Earlier this year, a concerned constituent contacted my office regarding new subject matter at her child’s school. Following an open records request and a thorough examination of the materials, it is fair to say that some questions should be asked. Parents, have you asked what your child is learning in school recently?
If your school is teaching the Black Lives Matter (BLM) curriculum for public schools then your child may be learning about Black Villages.
“Black Villages,” according to BLM, is defined as a “disrupt[ion of] the western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
Being a single parent is one of the toughest jobs imaginable. As individuals and a community, it is a worthy goal to support these families. If the curriculum is teaching us to be tolerant of all viewpoints, why is it simultaneously a goal to “disrupt the western-prescribed nuclear family structure”? There is well-supported research that demonstrates the fact that children born into stable families, with parents present in their lives, are the least likely to suffer from poverty.
Poverty among married black families been in the single digits since 1994. [1] Poverty for single-parent black families has averaged over twenty percent for black fathers[2] and over thirty-five percent for black mothers.[3] If we care about black lives, shouldn’t we be encouraging pathways to success?
According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, “Children living in married-couple households had the lowest poverty rate (8%). This pattern was generally observed across most racial/ethnic groups.”
Social Scientist Charles Murray observed that “men and women who get married, stay married, and have children within marriage are more likely to be in, and to stay in, the middle or upper class.”[4] Nicholas Zill testified before Congress during the Clinton era that 45% of children living in single-parent families lived in poverty, versus just 8% of children in married-couple families.
Recent research cited by the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) affirms the efficacy of married-couple families. “[Ninety-five] percent of millennials who married first are not poor, compared to 72 percent who had children first.”[5] Additionally, “71 percent who married before having children made it into the middle or higher end of the income distribution by the time they are age 28-34. By comparison, only 41 percent of millennials from lower-income families who had children first made it into the middle or higher end of the distribution when they reached ages 28-34.”[6]
Experts have been discussing the impact of “adverse childhood experiences,”[7] or “ACEs” in early childhood development. The term is used to describe all types of abuse, neglect, and other traumatic experiences occurring to individuals under age 18. Among the most severe and most common is the disappearance of a parent, just behind physical abuse and substance abuse. By actively supporting the disruption of families, the Black Lives Matter curriculum is normalizing unnecessary trauma into a child’s life, and perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
Everyone knows that sometimes marriages and relationships just don’t work out, and no one should be criticized for that. We as a society should consistently encourage the regular presence of both parents in a child’s life, actively engaging with them to promote education, growth and success.
With Wisconsin falling behind other states in educational outcomes, should we devote time in the classroom to perpetuate a debunked radical ideology that destroys the family?
To view the previous discussions on Black Lives Matter curriculum, visit www.repallen.com.
