As noted in the graphic above, State Rep. Janet Yang Rohr, who represents Naperville, has filed several bills that require certain curricula to be covered in our K-12 schools. Many of these bills are on subjects that can be open to political bias, are age-inappropriate, unnecessary, or all of the above.
Yang-Rohr is arguably one of the more educated members of the General Assembly, and you would think she would know better, with a bachelor’s degree in English and Economics from Northwestern and an MBA from the University of Chicago. She works in the financial industry. One would think she would know the kids need financial literacy classes, not digital citizenship classes—whatever that is.
As for climate change education – that is open to political bias ad nauseam. Laurie Higgins spills a lot of words digging into Yang-Rohr’s bill in her article below under The School Corner.
From indoctrination to just bizarre, Yang-Rohr has other bills that make no sense.
She filed legislation (HB4273) that gives schools grants if they change the starting time for grades 6-12 to after 8 am. Why do we need to subsidize an individual school district’s decision on when to start the school day?
HB4625, Digital Literacy, requires that students be instructed in digital citizenship skills, media literacy, and AI literacy beginning in elementary school. Yang-Rohr represents Clifford Johnson School in Warrenville, where only 45% of the students read at grade level. Maybe she should work towards ensuring these elementary students can all read first before teaching them digital citizenship—whatever that is.
HB5406 is another JYR bill. That bill penalizes school athletic teams if they exceed practice limits. I’m fairly certain there are already penalties for doing such.
As I wrote last week, though, Yang-Rohr is trying to hide her vote in 2021 to decriminalize fentanyl by now filing a bill mandating fentanyl education beginning in 6th grade.
Yang-Rohr is just another example of a graduate from elite institutions who assumes she knows what children need to be educated on. If her bills pass, Illinois students will be even more indoctrinated.
As suspected, Democrats are asking for migrant money for schools. State Rep. Fred Crespo has filed HB2822 which requests a supplemental appropriation of $35 million to schools for “new arrivals.” The request goes back to July 1, 2023, meaning schools can request money from this pot to pay for expenses related to children whose parents illegally brought them into the U.S