After realizing that Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and others were funding woke education initiatives, parent groups are pushing back.

According to a Fox News story, more than two dozen parent groups have asked five separate organizations to cease sponsoring social emotional learning and race-based education programs in public schools.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation are among the five organizations. Both the Wallace Foundation and the Windward Fund contribute to the SEL and race-based initiatives.

According to Fox News, a Parents Defending Education study discovered that 72 school districts received more than $200 million from the five organizations between 2017 and 2021. While the majority of the funds were allocated to Denver Public Schools in Colorado and Battle Creek Public Schools in Michigan, payments were also distributed to eight additional school districts in Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Ohio, and California.

The Gates Foundation has also provided financial support to “implement equity-focused teaching such as equitable grading” through the Baltimore City Public Schools’ Fund for Educational Excellence, the Denver Public Schools Foundation, the Tulare County Office of Education, and the NY City Dept. of Education’s Fund for Public Schools Inc.

Several foundations also provided financial assistance to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. The Allstate Foundation is recognized as a corporate supporter on CASEL’s website. CASEL has adopted Critical Race Theory’s key ideas.

CASEL also released a blog post from the “Queer Mathematics Teacher,” an education consulting business run by a self-described “queer Latinx independent math coach and activist scholar” that attempts to implant gender identity ideology into math classes.

“Our organizations find it profoundly worrisome that grants… are being utilized to push these patronizing policies,” the 26 parent organizations stated in a letter to the five foundations, adding, “Students should be treated as individual people, not members of identity groups.”

Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, told Fox News, “We as parents would like to see the focus returned to academic performance, where our children are taught practical skills.”

Meanwhile, Nicole Neily, President of Parents Defending Education, stated, “A number of these initiatives — equity, social emotional learning — are actually being utilized to push a lot of identity based curriculum.”

According to a spokeswoman for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, “investments in racial justice and racial reconciliation, comprehensive community participation, and local, diverse, and intergenerational leadership are vital to driving children to achieve success in the classroom and beyond.”

Neily said that the movement for woke education is “happening in red states” and “happening in tiny places,” and that it isn’t limited to blue states or huge cities.

House Minority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) has warned members not to vote for a short-term government funding plan that Dems. and some establishment GOP want to be passed before a possible shutdown on Friday.

The shorter funding package was announced earlier Tuesday and is anticipated to be voted on later Wednesday on the House floor. The bill is intended to allow Republicans and Democrats additional time to negotiate a broader “omnibus” government spending bill for the current fiscal year.

“Once again, despite spending much of the year passing trillions in needless expenditure that has fueled inflation and driven our debt up,” Scalise added, “House Dems failed to meet the basic duty of funding the government.”  

“So this one-week continuing resolution is an effort to secure more time for a big lame-duck spending plan in which House Republicans have had no say,” he continued.

The Republican House administration has voted against the short-term budget bill because it feels that upcoming Republican House members should have a role in federal spending in the omnibus package, which would finance the government until the conclusion of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2023.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and retiring Senate Finance Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) oppose House GOP leadership’s approach of whipping against the short-term budget plan. They agreed on a tentative agreement with Democrats on the omnibus measure which would set the budget for all of this fiscal year on Tuesday evening. If the shorter spending plan fails, it will increase the pressure on the establishment to give House Republicans a larger negotiating table.

“I think we’re pretty close to achieving an omnibus spending bill,” McConnell said Tuesday.

McConnell and Leahy’s omnibus bill has 7,500 earmarks totaling $16 billion. According to Bloomberg Government, the earmarks are as follows:

“According to a Bloomberg Government examination of nine Senate Appropriations Committee documents, the Senate included 3,123 earmarks totaling $7,780,973,000 in its fiscal 2023 appropriations proposals released in July. According to earlier this year’s research, lawmakers in the House added 4,386 earmarks totaling $8,231,999,565 in total. A consolidated Excel spreadsheet with all of the House earmarks is available here. The two houses have published a total of 7,509 earmarks worth $16,012,972,565.”

“The total designated amount is significantly less than 1% of the $1.7 trillion federal financing plan lawmakers hope to complete this year. Members agreed to impose a 1% cap on the new earmarking process when it was reinstated ahead of fiscal 2022, after a decade-long moratorium.”

Over 7,500 earmarks totaling $16 billion are being negotiated by politicians for inclusion in a year-long “omnibus” funding measure that would expire in September 2023.

There is an omnibus framework agreement, as key Legislators revealed this week. According to Bloomberg Government, there are over 7,500 earmarks totalling $16 billion in 2023 appropriations bills issued throughout the year that might make it into the overall package.

According to Bloomberg Government, the Senate has 3,123 earmarks totalling $7,780,973,000 in the 2023 appropriations bills, while the House has 4,386 earmarks totaling $8,231,999,565:

“According to a Bloomberg Government analysis of nine Senate Appropriations Committee papers, the Senate included 3,123 earmarks totaling $7,780,973,000 in its fiscal 2023 appropriations proposals issued in July.  According to a study conducted earlier this year, members on the House side put 4,386 earmarks worth $8,231,999,565 in their legislation. The two chambers have published a total of 7,509 earmarks worth $16,012,972,565.

The total designated funds is little less than 1% of the $1.7 trillion federal financing plan legislators aim to complete this year. Members agreed to impose a 1% restriction on the new earmarking procedure when it was reinstated ahead of fiscal 2022, after a decade-long ban.”

Earmarks are expenditure measures attached to bills that are expected to pass and be signed into law by Senate and House members. Earmarks are described by the Congressional Research Service as a benefit given to “a state or specific entity, municipality, or congressional district other than through a legislative or administrative formula or a competitive award procedure.”

Finally, they allow politicians to include “pork” in laws that support projects in their districts, which might be used to reward contributors and special interests. The traditional reason politicians use earmarks is that they can help to ease partisan stalemate. If there is something in it for the people back home (or the campaign coffers), a politician may agree to break ranks with his or her party.

Bloomberg Government stated that “powerful” retiring senators will be among the “largest winners” if omnibus negotiators can achieve an agreement. Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has earmarked $213 million, Vice Chair Richard Shelby (R-AL) has earmarked $656 million, and Senate Armed Services ranking member Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has earmarked $511 million.

According to Bloomberg Government’s study, Shelby has the most allocated funding for the second year straight, with hundreds of millions of dollars.

This includes $200 million for the Alabama State Port Authority, $100 million for repairs of the Woolsey Finnell Bridge across the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa by the Department of Transportation, and $76 million for the University of Alabama in Birmingham’s School of Medicine.

Notably, it is feasible that legislators will be unable to reach an agreement on an omnibus package and will continue to delay the settlement to next year when the retiring lawmakers leave Congress. In that situation, their proposals may be taken up during talks in the next Congress.

As the country approaches a potential shutdown, congressional leaders are steadily advancing toward a probable funding agreement.

On Sunday night, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Pat Leahy stated that bipartisan discussions on an omnibus budget measure will continue.

“Chairman Leahy believes that sufficient progress in talks occurred over the weekend to postpone the presentation of the omnibus appropriations bill for the time being,” he added. The bipartisan and bicameral talks continue.”

If Congress fails to produce an omnibus budget bill or a continuing resolution (CR), which would retain spending at the current level, the government would shut down on Friday.

An omnibus spending package would be around $1,7 trillion in size and hundreds of pages long, so even if lawmakers reached an agreement on spending levels soon, Congress would likely adopt a one-week CR to give Congress time to create an omnibus bill.

Republican leaders have refused to support “parity” in spending between defense and non-defense programs; Republicans argue that Democrats have spent enough on climate change and other liberal achievements in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Dems want a year-long CR, but Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell want a short-term CR that extends into early 2023, giving House Republicans bargaining strength when they control the House in early January.

Congress has failed to reach an agreement on how much money to deliver to Ukraine. The Biden administration has requested $37 billion from Congress.

In a meeting with Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky, Joe Biden “reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to continue helping Ukraine with economic, security, and humanitarian aid.”

Incoming House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) has advocated for Ukraine to receive stronger weapons in order to destroy Russia’s military.

It is also likely that congressional leaders would try to include contentious legislation, such as the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), inside an omnibus or continuing resolution budget package. Rep. Tom Emmer, the House Majority Whip-elect, Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), and Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) have all spoken out against the possibility of slipping a strongly opposed item inside a budget package.