From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Nick Pope

The Democratic Party is pushing to increase “literacy” on climate change-related material in America’s schools while students are performing poorly with respect to actual literacy.

The party’s education platform mentions the importance of “climate literacy” for American K-12 students several times, emphasizing the purported need for students to be able to understand and interpret information relating to climate change. Meanwhile, the average reading score for both fourth and eighth grade students in 2022 had fallen by three points relative to 2019, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

“We will equip students with the knowledge and skills to understand complex scientific issues, counter the rising tide of denialism by promoting environmental and climate literacy, and reverse the Trump Administration’s cuts to the National Environmental Education Act,” the platform states.

Student Test Scores Continue To Plummet Despite Hundreds Of Billions In Pandemic Aid For Educationhttps://t.co/ouLox3xLDN

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 24, 2024

Less than 50% of all fourth grade students were able to read at or above the standard for proficiency in 2022, with only 17% of black students and 21% of Latino pupils meeting the mark, according to the NAEP.

The U.S. is seeing “staggering numbers of children, especially children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, without fundamental literacy skills,” Allison Socol, the vice president of policy, practice and research for the Education Trust, wrote earlier this year.

NAEP data “consistently” demonstrates that about two in every three American students cannot read proficiently, and about 40% of all students are effectively non-readers, according to an analysis published by Scientific American in September 2023.

Notably, the Democratic platform mentions conventional literacy just once, while “climate literacy” is mentioned on two occasions. The word “writing” or its cognates do not appear at all in the platform.

The emphasis on “climate literacy” aligns with a broader push by Democrats to make education more climate-friendly, even as many American students are struggling in the classroom.

For example, the Biden-Harris administration is spending big to replace existing school bus fleets with electric models in order to bring down emissions and fight climate change. While Vice President Kamala Harris has promoted the program as beneficial for students, it could end up lining the pockets of Chinese manufacturers and is potentially susceptible to waste, fraud and abuse, according to reports by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of the Inspector General.

In June, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) — a labor organization that is closely allied with the Democratic Party — issued a list of climate-related demands as a part of their contract negotiations with the city, even though educational achievement statistics for the city’s schools are lackluster, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. CTU’s demands included calling for the removal of all lead pipes in school buildings, the replacement of windows that do not open, and the creation of a “climate champion” position at each school to organize climate-related activities.

In 2022, Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s Department of Health released a five-part climate curriculum for students that suggested it may be best for students to rely on “emotions” rather than “rational thinking” when engaging with climate change-related subject matter.

Moreover, pandemic-era school shutdowns — a policy pushed widely by Democrats at the time — have also resulted in significant learning loss that is continuing to disrupt educational outcomes, The New York Times found in March.

Representatives for the Democratic National Committee did not respond to a request for comment.

Featured Image: Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Jason Hopkins

The Biden-Harris administration on Monday boasted about the recent reduction in illegal border crossings, despite the latest immigration data also showing hundreds of thousands of migrants have been allowed into the U.S. via different pathways created by the White House.

Since President Joe Biden announced an executive order in June limiting the number of unlawful crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border, encounters between ports of entry have fallen by over 50%, according to a press release by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). However, the press release also revealed that more than half a million foreign nationals have been flown in via a mass parole program, and nearly a million others have scheduled appointments with the U.S. government in hopes of entering.

“CBP continues to enforce the Securing the Border interim final rule and deliver strong consequences for illegal entry, and encounters between ports of entry remain at their lowest level in years,” acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller boasted in the CBP press release.

Nearly 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans have been flown into the country and granted parole under an initiative launched by the Biden-Harris administration known as the CHNV program, according to the CBP press release. Additionally, around 813,000 migrants have scheduled appointments to present at ports of entry via the CBP One app since its introduction in January 2023.

Border Patrol agents encountered roughly 58,000 migrants attempting to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border in August, according to the latest CBP data. This number marks the first uptick in illegal crossings at the southern border since February, in which there had been a steady decline every month.

Initially launched for Venezuelans in October 2022, CHNV was later expanded in January 2023 to include Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians. The parole program grants foreign nationals two year authorization into the U.S. and work permits, provided they have not previously entered the country illegally and pass other vetting processes.

The Department of Homeland Security had temporarily paused CHNV in August after reports found massive fraud, but then quickly resumed the mass parole program just a few weeks later. An internal audit discovered a litany of red flags, such as over 100,000 CHNV forms being completed by fewer than 4,000 applicants and Social Security numbers by sponsors belonging to a deceased individual, among other discrepancies.

House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green has previously referred to CHNV and the CBP One app as a “massive shell game” that allows otherwise inadmissible aliens to enter the country lawfully in lieu of crossing the border illegally.

The administration also noted that, since Biden’s executive order went into effect in June, DHS has deported more than 131,000 foreign nationals to over 140 countries and nearly tripled the percentage of noncitizens processed for expedited removal.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.