The statewide teachers union for the state of New Jersey has been airing a shocking ad that labeled the state’s concerned parents as “extremists.”
The New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) put out the insane ad this past Monday. As part of the ad, which one social media user highlighted was then still airing, parents worried about the materials of the curriculum in the classrooms for their children were just outright “extremists” trying to attack New Jersey schools in order to score political brownie points. republicans throughout the state responded quickly and fiercely to the insane ad, issuing harsh criticism at the union for attempting to demonize the parents of the state.
“We don’t agree on everything in New Jersey,” stated the narrator at the start of the 15-second ad. It starts out showing a series of pictures with the captions “Pork Roll” and “Taylor Ham,” seemingly a reference to a currently popular cultural debate raging throughout New Jerseyans. “But we all agree that our kids deserve a world-class education. So when extremists start attacking our schools, that’s not who we are.”
Next, the add sports a series of black-and-white photos of parents protesting at various school board meetings, with a pair of headlines: an article from NJ.com titled “Some NJ schools under siege,” which is about parents trying to kick out books sporting explicit sexual and LGBTQ content from mandatory school curricula; and another one from Patch.com entitled “Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Introduced By NJ State Senator,” which is about the new parents’ rights bill that was set up this past may within the state legislature. “People who only want to fight to score political points should take that somewhere else,” the ad concludes.
Parents’ rights organizations, along with Republicans, called out the ad and the NJEA for the outright slandering of parents.
“If protecting our children from Phil Murphy’s insane sex ed standards is ‘extreme,’ then we wear this as a badge of honor, @NJEA,” explained the New Jersey Republican Party via social media this past Tuesday.
“Hey, @NJEA. Concerned parents who show up at school board meetings are not ‘extremists.’ THEY’RE PARENTS!” tweeted out the Republican caucus of the State Assembly as a response to the ad.
Ed Durr, a Republican State Senator who authored the recent Parents’ Rights bill and spoke out about the ad, heavily criticized the NJEA as entirely “out of touch” to the worried of parents about explicit sexual content in public schools.
“Despite what the NJEA says, parents are not extremists for expressing concerns about curriculum mandates or wanting to have a voice in their children’s education,” explained Durr via a Tuesday statement. “It’s another example of the NJEA being out of touch with parents and totally tone deaf to their concerns that sensitive topics such as sex education and gender identity are not appropriate for young kids. Frankly, the NJEA is taking an extreme position by attacking parents instead of listening to them.”
“Apparently the NJEA doesn’t see the irony of telling concerned parents to ‘take that somewhere else’ when they vehemently oppose school choice that would give parents that option,” Durr went on to say. “They seem to have forgotten that our public schools exist to serve parents and their children, not the far-left politics of the union’s leadership. They shouldn’t be shocked that parents who feel ignored and marginalized are finally pushing back to right the ship.”
“Defaming parents as ‘extremists’ for standing up for their children is right out of Merrick Garland and Randi Weingarten’s playbook,” expressed the executive director of the parents’ rights organization Building Education for Students Together, Laura Zorc, to the Daily Caller. “New Jersey’s parents deserve better than this NJEA slander – standing up for your children is NOT a political point, it is a parent’s responsibility. The NJEA should be ashamed for pretending they care more about children than their parents.”
