This is Part 3 of a multi-part series on the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in America’s schools. While earlier articles explained how the ideological foundations of CRT are rooted in Marxism and were promulgated by Marxist intellectuals operating out of the leftist faculty lounges of American academia, today’s essay will delve into some of the specific elements of CRT curricula now to be found within Ethnic Studies programs across the country.
California: Incubator of CRT in America
As described in this author’s May 7, 2021 article, “Critical Race Theory in America’s Classrooms”, the incubator for many of these educational concepts was California. There, the State School Board and legislature have wrestled with development of a so-called “Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum” (ESMC) for years. The essential purpose of that curriculum is to inculcate California students with a divisive, racist view of American society based on oppositional distinctions drawn among various ethnic groups: African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino-Chicano Americans, Native Americans, and Caucasians/whites. Coursework, class lectures, Power Points, and textbooks already in use set all the other ethnic/racial groups against whites. This is classic Marxist, Saul Alinsky-style propaganda whose ultimate objective is violent revolution based on an uprising of the “oppressed” vs the “oppressors”. Spread now throughout the U.S. school system, such indoctrination already is yielding the results methodically instigated by enemies of the state who seek a communist revolution in this country.
Let’s look at some of the specifics: how traditional academic rigor is systematically being dismantled and what are some of the elements of the CRT and Ethnic Studies curricula currently in use in American classrooms.
CRT In Schools Around the Country
What is happening at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia is illustrative. A magnet school founded in 1985 as a place for gifted students, “TJ” as it’s called ranked #1 in the country for 2021 according to U.S. News and World Report. Criteria for those rankings include “performance on state-required tests, graduation, and how well they prepare students for college”. The school also boasted a 99.8% graduation rate, as of September 2020.
But no longer. After a unanimous vote by all twelve Fairfax County school board members, TJ will no longer admit students based on academic achievement and a tough entrance exam. It seems that some 70% of the student body at TJ in the 2020 school year were Asians. This has now been deemed unacceptable by the Fairfax County Schools system because competition with such highly gifted students – who typically score in the top 2 percent of high school students nationwide with average IQ levels ranging from about 120-160 – was just not fair to lower achieving students of other ethnic backgrounds. Admissions tests will henceforth be scrapped in favor of a lottery draw from among students who post at least a 3.5 GPA. The objective is not to continue TJ’s record for academic excellence but to draw in more students of African American and Hispanic background, even if their scholastic performance doesn’t match up to that of their Asian counterparts. After all, it’s diversity of skin color that counts most now, not ensuring that America continues to produce the best and brightest engineers, inventors, and scientists in the world.
Virginia just seems bound and determined to take its education system to the bottom of the pile. In April 2021, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) decided to eliminate accelerated math classes before the 11 grade because, well, equity. By tracking math students according to their talent and achievement, you see, those whose talents and achievement come in at a lower level than those of the most gifted, hard-working students were being left out of the more challenging math courses. The fact that some students struggle with multiplication tables while others are cruising through calculus can only be due to racism and white supremacy, according to the VDOE. And the only solution for that is to level the playing field, so everybody gets blended into a uniform, equitable kind of mediocrity.
Not to single out Virginia, the state of California has also decided that traditional math – getting the right answer to problems that are fixed in mathematical immutables – is racist and rooted in a “white supremacy culture”. To deal with this intolerable situation, the California Department of Education is considering a new “framework” for teaching math in the state, called “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction”. Among other things, this framework asserts that demanding the correct answers to math problems is an example of “white supremacy”, and so should be avoided. The 83-page resource for teachers describes the history of mathematics as a “Western, Eurocentric way of processing and knowing information” and “reinforcing objectivity”. “Objectivity” and getting the right answer in mathematics are presented as something undesirable, that accentuates “white supremacy”, and is therefore to be discarded. The preferred pedagogy rather promotes something called “ethnomathematics”. “Mathematics” is spelled “mathematx”. Students are to be encouraged to “create mathematical definitions in their own words”. Another recommended math project is to have the students create their own Tik Tok videos (never mind that the Tik Tok app is an Artificial Intelligence and data collection platform for the Chinese Communist Party). Nor should mathematics be presented as new learning that comes from the teacher, because this is called “powerhoarding”. Instead, students should be allowed to jump into the lesson, willy nilly, without raising their hand. Testing for mastery of the material is obviously out because that only reinforces the “myth of meritocracy” and makes some students who perform poorly feel bad.
No, it’s not just Virginia and California, either. The Oregon Department of Education wants teachers to register for training in “ethnomathematics”, too. The objective, of course, is not to educate world class students who can compete with the best that China, India, or Russia graduates. No, it’s to “improve equitable outcomes for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, and join communities of practice.” In other words, it’s more important that students feel good about themselves than that they can dominate quantum computing, 5G systems, or space technology someday.
Already in 2019, administrators of the Carroll Independent School District of Southlake, TX – the top-achieving school district in TX – were subjected to a retreat where they were told if they tried to treat all students equally, regardless of skin color or ethnicity, they were displaying “white privilege”, “biases”, and “white fragility”. Simply being born white was a bad thing. They were instructed to teach through “The Lens of Equity”, which meant conducting lessons strictly through a prism of race in every single context. Being “color blind” was characterized as a “luxury” that could no longer be tolerated. Equality was to be avoided at all costs. Equity of outcomes no matter the reality of talent or achievement is the new holy grail. Unsurprisingly, parents are pushing back. More on that in Part 4 of this series.
In Illinois, the Adlai E. Stevenson High School (sixth-ranked in the state), hosted an “Anti-Racism and Inclusivity Week” from 29 March-1 April 2021 to teach CRT to the entire student body. The teaching of Ibram X. Kendi was featured.
Washington State Governor Jay Inslee signed Senate Bill 5044 into law on 5 May 2021. All school staff, board directors, teachers, and administrators in public schools across the state are now required to embed the teaching of CRT in their curricula, even though racial discrimination is a blatant violation of the Washington Civil Rights Act.
CRT Demeans American Greatness and Harms Students
As should be clear by now, CRT concepts and curricula are deeply harmful to America’s E Pluribus Unum-based society, especially our students. CRT isn’t configured to make sure that all students feel good, or even feel American. Far from it. The essence of CRT curricula is that America is a fundamentally evil, racist place where our entire national history is nothing but one long litany of misdeeds by a white class of “supremacists” against a permanent underdog black, Latino, non-white class. This is obviously pure Marxist class warfare, but with the overlay of race. The soaring idealism of our foundational documents – especially the Declaration of Independence – is reduced to merely the slave-owner status of its authors. The Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation that ended slavery in America, the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and all the federal legislation (including Constitutional Amendments 13, 14, and 15) to ensure legal equality of all before the rule of law, are dismissed as inconsequential. The statues are pulled down. The literary classics of Western Civilization must be burned. Taking personal responsibility, striving to reach individual full potential is “acting white”. The children are taught that they belong either to the “oppressor” class or the “oppressed” class. It’s all about their racial status and there’s nothing the “oppressed” can do about it except discriminate, hate, and rise up in violent revolution against their white classmates.
As Ibram X. Kendi wrote, “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” Kendi’s books are among the reading selections for K-12 classes. “Bebe Antiracista” will be out on Kindle in August 2021, along with a board edition (for little ones).
In Part 4 of this series, we will take a look at how citizen patriot parents are banding together to fight back against the Marxist indoctrination of their children. There is good news out there and it is spreading.
The views expressed in CCNS member articles are not necessarily the views or positions of the entire CCNS. They are the views of the authors, who are members of the CCNS.
