Portrait of an Agenda

Portrait of a Graduate hell mouth

By Gretchen Garrity

The Hell Mouth that is our education system is fast swallowing the rights of parents and the well being of children in a swill of globalist agendas designed to usher in a compliant and submissive population of workers.

And local schools in Christian and Greene counties are implementing these agendas, including the Ozark and Nixa school districts, and Springfield Public Schools.

I will concentrate on one program, the Portrait of a Graduate, as an illustration of what is happening. However, there are dozens of such programs that have been inserted into schools through curriculum, teaching methods, counseling programs, even health programs.

Here is one explanation of Portrait of a Graduate (and you can find lots more at the link):

"Originating with the non-profit organization Battelle for Kids, and shaped by transformational education partners like KnowledgeWorks, POG programs have been adopted by states and districts nationwide, all using similar terminology geared towards a single vision:

• Collective goals for graduates
• Mindset requirements for student “success”
• Equitable practices embedded in schools

The Portrait of a Graduate framework is fundamentally incompatible with the classical liberal idea that “hopes, dreams, and aspirations” for a student solely belong to the student and his or her family, not controlled by a “community” or “collective vision” six degrees removed from the student."

The amount of private, non-governmental organizations that suck the lifeblood out of local public schools is mind-boggling. These groups work hand-in-glove with government agencies, like the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, to implement globalist agendas. These agendas are presented as new methods, new ways of educating children, even the transformation of the education system, and include a plethora of training, resources, legal aid, consulting, and so forth for teachers, administrators, and students.

For instance, here's Panorama Education, a website that helps schools implement Portrait of a Graduate. Data collection via surveys and other means is featured, according to Higher Ground, a website focused on exposing the systems that are transforming our institutions:

“Panorama Education’s website shows how they build their behavioral surveys and data collection around Portrait of a Graduate. (Panorama was founded by US AG Merrick Garland’s son-in-law—the reason that Garland went after parents that oppose Critical Race Theory at local school boards).” -- Higher Ground

These organizations are very clever in presenting to their public school customers a competency and confidence in their expertise. Materials and training are professionally produced and thorough. 

Your tax dollars are paying for it all.

As many others have asserted, there is a particular cooperation that has happened at the highest levels of business and government to implement an overarching program of gaining control of children in every aspect of their being. From intrusive data collection to mind-bending indoctrination of children into an authoritarian control grid, the globalist agenda has overwhelmed local schools.

EXPOSING PORTRAIT OF A GRADUATE

From: Ozark School District

“Portrait of a Graduate is being used to fundamentally transform the purpose of US education—shifting curriculum, assessment, school accountability and data collection away from academics and towards Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).”  -- Higher Ground

While your local school district touts the Portrait of a Graduate (hereafter referred to as POG) program as a positive and exciting learning avenue for students, it is in reality a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) system. It indoctrinates students to be flexible, teachable, resilient, collaborative, dependable, etc., to ideologies like Critical Theory, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and other Marxist-type ways of thinking and being.

Parents take the words at face value, not understanding that students are being taught a form of Groupthink. In the Ozark School District, POG has been implemented at all grade levels--K-12. According to the school district, "In 2020, we gathered members of our community and asked what character traits are important for an Ozark graduate. The discussion resulted in nine traits we have embedded within our curriculum to ensure our graduates are prepared for success."

The nine traits that the Ozark School District supposedly chose after gathering the community together, is almost exactly what the promulgators of this globalist program suggest on their websites, and is remarkably similar to most other school districts that implement POG. See the graphic above.

PUSHING POG ON THE SCHOOL BOARD LEVEL

Also in Ozark, the administration often has a Portrait of a Graduate recognitions program at the monthly school board meetings. A child from each grade level is chosen to appear and receive a certificate for their adherence to the trait of the month. A teacher or other adult describes to the board how that child has exemplified the trait during their school day, and why they deserve to be recognized.

It goes on for sometimes close to an hour. This is part of the schtick of POG, highlighting the children in a public setting. It reinforces the program not only for students, but parents and indeed the school board. Of course this type of recognition does not belong in the monthly business meeting of a school district. It is for show. And it works, unfortunately. It is one reason why the public portion of the board meetings can stretch three or more hours.

MOVING ON TO NIXA

The Nixa public school district has this to say about their Portrait of an Eagle:

"To ensure our portrait was not just a piece an unused document, we chose to go through a comprehensive process similar to our CSIP when developing our Portrait of an Eagle. We worked with Battelle for Kids, a national not-for-profit organization committed to collaborating with school systems and communities to realize the power and promise of 21st-century learning. In the fall of 2022, we assembled a design team consisting of a diverse group of community members, families, students, and educators. In all, our design team consisted of around 70-80 members, with one-third being students. Our design team was driven by our leadership team, which was made up of building and district leadership."

And guess what Nixa schools came up with: Critical Thinkers, Confident, Adaptable, Empathetic, Effective Communicators.

The organization that worked with the Nixa school district, Battelle Kids, is linked with KnowledgeWorks, a Bill Gates-funded organization that promotes SEL. (As an aside, be on the lookout for anything like "competencies," or "competency-based education." These go hand-in-hand with what Battelle Kids and the other NGOs are SEL-ling to us. Because the public school system is imploding via poor student outcomes, the focus has become "soft skills," "competencies," "attitudes," and "values.")

From: Nixa School District

 

 

 

 

HOW ABOUT THE SPRINGFIELD PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

Here's what SPS has to say about their POG choice of attributes:

"Over the past few years, Springfield Public Schools officials asked a diverse group of stakeholders to come together to identify the community's goals for all students. The goal was to create the District's Portrait of a Graduate. The stakeholders included parents, teachers, students, business leaders, representatives from higher education, and area non-profits...The group identified six core attributes all students will need to be successful post-graduation. The attributes include academically empowered, engaged citizen, collaborator, communicator, creative, and critical thinker. Once the core attributes were identified, the process of building a platform in which students can showcase their work was started."

And just to show readers that POG is not only for students, the SPS also is anticipating a Portrait of an Educator. The indoctrination is deep and wide:

"Portrait of an Educator empowers teachers to demonstrate the skills necessary to support students becoming contributing community members. More information on Portrait of an Educator is coming soon." 

GLOBAL, NOT LOCAL

None of this is a local effort, other than to gather and guide along any area "stakeholders" as the agenda is implemented. According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, Emotional, Learning (CASEL), "A recent scan of employer surveys and job listings confirmed that the most in-demand skills, such as teamwork and adaptability, are high-level social and emotional skills (Yoder et al., 2020)."  

Organizations like CASEL, which are integral to helping implement SEL in schools nationwide, spend a lot of time focusing on what employers want in a worker, rather than graduating students who are independent-minded and can read, write, and do math well. They are blowing smoke in the eyes of parents, and encouraging administrators and staff to collude with organizations like the World Economic Forum, and UNESCO. 

They pay lip service to "critical thinking," but the overall focus is on traits that allow groups like CASEL and the WEF to inject the SEL agenda.

 Like many other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), CASEL is active politically:

"The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and Committee for Children applaud the FY2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies bill, which provides essential funding for K-12 education, including a Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Initiative to support SEL and “whole child” approaches to education and other investments that support students’ academic, social, and emotional learning. CASEL, Committee for Children, and the Leading with SEL Coalition sent a letter to appropriators calling for investments in SEL. The SEL and Whole Child Initiative..."

The UN's educational arm, UNESCO is busy with SEL, too:

"At UNESCO MGIEP, we recognize the urgent need for Social Emotional Learning (SEL) to be mainstreamed into education systems to transform education and shape a future that is geared towards providing peace and human flourishing. SEL can be described as learning that allows all learners to identify and navigate emotions, practice mindful engagement and exhibit prosocial behaviour for human flourishing towards a peaceful and sustainable planet."

The confident, earnest, and concerned verbiage is typical of all these groups. Here UNESCO promotes SEL in order to implement social justice in Columbia of all places:

"Discriminatory mindsets are the root cause of human rights violations and injustices across boundaries. Inequality has long-lasting consequences for individuals and communities.Post-pandemic, mental health challenges, especially for vulnerable children, are crucial. Our education and health systems must address this need. To tackle these urgent problems, SEL for wellbeing and social justice must be taught in classrooms. Think Equal is a socio-emotional education programme for Early Childhood that promotes prosocial behaviors and reduces antisocial behaviors."

This is a global plan. It is not and never has been local. Our local school districts are either profoundly ignorant or willing participants in this grand scheme to bring authoritarian control to our local communities. Neither is preferable.

Here is DESE's "Portrait of a Gifted Learner." Sound familiar?

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Parents, grandparents and taxpayers must get involved, get educated about these programs, and petition their local school boards. Get your school board and school administration up-to-speed. Give them the information you have learned about. Don't let them tell you that POG is harmless. There are plenty of links here to get educated about SEL's POG. Attend your monthly school board meeting and speak about POG. Educate the board. Make them accountable through publicizing what is going on and asking them to drop SEL programs from their school curriculum.

You trust your children to be taught reading, writing, arithmetic, history, science and so on. To find out that they are being taught instead how to be dependable, adaptable, and empathetic so they can exhibit social skills that employers and authoritarians desire, is not what taxpayers and parents are paying for. 

It is, in fact, intolerable.