Written by Kathleen Marquardt, an associate of Tom DeWeese

(Updated August 16, 2025)

Trump has shut down the Department of Education. Celebrate! It is great news. Reagan said he would do away with it but didn’t. Now, some 40-plus years later, the closing of this federal agency is finally being addressed. But this outcome does nothing to change our schools, especially now that they are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create curricula, and since our schools were taken over decades ago by cultural Marxism, which the schools are still teaching

Now, instead of standard subjects like reading, writing, and arithmetic, our schools increasingly emphasize woke learning that centers in disputational terms like “New Math, Common Core, Outcome-based Education, Mastery Learning, Sight-Words, Darwinian evolution [see paragraph #4 below], sex education, groupthink, values clarification, and situational ethics.” In other words, sloppy math (not precise), sight-words (there are over 300 for children to memorize, and the words amount to little more than mind control, when skill with phonics is what they really need in order to decipher difficult new words, something even AI knows.

Interestingly, according to AI, research suggests that writing by hand, as compared to typing, activates more brain regions and enhances learning and memory. This is because handwriting involves fine motor skills and spatial-temporal patterns that are not fully replicated when typing.

Regarding "Darwinian evolution" in the above list of "woke" learning subjects now common in American schools. Please take the time to read the outstanding linked article by Henry Morris, Ph.D., one of the founders of Creationism, titled "The Scientific Case Against Evolution"; also, please keep in mind that the godly values on which the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are based reflect the worldview of the Bible – unlike the atheistic worldview of Darwinian evolution, which has yet to produce sound scientific proof of its sweeping claims, according to Dr. Morris above. Additionally, the subject of "Sex Education" cited above is not about education at all, but about denying one's gender and promoting perverted and dangerous sexual activities – even for children in the lower grades.

Furthermore, AI recognizes the danger of an area of education being promoted today: “Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people where the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Essentially, it’s when a group prioritizes agreement over critical thinking and evaluation, leading to poor decisions.”

"Values Clarification" is quite simple – there is no right or wrong, it teaches. Those old enough to remember the ‘60s when “I’m OK, you’re OK" came out – if more of us thought it out then, this bit of evil might have had to go underground. When I first heard it, I thought it was silly – there are moral absolutes. From AI: "Moral absolutes, also known as moral absolutism, is the belief that certain actions are inherently right or wrong, regardless of the context, situation, or consequences. This means there are universal moral principles that apply to everyone, everywhere, and at all times. Essentially, some actions are considered intrinsically evil, meaning they are always wrong, even if they might lead to a positive outcome.” One example – murder: the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. Values Clarification says everything is subjective, that there is no right or wrong. Were we to live under this, we would be fighting for our lives constantly – the ultimate dystopian world.

And last, but not least, is "Situational Ethics" – an extension of the above "Values Clarification." In situational ethics, right and wrong depend upon the situation, and there are no universal moral rules or rights – only "guidelines." Each case is considered unique and deserves a unique solution. Situational ethics rejects "prefabricated decisions and prescriptive rules." The example given to me by author Deborah Degroff was: “Is it fair if I have an affair and nobody (except the other party) knows, my spouse doesn’t know, so where’s the harm” – situational ethics. If it feels good, do it.

These are the key areas of education in today’s schools. No, they most likely wouldn’t use the “affair” example, but they will be using ones that children can get some grasp of – teaching them that anything goes, just don’t get caught. And, YES, these are the underlying values being promoted in our schools. Not just some of our schools. The entire curriculum in every public school is about dumbing down our children in such an unbiblical, godless manner.

It’s well over 100 years since this kind of thinking was first brought into the schools. (In fact, the above BBC link about Situational Ethics begins by quoting atheistic socialist John Dewey, who was very influential about 100 years ago.) President Reagan had promised to get rid of the Department of Education, but even then, it might have been too late to do anything. Now we are so far down the rabbit hole and the tunnel is so narrow, there probably isn’t room to turn around. But we must try. Hopefully, enough parents will learn to homeschool and persuade other parents to follow their example (as actress Sam Sorbo is effectively doing).

A thought that comes to mind after reading about Cultural Marxism is, how in the world did America succumb so quickly and thoroughly to this evil? The short answer: our children were/are vaccinated against liberty from the day they start kindergarten.

The globalists, one-world-order seekers, and UN designers knew that to be able to control the minds of future man they needed to develop those minds themselves. And to that end, the Frankfurt School was established, on the premise that the training for the new democracy must be from cradle to grave and harmonious with the Frankfurt School's emphasis on humanistic – not God-centered – cultural values:

"Citizenship is [therefore] not to be learned in good government classes or current events courses or lessons in civics. It is to be acquired only through those modes of living and acting which shall teach us how to grow the social consciousness. This should be the object of all day school education, of all night school education, of all our supervised recreation, of all our family life, of our club life, of our civic life." (Mary Parker Follett 1918, The New State, p. 363)

Consistent with such cultural Marxism, Brock Chisholm, the First Secretary General of the World Health Organization – a psychiatrist – wrote the following:

“To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family tradition, national patriotism, and religious dogmas.

We have been very slow to rediscover this truth and to recognize the unnecessary and artificially imposed inferiority, guilt and fear, commonly known as sin . . . which produces so much of the social maladjustment and unhappiness in the world.

For many generations we have bowed our necks to the yoke of the conviction of sin. We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties fed us by our parents, our Sunday and day school teachers, our politicians, our priests." Brock Chisholm, Psychiatry, February 1946, pp. 7-8.

In pursuit of such humanism in recent decades, the cultural Marxists have put enormous amounts of time, money, and effort into molding the American people – as well as much of the rest of the world — into compliant, submissive, spineless, empty-headed beings. As part of this effort, key tax-exempt foundations here in the U.S. apparently took charge of un-educating our children decades ago: The Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford Foundations were at the start and at the heart of the corruption of our school system. Conclusions from the Congressional Reece Committee’s 1954 investigations into "tax-exempt foundations" accused these powerful American foundations of using their funds for other than originally-intended purposes, in order to subvert U.S. education:

"The committee’s final report concluded that with a few exceptions (such as the Institute for Pacific Relations) these tax-exempt institutions had not directly supported organizations that supported communism, but that institutions including the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Carnegie Endowment were using funds to promote causes that were “subversive” by the committee’s (and the Brookings Institute’s) definition of the term. Namely, causes that would promote a form of oligarchical collectivism, a term from the well-known dystopian novel "1984."

Among the most notable findings of the Reece Committee were these:

"From 1933–1936, a change took place which was so drastic as to constitute a ‘revolution’. They also indicated conclusively that the responsibility for the economic welfare of the American people had been transferred heavily to the Executive Branch of the Federal Government; that a corresponding change in education had taken place from an impetus outside of the local community, and that this ‘revolution’ had occurred without violence and with the full consent of an overwhelming majority of the electorate. In seeking to explain this unprecedented phenomenon, subsequent studies pursued by the staff clearly showed it could not have occurred peacefully, or with the consent of the majority, unless education in the United States had been prepared in advance to endorse it” (Dodd, 6). Thus, influencing educational curriculum is of the utmost importance to advancing revolutionary policies."

Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations had used their funds for grants with the following agendas in mind:

• Directing education in the United States toward an international viewpoint and discrediting the traditions to which it [formerly] had been dedicated.

• Decreasing the dependency of education upon the resources of the local community and freeing it from many of the natural safeguards inherent in this American tradition.

• Changing both school and college curricula to the point where they sometimes denied the principles underlying the American way of life.

• Financing experiments designed to determine the most effective means by which education could be pressed into service of a political nature” (Dodd, 7).

The American Historical Association had issued a report in 1934 “which concluded that the day of the individual in the United States had come to an end and that the future would be characterized, inevitably, by some form of collectivism and an increase in the authority of the State” (Dodd, 10).

"The Social Science Research Council and the National Research Council pushed educational curriculum that serves to indoctrinate American students to forego the freedom of the individual and “substitute the group, the will of the majority, and a centralized power to enforce this will – presumably in the interest of all.” (Dodd, 11).

Julian Huxley, was the first Director of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — Educational being the preeminent area of his focus. Huxley would have preferred that UNESCO be an up-front promoter of eugenics, speaking about the menace of overpopulation which he thought was generally recognized, he hoped that “my successors at UNESCO will be able to play an important part in a world-wide programmed of population control, now actively supported by the UN, and endorsed by the World Bank and WHO.”

The Marxists did exactly what they set out to do – destroy minds, especially American minds. Minds that parents believed were being educated to desire sound science, reason, logic, and freedom. Instead, we have brain-dead Marxists who are ignorant, angry, lazy, and without values.

If Trump ends the Department of Education, then we must take back our schools. It took generations to destroy our education system, but we don’t have generations to rebuild sound education. We must immediately get into our schools – serve on the school board, throw out the textbooks, and teach from a chalkboard if necessary.

Again, we must do this from the bottom up. We cannot count on the Senate, the House of Representatives, or even our governors and, of course, the ideological school boards. This is what the American Policy Center is all about in the designing “Freedom Pods," until we are certain that those in power understand the absolute need for private property, proper education, and the freedom to protect it – for our very lives depend on these issues.

It is important to note that the above-quoted Norman Dodd was the chief researcher who represented Congress in investigating the powerful tax-exempt foundations that were under investigation in the early 1950’s by the House’s “Reece Committee.”

Mr. Dodd – an American banker and bank manager who was brought in to oversee the investigation conducted at the time by the House Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations – was later interviewed by G. Edward Griffin.

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Kathleen Marquardt has been an advocate for property rights and freedom for decades. While not intending to be an activist, she has become a leader and an avid supporter of constitutional rights, promoter of civility, sound science, and reason. She is dedicated to exposing the fallacies of the radical environmental and animal rights movements. She has been featured in national publications including Fortune, People, the Washington Post, and Field and Stream, as well as television news programs such as Hard Copy, The McLaughlin Group, Geraldo, and many others. Today, she serves as Vice President of American Policy Center. Kathleen now writes and speaks on Agenda21/2030, and its threat to our culture and our system of representative government.

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