A student transformation from behind grade level to scholar-athlete
A few years back, I did what any reasonable parent would do after their kids came home from Chicago schools quoting Che Guevara and rattling off gender theory jargon that would give Judith Butler a headache: I pulled the plug after realizing the K-12 curriculum was infected with a mind virus embedded in the very standards and teacher education.
If you’re a Chicago parent sick of the status quo, you can pull your kids out and give them a real education — one that’s about justice, not “social justice.” Heck, you can even make it work while staying in the city if you’re brave enough and willing to drive a few miles out of state.
The results? Let’s just say I’m no longer the dad defending his kids against charges of racism for questioning whether BLM was anti-Semitic from the start (yes, this happened at a Chicago private school and Lane Tech).
What I learned yanking my kids out is that the obsession with race, gender, and all manners of victimology and suicidal empathy at these schools has sucked away time for academic excellence and building children of sound moral character.
My now 8th grader, formerly a student at a Chicago private school that worked its way into the “wrong headlines” for going woke, has gone from academic roadkill (pushed along and told he was “doing fine”) to a full-blown scholar-athlete. This is the same kid who, upon leaving his so-called elite private school, tested behind grade level in math and reading and was admitted to his new school on academic probation.
Fast forward to today, and he’s not just catching up — he’s crushing it. Three years on, my son is safely in the top quartile in state assessments, playing high school sports this spring (despite being in middle school), and learning what real accountability looks like.
This turnaround makes you wonder if I should mail his old teachers a few copies of Math for Dummies — or maybe just leave them a Niche review: “Your curriculum pairs well with unemployment.”
The biggest surprise outside of centering academics rather than “decentering whiteness?”
His new school doesn’t just run on top test scores and a killer cheer squad (both of which it has in spades). It runs on actual community.
They convinced him to join sports he didn’t like just to help round out the teams. Try that in Chicago, and you’d be hit with a lawsuit for “cultural appropriation” for putting a muscular white kid on the basketball court or soccer field (for a second sport) where he might take the starting spot from a black or Hispanic child who ranks higher on the spinning intersectional pinwheel of death.
And the cherry on top? He’s held down an after-school and weekend job for over a year and spends his free time at the gym. Why? Because in an academic setting where accountability and self-improvement are the bedrock values, teaching kids to loaf around while blaming capitalism and white people for all of society’s ills doesn’t cut it.
Where my kids go to school now, pursuing excellence and being on time isn’t a sign of white supremacy (as parents and teachers are taught in Chicago schools during DEI training sessions). It’s simply the expectation in a place where AP Calculus, AP Physics, and AP Chemistry — which my senior is taking, despite being behind in math when he left Chicago schools and having to catch up over multiple years — aren’t considered microaggressions because achievement is supposedly synonymous with systemic racism.
Rather success is celebrated, not vilified, when you leave Chicago schools and put your kids in a colorblind vs. color-fetishized academic environment.
Here, advanced math and science classes are seen as rites of passage for everyone willing to put in the hours. And let’s be honest, spending a few late nights grappling with differential equations is a lot more character-building than attending another affinity group meeting on the evils of punctuality.
Pulling my younger kids out of Chicago schools not only saved their education and prevented the woke mind virus from infecting their neurons, it also nuked the whole “drug dealer chic” aesthetic right out of their lives. Gone are the Stizzy-fueled Secret Santas and whispered cafeteria debates over the pros and cons of edibles versus spliffs that took place at Lane Tech, where my oldest graduated.
Now their backpacks are packed with creatine, kombucha, and maybe a stray Gatorade (sorry, RFK Jr., I’m still working on that).
And so here we are. My kids are thriving at two new schools (one day, one boarding) where discipline still matters and teachers don’t consult Ibram X. Kendi for their syllabi, and the only “activist” around is a guy picketing the price of livestock feed at Tractor Supply near the playing fields.
Contrast this with Chicago, where CPS teachers proudly wear Palestinian keffiyehs in the classroom, teachers lecture students and parents on their “original sin” of insufficient melanin, and social justice trumps just about everything else — including basic literacy.
It’s not just a different education — it’s a different world. While things may improve in Washington, meaningful changes will take years in Chicago’s private and public schools, and the momentum is still in the wrong direction.
DEI, mediocrity, excuses, anti-Semitism, anti-racism, wokeness, and gender-bending LGGBBDTTQQUIAAAAPPP2SNBGVGQGNC++ brainwashing are so embedded at the core that the Socratic method and academic excellence seem like ancient relics in a city and state that have forgotten that student achievement and character development can never be supplanted by affinity groups and struggle sessions.
My family is living proof that it’s never too late to make the change for your kids’ future — even if you want to or must remain in Chicago or Illinois for other reasons.
If you’re on the fence, given the hurdles involved, ask yourself two things: what’s the risk of losing your child’s brain to the progressive zombie virus if they stay — particularly important with daughters, who are more susceptible to it? And finally, what’s the opportunity cost of sticking with mediocrity instead of pursuing academic excellence?
After all, while DEI may teach your kids to deconstruct capitalism or change their gender, it’s not going to help them construct a future where they can pay the rent, let alone buy the block (real estate or BTC, for that matter!)
J.D. Busch is an entrepreneur, investor and essayist.
