'Take Back the Education of Our Children': Kirk Cameron Calls Out America's Public Schools for Teaching Woke Ideology

Actor and producer Kirk Cameron is launching fresh criticism against America's public schools, saying they've become incubators for far-left progressive agendas, including critical race theory, gender ideology, and Nikole Hannah-Jones' 1619 Project. 

"The problem is that public school systems have become so bad. It's sad to say they're doing more for grooming, for sexual chaos and the progressive left than any real educating about the things that most of us want to teach our kids," he told Fox News in a recent interview. 

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The solution to the problem, Cameron told the outlet, is for parents to take the lead on their children's education and teach them at home.

As an example, the actor also pointed to his new documentary The Homeschool Awakening, written and directed by Caleb Price. The film highlights 17 homeschooling families sharing how they used to perceive homeschooling and how that perception has changed.

Cameron and his wife Chelsea are also featured in the documentary, talking about their experiences with their six children. 

"Homeschool was not on our radar screen because we had these misconceptions and stereotypes like so many people do. Like, you know, that's for like Quakers and the Amish, and how could you possibly teach your kids enough so that they get into college? What about socialization?" he said. But the actor explained that he learned his children were able to socialize with people of all ages. He also realized the world was his children's classroom. 

As CBN News reported last month, Cameron said in an Instagram post that he's worked on the film for over two years because he cares about the future of America's children and the country as a whole.

"Since the pandemic, we've been made grossly aware of the inaccurate and the immoral things that the public school system has been teaching our children and our grandchildren," he explained. "It's up to us as parents to cultivate the hearts and minds and souls of our children toward what is good, what is right, beautiful, and true. The public school system, unfortunately, has not been working with us but actively working against us. In my opinion, the public school system has become public enemy number one."

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He noted that the film will advise parents on the educational options they have for their children. 

"We need to take back the education of our children because whoever controls the textbooks, controls the future," Cameron explained. "Whoever is shaping the hearts and minds and souls of our children will determine whether or not we live in a free country. We have freedom of speech, economic freedom, educational and political freedom ... and religious freedom."

The actor told Fox News he thought there are many excellent teachers in the country, but he said the school system is holding them back from being a "light in the darkness, and to pass on the kinds of values and virtues that made this the freest, strongest, most prosperous nation in the whole world."

Cameron said he has an issue with the idea that a child's education should be left up to the so-called experts without parents' input. 

"And that's just a fundamental difference in the way that we look at, who has been entrusted with the sacred responsibility of raising our children? Is it the parents or is it the government?" he told the outlet. 

The actor also strongly denounced "those who are rotting out the minds and souls of America's children" and likened the woke curriculum to spreading a terminal disease, instead of educating children. 

"And you can take your pick. Just go down the list. The things that are destroying the family, destroying the church, destroying love for our great country: critical race theory, teaching kids to pick their pronouns and decide whether they want to be a boy or a girl, The 1619 Project," Cameron told Fox. 

"Yes, there are hard days. Yes, there are times when you just feel like pulling your hair out," he said about homeschooling. "But it's nothing compared to wanting to go back and do it all over again. If you see that your children went down a road and you can't pull them back, asking how did they lose their faith? How did they get pulled into an ideology that undermines everything that is going to lead to their success?"

After the Fox interview was published online, Cameron found himself trending on social media as the backlash came from the left over his comments. 

"Actor Kirk Cameron continues to push his home schooling network. He says the public school system 'is doing more grooming for leftist politics and sexual chaos, and racial confusion, than they are doing any real educating about truth, beauty and goodness," one irate user wrote. 

Another angry person commented, "When idiots like this say the public school system is 'grooming' kids what they means is 'the public school system *isn't* grooming kids and they *should* be grooming them with our looney toons beliefs'."

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But others defended the former "Growing Pains" actor.

"They say it's innocent. They say it's just about inclusion and acceptance. They say no one is trying to confuse, corrupt, or sexualize kids. They lie," the Libs of TikTok group wrote, along with posting several videos of public schools hosting gay pride days or drag queen shows. 

The Homeschool Awakening debuts in movie theaters on June 13 & 14 only. Tickets can be purchased online here and at participating theater box offices. For a complete list of theaters, click here.