Long Beach Public Schools Paid Students to Join a Social Justice Club

The Free Press published an exclusive story yesterday about the public school system in Long Beach, California. Since 2019 the Long Beach Unified School District has had a contract with a group called Californians for Justice which describes itself as a “youth-powered organization fighting for racial justice.” Not only did the district pay the group $2 million in taxpayer funds, it also paid individual students more than $1,000 each to participate.

Starting from December 2019 until now, the Long Beach Unified School District south of Los Angeles has paid at least 78 students a total of nearly $100,000 for participating in a club run by the organization, also known as CFJ. The most recent contract runs until June 2024…

A spokesperson for Long Beach Unified School District said the district refers to these stipends as “internships,” which ensure “equitable participation in CFJ programs, embracing diverse perspectives in education.” 

But four teachers interviewed by The Free Press see the payments to students and their families as a “horrible propaganda strategy.” One told me, “I am shocked and horrified at such a fact.”

The students put on the payroll were then trained to be DEI trainers and were given time that was normally reserved for professional teacher development so they could lecture their own teachers about topics including implicit bias (junk science) and “student voice.”

The focus on “student voice” was supposed to indicate that students were learning to speak up for themselves but in fact teachers in the district say the students were being given scripts by CFJ which they would then struggle to read.

The teacher said: “It’s helpful to hear their voice and know what they think would help them learn better, but I feel like you can do that with a focus group. Plus, they’re obviously reading scripts that have words that they don’t know how to say.

 “The way that they are handing scripts to students, even the words coming out of the students’ mouths,” the teacher added, “it just feels like indoctrination and not information.”

Jay Goldfischer, a high school history teacher in the district, agrees. 

“One of the reasons that they were hired is to help our students find their voice and be able to express it,” Goldfischer said. “But in reality, CFJ is not helping students find their own voices. It’s giving them a scripted voice that’s not their own. 

There can’t be any better summary of where education is headed circa 2024 than students struggling to read the social justice mantras handed to them by adults under the guise of “student voice.” Maybe if teachers could spend a little more time on reading and a little less on woke ideology they would be able to read better when the need arises.

And it goes without saying that this group is explicitly leftist in its orientation. Two weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel they posted this statement on their Instagram account.

Californians for Justice pledges support to the Palestinian people. We recognize, affirm, and support the right of Palestinians – whether in the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Occupied 1948 Territory, or within the global diaspora – to return to and defend their homeland. We are in solidarity with our allies here and across the globe in calling for the United States government to exercise its power to stop all military aid to Israel and demand an immediate ceasefire.

As a multiracial organization fighting to dismantle racial capitalism, we dream of a world where Black liberation is centered, and all our people are free. In doing so, we understand our responsibility to recognize the plight of the Palestinian people as ethnic cleansing and apartheid orchestrated by white supremacist settler colonialism bent on the goal of wiping out the indigenous Palestinian population.

There were complaints made to the president of the school board about the comments but they were shrugged off once again as the voice of the students. Last month they also posted two different promotions for reparations. Needless to say, no similarly partisan group on the right would receive millions in taxpayer funding.