A pro-life activist being targeted by the Biden Justice Department pled not guilty Tuesday to charges levied against him over an altercation last year with a feticide supporter. The incident prompted an early morning blitz by the FBI Friday who surrounded the activist’s home with guns drawn.&nbsp;Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven, was praying with his 12-year-old son in front of a Planned Parenthood last year when a Planned Parenthood “escort” - someone who walks people to the clinic doors to protect them from “harassment” - allegedly began harassing Houck’s son. The two moved away from the entrance to the building, but the escort followed them and continued yelling at the child. At that point, Houck allegedly pushed him away.&nbsp;The escort pressed&nbsp;charges against Houck last year, which were ultimately dismissed by a federal court – but Biden’s DOJ picked up the case anyway.&nbsp;Around 7:00 AM on Friday, the Houck family was visited by 15-20 FBI agents, guns drawn, who began pounding on the door and shouting for Houck to come out of the house. Houck tried telling the agents that they were scaring the children, but the agents continued shouting.&nbsp;“They had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house,” said Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie, though the FBI <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/pro-life-activist-mark-houck-pleads-not-guilty-federal-charges-fbi-arrest">denies</a> pointing the guns at anyone. “The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic,” she added.&nbsp;Though the assault charges were dismissed, Houck is now facing 11 years in prison and a $350,000 fine for violating the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/248">Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act</a>, which makes it a felony “to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate and interfere with anyone because that person produces reproductive health care.”&nbsp;“[W]hat’s clear from the Department of Justice at its highest levels, which is directing this case, [is] that they are trying to send a message to pro-life and people of faith: ‘Don’t mess with us,'” stated Houck’s attorney and Thomas More Society Vice-President Peter Breen, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/pro-life-activist-mark-houck-pleads-not-guilty-federal-charges-fbi-arrest">according</a> to Fox News. “They want to intimidate — they want to cause good people like Mark to stop praying and counseling at the abortion clinics of our country. And that’s not going to happen.”&nbsp;“What in the world would possess the Department of Justice to send 20 or so heavily armed agents to this family’s home, violate the sanctity of that home, frighten the children and then drag their father away instead of allowing us to present him peacefully, which we had offered to do?” the attorney added.&nbsp;A <a href="https://www.givesendgo.com/prolifefamily">GiveSendGo fundraiser</a> for the Houcks was created by Joe and Ashley Garecht, whose two young daughters were harassed in 2019 by then-Rep. Brian Sims (D-PA) as they prayed outside an abortion center. After harassing the girls for several minutes, Sims videoed them and offered $100 to anyone who could provide their identities. The girls were 13 and 15 years old at the time.&nbsp;As of this writing, the Houcks’ GiveSendGo campaign has raised over $330,000 of its $350,000 goal.&nbsp;Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) slammed US Attorney General Merrick Garland Monday for the Justice Department’s actions against Houck and demanded answers.&nbsp;“I want to know from Merrick Garland directly why Biden’s DOJ is arresting Catholic protestors like terrorists – complete with SWAT-style tactics – while letting actual terrorist acts like firebombings go unpunished,” Hawley wrote in a tweet, posting a scathing letter he wrote to Garland.&nbsp;“I believe you must testify, under oath, before the Senate Judiciary Committee about your selective use and apparent political weaponization of the FACE Act,” Hawley wrote to Garland.&nbsp;<div class="raw-html-embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">I want to know from Merrick Garland directly why Biden’s DOJ is arresting Catholic protestors like terrorists - complete with SWAT-style tactics - while letting actual terrorist acts like firebombings go unpunished <a href="https://t.co/tU1Jwe4c7h">pic.twitter.com/tU1Jwe4c7h</a>— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1574464836083355668?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 26, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>However, as Sen. Hawley is likely aware, it is unlikely that Garland will be brought under oath; and if so, that any new measures would be implemented. Republican legislators have routinely issued strongly worded letters to Garland about various allegations of corruption and misuses of justice such as <a href="https://americasfrontlinenews.com/post/ag-merrick-garland-lied-under-oath-about-fbi-targeting-parents-say-whistleblowers">lying under oath</a> without result.&nbsp;The DOJ’s actions against Houck are only the latest in a punitive crackdown of the pro-life movement by the Biden regime.&nbsp;This month, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) <a href="https://americasfrontlinenews.com/post/media-silent-as-senator-openly-calls-for-violence-against-pro-life-americans">openly called for violence</a> against pro-life Americans by issuing a “literally call to arms.”&nbsp;“When I hear my colleagues talking about how, you know, it should be states’ rights, or government should not be telling us what to do, the word ‘hypocrites,’ it doesn’t even go far enough to call them out on what they’re doing,” Hirono said on the Senate floor. “This is an outright attack on women in this country. That is how I see it.”&nbsp; &nbsp;“That is how more and more women and those who support our right to make decisions about our own bodies, that is how we see it,” she continued. “And why? Because that’s what’s happening.”&nbsp;&nbsp;“Madam president, I yield the floor, but clearly, you know, this is a literally call to arms in our country, I yield the floor,” she concluded.&nbsp;Just days later, an 84-year-old pro-life activist was shot while distributing pamphlets door-to-door in Lake Odessa, Michigan. The woman, a volunteer for pro-life organization Right to Life of Michigan, was canvassing the neighborhood in opposition to Proposal 3 when she was shot in the shoulder by Richard Harvey, the bullet lodging in her back.&nbsp;&nbsp;Harvey and his wife Shannon, both of whom are proud feticide supporters, claimed the shooting was an “accident”.&nbsp;As of Thursday morning, no charges against Harvey have been filed as Ionia County police are “still investigating.”&nbsp;Last month, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) <a href="https://americasfrontlinenews.com/post/google-suppresses-results-for-pro-life-centers-after-pressure-from-lawmakers">boasted</a> about pressuring Google to suppress pro-life centers and only show the locations of assisted feticide clinics such as Planned Parenthood.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

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US News

Censorship

'The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic'

Father of seven pleads not guilty amid regime crackdown on pro-life Americans

Almost three years ago, Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir), Pharma's latest wonder-drug, was being portrayed as just what everyone had been waiting for.People didn't have to wait long for the drug—it was the clinical trial results showing that it worked that they had to wait for.Well, now they're here.We'll allow <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/authors/jeremy-samuel-faust-md-ms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dr. Jeremy Faust</a>, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Editor-in-Chief of Medpage Today, and author of Inside Medicine on Substack, to <a href="https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/paxlovid-does-not-reduce-symptoms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">present</a> them for us.Frontline News' comments follow in red.&nbsp;Jeremy Faust MD: Pfizer finally&nbsp;published its <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309003?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">study&nbsp;</a>of Paxlovid’s effects on symptoms for standard-risk and high-risk vaccinated patients with Covid-19.Finally. Pfizer actually commenced this study in August, 2021 and promised to release the results by December of the same year, when public interest in the drug was probably at its peak. By now, most people have forgotten about it.JF: The upshot of the trial, known as EPIC-SR and published in the&nbsp;New England Journal of Medicine, is that Paxlovid did not reduce the amount of time until patients got symptom relief. For anyone who thinks Paxlovid helps reduce symptoms, we now have high-quality, randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial data—from the makers of the drug&nbsp;and published in the most prestigious medical journal in the world—saying otherwise.&nbsp;This isn’t actually the first time that the “upshot of the trial” has been published. Another “<a href="https://www.epicresearch.org/articles/paxlovid-significantly-reduces-covid-19-hospitalizations-and-deaths" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">upshot</a>” appeared in September, 2022 and was hailed by no less than the White House COVID commissar, Dr. Ashish Jha, as “pretty compelling stuff”—despite the fact that the results released back then were not from a “high-quality, randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled” study, but rather, from the unadjusted data. In other words, <a href="https://frontline.news/post/why-is-the-white-house-covid-czar-promoting-junk-science-analysis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">junk science</a>.Based on those “findings,” the United States government spent $5 billion on Paxlovid.JF: Here’s what played out: In the Paxlovid group, 0.8% (5 of 654 participants) were either hospitalized for Covid or died (any cause), compared to 1.6% (10 of the 634 participants) in the placebo group. Though some might see that as a 50% relative reduction, the 0.8%&nbsp;absolute&nbsp;difference (1.6%-0.8%=0.8%) was not statistically significant.A 50% relative reduction sounds quite impressive to the average Joe. Not quite as impressive as the 95% relative reduction of Pfizer’s COVID shots, of course.But wait. Dr. Faust is now saying that relative reduction isn’t the thing. It’s absolute difference that matters. For Paxlovid, that was just 0.8%, not statistically significant, and therefore, the science has determined that Paxlovid is a dud.What was the absolute difference between the Pfizer shots and placebo? Curiously, it was <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9115787/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">0.85%</a>.JF: So, while not a death knell for Paxlovid, this study should profoundly change our “priors” on what to expect from the forthcoming PANORAMIC&nbsp;<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/1096e8d1-552f-40aa-a21d-41dac299ab3f?j=eyJ1IjoiMXVkdWlhIn0.OUHglwwANIeBURA5ROrUJlpPIzMYTcsRBuDu5k8pS6Q">trial</a>&nbsp;out of the United Kingdom (a massive study of thousands of vaccinated patients randomized to get Paxlovid or not).Not a death knell? Well... But at least it should “profoundly change our ‘priors’” on the efficacy of the COVID shots. And perhaps a large randomized long-term study would be in order there, too, only unfortunately that is now impossible, because the randomized studies already conducted were unblinded just a few months into the trial, and everyone was given the shots.JF: Why does this study go against what you’ve heard?Maybe we can help Dr. Faust out with some answers.<ol><li>Because all the three-letter agencies pushed Paxlovid as the greatest thing since sliced bread (other than the shots themselves)?</li><li>Because none other than Dr. Fauci, aka “The Science,” promoted it, donating his own body to scientific research when he took not just one but two courses of the drug (because his COVID rebounded after the first dose)?</li><li>Because the preliminary (albeit worthless) results from the trial were published years ago and gave a highly misleading impression?</li></ol>JF: We are in a weird moment here. Paxlovid remains the best anti-viral we have, but the data supporting it are not nearly as impressive as they once were.&nbsp;It truly is a weird moment when Paxlovid is, despite devastating trial results, still considered “the best anti-viral we have” by a doctor. Many readers may have suggestions for other “best anti-virals” such as ivermectin. But perhaps Dr. Faust still thinks that’s a horse drug.JF: It’s time to think ahead. The search for better anti-viral options for high-risk Covid-19 patients should start to feel more urgent. I hope the drug companies see an opportunity here.Don’t worry, Dr. Faust. Drug companies are always seeing opportunities.

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Paxlovid

Harvard Medical School professor doesn't connect the dots?

According to 'The Science,' Paxlovid's a dud. By the same criteria, so are the shots

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World News

White House demands ceasefire before Hamas removed from power despite historically low civilian-casualty rate

Extraordinary Gaza achievement overlooked - 200 terrorists eliminated in hospital; none of 6200 human shields killed

Accountability?On May 1, 2024, Dr. Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance will be <a href="https://energycommerce.house.gov/posts/eco-health-alliance-president-peter-daszak-to-appear-for-public-hearing" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">testifying</a> at a public hearing during which he will be questioned on discrepancies in his previous closed-door testimony to a House Committee, relating to the origins of COVID-19, gain-of-function research, and his connection with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.<div class="raw-html-embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">BREAKING EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak will testify at a public hearing on May 1, 2024. Dr. Daszak must answer questions about COVID-19 origins, dangerous gain-of-function research, and his relationship with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. <a href="https://t.co/CyTGoEBvDr">pic.twitter.com/CyTGoEBvDr</a>— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) <a href="https://twitter.com/COVIDSelect/status/1775944394941551045?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance is a U.S.-based non-profit, publicly funded organization whose mission is ostensibly to prevent pandemics from occurring. Despite growing evidence to the contrary, EcoHealth continues to maintain that the research it funded at the Wuhan Institute, using taxpayer money, had no connection with the spread of COVID around the globe.The Chairs of several House Committees have now demanded that Daszak clarify inconsistencies in his statements with information that later became available, writing to him:<blockquote>These revelations undermine your credibility as well as every factual assertion you made during your transcribed interview. The Committees have a right and an obligation to protect the integrity of their investigations, including the accuracy of testimony during a transcribed interview. We invite you to correct the record.</blockquote>&nbsp;Investigating ‘national security threats’The question of COVID's origins refuses to disappear from the headlines, even four years later; a recent study in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/risa.14291" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Risk Analysis</a> conducted last month found a 68% likelihood of an "unnatural [rather] than natural origin of SARS-CoV-2." The study's authors noted the extraordinary amount of overlap between a specific bat coronavirus and COVID:<blockquote>One of the closest known bat coronaviruses, RaTG13, was being studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and has 96.1 percent homology with SARS-CoV-2.</blockquote>As reported by <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/future-pulse/2024/03/21/the-new-covid-origins-inquiry-is-bipartisan-00148173?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Politico,&nbsp;</a> a new bipartisan inquiry into the virus' origins has recently been established, headed by Senators Rand Paul, M.D. (R-Ky.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee:<blockquote>The duo announced yesterday they are investigating where Covid came from, the high-risk research that Paul believes caused the pandemic, as well as broader “national security threats posed by high-risk biological research and technology.”Why it matters: Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are concerned about risky research.The collaboration between Paul and Peters also means more scrutiny for government scientists.</blockquote>&nbsp;Meanwhile, closer to home…Focusing attention on an institute far away in China has certain advantages for politicians, given that there are over 200 biolabs located on American soil (providing Americans—their constituents—with jobs), as revealed almost a decade ago by two journalists writing for USA Today (their article appears to have been taken down, but is accessible via the internet archive <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170719115751/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/05/28/biolabs-pathogens-location-incidents/26587505/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>).Research continues unabated, as does the fascination of scientists, most of them government-funded, for the bat species:<blockquote>It has been an age-old question: what makes bats so fascinating to humans?&nbsp;</blockquote>As the authors of a study published in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867423000417" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cell</a> last year noted, people are fascinated by bats due to echolocation—their ability to maneuver in the dark using sound waves. Scientists, however, focus their research on bats for a different reason:<blockquote>Bats are distinctive among mammals due to their ability to fly, use laryngeal echolocation, and tolerate viruses … bats have evolved mechanisms to tolerate a large load of viral sequences… [emphases added]</blockquote>Their research is not merely theoretical; it centers on diseases that already pose a threat to humans:<blockquote>… what makes bats most distinctive is that many species … have been shown to tolerate and survive many viruses that have high mortality rates in humans, such as SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, Marburg, and henipaviruses. This is potentially due to a modulation of their innate immune response rendering them as asymptomatic and tolerant viral hosts.</blockquote>&nbsp;So much knowledge, so little understanding of what to do with itAnd much more research is, allegedly, needed, because despite the years of study, with their corresponding risk, very little (and perhaps no) progress has been made in understanding how bats thrive despite having high viral loads (although hypotheses abound). What have humans gained, in fact, from all the knowledge acquired in the hundreds of biolabs located around the globe?<blockquote>To date, how bats deal with viruses is still poorly understood, with only a limited number of immune cells documented and characterized in a few [of the hundreds of] bat species … Further, developing cellular resources and assays is required to uncover and validate the molecular adaptations that have evolved in bats to tolerate these viral pathogens. The prevailing hypothesis supported by recent comparative genomic analyses of multiple bat families is that viral tolerance results from specific adaptations of their innate immune system. Accordingly, bats mount an inaugural antiviral reaction after viral inoculation—like all mammals—but then quickly “dampen” this very response before it becomes overly pathological. Critically, this unusual way to deal with viruses could be caused in part by molecular adaptations that stifle canonical virus sensing and the subsequent inflammatory response… [emphases added]</blockquote>&nbsp;Not just China, not just America — it's globalPerhaps it would be more pertinent to ask not what humans have gained, but what they have lost—and what they are likely to lose in the future?According to a former director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, the stakes could not be higher:<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="709" height="399" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HnoKQnhGwg4" title="DR. ROBERT REDFIELD ON RISING: Gain of Function, Fauci, &amp; More" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div><blockquote>The great pandemic is coming. It’s not coming from spillover. It’s going to come from intentional bioterrorism or gain of function research. It’s gonna be a bird flu virus that is manipulated to be transmitted from human to human. Very similar to what we saw with COVID.This research is being done in university laboratories all over the world. It hurts me to say this, but I do believe that the most likely answer when we get to the truth is it was caused by science, not by a natural spillover [emphases added].</blockquote>&nbsp;More money for bat research in “safe” surroundingsOver a year into the COVID “pandemic,” in late 2021, Colorado State University (CSU) received a $6.7 million grant toward the construction of a biological facility at the Fort Collins campus, where yet more research into bats would be conducted, much of it focused on coronaviruses. In this new project, CSU is partnering with Dr. Daszak's Ecohealth Alliance.According to the university,&nbsp;<blockquote>… bats hold unique, critically-important clues to understanding why and how people and animals get sick when exposed to disease-causing organisms known as pathogens…</blockquote>Anticipating concern, <a href="https://batresearch.colostate.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CSU reassures</a> that the Fort Collins biolab will only be dealing with “mild” diseases (such as COVID?) which can be “easily treated" (with cheap, safe, repurposed drugs such as ivermectin?):<blockquote>In the new building, researchers will work with mild infectious disease pathogens that can be easily treated…</blockquote><a href="https://source.colostate.edu/qa-csu-lab-safety/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Furthermore</a>, they will only be conducting the kind of gain-of-function research regarding which people apparently have no concern:<blockquote>Q: Does CSU do gain-of-function research?A: … CSU has no plans to conduct gain-of-function research of concern [emphases added].</blockquote>They add that the university has a reputation for safety:<blockquote>CSU has studied infectious diseases since the 1960s and has a long track-record of expertise, safety, and compliance…&nbsp;</blockquote>This reputation was challenged not long ago by the UK <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13227783/Staff-taxpayer-funded-Colorado-virus-lab-bitten-Covid-infected-HAMSTERS-disease-ridden-bats-shocking-spate-accidents-exclusive-documents-show.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Daily Mail</a>, which excoriated Colorado State University for a “shocking number of accidents in recent years”:<blockquote>Bombshell documents show there were at least 50 incidents involving safety control lapses at Colorado State University between 2020 and 2023, including workers who were bitten by a Covid-infected hamster, splashed in the face with blood from mice with tuberculosis and scratched by rabies-infected cats.The reports were never disclosed to the public despite occurring at the height of the Covid pandemic, which many officials, including the FBI, suspect was borne out of a similar lab accident in China.</blockquote>&nbsp;It's not Fauci or Daszak — it's YOUR faultMainstream media in the United States, meanwhile, is concerned about bats for a different reason: climate change. According to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2024/03/26/1240779167/how-do-we-halt-the-next-pandemic-be-kind-to-critters-like-bats-says-a-new-paper" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NPR</a>,<blockquote>Almost every pandemic we've seen over the last century has come from a virus that's spilled over into humans from an animal…</blockquote>Their article goes on to “explain” how deforestation forces bats to invade cities to find food, leaving behind droppings that cause “spillover” diseases.Therefore, government attention and funding is best directed, so this theory goes, toward research into bat habitats and global warming, as a recent article in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46151-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nature</a> describes:<blockquote>Reducing the risk of future pandemics requires investment in prevention, preparedness, and response. At present, most attention and funding is allocated to mitigation after a pathogen is already circulating … By contrast, primary pandemic prevention—defined as reducing the likelihood a pathogen transmits from its animal host into humans (zoonotic spillover; Fig. 1)—has received less attention in global conversations, policy guidance, and practice…</blockquote>So, don't blame the biolabs. Blame regular humans, for the crime of “using land”:<blockquote>To effectively prevent pandemics, we must recognize two key points: first that pandemics almost always start with a microbe infecting a wild animal in a natural environment and second that human-caused land-use change often triggers the events–whether through wildlife trade or other distal activities–that facilitate spillover of microbes from wild animals to humans. As land-use change becomes more intense and extensive, the risk of zoonotic spillovers, and subsequent epidemics and pandemics, will increase [emphases added].</blockquote>

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Billions still pouring into U.S.-based bat research including gain-of-function

You are not a bat. Seriously, y'all. Stop it.

<h2>Dumbing down education to fight “racism”</h2>School districts that promote social justice DEI agendas may be causing more harm than good. &nbsp;A case in point is the Seattle, Washington school board which is closing down its “Highly Capable Cohort” (HCC), a program for high-achieving students, because there were more white students in the program than black, Hispanic, Asian, and multi-racial students, <a href="https://lawenforcementtoday.com/seattle-mothballs-program-for-gifted-students-chooses-to-dumb-down-entire-classrooms-all-for-equity" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a> Pat Dorney for Law Enforcement Today.&nbsp;Referencing KTTH-770’s Jason Rantz's report on the dissolution of the program, Dorney explained that from 2015 to 2021 the percentage of students of different ethnicities increased, yet, it was not good enough for those looking for equal representation.<blockquote>In 2015, the Seattle Public Schools hired an “equity specialist” whose charge was to address (in other words, find) so-called racial inequities. Three years later, the HCC served 13% multiracial students, 11.8% Asian, 3.7% Hispanic, and 1.6% black. In 2021, those numbers had increased to 20% multiracial, 16% Asian, 8.2% Hispanic, and 3.4% black. In other words, most cohorts virtually doubled their participation, while Asian participation saw a 25% increase. However, that wasn’t good enough for critics who complained the program was “racist” and had to go. (Emphasis added.)</blockquote>Minority parents ignoredRather than searching for more non-white students who would qualify for the program, and despite protests from minority parents whose children had been benefiting, the program will be closed. In the coming 2024-2025 school year a whole-classroom model will be implemented, which Dorney quotes Rantz as arguing, is “unworkable.” Students of varying levels will all be placed in one classroom but they will not be taught in the same way forcing teachers to adapt lessons to both students who can barely read and those "reading two advanced books a week:”<blockquote>[Rantz] explained that students of all learning abilities would be included in the classroom, with each teacher responsible for between 20-30 students of differing learning abilities, with no additional resources and limited new training. Rantz argues it will make it impossible for teachers to create individualized programs for students with such disparate needs.“It’s not likely that a teacher can help a student who can barely read while simultaneously challenging a classmate who is reading two advanced books a week,” Rantz wrote. (Emphasis added.)</blockquote><h3>7% gap was too much</h3>Benjamin Ryan tweeted about the disbanding of the Highly Capable Cohort; including one mother's comment that it was of tremendous help to her highly gifted son with ADHD who was reading Harry Potter books at age 5.Pie charts, included in the tweet, show the apparent disparities between the racial/ethnic makeup of the Seattle public school student body and the Highly Capable Cohort. While 45% of the student body is white, the HCC was 52% white.&nbsp;<div class="raw-html-embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://t.co/lIBp0jmO6K">https://t.co/lIBp0jmO6K</a> <a href="https://t.co/3O9rJrxiD7">pic.twitter.com/3O9rJrxiD7</a>— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) <a href="https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1775894011968160065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>What will happen to extremely gifted students?Rantz, Dorney continued, recounted the “typical” school day for a whole classroom model, as depicted in the Seattle Times, as “hardly impressive:”<blockquote>According to a recent Seattle Times feature, it examined a “typical” day in the whole classroom model, which Rantz called “hardly impressive.”On a recent day in a first-grade classroom, seven advanced learners sat on the floor reading silently on their iPads. Several others wrote independently at their desks. A special education student wrote with a paraprofessional at their side. The rest of the class sat in a front corner of the classroom while the teacher read a book out loud.In other words, Rantz said, advanced learners were sent back to the scourge of COVID-19 learning, “relegated to impersonal iPads,” while other students are writing, alone at their desks, somehow avoiding the distraction of the teacher loudly reading a book out loud.”</blockquote><h3>Less advanced students will not be lifted up</h3>Rather than lifting the underachievers, the move will dumb down the gifted students, according to Rantz.<blockquote>The move to dumb down the gifted kids to the level of their less advanced peers is “another lazy move,” Rantz argues. Instead of trying to lift the underachievers up, they dumb everyone else down. Is it any wonder that test scores are in the basement?&nbsp;</blockquote><h3>A program that helps no one</h3>In conclusion, Dorney argued, the school board was failing to support the more gifted students as well as those for whom they were aiming to provide equity.<blockquote>By mothballing a program that lifted kids up and was working for the lowest common denominator, the progressives on the Seattle school board are failing not only their high-achieving students but the very students whose “equity” they are trying to achieve.&nbsp;</blockquote><h2>There's nothing like a quality education</h2>Those who made it up from poverty, such as economist, social critic, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution for Public Policy Research Thomas Sowell and teacher Dena Simmons, attest to the difference a proper education makes.&nbsp;<h3>Thomas Sowell: "fairness not an option"</h3>Sowell, Frontline News <a href="https://frontline.news/post/the-injustice-of-social-justice" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a>, appreciated the lack of fairness he experienced in an era before affirmative action and DEI. Growing up with hard-working parents who never made it past 7th grade, Sowell's teachers expected him to leave school knowing as much as children from more affluent homes that had books and magazines that his did not. Never was there consideration that he might not be able to succeed and needed “assistance” to make up for his underprivileged background. During his 1999 talk at the Harvard Club, which is depicted in the below After Skool cartoon of his talk, Sowell said:<blockquote>Whenever I hear the notions of fairness in education, I think back to my own education and I think, “Thank God my teachers were unfair to me.”</blockquote><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/aflds/image/upload/v1711546091/image_39f9cd3cd5.png"></figure>He believed that had his teachers lowered their standards, as they are doing today, he would have been doomed to failure. However, he continued, “with a good education, change can happen in one generation. This was shown time and time again,” Sowell said in the clip below, using the late Jamie Escalante as an example. Escalante's Hispanic students did surprisingly well on their calculus exams astonishing the testing company.<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xkDMVdEci4Q?si=mr9aXi2WsYSoqs1w&amp;clip=UgkxcS4VxLtJao5pUTSIoGv7sOgIthYDfgTx&amp;clipt=EOGTYxiQ6WU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>&nbsp;<h3>Dena Simmons: “empowering my students to take ownership in their learning”</h3>In the 2013 TEDx Teacher's College talk below, Simmons recounts her early years growing up in New York City's Bronx borough. After receiving her degree and returning to the Bronx in order to give back to her community, she discovered that there was a big difference between her and her students; she was now living there by choice while her students were there, as she had been as a child, because of economic circumstances.&nbsp;Simmons did not talk about diversity, equity, or inclusion, although she did recognize the difference “privilege” made and now considered herself privileged. Ironically, the privilege she had was her mother's hard work and her own diligence. Nevertheless, wanting the best for her students, she became more mindful of her students' experiences, working to empower them and give them a sense of self-worth, stating (@10:00):<blockquote>I celebrated my students by reading writers whose stories resonated with theirs, by constantly adjusting my teaching to meet the needs of my students, and by empowering my students to take ownership in their learning.Actually, one activity that I did in my classroom was dedicating a day to celebrate each student. My students and I would write warm fuzzy messages on sticky notes and then I would collect these sticky notes and give them to that student. My students would keep these messages of love and support on their desk for weeks. As a class we celebrated each other's assets.&nbsp;In essence, a mindful educator is a culturally responsive educator. She pays precise attention to what students bring to the classroom, to what excites and engages them, to what upsets and offends them, and to what makes them feel important and powerful.</blockquote><div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="964" height="542" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8VjpIfrwB7g" title="It's 10pm. Do you know where your children are? Dena Simmons at TEDxTeachersCollege" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>Good teachers strive to prepare underprivileged students to succeed in life. They don't expect them to fail absent special help and/or lowering the standards.Related articles:<ul><li><a href="https://frontline.news/post/the-injustice-of-social-justice" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The injustice of social justice</a></li><li><a href="https://frontline.news/post/medical-school-only-if-you-re-willing-to-disrupt-power-imbalances-suffered-by-racialized-people" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Medical school? Only if you're willing to 'disrupt power imbalances' suffered by 'racialized people'</a></li><li><a href="https://frontline.news/post/medical-school-takes-bold-stand-against-dei-ideology">Medical school takes bold stand against DEI ideology</a>&nbsp;</li><li><a href="https://frontline.news/post/new-university-promising-free-discourse-opens">New university promising free discourse opens</a>&nbsp;</li><li><a href="https://frontline.news/post/american-medical-schools-suffer-from-diversity">American medical schools suffer from ‘diversity’</a>&nbsp;</li></ul>&nbsp;

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Seattle closes gifted class because minorities are 55% of student body but only 48% of program