re: Students walk out of Utah middle school to protest ‘furries’

This nonsense is distracting and detrimental to the learning environment. Those of us that are middle age look at this and simply say "Why doesn't the school just shut this shite down?"

I have spent my career in K-12 and higher education administration, let me offer some thoughts:

1. No Child Left Behind was well-meaning, but has been a complete failure. We brought the good students down to average, and the average students down to poor. The exceptional remain exceptional, but there is another issue.

2. Social media has spread what was once isolated thoughts into the mainstream. There's a girl in Minnesota that thinks she's a mermaid? Use to this was a local deal - now she can get a million views on TikTok.

3. Students have been taught that average=bad, when most are average at best. This encourages them to stand out. It's a problem that has destroyed youth sports, but has given a rise to dumb ideas and movements like furries.

4. The cultural shift. Until the early 2000s, it was uncommon for a student to be openly gay (Don't Ask, Don't Tell). Then mass media flipped and it became "cool" to be gay (Think the show "Glee"). But the need to stand out still existed, and when being gay wasn't;t enough (SCOTUS gay marriage decision), then the transgender movement went from the dark allies of major cities to the college campuses, then to high schools, and then middle and even elementary schools.

5. Add to all of this is society has become hyper sexualized. Where we had to sneak magazines from shady older kids, now kids can just pull porn up on their phones. I remember in college watching the movie "Kids." It was a look at inner-city sex habits of teenagers. I was floored. Now those same ideals are in small town America but exponentially worse.

6. Our schools have been taken over by communists. Doesn't matter where you live - you probably have 10-15 communists in your public school. And they are the ones crafting curriculum, policies and procedures and running for school board. The communist understands that the majority is not needed - they just need power, and they are getting it in the schools. Years of discouraging people from becoming a teacher (Teachers don't get paid enough, it's a tough job, etc.) and our collegiate schools of education becoming joke degrees have led to the worst of society choosing education as a career.

7. And that's why you have situations like this, or idiot college kids protesting Israel. There are very few adults willing to fight it, because deep down they support the disruption of traditional values, the nuclear family, and normalcy. Communism doesn't thrive in a happy society - everyone needs to be miserable. And when they get the power they desire, the furries, as well as a ton of other "useful idiots," will be lined up against a wall.