Consultant hired by Pennridge schools told Moms for Liberty audience that ‘the fox is in the henhouse’

Facing intense community criticism as he recommended changes last month to the Pennridge School District’s curriculum — proposals teachers called irrational or redundant — consultant Jordan Adams said he was simply making suggestions.

But as he addressed attendees of the recent Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia, Adams described his consulting work as “the fox is in the henhouse,” battling against a public education “machine” and working to remake schooling on behalf of “our side.”

“We have one chance at this,” Adams said, according to a recording of the session posted this week by the Bucks County Beacon, a progressive media outlet. “It took almost 100 years for us to start playing the game, and they have a 100-year head start. ... It’s a do-or-die moment.”

Adams, who owns a nascent consulting business called Vermilion, graduated in 2013 from Hillsdale College, a Michigan school that has been embraced by conservative politicians and promotes a “1776 Curriculum” that historians have criticized as ideologically driven. He taught at a Hillsdale-affiliated charter school and Catholic school before returning to work for the college.

While Adams referred to experience with school boards in his presentation at the Moms for Liberty summit, 10 days earlier, he told the Pennridge school board it was the first in the country to have hired him since he launched his business in March.

Adams didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday. Here’s more of what he told to a Moms for Liberty audience July 1 and how that contrasted with his presentation at Pennridge.

Adams was one of numerous speakers at the Moms for Liberty summit, which featured GOP presidential contenders and activists opposed to transgender rights. Adams — whose session was titled “The First 100 Days: Getting Flipped School Boards to Take Action” — advised new school board members to overwhelm administrators with requests for information.

“Pour it on,” he said. “They can’t counter everything. Everything should be up for debate.”

Boards should introduce “no-brainer” policies on critical race theory; eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion offices; and pause contracts, Adams said. He said board members shouldn’t be afraid of lawsuits, because “most districts, they’re fine on the money front with this.”

Boards should also evaluate all administrative positions, Adams said.

The same day as Adams’ presentation in Pennridge last month, the board considered a plan to eliminate its four curriculum supervisors. The board walked back the proposal amid backlash — including from community members who contrasted the supervisors’ experience and credentials with Adams’ — announcing that the supervisors would instead work with Adams going forward.

“The key thing here, and I got this idea from a board that was doing this, is that it means that admin needs to be put on notice that they need to cooperate with all this,” Adams told the Moms for Liberty group.

Pennridge is searching for a new superintendent; Superintendent David Bolton, who had opposed Adams’ hiring, is on medical leave and announced last month that he would retire Oct. 31.

Adams also emphasized reviewing curriculum — the service he’s providing to Pennridge through his Vermilion consulting business, pledging a “world-class and ideology-free education.” (His contract with the district, at a rate of $125 an hour, has no time limit; a motion to terminate him failed 4-5 at a June 21 meeting.)

“One of the things I’m very hopeful about all this is that we start with the crazy ideology that is being pushed in schools, but we start looking at all the other issues going on as well,” he said during the Moms for Liberty session, citing the Sold a Story podcast by American Public Media’s Emily Hanford, an investigative series on how schools have failed to properly teach reading instruction.

Adams didn’t discuss better instructional techniques or curricular choices. But he said school board members should point to proficiency rates as proof that change is warranted.

“We as board members can just start saying ‘No, that’s unacceptable,’ ” Adams said. “There’s no reason why we can’t have 80 to 90% of students at any given grade level excelling in every subject.”

In his presentation to Pennridge, Adams recommended adding numerous books, short stories, and poems to seventh- and eighth-grade courses; one teacher noted that Adams had “tripled the readings” in a course meant for struggling readers.

His proposed overhaul of the district’s social studies curriculum, meanwhile, sparked some derision.

“What resources do you suggest we use to teach first graders about the ancient Near East and American history, 1492-1787?” asked the district’s social studies supervisor, Jenna Vitale, responding to one of Adams’ proposals.

Following Adams’ presentation in Pennridge, one of the board members opposing Adams, Jonathan Russell, said that Pennsylvania law required the district’s curriculum writers to have five years teaching experience and certification as a principal or supervisor. Adams acknowledged he had neither.

To Moms for Liberty attendees, Adams suggested such qualifications didn’t matter.

Expertise “is dead in this country,” he said. “That is a label to shut down any type of dialogue and pretend that you can’t use your own brain to figure things out.”

Pennridge teachers responding to Adams had said that books in their curriculum were chosen for particular reasons, including to appeal to reluctant readers. Adams told Moms for Liberty that students should read classics, not “edgy conventional books” with “a bunch of other garbage in them.”

If teachers say “we need to have some sort of ethnic book,” Adams said, “that’s great. ... That doesn’t mean it has to be racist. That doesn’t mean it has to be pushing something else.” He said that “I can rattle off a couple of minorities in history who have phenomenal works of literature.”

Adams said new school board members should review all books added to libraries in the last five years. He also said board members, rather than school professionals, should be the ones to decide whether books challenged by parents are removed from libraries.

Meanwhile, approval should be required for any supplemental materials teachers introduce in classrooms, Adams said. He told Moms for Liberty to “just be careful of teachers” — saying that about 60% are “good ... not necessarily pushing things,” while another 20% are “great” but “keeping their heads down.” The remaining 20%, he said, are “unhinged.”

In Pennridge, as he recommended that teachers assigning nonfiction articles be required to include context about the writer’s perspective, Adams said the intent was to help teachers.

If a parent questions whether a teacher is trying to “push something” on students, “this would protect them from such an accusation,” Adams said.