Education commissioner admits her team has transformed Maine’s K-12 schools into mental hospitals

“Academic learning is definitely going to take a backseat to all of these other pieces.”

That revelation fell from the lips of the woman who oversees Maine’s failing government-run schools.

And the “other pieces” she’s referring to are the LGBTQ+ agenda, Critical Race Theory, and social-emotional learning.

School administrators across Maine have enshrined cultural Marxism as the new state religion in K-12 classrooms — and now their high priestess is bragging about it!

Maine First Project is the only organization in Maine that’s recruiting and training a grassroots army of activists to fight back against the cultists who are brainwashing our kids and grandkids.

I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d make a gift today of $10, $25, $50, $100, or whatever you can afford to help Maine First Project re-claim Maine schools from the woke radicals who swear allegiance to CRT and LGBTQ+ propaganda over the three Rs.

Probably the worst-kept secret in the state of Maine right now is the abject failure of our K-12 government-run schools to teach the next generation of Mainers basic reading, writing, math, and science.

In fact, the dumbing-down of our public schools is now so pervasive that the over-paid bureaucrats and administrators who run these institutions aren’t even trying to hide it!

The commissioner of education herself, Pender Makin, said the quiet part out loud recently when she was asked by a legislator about the steady, across-the-board decline in student achievement — a decades-long decline that was evident long before the COVID lockdowns.

Is there a trade-off, Makin was asked, between teaching about diversity, equity, and gender ideology on one hand, and basic academic learning on the other?

In response, Makin lapsed into a rambling, incoherent discussion of “brain science.”

According to Makin’s theory, until the schools have addressed students’ mental health issues, disengagement, stress, trauma, anxiety, behavior skills, and self-control, the kids won’t be able to learn math, science, and reading. It all has to do with brain architecture, and freeing up kids’ brain space in the frontal lobe. 

And of course, Makin reminded us that teachers are tasked with “making sure everyone is known and respected for who they are.”

Then she delivered the zinger I led this appeal with:

“Academic learning is definitely going to take a backseat to all of these other pieces.”

Wow. Just wow.

After years of denying that Maine’s K-12 schools are pushing any sort of identity politics or gender ideology in the classroom, now comes the commish to admit the TRUTH, that she and her colleagues view students as patients in a psychiatric ward.

Maine First Project is doubling down on our efforts to fix Maine’s broken education system, one school board at a time.

Will you chip in to help us win this fight with a contribution TODAY or  $10, $25, $50, $100 or whatever you can afford, to replace woke school board members with common-sense patriots who support family values?

The fact is, the debate over whether or not our kids are being indoctrinated is over!

Thanks to hundreds of Freedom of Access (FOAA) requests filed by Maine First Project-trained parents across the state over the past three years, we have mountains of evidence to make the brainwashing indictment stick. And now the highest-ranking education bureaucrat in the state is not only admitting it, she’s trying to put lipstick on this pig!

Did it ever occur to Makin that many of the mental health issues she describes spring from immersing young children in gender ideology and race-based identity politics?

When Maine’s education department produces and distributes video lessons telling kindergartners that the gender they were “assigned at birth” may be wrong because the doctor made a mistake — what would you expect?

If teachers are encouraged to share their “privileged identities” and their “disadvantaged identities” with students, and students are encouraged to share their various identities with the class, is it any surprise the kids are anxious, confused, and illiterate?  

And if kids can’t read by the time they’re in third grade, they’re being set up for failure. Tragically, that’s exactly what Maine’s K-12 schools have done:

Only one-third to fewer than half of Maine 4th-graders are “proficient at grade level” (not a very high bar) in reading, and that’s been true for decades.

It’s no accident that our state — that helped elect Ronald Reagan president over 40 years ago — is now a blue state with hundreds of thousands of functionally illiterate voters who have greater admiration for career criminal George Floyd than for Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain.

Now more than ever, if you’re a parent, it’s time to pull your kids out of these Leftist indoctrination camps. These institutions are beyond repair in the near term, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day to de-program your kids and grandkids when they get home from school.

Whether the alternative is homeschooling or education in a private or parochial school, find a way to make it happen.

The exodus is already underway, and it’s picking up steam.

Rather than de-fund the police, let’s de-fund K-12 indoctrination. As more students head for the exits, the loss of state subsidies to local school districts will serve as a deafening wake-up call for the indoctrinators. They can clean up their act, or watch the exodus and the loss of funding accelerate.

In the meantime, Maine First Project will remain focused on the long game. We will continue to recruit and train a grassroots army of activists who are prepared to fight fire with fire at the local school district level.

With literally hundreds of school board seats on the ballot every year across Maine, we have a target-rich environment right in front of us. We also have the blueprint for victory, and it can be applied in a school district near you.

Maine First Project supporters led the campaign that recalled two Oxford County school board members in a special election in January after they voted for a dangerous and demented “gender identity” policy. 

As soon as the recall qualified for the ballot, the school board got the message from Maine First patriots and killed the proposed policy on its final reading. That was a first in Maine!

Can you help us duplicate this victory in other districts? Whether it’s $10, $25, $50, $100 — or whatever you can afford — your gift to Maine First Project will be invested in these local battles to flip school boards and counter the transgender cult’s grip on policymakers.

Thanks for all you do every day to restore Maine to The Way Life Should Be. Together, we will pull our beloved state back from the precipice, and make Maine great again.

Hon. Lawrence Lockman
Maine House of Representatives, 2012-2020
Co-founder & President
Maine First Project

P.S.

Maine’s lying, dying Fake News industry has been denying the presence of Critical Race Theory and LGBTQ+ propaganda in classrooms — despite mountains of evidence proving them wrong.

Now, the commissioner of education herself, Pender Makin, has admitted that she prioritizes social-emotional learning, CRT, and gender-bender brainwashing over reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Join the peaceful and patriotic Maine First grassroots army fighting fire with fire against the woke radicals destroying the next generation of Mainers. Please consider a donation TODAY of $10, $25, $50, $100 or whatever you can afford. Thank you!