Wisconsin Org Trains Daycares To Support Riots, Abolishing Police

A tax-funded Wisconsin organization trained daycare workers to teach infants and toddlers to participate in violent partisan protests and support abolishing the police.

Daycare workers who participated in an April training from the tax-funded organization Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA) received “diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging” kits worth $600 each that included board books teaching babies race hatred and gender dysphoria. The kit came to light this week when a daycare owner who received one went public with what she found inside.

In the training, an author of three of the books in the kit, Megan Madison, told daycare workers that “the color-blind approach” to race “is ineffective and potentially harmful.” Madison cohosted the training with WECA’s diversity director, Tanya Johnson.

Any organization that receives federal funds risks violating federal antidiscrimination law by disparaging Americans based on their race, said Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty attorney Dan Lennington. WECA is essentially a clearing house for taxpayer funds, directing it to daycares for food welfare, daycare worker training, and more.

Johnson opened the training by stating her pronouns and giving a “land acknowledgment” that asserted parts of the United States actually belong to tribal peoples whom U.S. armed forces conquered long ago.

“We respectfully acknowledge the land on which we are holding this training, the traditional land of Ho-Chunk Nation,” she claimed. “Today we recognize and honor with gratitude both the land and the indigenous people who live and who continue to live on the land now called the United States.”

Madison, who led the training with Johnson, thanked Johnson for the land acknowledgment and claimed she lives “on Lenape land,” or what everyone knows to be New York City. The Lenape were a barbarous tribe known for attacking unarmed noncombatants, torturing women and children in front of their family members, massacres, and skinning some victims’ heads while they were still alive. They were also known for murdering people solely due to the color of their skin.

Madison and Johnson went on to encourage daycare workers to adopt “race related teaching practices” that elevate “awareness of race-related injustices and the inclination to take action to stop them.” Below are slides presented during their training.

Johnson said the step of “recognizing race-related injustices and taking action to stop them” is “very important.” She also said providing babies, toddlers, and preschoolers books that push leftist activism and racial and sexual grievance mentalities is a “key strategy” for social justice activists.

“We have to help children learn to recognize fair and unfair situations related to race and then provide developmentally appropriate ways to help them take action,” she said. “And so I included a picture of the book A is for activist.“

The board book for babies and toddlers “helps children learn about activism — environmental injustice, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and everything else that activists believe in and fight for,” Johnson said. “One of the key elements or strategies for having all these conversations with children is through literature, okay. We can use children’s literature as a great way to show representation and have race-related conversations.”

Instead, the pair told caregivers to adopt a “social justice approach” in daycares that can care for children as young as newborns.

Madison cited participating in Black Lives Matter and pro-Palestinian protests as examples of the outcomes of the “social justice approach” she and Johnson want daycare workers to adopt. The 2020 Black Lives Matter riots resulted in an estimated $2 billion in damaged American homes, businesses, and public property, as well as at least 25 deaths.

Later investigations found BLM organizations paying a cofounder’s brother $800,000 for “security” and buying million-dollar luxury mansions and business properties. That contrasts with one top goal of the movement, according to its founders: the destruction of capitalism and of the United States as we now know it.

Resources Madison recommended to daycare workers included the 1619 Project, especially a picture book from that project, Born on the Water. The 1619 Project, a revisionist history effort from The New York Times, has been critiqued by numerous academics for presenting factually false information and claiming the United States is intrinsically racist.

Madison also recommended a picture book urging abolishing the police, entitled, Can We Please Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers? Another recommendation from Madison for childcare workers to share with babies was a picture book about the 13 Black Lives Matter principles, which include affirming transgenderism and abolishing the natural family: How We Can Live: Principles of Black Lives Matter. Other resources she listed on a slide for daycare workers include more politically extremist advocacy.

“Busy parents relying on day care shouldn’t have to worry that their children are being indoctrinated with radical ideologies,” Lennington told The Federalist via email. “It’s particularly shameful that children who are born with an innate sense of colorblindness are being taught a worldview of racial conflict.”

As The Federalist reported in a companion article, “A nonprofit organization, WECA functions essentially as a private arm of government. To be licensed for business in Wisconsin, daycare providers in certain parts of the state must take a pre-licensing class with WECA. WECA also provides continuing education for daycare providers, who must take at least 15 hours of such training every year to maintain their state license …”

“According to WECA’s latest annual report, 95 percent of its $32 million in annual income in 2023 came from taxpayers via state and federal grants.”

Federalist comment requests to Johnson and WECA Executive Director Ruth Schmidt went unanswered. The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families declined to say whether the state agency funds any of WECA’s DEI personnel or programming. DCF oversees Wisconsin daycares and sends WECA millions each year. The agency also declined to comment on whether funding materials and programs that urge partisan political activity complies with agency policy.

The full training is below on YouTube.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist. Her new book with Regnery is “False Flag: Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America.” A happy wife and the mother of six children, her ebooks include “Classic Books For Young Children,” and “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media including Tucker Carlson, CNN, Fox News, OANN, NewsMax, Ben Shapiro, and Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Joy is also the cofounder of a high-performing Christian classical school and the author and coauthor of classical curricula. Her traditionally published books also include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.