WHEN THE STICK IS THE STICK, NOT THE CARROT -

BY PAUL PRESTON

When Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the FBI would take the lead on the law enforcement response to what HE called “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff “ it was because he could.

Back in 2009-2010 President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan rolled out their $4 billion program of education reform grants called “Race to the Top”. A more accurate title would have been the Race to Washington, because their program culminated a stunning decade in which school policy decisions were stolen from local and state control to become matters of federal oversight. With the possible few exceptions like Texas, which resisted federal education grants with all their strings – no state would be left behind in the race to federalize education.

You could call it bribery, offering cash-starved states extra billions if only they would follow federal curricular standards and testing regimes. You could definitely call it unconstitutional, because nothing in the Constitution gives the federal government a role in education, and the 10th Amendment says powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the people and the states. To make matters worse, these federal grants were permitted to go directly to school districts, further eroding the role of states. Race to the Top made it clear that grants would only be doled out to those states that were aligned with federal priorities. It was clear states surrender your 10^th Amendment Right to educate your children. And states including California were happy to accommodate.

Race to the Top assumed the same educational formula would work in all 50 states.

So they used a carrot and stick approach which promised massive amounts of federal dollars to schools around the United States. The states just needed to “comply”.

It didn’t take long to federalized public education with Common Core racing into each state replacing state after state’s educational programs and replacing local control with federal control. Now 11 years later the massive influence on local education has created a massive system of public control of every aspect of not just your children’s rights but all of the United States. Mask mandates, mass vaccinations for children with out parental knowledge, social distancing, porn for kindergartners and FBI enforcement for concerned parents protesting local school official’s edicts.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last month that the FBI would take the lead on the law enforcement response to what Garland called “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.”

“While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” Garland wrote in a memo to federal prosecutors as well as FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values.

“Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety,” the he added.

Garland fired off his memo and cited that opposition — naming the imposition of mask mandates in schools as well as “propaganda purporting the false inclusion of critical race theory within classroom instruction and curricula” as the causes of dozens of incidents at school board meetings this year.

In his memo, Garland ordered the FBI and US attorneys to arrange meetings with federal, state, local, tribal and territorial leaders within 30 days to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats” and “open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.”