By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
A new trio of House education bills would push back on Critical Race Theory and federal rules in local public schools, the latest in an ongoing battle led by Republicans to respond to curriculum and policy changes in education.
U.S. Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., introduced the three new education bills, including the Defending Students’ Civil Rights Act, which codifies that teaching CRT is illegal discrimination; as well as the Empowering Parents Act, which allows parents to hold schools accountable if those schools embrace more progressive racial or gender ideology in the classroom.
Good also introduced the Empowering Local Curriculum Act, which says schools receiving federal dollars cannot be forced to include CRT in their curriculum.
“These three bills would combat federal encroachment in curriculum, protect students from the harmful ideology of Critical Race Theory, and defend parents’ God-given right to educate their children,” Good’s office said.
CRT is an increasingly controversial set of ideas based on the idea that the U.S. is an inherently racist country and always has been and that the U.S. and its institutions can largely be viewed through that lens.
“Parents know what is best for their students and have primary responsibility for their children’s education,” Good said. “Local school boards should represent the will of the parents, not teachers unions, the Biden Administration or DC bureaucrats. I am fighting back against the Biden Administration’s overreach into the classroom with my back-to-school agenda that empowers parents, protects students from racist curriculum, and permits children to focus on their academic pursuits.”
The bills come amid a nationwide debate over the role of parents in their kids’ education. Parents have begun organizing and protesting at school boards, raising concerns about school curriculum and sexualized books in school libraries.
Those parents have often been brushed aside in recent years, sometimes caught on camera in videos that went viral and fueled the “parental rights” movement.
Democrats have pushed back, saying teachers know best what curriculum is needed and that the effort to ban books that Republicans say are age-inappropriate is a form of censorship.
In recent years, equity and CRT ideology in education has become increasingly common with billions of taxpayer dollars behind it.
House Republicans launched an inquiry last year after reports showed that federal funding passed for COVID-related student learning loss was spent to promote “equity warriors,” critical race theory teachings and more at local schools.
The Center Square previously reported on similar funding at the collegiate level. Federal grant documents show that the U.S. Department of Education awarded millions of dollars to a Florida-based education program that trains future educators and other professionals in CRT.
Another similar program, “The Research Institute for Scholars of Equity,” received millions of taxpayer dollars for training college students in critical race theory at several higher educational institutions.
Good is not the only lawmaker raising concerns about progressive ideology in schools and introducing legislation.
U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., in July reintroduced the Protect Equality and Civics Education (PEACE) Act, a bill that would prevent tax dollars from promoting CRT within the Department of Education’s American history guidelines, which have increasingly incorporated those ideas.
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has also introduced the Combating Racist Training in the Military Act as well as the Stop Critical Race Theory Act.
Good’s legislative effort has received support from several family and education groups.
“The Empowering Local Curriculum Act will end funding for schools promoting divisive ideologies like Critical Race theory that separate students into opposing categories of victims vs oppressors simply based on the color of their skin,” Terry Schilling, president of American Principles Project, said in a statement. “The Defending Students’ Civil Rights Act clarifies that position further by outlining how such a practice violates these children’s Civil Rights, an offense actionable by law. And finally, the Empowering Parents Act ensures that these children, their rights, and their innocence are being protected, not by a distant bureaucracy that can be bought out by well-funded organizations, but by those who have their best interests at heart: their parents.”
Matt Buckham, executive director for Institute for Educational Reform, backed the bills as well, calling out a recurring point of criticism: politicization of schools.
“Government teacher unions push the toxic political agenda of the Democratic party along with their radical lies through Critical Race Theory and woke ideology,” Buckman said in a statement.
The federal government has NO constitutional basis for being involved in education; any bill other than one which completely defunds and dismantles the Department of Education is missing the point.
Not far enough. We need to bulldoze every school and get back to parents exercising their God given rights to choose their child’s education. Home schooled kids perform x10 better in every aspect.
“Home schooled kids perform x10 better in every aspect.” LOL
Not even close. Maybe you can point us to some actual statistics to back that claim up. Just in case you don’t know, 10 X better is the same as 1000% better.
It actually depends on who is doing the teaching and how the testing is conducted. When the average parent teaches mathematics and science, the home schoolers usually do worse.
Adults who had inferior or neglectful environments as home-schooled children had substandard levels of social interaction, faced poor job prospects, and experienced generalized life struggles. Public schools offer a standardized environment.
Which liberal dark money cabal gave you money to write this comment? See comments like this are what confirms that Biden is the worst president in history, and if we don’t get Trump back, we won’t get our country back. Keep sipping the cool-aid.
The question that I haven’t seen yet is what is the end goal of CRT? Do they want to use the very real history of slavery, racism, etc. as a club to beat modern Americans (who were never slave owners or slaves) into embracing some form of reverse discrimination to, as they like to say, “level the playing field” for minorities who are generations removed from the evils the rest of us are now supposed to suffer the consequences of? Are minorities being denied equal access to opportunities? Or are they being given unfair advantages based on nothing more than their skin color? Quotas, equity hires, racially based preference…switch the racial groups around and replace the advantaged minorities with white people and see how that feels. Probably feel like the Jim Crow days are back…and you know what? THEY ARE! Society has simply repeated the same old behaviors just with different racial groups. The same behaviors that led to cities burning in the 60s. It’ll happen again too when the new disadvantaged finally get tired of it. Two wrongs never make a right but, I guess, we all need to learn that the hard way.
It has nothing to do with helping those that are claimed to be disadvantaged. Fomenting manufactured envy and victimhood is how you get a group of people to embrace “moral flexibility” and justify any number of atrocities committed in the name of the manufactured cause (end justifies the means). The manufactured cause isn’t the REAL underlying cause, however; the REAL underlying cause is consolidation of power and control by the group doing the false-cause manufacturing and fomenting. It’s textbook stuff, actually. Except that these mechanisms aren’t taught, discussed, or analyzed in school anymore, because schools are the training ground for the useful idiots these days. CRT is merely Americanized cultural Marxism in the spirit of Maoist cultural revolution. Not all revolution is good, especially not this one.
“The question that I haven’t seen yet is what is the end goal of CRT?”
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It is the same end goal of everything leftist. To place the all powerful State and the collective before all other relationships in your life.
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First of all, forget about the word race. It is really just CT. Critical Theory. Operative word is critical.
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In other words, criticize whatever system/situation you are looking at. Strictly look only at the negatives, never acknowledge there are any positives at all. It applies to any and every system or situation.
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Race relations in the US are getting better (or they were before 0bama got into the White House) every day, but that does not serve the end goal of the leftists, so they are adamant that “critical” race theory be taught to children. Institutionalized/systemic racism? WTF is that? Oh… there are not enough examples of actual racism, so the leftists have to lie with statistics to create a new form of racism. Like there is some vast global conspiracy among companies and individuals to keep the black man down. Com’n! Let’s be real.
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Like everything else with leftists, this is not about teaching history, or even getting rid of racism. it is about destroying bonds between people. It is about making friendships more difficult. It is about turning individuals against each other.
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What is the end goal? Turning the all-powerful State into your primary/most important relationship. All other relationships, spouse, child, or friend, are secondary. (And, guess who the leftists think will be running this all powerful state?)
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Marx was a huge fan of critical theory, critical thinking. He realized there was no way the population as a whole would think socialism was a good idea compared to a free market/capitalism economy. So he advocated for a system of thought where only negatives of capitalism were acknowledged. If you ask a “socialist” what is great about socialism, the answer will invariably be knocking capitalism. That is critical thinking in practice.
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It is not any different with CRT. You cannot destroy improving race relations without constantly harping on what is wrong with race relations, instead of talking about how well we really get along.
Thank goodness that, at least for now, saner heads are proposing sane legislation to combat all this lunacy. Let’s hope for successful passage of these bills.
The operative word in Critical Race Theory is not “Race.” It is “Critical.”
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Critical, as in being critical of something, as in focusing solely on the negatives, while ignoring anything positive.
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CRT is not about race or history in any way.
It is about teaching people the USA is an unredeemably racist country that abhors anything other than white culture. Which is an absolute crock of bull manure. Are there racists? Yep. There are racists in every country. Bummer, deal with it.
However, is there “systemic” or “institutionalized” racism? No. Those are “concepts” that were created by people looking to destroy the progress that has been made since the Civil Rights Movement.
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Teaching “Critical (anything) theory” in schools should be outlawed across the board. Instead of teaching students to focus strictly on the negatives, teach them to understand (and accept) that no system is perfect, and every system has positives and negatives.
So you’ve never heard of banks “redlining” neighborhoods of Black people? Or any discussion on how the highway system was developed in such a way as to bifurcate minority communities in an effort to speed white suburban commuters along between work and home? Are you afraid that kids might know about such things? Why stop at CRT? Should we also refuse to teach the truth about how we ended up at war in Vietnam? What about Iraq in 2003? I’m not sure how we got to a point where it’s preferable to NOT teach history.
I have heard of both, and both examples are bogus. Banks did not “redline” however the outcome was a virtual “redlining.” Oh… and that practice has been illegal for… what? 50 years? 40 years? Do you have an example that happened in this century?
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And, the roads? Yeah, they were designed to keep the Irish and Italians out of the ‘burbs. Last time I checked, they were both white.
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Now…
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Here is the thing that you are not touching on. CRT is not teaching “history.” It is teaching students to be critical. Not in a good way, but instead to focus solely and strictly on the negatives without acknowledging any positives. What if, instead of Vietnam or Iraq, you applied the same “criticism” theory to the US entry into WWII? I tend to think history would not be the subject, instead it would be propaganda. I think the USA would be portrayed as an imperialistic country who was determined to dominate the world, and Japan’s attach on Pearl Harbor was justified as self defense.
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I am reminded of this:
“History is not there for you to like or dislike, it is there for you to learn from it. And if it offends you, even better, because then you are less likely to repeat it. History is not yours to erase or destroy. Teach that to your children.”
So, teach history. Not CRT. CRT ignores history.
Good.
A step in the right direction for sure. The kids need to learn math and English instead of sex and hatred.
“CRT” being taught in K-12 public schools is not a real thing. See the article “How a Conservative Activist Invented the Conflict Over Critical Race Theory” . . . the perfect way white supremacist Republicans could weaponize history to psychologically control their base.
Something you seem to not realize is that the Left and the Right play for the same team.
Not your team.
The game is division.
Seems to be working pretty well from both sides because both sides are filled with sheep.
Even better that we get this law in place before it starts.
“Conservative activists inventing the conflict over Critical Race Theory” is not a real thing. . . CRT is the perfect way Marxist cultural revolutionaries could weaponize history to psychologically control their base.
Good luck….POTUS will never sign it.
Good luck with all of that. I can hardly wait for the Leftist crowd to invade the congressional chambers and take over the way they did in Juneau. Seriously, the dems will never allow it, even if they have to riot. But of course the dems will present anything they do as “fighting for democracy” even though recent behavior suggests that they know nothing of the concept.
Anyone else see the video of the nazi’s praising Biden for sending weapons to the Ukraine to help their nazi brethren?
Anyways, this legislation will never pass. Just more distraction from the uniparty to let them know they’re looking out for the little folk.
I have not seen these videos. Can you post a link so we can all see them?
I also must ask, have you seen the videos out of Florida around Disney World where there are actual nazi’s shouting their support for Ron DeSantis?
Here is a link to an article about those nazis: ‘https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/09/05/florida-disney-world-antisemitic/70772425007/
You cited a USA Today link? USA Today? Otherwise known as UselessA Today?
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If an article appears in USA Today, you can rest assured it is heavily slanted to the left. Any mention of Biden by these individuals will never show up in their article.
Please. If you want to sway the opinion of anyone on the right side of the political aisle, you have to at least cite a news source that, occasionally, criticizes the left. Politico (otherwise known as 0bama’s typewriter), MSNBC, The NY Times, Washington Post, etc… are so far left they cannot even see the center.
Look forward to your Alaskan news!
I hope Alaska signs up and supports these ideas!
This is fantastic news!! All though,
I did find it quite hilarious in the paragraph where the democrats said that the teachers know what is best for their students. I wonder what the stats are on child molestation by teachers are these days???
ASD reading writing math basics performance level is currently not acceptable based on the test scores that they seem to be unwilling to share with the parents in a timely manner.(They havent done their homework)
Performance levels are near the bottom of the scale nationally but the cost per student is near the top.
Until those numbers change nothing besides the basics needs to be in the classroom.
If ASD can’t move the numbers then our money used to support the heavily laden administrative “upside down pyramid” designed education empire created from too many years of excessively fat budgeting practices then legislators need to implement school vouchers giving parents school choice allowing the money to follow the student instead of the student following the money.
It is a concept no different than voting which gives families a choice who they decide is best for their childs success and well being whether it be based on religion military or simply homeschooled.
My two sons experience with Alaska military youth academy was so far above ASD’s level of performance there was absolutely no comparison.
My grandchildren will never ever walk through the doors of ASD!
They deserve so much more than lamestream performance ASD offers at a very high cost to property taxpayers who should be the only ones allowed to vote on bonds.
Dr Too many TT’s needs a one way ticket back to Texas with Margo Bellamy using a companion fare.
Where in the constitution does it reference a department of education? Let alone.the unionization of teachers and or public servants? Neither exist
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