Shortly after the presidential election, The New York Times published a lengthy piece analyzing President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. In the piece, Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan acknowledged that Vice President Kamala Harris’ stance on transgender issues, highlighted by Trump, made her “look like a lightweight” and “unserious.”
At one point, former President Bill Clinton urged Harris to address the transgender issue. She did not. This was one of the issues that cost her the election, the Times noted.
This week, parental rights group Parents Defending Education released new polling on several issues facing schools in 2025, including transgender ideology, antisemitism, among many others. The results show that American parents overwhelmingly reject this type of woke ideology in their children’s schools.
The poll, conducted by CRC Research, sampled 1,000 parents with children 18 years old or younger in their household between Dec. 12-18, 2024 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.10 percent.
The results show that 48 percent of parents agree (and 50 percent disagree) that the U.S. Department of Education is appropriately using their resources to help advance the education of students across America.
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Ninety percent of parents agree that focusing on core subject areas, such as math, reading, writing, science and social studies, would improve the quality of public education
Only 21 percent of parents think K-12 schools are doing a good job at addressing and preventing antisemitism and Jewish discrimination.
The majority, 75 percent, of parents oppose teachers, counselors, school nurses, classroom aides, coaches or administration withholding information about a child’s gender identity from parents. Broken down, this includes 88 percent of Republican parents, 72 percent of independent parents, and 58 percent of Democratic parents surveyed.
When it comes to allowing transgenders to participate in women’s sports, 78 percent of parents surveyed said they oppose biological males, who identify as females, being allowed to participate on girls’ sports teams.
Broken down by political party, 86 percent of Republican parents, 80 percent of independent parents, and 60 percent of Democratic parents oppose biological males, who identify as females, being allowed to participate on girls’ sports teams.
On the same note, 77 percent of parents oppose biological males, who identify as females, being allowed to use female bathrooms and locker rooms and vice versa. This includes 92 percent of Republican parents, 75 percent of independent parents, and 58 percent of Democratic parents oppose biological males.
“These results highlight that parents are dissatisfied with a number of elements of the modern American education system – and that there is broad-based consensus that it’s time for schools to get back to basics. For far too long, federal bureaucrats have sacrificed the needs of students and families in order to appease unions’ and activists’ insatiable demands for money and power. January 20th can’t come soon enough,” PDE President Nicki Neily said.
“This poll shows overwhelming opposition to school personnel withholding information from parents about their child’s gender identity at school. This matters because the policies propagated by activist groups, the National School Boards Association and teachers’ unions all allow for —and often require—the deliberate deception of parents by school staff if that is what the minor child wants. It’s refreshing to see even more confirmation that people think this ubiquitous trend of facilitating gender transitions behind the backs of parents is complete madness and needs to stop,” PDE Director of Outreach Erika Sanzi added.
