing for Students’ Test Scores

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