Month: October 2022

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UN 2030 Agenda (Part Five): Education and the Federalism Speed Bump

To recap briefly: In 2015, all members of the United Nations, including the United States, signed off on a program called “Agenda 2030,” which includes 17 “Sustainable Development Goals” (the “SDGs”). (For previous posts about Agenda 2030 and the SDGs, go here, here, here, and here.)

SDG 4 concerns education. It directs all nations to educate children and adults in “sustainable development;” as “global citizens;” and with an emphasis on changing “values and attitudes.” However, the United States, by its very structure, impedes the globalist agenda.

The Founding Fathers were not naïve about human nature. They knew tyranny is always just around the corner, and the government of the new United States had to be able to restrain itself. As James Madison wrote in 1788, in Federalist 51,

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. . . . It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

According to Madison, “all hands” (presumably, both Federalist and Anti-Federalist alike) agreed that a “partition of power” was “essential to the preservation of liberty.” (Emphasis added.) Further, “[i]n a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government[.]” However, the United States, as a “compound republic,” would have even more safeguards because the States themselves are sovereign:

In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people.

Yes, it does! Just ask those in the Federal government trying to track US performance under SDG 4 and its related “targets.”

SDG 4 Monitoring Falters in K-12

The Executive Branch of the Federal government maintains a website to track US progress on the SDGs, including target 4.7.1, which looks at the

Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development, including gender equality and human rights, are mainstreamed at all levels in (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment

The reviewers at the sdg.data.gov site (“An official website of the Office of Management and Budget, the General Services Administration, and the US Office of Science and Technology Policy” – aka,  “How many agencies does it take to review an SDG?”) appear frustrated by both this SDG target and US federalism (emphasis added):

The SDG 4.7.1 concept is difficult to define and measure, and it involves a wide array of different concepts and processes that are difficult to reduce to a statistical indicator. Particular with countries with federal education systems, such as the United States, there is no way to measure this indicator with available data even if the concepts were clear. Local and state agencies are responsible for determining student curriculum. Individual schools of teacher education would set the curriculum for their programs.

The sdg.data.gov evaluators (writing in October 2016) looked for a solution to this “round peg in a square hole” problem. They thought they had found one in the student assessment test known as the “PISA.”

The Leaning Tower of PISA

The “Programme for International Student Assessment” (“PISA”) is a test created by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”), another multinational NGO to which the US belongs (and for which the US contributes roughly one-fifth of the budget). The PISA is administered every three years and allows nations to compare the performance of their 15-year olds in reading, math, science, and certain other metrics. In 2018, PISA introduced the newly-developed “global competence” assessment, “inspired by” SDG 4 (OECD; Schleicher introduction), and co-created by the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Sdg.data.gov “strongly recommended” that US policy makers “adopt this metric, rather than proposed indicator 4.7.1” as a “potential framework” for gauging US compliance with SDG 4. This could have been a handy work-around to the federalism “problem,” because the PISA is overseen and administered throughout the country by the US Department of Education.

This potential work-around failed. “The United States . . . did not participate in the assessment of global competence” in PISA 2018, nor was this assessment part of PISA 2022 (the test having been delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic). It remains to be seen whether OECD will again try to test “global competence” in PISA 2025.

Meanwhile….

The use of PISA as a measurement tool might have hit a snag, but that doesn’t mean US supporters of “education for sustainable development” and “global citizenship education” have given up – or even display discouragement.

While it is true that, as the Federal website states, “[l]ocal and state agencies are responsible for determining student curriculum[, and i]ndividual schools of teacher education … set the curriculum for their programs”, there is widespread – and voluntary – embrace of these concepts at all levels of the US education system.

We turn our attention there next.

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A Day Late, Billions of Dollars Short

We here at Based Bytes are a day late in acknowledging United Nations Day (October 24). We should be more on the ball, especially in light of the billions of dollars the United States spends on the organization.  Noster culpa.

Please know that the UN is working hard to, in the words of the Secretary General, “rescue the Sustainable Development Goals.” Interesting word choice.

We will resume our look at the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs’ impact on education soon.

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United Nations 2030 Agenda (Part Four): SDG 4.7 — “Transforming” Education . . . and the World

The modus operandi of the United Nations is to present an impossible-to-criticize wish-list, then to act as though the impossible were somehow achievable (such as SDG 1, “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”; contra Mt. 26:11, “you always have the poor with you”). The devil, as they say, is in the details.

By their very impossibility (“Eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development“), and the fact that, like numbers counting up to infinity, there is no end to the project, the goals run cover for a radical plan to restructure our institutions, in particular, and our culture, more broadly.

This is clearly visible in the realm of education. The closer one looks, the more obvious it becomes that “sustainability” functions as a comprehensive worldview – stated otherwise, as a religion – and that the intention is to use schools as one of the primary vehicles to remake all of society. However, as we shall also see, for the master planners, the United States is a particularly tough nut to crack.

• • •

[Sustainable Development] Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Could anyone possibly object to improving lives through education? Or to the idea that you’re never too old or too young to learn? (Set aside for the time being what concepts might be buried within the terms “inclusive,” “equitable,” and “lifelong learning.”) The overall aspirations appear anodyne; the hidden agenda appears within the “targets” that support this “goal.”

While the bulk of the SDG 4 targets call for expanded educational, all-ages access to “quality” education in broadened, “equitable” ways, Target 4.7 just sounds . . . different:  

 

4.7. “By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development“

https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda (emphasis added). 

The language of this “target” raises many questions:

  • What are “the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development” (which sounds like activism in the classroom)?
  • What is “education for sustainable development”?
  • What is meant by a “sustainable lifestyle”?
  • What is “global citizenship”?
  • How does the UN propose to shape students to in turn shape “culture [to contribute] to sustainable development”?

If “sustainability” is starting to sound suspiciously like a secular religion, and “global citizenship” sounds like a call for one-world government, there is a reason. The roots of these concepts run deep at the UN.

Brave UNESCO World

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is the UN infrastructure designed to promote its more “soft power” means of attaining heaven-on-earth. It  was created in 1945 in the immediate aftermath of World War II to “bring people together and strengthen the intellectual and moral solidarity of humankind, through mutual understanding and dialogue between cultures.” Its “clear vision” is that “to achieve lasting peace, economic and political agreements among States are not enough.” https://www.unesco.org/en/history 

Some families have an outsized impact on world affairs. In the Twentieth Century, the Huxleys of Britain were such a family. Physiologist Andrew Huxley won the 1963 Nobel Prize in medicine.  Writer and philosopher Aldous, in 1932, had published Brave New World, one of the two premier English-language dystopian novels of the twentieth century (along with George Orwell’s 1984). And, most importantly for our purposes, in the years between those singular accomplishments by his brothers, Julian Huxley became the first Director-General of UNESCO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huxley_family

In 1946 in a pamphlet called  UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy, Julian Huxley called on UNESCO to “stimulate the quest . . . for a world philosophy, a unified and unifying background of thought for the modern world.” [p. 41; emphasis added] In fact, Huxley had long advocated for a one-world, secular religion of “evolutionary humanism”.

Thus, the new Director-General sought “a single common pool of experience, awareness, and purpose” for humanity. [p. 17] He believed that such a “united . . . tradition” was the key to mankind’s progress and “that the best and only certain way of securing this will be through political unification.” [p. 13; emphasis added] Therefore, the seeds of a new, secular religion – given form in our time as “sustainability” – and of the push toward “global [as opposed to national] citizenship” were sown at UNESCO from its inception.

This “utopian world-scale political ideal,” though its popularity has waxed and waned since the publication of Huxley’s pamphlet, appears alive and well in Agenda 2030, and in particular in UNESCO’s “Education 2030 Framework for Action,” an initiative to shepherd the implementation of SDG 4. Nevertheless, while the central planners have a grand vision for all our lives (and, judging by their written output, appear to get paid by the word), they can’t always get what they want.

• • •

We Will Get It Right “This Time”

SDG 4 is far from the UN’s only recent education master plan. Before that, there were the education prongs of the MDGs (“Millennium Development Goals”), as well as the EFA (“Education for All”) initiative. Both sets of goals set 2015 as their target completion date, and none was completed on time (though the UN claims the MDGs were responsible for meaningful improvements on numerous anti-poverty metrics in the developing world).

Undaunted, in the Education 2030 Framework for Action, UNESCO member states strode forward “with a sense of urgency” to implement their new, global, and “transformative” plan. Education 2030 Framework, p. 7. Indeed, “[e]very effort must be made to guarantee that this time the goal and targets are achieved.” [p. 22.] Not only that – these goals are even more ambitious than the previous, unrealized goals. In a companion guide to the framework, UNESCO says, 

SDG4 therefore pursues this unfinished education agenda, but also goes beyond. . . . SDG4 continues the EFA focus on quality basic education for all and broadens the agenda further to include concern for equitable access to post-basic education. . . . What is also new to SDG4 is the focus on the relevance of learning outcomes both for the world of work, as well as for citizenship in a global and interconnected world.

Unpacking Sustainable Development Goal 4: Education 2030 Guide, p. 9 (emphasis added). 

The Education 2030 Guide also repeats the definitions used in the overall agenda, and (of course) generates some new acronyms. “Sustainable development” is viewed across “three dimensions – economic, social and environmental”. And the sustainability “agenda” asserts “a universality of principles (human rights),  [and a] universality of reach (focus on equity and inclusion)[.]” [p. 10] As for the acronyms, education for sustainable development is now “ESD.” Global citizenship education is now “GCED”. [p. 14]

SDG 4 Intrudes FAR Beyond Literacy and Numeracy

According to the guide, ESD and GCED can provide people with education that is

relevant, with a focus on both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of learning. [Via ESD and GCED, “citizens” can acquire the] knowledge, skills, values and attitudes required . . . to lead productive lives[.]

[p. 14, emphasis added.] Linger on that statement for a moment. The UN has its sights set on “transforming” education, from near-cradle to grave, now to include college, university, and vocational training. It also seeks to “transform” the entire global population’s “values and attitudes,” with a focus that includes “non-cognitive aspects of learning” – a.k.a., social-emotional learning, or “SEL.” (We will explore the centrality of SEL to SDG 4 – and to the entirety of the progressive education agenda – in future posts.)

What hubris. 

Whither the United States?

The United States has had an on-again, off-again relationship with UNESCO. At the time of the adoption of the Education 2030 documents, the US was not a voting member. It is currently listed on the UNESCO website as a “Non member.” 

Still, that does not mean that UNESCO cannot promote SDG 4 within the US. After all, the US government in the Obama years “enthusiastically” supported the adoption of Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (as we saw in Part One), and at least a few members of Congress are SDG champions (as we saw in Part Two). So, what does the organization’s advocacy look like in the United States? Have schools, quietly or explicitly, embraced “ESD,” or “GCED?” And has the federal government done anything to implement SDG 4?

Stay tuned.

Agenda 2030 Part One, Part Two, Part Three

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United Nations 2030 Agenda (Part Three): From Ecology to “Equity”

As we have seen in Part One  and Part Two about the United Nations 2030 Agenda, billions of dollars and untold hours have been (and continue to be) spent to develop and promote the “SDGs,” the UN’s “Sustainable Development Goals.” In one sense, the SDGs are like any standard, corporate strategic plan: to work efficiently, you have to know what you are working toward.

Looked at more closely, however, . .  well, the UN’s red undies are showing. Maybe this is inevitable since the UN’s entire existence is premised on collective action. The questions become: What does the UN mean by “Sustainable”? And, how does the 2030 Agenda affect what’s happening in real life, where you live?  The answers might be somewhat surprising (or, on second thought, maybe not).

The Brundtland Report

The UN has been talking about “sustainability” for decades. In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development, an independent UN body, issued the report, “Our Common Future” (known as the “Brundtland Report” after the chairperson of the Commission). The Brundtland Report sought to meld concern for the environment with the need for world-wide economic development, with particular attention given to developing nations (from the” Chairman’s Foreword”):

Many critical survival issues are related to uneven development, poverty, and population growth. They all place unprecedented pressures on the planet’s lands, waters, forests, and other natural resources, not least in the developing countries. The downward spiral of poverty and environmental degradation is a waste of opportunities and of resources. In particular, it is a waste of human resources. These links between poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation formed a major theme in our analysis and recommendations. What is needed now is a new era of economic growth – growth that is forceful and at the same time socially and environmentally sustainable.

Thus, the Foreword sets the crisis tone (“unprecedented pressures”, “downward spiral”) and offers the way out of the crisis (“a new era of economic growth [that is] sustainable.”) Here is part of the report’s treatment of “sustainability” (Ch. 2, I, 1):

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and

the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf

Where it discusses “equity,” the report focuses on “inter-generational” equity (i.e., leaving adequate resources for future generations (Annexe I, 1)) and present-day equity (working to ensure the wealthy don’t hoard resources at the expense of the poor (Overview I, 3, ¶28)).

Though this 1987 report is not devoid of such favorite collectivist themes as wealth redistribution and population control, its primary focus is ecological. Now, however, the UN and its cheerleaders apply a more aggressive “social justice” gloss to the term “equity.”

All Aboard the (New) “Equity” Train

The western world, and especially the United States, recently has seen  an overtly leftist “equity” agenda assert itself in the workplace; in education; in entertainment; in government − in short, in every sector of society. The groups advancing the SDGs are no exception.

(For the uninitiated, “equity” does not mean “equality,” i.e., treating people equally; rather, it seeks to ensure equal outcomes in whatever realm it is applied. For a “translation [of ‘equity’] from the wokish,” go here: https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-equity/)

“Equity” proponents build off the neo-Marxist framework that sorts people into oppressors and oppressed, based on identity categories, with non-whites generally falling into the category of “oppressed” (with the notable exception of high-achieving Asians — which speaks volumes.) And while politically satisfying for its adherents, there is scant evidence that anti-poverty actions based on “an equity lens” actually improve life for the intended beneficiaries: the poor and the marginalized. https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/critical-race-theory-would-not-solve-racial-inequality-it-would-deepen-it

Which brings us to “sustainable/sustainability” in the SDGs. According to the Brookings Institution,

Today’s crises have laid bare deeply entrenched inequalities and systemic racism. The SDGs encourage policies to reach the most vulnerable first, to benefit those who have been left behind by the global economy. . . . “Sustainability” is now understood to extend beyond the environment to incorporate equity, justice, and opportunity, to ensure the long-term viability of communities.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/11/12/american-leadership-in-advancing-the-sdgs-to-achieve-equity-and-sustainability/ (Showing how thinking has changed over the years, in the Brundtland Report, the word “systemic” appears only twice, and the word “racism” not at all. The “race” the report concerns itself with most is the “arms race.”)

Part Two of our look at the 2030 Agenda touched on the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation, one of the “partners” of the SDG-force-multiplier Brookings Institution. According to the Mott Foundation’s president, “[the SDG framework] gives us a great way to look at big issues like racial injustice, poverty, education and health through a common lens, and it offers a common language to share what works.” Mott even commissioned a study “to take a fresh look at the SDGs through an equity lens [and the report] highlights how matters of racial equity are implicit throughout the SDG framework.” https://www.mott.org/news/articles/global-goals-local-solutions/ The resulting study accepts the premise that “systemic racism” lies at the core of disparate poverty rates among blacks, whites, and Hispanics in the United States, and it advocates for “racial equity-related grantmaking”. https://www.mott.org/news/publications/how-the-sustainable-development-goals-can-help-community-foundations-respond-to-covid-19-and-advance-racial-equity/

So, what are the effects of Mott’s “SDGs through an equity lens” approach on the recipients of the Foundation’s largesse? A UN Foundation/Brookings Institution report on US progress implementing the SDGs (“The State of the Sustainable Development Goals in the United States”) shines the spotlight on two grantees.

Equity in Orlando:  One Mott-funded, SDG-aligned project is “Thrive Central Florida.” https://www.mott.org/grants/central-florida-foundation-thrive-central-florida-2020-06357/ Thrive administers five separate funds to address different needs within the Central Florida community. https://cffound.org/thrive/ At least indirectly, according to the UN Foundation/Brookings document, the Thrive coalition “helped push the City [of Orlando] to create a position of Chief Equity Officer.” This is evidence, per the report, of “a sense of shared momentum to advance the SDGs through a variety of different mechanisms.” https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-state-of-the-sustainable-development-goals-in-the-united-states/ (downloadable pdf available at link). Time will tell whether the addition of a “Chief Equity Officer” to the Orlando payroll pays dividends for the poor and marginalized of that city, in keeping with the SDGs.

Bringing the SDGs and Woke-Speak to the Heartland:  In mid-July 2020, Mott gave a $50,000 grant to a group of five community foundations serving rural Kansas, the “Kansas Association of Community Foundations.” In exchange for the money, the association was to “prominently include content on the Sustainable Development Goals and their adoption by community foundations at its annual national Growing Community Foundations Conference.” https://www.mott.org/grants/kansas-association-of-community-foundations-raising-awareness-and-educating-u-s-community-foundations-on-the-sdgs-2019-05739/  The grant was made pursuant to Mott’s “Civic Society − Enhancing Community Philanthropy” interest area. Domestic grants under this branch of the program require recipients to tailor their efforts to the SDG framework. https://www.mott.org/work/civil-society/enhancing-community-philanthropy/

Then, in 2021, Mott gave the Kansas association a $300,000 grant to get down to work. https://www.mott.org/grants/?query=Kansas

A UN Foundation report on the Kansas effort reveals community leaders straining to “connect their local action to global ambitions” and to use the “common lens” and “common language” to describe their efforts (“I had never heard of the SDGs before. But essentially, you think of everything that’s a really big, hairy problem − that’s what the SDGs are all about.” “The SDGs played a big part helping us with our approach to making sure everyone can afford homes. We want to make sure that we’re making housing here [in Bird City, KS] sustainable.”) Other Kansans seemed more comfortable with woke-speak, the precise meaning of which is, unfortunately,  unclear (“Let’s build up to that systemic change.” “We’re actors and agents of change now whereas, before this project, we weren’t.”). Some praised the data-collection aspect of SDG compliance (“There has to be a data component to all this because how else are you going to measure success?”).

The report offers few details on how improvements in these rural Kansas communities are newly “sustainable.”  https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/how-5-community-foundations-in-kansas-are-bringing-the-sdgs-home/

• • •

One sector where there appears to be very little resistance to the SDGs − on the contrary, there is tremendous enthusiasm − is education. We will turn there next.

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United Nations 2030 Agenda (Part Two): Meet Some of the Force Multipliers

The United Nations has no jurisdiction to change laws or practices within the United States.

For the 2030 Agenda to have impact, decision-makers and money people, both public and private, have to sign on. And sign on they have, with enthusiasm, though with more success so far in the private sector.

Here is a look at two of the most prominent US NGOs that are aggressively pushing the 2030 Agenda/SDGs:

The Tacticians: The United Nations Foundation and The Brookings Institution

In 1997, CNN founder Ted Turner pledged a $1 billion gift to the United Nations, the largest private gift the agency had ever received. That money seeded the United Nations Foundation, created in 1998 with an initial policy focus on “Women and population stabilization, sustainable environment and climate change, children’s health, and strengthening the U.N. system.” (New York Times, May 20, 1998.)

The foundation has since updated its mission statement to focus on the SDGs:

We act as a strategic partner to help the UN mobilize the ideas, people, and resources it needs to deliver, and grow a diverse and durable constituency for collective action. We focus on issues at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals, build initiatives across sectors to solve problems at scale, and engage influencers and citizens who seek action. Partnership, and the power of smart and strategic collaboration, is in our DNA. We believe everyone has a part to play, everyone’s voice should be heard, and everyone has a stake.

https://unfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-mission/

The UN Foundation is an umbrella organization. Located under the umbrella are:

  • United Nations Association chapters (“The United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) is a movement of Americans dedicated to supporting the United Nations. With over 20,000 members (60% under the age of 26) and more than 200 chapters across the country, UNA-USA members are united in their commitment to global engagement and their belief that each of us can play a part in advancing the UN’s mission and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.”)   https://unausa.org/mission/
  • The Business Council for the United Nations (“BCUN connects forward-thinking companies with the UN to advance action on the SDGs and our shared goals around global health, climate action, gender equality and other critical issues.”) https://www.businesscouncilfortheun.org/about
  • The UN Foundation Global Entrepreneurs Council (“a strategic advisory council that brings together entrepreneurs and thought leaders who are committed to finding innovative solutions to global problems and helping the world deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).) https://unfoundation.org/what-we-do/initiatives/global-entrepreneurs-council/

In addition, the UN Foundation “partners” with more than 80 other entities, including a roll call of many of the world’s most prominent corporations (Amazon Web Services, Bank of America, Unilever, Google, to name just a few),  to promote the SDGs and “forg[e] a more . . . sustainable future.” https://unfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-partners/

• • •

The Brookings Institution is a left-leaning thinktank that works hand-in-hand with the UN Foundation. (To get a taste of Brookings’ point of view, visit articles on its website such as, “Why Federalism Has Become Risky for American Democracy”, and “Democracy on the ballot − How many election deniers are on the ballot in November, and what is their likelihood of success?” https://www.brookings.edu/ )

In 2019, Brookings launched “the SDG Leadership Cities Network”  to boost local implementation of the 2030 Agenda. https://www.brookings.edu/essay/sdg-leadership-cities-network-and-toolkit/  Then, in 2020, Brookings created an arm of the Institution devoted exclusively to promoting the SDGs, the “Center for Sustainable Development.” According to its director, the Center’s SDG-promoting mission includes tackling “systemic issues of racism, exclusion and inequality.” https://www.brookings.edu/news-releases/brookings-launches-the-center-for-sustainable-development/ 

Brookings “supports” the work of local jurisdictions by partnering with, and receiving money from, grant-making foundations: “This initiative of the Brookings Institution is supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and Rockefeller Bellagio Center.” https://www.brookings.edu/about-the-local-leadership-on-the-sustainable-development-goals/  The foundations, in turn, undertake efforts to advance the SDGs, sponsoring their own “initiatives” and “methodologies,” and making direct grants to communities.

• • •

In 2022, Brookings and the UN Foundation released a joint report lamenting the US’s failure to better implement the SDGs. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022_Brookings_State-of-SDGs-in-the-US.pdf It provides a convenient window into the thought processes of pro-2030 Agenda, globalist NGOs.

The State of the SDGs in the United States breathes a sigh of relief that the Trump Administration has given way to the Biden Administration (“Shifting away from the ‘America First’ foreign policy of the Trump administration, the Biden administration is seeking to revitalize its alliances and reestablish its leadership in mobilizing collective action on humanitarian and development issues, for which the SDGs can be an essential asset”).

The report displays great concern for what other nations think of the United States. It  calls on the US government to assert “global leadership” and reestablish “credibility”; decries what it sees as the past waste of US “political capital,” and asserts the need for the US to “win[] favor” with other nations to advance the SDG agenda.

The worldview of the report is, not surprisingly, collectivist. The authors endorse a “whole-of-society approach to progress” as measured by the SDGs. Pointing to entities in the private sector, like universities and philanthropies, that have freely aligned their decision-making processes to the SDGs, the report says the initiatives “point to a growing SDG ecosystem of action”. Yes, they do. And the authors want the federal government to do more as well. In its recommendations, the report:

  • Calls on the President, Secretary of State, and other “high-level” political officials to “publicly signal U.S. commitment to the SDGs”
  • Asks the government to conduct a “Voluntary National Review” of SDG progress and present it to the UN (in part because “all the other G7, G20, and OECD countries” have done so)
  • Suggests the Biden Administration re-tool the language it uses to describe its development efforts, to use the SDGs as the “lingua franca” of its communications − again, to impress the rest of the world
  • Calls for the creation of “a cabinet-level SDG Council” to coordinate foreign and domestic policy around the SDGs
  • And seeks a “national roadmap” to track SDG progress in the US

• • •

Some Congressional Moves Related to the SDGs

Nine days before President Biden took office, on January 11, 2021, California Representative Barbara Lee introduced House Resolution 30, “Supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.” Several weeks later, it was referred to a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where it remains. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/30/all-actions?overview=closed#tabs

On September 15, 2022, during the same week as the UN General Assembly meetings in New York, the Chairman of that subcommittee, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, held what one witness called “the first hearing exclusively about the SDGs in the seven years they’ve been active.”  https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2022/9/the-sustainable-development-goals-and-recovery-from-the-covid-19-pandemic-implications-for-us-policy

The hearing witnesses echoed many of the same views expressed in the Brookings/UN Foundation report (asking Congress to require the administration to make a voluntary national report on SDG progress to present to the UN; calling for increased Executive Branch focus on the SDGs; seeking disaggregation of data by identity factors, to name a few). They also claimed that US failure to join with the global community in making the SDGs a priority creates a power vacuum that the Chinese Communist Party and Russia are eager to exploit.

Two weeks after chairing this hearing, Rep. Castro signed on as a co-sponsor of Rep. Lee’s SDG resolution. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/30/cosponsors

• • •

Next, we will look at some of the ways in which the SDGs are affecting life in the real world.

Part One: https://basedbytes.com/united-nations-agenda-2030/

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Q: WHY ARE SCHOOLS USING SPECIAL ED MONEY FOR DEI TRAINING?

A: BECAUSE THEY CAN.

During the closing days of the  Obama Administration, the U.S. Department of Education issued new regulations governing Part B of the “Individuals with Disabilities Education Act” (IDEA). The new “Equity in IDEA” regulations would “require[] states to identify districts with “significant disproportionality” in special education—that is, when districts identify, place in more restrictive settings, or discipline children from any racial or ethnic group at markedly higher rates than their peers.” https://insource.org/files/pages/0087-FACT%20SHEET%20Equity%20in%20IDEA%20%20US%20Department%20of%20Education.pdf

The Trump Administration resisted the new rules; however, after an unsuccessful court battle, the Trump Department of Education, starting in May 2019, required states to comply with the Equity in IDEA regulations. 

Here is where the floodgates open: If, after a statistical analysis, a school district is found to have “significant disproportionality” (as described above), that district is required to set aside a portion of its IDEA money “to address factors contributing to the significant disproportionality.” And one of the ways it is allowed to do so is via “professional development”. https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/f/300.646

Equity in IDEA was birthed on the premise that significant disproportionality is the product of systemic racial bias, even without proof of racism on the part of educators. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/data-minority-students-special-ed-help-devos-rule-change  Ergo, Equity in IDEA allows districts to use the money they must set aside to undo the supposedly racist system via professional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training.

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ESSAY: Homunculus Redux

ONCE UPON A TIME, at the dawn of the scientific discipline now known as embryology, there was confusion. How did human beings form and grow? Did they develop gradually before birth (“epigenesis”), or did they exist fully formed in egg or sperm, even before conception (“preformationism”)? And how could we know?

In 1677, The Royal Society of London credited a Dutch maker of optics and lenses, Anton Leeuwenhoek, with the discovery under a microscope of motile sperm. Perhaps jealous for the limelight, another Dutch microscopist, Nicolaas Hartsoeker, claimed he had first seen the wriggling specimens a few years earlier, but in his uncertainty about what they were, he humbly did not publicize his observations. Preformationism of the “ovist” (egg) variety was already in the scientific air, and a cavalcade of nonsense claims by scientists about small humans supposedly seen in sperm cells ensued. And by 1694, the reticent microscopist Hartsoeker was nevertheless not too humble to publish his infamous iillustration of a “homunculus” (“little human”), curled up fully-formed inside the head of a sperm cell . . . even though Hartsoeker never claimed actually to have seen such a thing.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/llustration-of-a-homunculus-in-sperm-drawn-by-Nicolaas-Hartsoeker-published-as-part-of_fig3_324484207

From our modern perspective, these claims all seem foolish and irresponsible. Yet, before we laugh too hard at these erstwhile “thought leaders,” and the herd mentality that led so many of them into the ditch of error, we should remember: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

***

When anyone asks me what the three most important issues facing the Congress [sic], I always give the same answer:

-The children

-The children

-The children

Start of a Tweet by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, June 27, 2019

***

We make a lot of cultural noise about prioritizing “the children,” but our actions often don’t match our rhetoric, and our motives are at best mixed. Despite all our scientific and cultural advances, we still treat children as “homunculi.” We dress them as little adults, advertise directly to them, train them like professional athletes, treat them like co-educators in the classroom; and, in increasingly blatant ways, we pretend they are simply little adults in the realm of sex and sexuality.

Either we still don’t understand how human beings develop and grow – especially psychologically – or we are willing to turn a blind eye to what we do know in order to follow trends, to satisfy adult appetites, and to stay in step with our increasingly transgressive elites.

Safe money says:  the needs and wants of adults will prevail, even if the results harm “the children.”

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United Nations 2030 Agenda (Part One): Coming Soon to Your Town?

When you think of the United Nations, what comes to mind? How about, maintaining international peace and security? Good answer! That’s the very first purpose listed in the UN Charter. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-1

Okay, what about promoting “sustainable housing” in Bird City, Kansas, population 450? Or providing the framework for a prestigious American university to judge its course offerings? Or helping to pressure a major American city to hire a “Chief Equity Officer”?

If this all sounds like the UN needs to “stay in its lane,” then you haven’t met the 2030 Agenda.

• • •

They have big plans in Turtle Bay.

According to the UN, we are on a “collective journey” to “[t]ransform[] our [w]orld.” This project goes by the name of “the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda (Article 1, ¶ 3 of the UN Charter opens the door to this.)

The 2030 Agenda was adopted in September 2015, on the occasion of the UN’s 70th anniversary and with the enthusiastic support of the Obama Administration. (“As a former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, I had the privilege to help usher in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. . . . The United States strongly supports the 2030 Agenda, and we are committed to its implementation.” — Former Obama UN Ambassador/current Biden USAID Administrator Samantha Power. https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-by-administrator-samantha-power-at-the-high-level-political-forum-on-sustainable-development/ )

Let’s peek under the hood.

The Agenda consists of “17 Sustainable Development Goals [the “SDGs”] with 169 associated targets which are integrated and indivisible.” (¶18) It went into effect on January 1, 2016, and all UN member countries pledged to implement the Agenda. (¶21)

Here are the SDGs:

  • Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
  • Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
  • Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
  • Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
  • Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
  • Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
  • Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
  • Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
  • Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
  • Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
  • Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
  • Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
  • Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts* [*Acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.] 
  • Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
  • Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
  • Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
  • Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Holy cow! That’s a lot of “sustainability”! (14 uses of the word and its variants in 17 bullet points.) What does “sustainability” mean?  (We will come back to that.)

These SDGs aren’t just intended for others − as a signatory to the Agenda, the United States is supposed to implement them, too. So, who is taking us on this “collective journey” to “[t]ransform[] our [w]orld”?

As always, follow the money − and learn the backstory. In Part Two, we will meet the NGOs devoted to implementing the SDGs in the United States.