By: Diane Benjamin
See the Illinois Report Card for District 87 Bloomington High School: https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/School.aspx?source=trends&Schoolid=170640870250001
If the goal is education they flunked. 77% graduate anyway.
The District 87 website has many curriculum links. This is one for English: https://www.district87.org/o/bhs/documents/faculty-%26-staff/english/english-syllabi/455251
This is on the list, Freshman Literature and Composition: Freshman_Lit_Comp_23-24_-_BHS.pdf
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Night is a biography of Weisel’s time in concentration camps.
Stamped is Kendi’s opinion that America was born evil. (DEI)
LeAlan Jones was a Green Party candidate for Congress Our America. The Green Party never garners over a couple percent in elections because they are the extreme far left. Our America recaps life on the south side of Chicago. The 2 authors grew up together.
All 3 are dark topics. Bloomington High School has a 37% chronic absenteeism rate. Education should inspire learning. How do any of these readings inspire?
Are really good books like To Kill A Mockingbird still banned? It is possible to cover dark topics and inspire at the same time.
I suggest parents start paying attention to what their kids are being taught. From the Illinois Report Card District 87 is severely underperforming.
Kids only get 1 shot at an education. Education provides a basis for life. Of course this is the same school that taught the made-up history book The 1619 Project. The teacher didn’t bother to tell students it was fantasy.
A reader found these links for me. He was inspired by this article: https://unherd.com/2025/08/the-closing-of-the-zoomer-mind/?lang=us
Excerpt:
In an era of rapidly declining literacy and the decimation of education by artificial intelligence, schools that assign terrible YA literature are hastening the end of reading and critical thought. This isn’t just because of the obvious identity politics behind the choice of such books, though works like Punching the Air, from my son’s list, is stunningly anti-white for a book taught in a city public school. Even worse are the low quality and trite ideas, which actively repel kids from real learning.
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) says it all.
This is the focus of the Illinois State Board of (Indoctrination). It’s not academics.
At its core is Marxist Paulo Freire (referenced in U5’s Equity Audit). His idea was that education is a tool for revolution. The ISBE(I) put social revolution on the backs of our children.
The 1960’s Marxist radicals including Freire, failed in their quest to bring down “the man”, so they decided that the “long march through the institutions” was the better choice. The term was inspired by Mao Zedong’s “Long March”. His Cultural Revolution killed an estimated 5 million people.
And here we are today, 60 years later at Unit 5 and District 87. Increasingly violent, uneducated children are the product. Freire, Marx, Mao, Lenin, Stalin would be proud.
That 37% chronic absentee rate blows my mind. Holy Toledo! So when they talk about cost per student, factor in that number and it’s much higher since so many kids aren’t even there.