Ryan Girdusky’s 1776 Project PAC hopes to extend its successful record of electing conservative school board candidates in the November elections. Dozens of conservative candidates have been campaigning across the country in the wake of the successful ouster of many liberal school board members during the past year. The Washington Examiner recently reported that with the midterm elections looming, Girdusky “sees more [victories] on the horizon.” Despite its limited resources, the PAC is supporting candidates currently running in more than a half dozen states. The activist told the Examiner that “many Republican voters are parents and grandparents, and they are concerned with the state of public education and where it's going. The politicization of education is serving as a motivator to voters.” Laura Zorc, director of education for the FreedomWorks organization, which, among other pro-parent activities, offers a training program for school board candidates, joined Girdusky in praising Governor Ron DeSantis’ endorsement of a cohort of school board candidates in Florida in August. Most of them were also supported by the 1776 PAC and all won their races. “It would really be great if Arizona Gov. [Doug] Ducey and [Virginia] Gov. Youngkin recognize that we have some quality candidates that are running and give them an endorsement,” Zorc told the Examiner. “It would give them credibility and a boost.” She added: “We can no longer afford to elect people on our school boards that have never had children in our schools and all of a sudden decided that this is now important to them. We have done that for too long, and I think our communities are ready for different representation and leadership.”

U.S. public school students showed historically dismal math and reading scores on the 2022 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) for fourth- and eighth-graders. Fox News reported on the results of the “Nation’s Report Card” on October 24, noting that fourth- and eighth-grade scores were lower than any recorded on the NAEP since 1992, with just 31 percent of eighth graders testing proficient in reading, and only 26 percent proficient in math. “Math scores were worst among eighth graders, with 38% earning scores deemed ‘below basic’ — a cutoff that measures, for example, whether students can find the third angle of a triangle if they’re given the other two...” Most officials quoted in the mainstream media blamed the poor student performance on the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that nearly all schools were closed for at least a year, with some closed for two years. But not all laid the failure entirely at the feet of the pandemic. Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said: “Don’t be misled into believing this is a pandemic story. Every data point shows academic achievement trending downward over the last decade. The conclusion could not be clearer: Our education system is broken. It continues to fail generation after generation of kids...” Jonathan Butcher, a senior fellow in education at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that “if policymakers are serious about helping disadvantaged students then they need to refocus classroom time and taxpayers’ money away from ‘equity audits’ and lessons about ‘gender identity’ and focus on the core skills of math and reading.” The late Phyllis Schlafly often lamented the poor performance of American students on the NAEP. For example, in 2003 she wrote: “On June 19 the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), reported that 36 percent of 4th graders canNOT read at what the test defined as a ‘basic’ level... The NAEP report also revealed the consistent and dramatic decline of all reading skills in the upper grades. One in four 12th graders canNOT read at a ‘basic’ level...” Obviously, the situation has only gotten worse and illiteracy among U.S. students has deteriorated from a critical level to languishing on life support.

The online retail giant, Amazon, stands accused of selling “suicide kits” to children in a new lawsuit brought by the families of 16-year-old Kristine Jónsson of Ohio and 17-year-old Ethan McCarthy of West Virginia, who died using the kits. The complaint charges that the teens, who did not know each other, were able to order the food preservative sodium nitrite which, “when mixed with water and drunk can render a person unconscious within twenty minutes.” Along with sodium nitrite, “Amazon recommends that customers also purchase a small scale to measure the right dose, Tagamet to prevent vomiting up the liquid, and the ‘Amazon edition’ of the Peaceful Pill Handbook which contains a chapter with instructions on how to administer these ingredients together to die.” The suit’s preliminary statement reads: “Even after parents and regulators warned Amazon that Sodium Nitrite had no household use, Amazon continued to sell it to households for under twenty dollars, and with two-day delivery.” The teens were allegedly able to buy the chemical, even though Amazon’s policy requires that “people under the age of 18 can only use the service with the involvement of a parent or guardian.” The suit claims Jónsson created her own account, which Amazon failed to question or even ask for her age, and McCarthy used his mother’s account without her knowledge. The mother said that when she received Amazon’s email receipt for the order, she immediately contacted customer service to dispute it and was told the order was canceled. Instead, her son received the product four days later. The GatewayPundit.com quoted the plaintiffs’ legal team as saying: “This is different from [Amazon] selling rope, knives, or other implements that can be used for death because there is no household use for [sodium nitrite] at the level of purity (98-99%) it sells it.” An Amazon spokesman countered that the product is “legal, not intended for consumption, and unfortunately, like many products, it can be misused.” Perhaps the moral of these tragic cases is that parents should more closely monitor their children’s access the the internet.

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