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December 14, 2024

Talbot Spy

Nonpartisan Education-based News for Talbot County Community

8 Letters to Editor

Letter to Editor: More lies and innuendo from Pay Attention America in Talbot County

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We in the Talbot County area continue to receive mailings from an out of state group labeling itself  “Pay Attention America, Inc.” This shadowy group, apparently aligned with extremist Christian Nationalist organizations and based somewhere in Wilmington DE, has been promulgating misinformation targeted at Talbot County Schools. The “foundations” upon which these attacks are based are laughable but at the same time oh-so-serious. Their previous mailings, delivered before the election, focused on the idea that students were being subjected to “RADICAL INDOCTRINATION” and that “RADICAL POLITICIANS” are forcing “HARMFUL GENDER IDEOLOGY” on them. More recent mailings have repeated allegations that extremist politicians and “bureaucrats” have foisted these harmful ideas on innocent students and have blamed these indoctrinating activities on students’ “falling behind” in our schools, specifically in Math and English. As my friend Jim Richardson pointed out previously:

“Here are some facts: 39% of students in Talbot County are classified as “economically disadvantaged” (data gathered by US News and World Report), and 40% are members of a minority. Fully 14% of students study English as a second language. Talbot County Public Schools (TCPS) is one of only eight districts out of the 24 in Maryland that earned star ratings of three or higher for all schools. https://reportcard.msde.maryland.gov. In 2023 Talbot County Schools boasted an attendance rate of 91.5% and a high school graduation rate of 95%.Schools have also consistently shown year over year improvement in Academic Achievement both in English and in Math.” The real numbers are clear: Talbot County Schools are performing well and are demonstrating consistent year over year improvement.

The mailings from Pay Attention America, Inc. scream, “HAD ENOUGH?” Many of us have an answer to their question: YES, we’ve had enough of your lies, misinformation and your not-so-veiled attempts to undermine our public schools. Of course the real agenda here is to subversively discredit public schools in order to create more privatized, exclusive institutions tilted toward their favored ideologies. And of course these would be funded by us, the taxpayers. We in Talbot County have a simple request to “Pay Attention America” : Please stop stuffing our mailboxes with propaganda. We are proud of our public schools and are seeing and rooting for their success.

Jim Wilkins
Claiborne

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Letters to Editor

  1. We 3 Moms for Liberty elected to our Board of Education we must be vigilant and support our schools from misinformation .

    • As a demonstration of your determination to protect Talbot County Schools from misinformation please contact Pay Attention America and ask them to stop sending mailers that are loaded with fake statistics and misinformation. Thank you

    • It is important that we confront the policies promoted by Moms for Liberty head on. Nationally, their reputation is one for banning books and promoting Christian Nationalism. I have no problems with Christians nor Christianity. My problem lies with those who get angry at others who don’t sin the same way they do.

  2. Thank you Jim for bringing this serious threat to our Talbot communitys attention. Any half-awake citizen knows that the extreme right is tearing down our vital institutions in order to take control of them. That the religious right is falsely attacking our local school system so it can gain control of the School Board is hardly surprising.Then they can dictate curriculum and policy.
    But as you suggest, their long and larger game is to make a huge breakthrough in government-funded religious education!
    It is almost always about control , power , and money. With that,
    our sacred “ separation of church and state “ will vanish and indoctrination will become commonplace.
    We who care about true public education must heed your warning of the imminent threat and stop it at the local level.

    • 1/20/25 can’t come soon enough, as it will mark the end of the most incompetent regime at least in my lifetime.

  3. Jim — thank you for writing this letter. I have been trying to find out who funds this organization to no avail. The lack of transparency is as you say shady and disturbing.

  5. Well said, Jim… and where is Pay Attention America, Inc finding all these extremist politicians and “bureaucrats”? Talbot county, if anything is a “red” county (at least in this past election) and is not considered a hot bed of radicalizm.

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