In December 2022 Louisiana citizens from across the State made it clear through public comments to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) that the divisive doctrine of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has no place in our public education system. Despite its attractive sounding name, SEL is steeped in the poisonous Marxist idea that some students are victims and others are oppressors simply because of their race or gender. In fact, State Superintendent Dr. Cade Brumley issued a warning last year when he said “Social emotional learning is considered by many to be a Trojan horse for critical race theory.” SEL and the false narrative of “racial and social justice” it entails is fashionable only in the education bureaucracy and among the parasites attached to it. To Louisiana parents, it is as popular as Covid 19.

Parents simply do not want their children to be indoctrinated with such garbage, which pits them against each other based upon accidents of birth. They want their children to learn how to read well, to write well, and to think well. And they want them to learn how to support and love each other simply and solely because they are all children of God, created equal, and living in the freest Country in the world.

What exactly does BESE member Holly Boffy not understand about this? Yesterday, BESE had an opportunity to consider excellent revisions to its ECDS (Early Childhood Development Standards) submitted by the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) that completely removed any allusion to SEL. LDOE submitted the revised standards to BESE for consideration in response to Rep Beryl Amedee’s House Resolution 192, which encouraged it to do so. An overwhelming majority of 63 Louisiana Representatives from across the State asked BESE to consider LDOE’s revisions due to the concerns expressed by parents.

Every Republican BESE member except Boffy received this Legislative directive loud and clear, and voted to do just that. Sadly, Boffy’s vote was the decisive one, causing the measure to fail. Because of Boffy’s misguided vote, the only early childhood standards that BESE will be incorporating will contain SEL.

Louisiana Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley spends a lot of time these days pushing back against the injection of SEL into our public schools. He has earned, and he deserves, a solid vote of support from BESE for his efforts. He almost got one yesterday.

Although Boffy is termed out on the BESE Board, if she has further political aspirations, her vote yesterday to expose our youngest learners to pedagogical poison should bury those aspirations. Her vote should be enough to ensure that her current term is her last hurrah on Louisiana’s political stage. It should also be a potent reminder of the importance of electing a conservative as Governor of Louisiana who will appoint BESE members who will join and support Superintendent Brumley in rejecting woke ideology once and for all.

J. Christopher Alexander
Louisiana Citizen Advocacy Group
www.lacag.org