The leadership of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) is committed to the principle that "Teaching is Political." For the second year in a row, the NJEA is spending big money in the Board of Education election in Wayne Township.

There are eight candidates running for the Wayne school board. Three of the eight are parents who are professionals -- Ryan Battershill and Barbara Rigoglioso running under the "Children First" banner, and Wilson Aloquin who is running alone.

The parent candidates believe that teaching should not be political. They urge concentration on teaching the basics -- math, science, history, etc. This is especially true they say in light of the learning losses due to COVID shutdowns.

The other five candidates -- Matthew Giordano, Cindy Simon, Jacob Van Lunen, Suzanne Pudup, and Stacey Scher, all have close ties to the NJEA.

Wayne parents first spoke out at a BOE meeting in June 2021. They were concerned about the teaching of Critical Race Theory and the sexually explicit content of some books in school libraries. When they showed up again in July 2021, Board President Catherine Kazan cut the speaking time for each resident by 40%, from five minutes to three.  

It was soon clear to the frustrated parents that the board president and her closest supporters on the board had little patience for those who questioned what was happening in their children's schools. As a result, the parents decided to elect three candidates of their own. The leadership of the NJEA and that of the Wayne Education Association (WEA) were determined not to let that happen. 

Another silencing technique: More than 100 parents, teachers and residents waited in vain at the October 2021 BOE meeting. Board president Catherine Kazan and vice president Suzanne Pudup decided not to attend the meeting even though they were down the hall at a prior closed-door meeting that had just concluded. As a result of their absence, the BOE did not have a quorum and the meeting was cancelled. Ms. Pudup is now board president and is running for reelection. She is an NJEA-endorsed candidate and has been aided by tens of thousands of NJEA dollars. Still, at a recent candidates' forum, Ms. Pudup stated: "I have always listened to parents."

In July of this year, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) promoted a four-day summer program for teachers entitled Teaching is Political: Advocating and Organizing for Social Change. The program was run by the Radical Pedagogy Institute (RPI). The RPI is a community of educators focused on developing radical-Left teaching methods and "organizing in our classrooms and communities."

This image was taken from the Radical Pedagogy Institute website. Audre Lorde was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," who "dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia."

The word "pedagogy" refers to the method and practice of teaching. The Radical Pedagogy Institute engages in a variety of radical "liberatory" pedagogies in a PK-12 setting. Included are: "queer, anti-racist, DisCrit (Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory), culturally relevant, and critical [theories]."

Members of the Public turned away from the Wayne BOE October "Public" Meeting were forced to wait outside in the cold.

Earlier this week, Suzanne Pudup, the president of the Wayne Township BOE, without a vote of the board, changed the board's October public meeting from the spacious Town Council Chamber on Valley Road to a conference room in the BOE Administrative Offices building.

When parents and other members of the public showed up to express their concerns about a variety of issues, they learned that Ms. Pudup had added insult to injury.

Suzanne Pudup, the president of the Wayne Township Board of Education, has launched another October surprise. Without a vote of the board, Ms. Pudup changed the location of the board's October public meeting. Critics claim that the move is political. The October public meeting is usually the last before the election.

For years, the board has met monthly in public session in the Town Council Chamber in Town Hall on Valley Road. The Town Hall venue can accommodate more than 200 residents and has a sound and video system that broadcasts meetings of Wayne's Board of Education.

Ms. Pudup, who is currently running for reelection to the board, directed the meeting to be moved to a much smaller conference room at the Board of Education's Administrative Offices. There, the public is relegated to a tiny adjoining room with shoulder-to-shoulder seating for about 25 people. Moreover, the audio is problematic and is difficult for people to at home to hear the public's comments.

Last year about 60 parents attended a November workshop meeting in that conference room to express their concerns. While some were able to sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the tiny adjacent room, most had to stand in the hallways and reception area of the Administration Building. 

The health emergency was ongoing then and everyone was fully masked. Because of the shoulder-to-shoulder seating, the parents starting calling the tiny space "the COVID Closet." People in the Closet stated that they were not able to hear what was going on. The audio of the meeting was troubled that night and the home audience suffered as well.

The "COVID Closet" November 2021. The public's podium without microphone can be seen on the left. Members of the Board of Education can be seen but not heard in the distance. 

As young students, most of today's parents never knew the politics of their K-12 teachers. Some folks want to change all that. The New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the union representing New Jersey's public school teachers, is one of the most powerful and effective lobbyists in Trenton. 

In July, the NJEA promoted a four-day program for teachers entitled "Teaching is Political: Advocating and Organizing for Social Change 2022 Summer Collaborative."  The program was sponsored by a group of radical left educators calling themselves the "Radical Pedagogy Institute." The alert carried on the NJEA calendar featured six raised fists of various skin tones.

*This is a screenshot of the NJEA event calendar*

Now that children are back to school around the country, the question is: "What will they be taught?"  Many states and school districts have adopted radical left "Woke" curricula, especially in the areas of gender identity, race and sex education.  Other districts are struggling with the decision, including many in New Jersey. Wayne Township is among them. Education Harbinger, here and in future stories, will try to simplify explanations of what is frequently complicated radical theory. Here are two examples.

Gender Identity 

The hot issue in 2022 deals with gender identity. Gender theory argues that sex is biological, but gender is a "social construct" subject to things like ethnicity, race, class and sexuality. The theory argues that gender is "performative." In other words, a person's gender is a choice determined by how that person chooses to present themselves. Sometimes girls identify as boys or boys sometimes feel like they are really girls. The more radical theorists argue that a child can make this choice as early as four-years-old.

The theory of gender identity became very popular on college campuses. Whole academic departments are now dedicated to gender studies. This, in turn, gave rise to transgenderism and transgender rights. Some radical K-12 administrators and educators now seek to bring transgenderism to elementary and secondary schools. 

Many parents in the United States and Europe are facing an educational system that is completely foreign to them. Educators are teaching things like "preferred pronouns" that are often at odds with both sex, gender and even simple grammar.  A little second grade girl might insist on being considered a boy with male pronouns (he/him). Under such a school protocol, the student might even insist on a plural pronoun (they/them).

In some school systems, parents are not informed that their child has made such a choice. The difference between classroom theory and classroom advocacy -- especially dealing with younger minds in the lower grades -- can result in a gender confusion that can ripen into gender dysphoria, the agony that you are a girl in a boy's body or vice versa. Parents often fear that public schools are interfering with the relationship between them and their children. Such parents feel that they have a HUGE interest in what is taught to their children when it comes to gender identity.