I Pulled Myself Out of Oregon's Public School System

Parents in the Beaverton area were convinced that this shiny, new, state-of-the-art Oregon public school would offer a state-of-the-art education. My parents were no different, and I was enrolled to attend.

What quickly followed, year after year, was systemic sexualized propaganda and critical race theory that began in middle school and only worsened into ninth grade. So, at age 15, I realized I needed to pull myself out of public school altogether.

I convinced my parents to let me allocate what college savings I had to the rest of my high school years to enroll in a nearby private school. I understood I would have to work part-time jobs and potentially take out student loans later to complete my bachelor's degree.

But the moment I realized my Oregon public school was telling me what to think, not how to think, I knew I needed out.

I am lucky. Not every American student has savings to spare in their teenage years. Not every ninth grader will realize her school is peddling radical gender ideology in homeroom or revising American history in a room full of impressionable youth.

Now that I am in college, I know the sacrifice was worth it.

The indoctrination began in middle school, when I experienced systemic, sexualized propaganda. I remember the day my school announced the discontinuation of “Jesus Pizza,” where students used to meet and talk about the Bible with other Christians or those curious about religion.

In place of “Jesus Pizza” flyers, the bulletin board began to see different posters pop up: “First Meeting for the LGBTQ+ Alliance Club” and “Join the Hispanic Drama Club”.

They created clubs specifically tailored to students’ immutable characteristics. Didn’t we…undo this….in Brown v. Board of Education?

Over time, the extracurricular shift began to creep into the classroom. In freshman homeroom, teachers taught “gender” by showing a video of adults ripping up sheets of paper with their biological sex printed on them, exclaiming, “I don’t identify as this!”

In history, the teacher assigned the question prompts, “Provide three reasons why you have white privilege,” and “Give three reasons why Abraham Lincoln is not a hero.” We were also subjected to biased newscasts, including those presented by the notoriously imbalanced Rachel Maddow.

If we missed class, we would face poor grades. So, we watched.

In English, I selected the COVID-19 vaccine for an essay topic. The teacher questioned the validity. To preserve my grade, I changed my topic.

On January 6, 2021, still under COVID Lockdowns, my class was forced to watch the events that unfolded at the United States Capitol.

I questioned why this was part of the lesson. Immediately, the Zoom chat blew up: “Ignorant.” “Fascist.” “Hateful.” My teacher, I remember, let out a small, awkward laugh—but otherwise brushed over my classmates’ commentary.

Enough was enough. I had to get my parents involved. We scheduled a meeting with the principal, but ultimately, nothing was done by the school’s administration. My classes continued in the same biased way.

Oregon is ranked 46th by the Heritage Foundation’s Education Freedom Report Card. It’s not shocking that the education I received was subpar. And if what I experienced was in the suburbs, I can only imagine what is taught in the inner city.

So I pulled myself out of public school in 2021. And I’m not alone. Since I made my departure, the number of parents who have pulled their children out of public school has dramatically increased. Oregon’s student enrollment trends in 2020-21 show there was a more than 70% increase in homeschooling and a major decline in public school enrollment.

At public schools, parents are often left in the dark. But even those with eyes wide open are powerless against the administration.

When I transferred out of public school, my education turned stellar. Whereas in Oregon Public Schools, we read Dear Martin—a story inspired by the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown—at my private school, we read the classics: Of Mice and Men, Fahrenheit 451, and The Crucible. At my public school, history focused almost exclusively on power struggles, slavery, and oppression. In private school, we learned about the Industrial Revolution, the Roman Empire, and the Space Race.

We had a rigid curriculum that pushed us and prepared us for higher education, in a way where we didn’t have to always think through a lens of oppressed-versus-oppressor.

I wasn’t being force-fed critical race theory in every class. Best of all, I didn’t even know my teachers’ political beliefs. This is the way public education should be.

A quality education is vital to the proper formation and development of the American adolescent, but private schools are not a realistic expectation for the average American student. That’s why it’s dire that we fix the education system. And the first step is admitting our education system has an indoctrination problem.