Critical Race Theory in CA Schools: Parents Beware!
By Larry Sand, President, California Teachers Empowerment Network
www.ctenhome.org
Critical Race Theory makes race the prism through which its proponents analyze all aspects of American life. It underpins identity politics and reimagines the U.S. as a nation split into groups, each with specific claims on victimization.
CRT can be found in the workplace, the entertainment sector, and in schools, “normalizing” belief in systemic racism for the average American. CRT says that society is made up of oppressors and oppressed, and that the oppressed impede revolution when they adhere to the cultural beliefs of their oppressors—and must be put through re-education sessions. This in turn leads to the dismantling of all societal norms through relentless criticism. CRT creates hostile school environments with its emphasis on oppressors vs. oppressed.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion – are omnipresent in CRT in our schools. Epoch Education, a provider of CRT curricula, instructs teachers on how to talk about race.
CRT is a framework that helps us:
· Understand racism is endemic to American life
· Express skepticism toward dominant legal claims of neutrality, objectivity, color blindness, and meritocracy
· Presume that racism has contributed to all contemporary manifestations of group advantage and disadvantage
CRT suggests that one way to end the alleged racial bias is via “equity,” a nice sounding word. But what is equity? As the race-obsessed Ibram X. Kendi explains, equity exists when “two or more racial groups are standing on a relatively equal footing.” In other words, if 10 percent of white kids are in a school’s gifted program, equity demands that 10 percent of black kids are also included. Kendi also claims, “There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy.” The terms “equality” and “quality” are nowhere to be found in the equity playbook.
What CRT is apparently saying is that we must discriminate to put an end to alleged discrimination. But, insane or not, this is what is actually happening throughout much of the country.
Here are a few examples of CRT and equity
In reliably woke San Francisco, the top-rated Lowell High School will no longer admit students based on their academic performance. Instead, the school will use a lottery to admit its students. This will, of course, discriminate against Asian students who make up half of its student body.
Similarly, in New York City, the gifted and talented program has been deemed unfair. Mayor Bill de Blasio and his schools chancellor Richard Carranza insist that the testing program is unjust because the students who wind up in the program “don't reflect the diversity of the city's population.”
In Fairfax County, VA, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science, a school for the gifted, was ranked America’s No. 1 high school last year by U.S. News and World Report. But the school board recently decided to eliminate the race-blind, merit-based admissions tests to the largely Asian school, arguing that high test performance was a “barrier” to black and Hispanic students.
In Oregon, those in charge with running public education have decided that focusing on finding the right answer in math and showing your work is a symbol of white supremacy. Teachers are also urged to adapt homework policies to fit the needs of students of color and “ challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.”.
It was originally thought that CRT would not go very far into the mainstream, but rather continue to generate scholarly papers and debate, and would never penetrate the nations classrooms. Wrong.
Districts around the country have integrated CRT into school curricula. Both of the nation’s largest teacher unions support the Black Lives Matter organization, which is front and center in the CRT movement, with the National Education Association specifically calling for the use of Black Lives Matter curricular materials in K–12 schools.
CRT scholarship on teaching methods is also used to advocate activism, which is dangerous considering the movement’s preference for personal narratives over knowledge and historical facts.
At the same time as CRT advances, it’s important to note that much of the nation suffers from cultural illiteracy. In fact, about half of all Americans cannot name all three branches of government. I repeat, half of all Americans cannot name all three branches of government.
What you can do:
• talk to your kids daily and deprogram them if necessary
• go to the principal, the schoolboard, the media
• send your kid to a private school that aligns with your values or homeschool if you can manage it
For more info on CRT, visit the resources page at ctenhome.org.
Resources
https://www.city-journal.org/identity-politics-in-cupertino-california-elementary-school
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-z_ZrxP9hI&t=18s&ab_channel=TheRubinReport
https://www.city-journal.org/critical-race-theory-in-american-classrooms