The 'Critical Race Theory' Monster Hunt Is Beginning to Wreak Havoc on Local School Boards

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a36697120/critical-race-theory-conservatives-school-boards/

Do they realize how crazy it really is out there these days? Do they realize how the tendrils of crazy now instantly connect with what they’re doing—or not doing—in Washington with the crazy at the local level? From the AP:

Opponents of Washoe County’s curriculum proposal camped on the eastern side of the entrance to a packed local school board meeting on Tuesday, wearing MAGA hats and carrying signs that read “No CRT,” “CRT teaches racism,” and “The School Board works for the people!” To combat concerns about ideological indoctrination, the Nevada Family Alliance has proposed outfitting teachers with body cameras to ensure they aren’t indoctrinating students in classrooms.

“You guys have a serious problem with activist teachers pushing politics in the classroom, and there’s no place for it, especially for our fifth graders,” Karen England, the group’s executive director, told trustees Tuesday.

Body cameras? Body cameras? I guarantee you that this will happen, somewhere, sometime in the next decade. Sooner, if the government changes hands in 2022 and 2024. Already, the 2024 presidential hopefuls are in the lounge before boarding the bandwagon, and they’re on their third round of drinks. From the Orlando Sentinel:

[Florida Governor Ron] DeSantis, following a national conservative playbook, said he wanted to prevent instructors from “teaching kids to hate their country.” The governor, speaking via a video connection, told the State Board of Education that he does not want to stop children from learning about slavery or the civil rights movement, only to make sure they don’t hear “narratives that are not grounded in facts.” He wants to prevent, he has said, students from learning a “false history,” where they “look back and denigrate the Founding Fathers, denigrate the American Revolution.” In his short address, he offered no instances where Florida teachers had offered inaccurate history lessons but cited problems in schools in Arizona and New York.

*snip*

[QED]

1. Even if it isn't CRT, the protests are on...

The latest outrage whipped up by Fox, etc. to keep the base riled up.

Here's an example:

Patriot Party member arrested at Chandler school board meeting


A member of a right-wing Arizona group that has protested COVID-19 closures and school equity programs was arrested Wednesday outside the Chandler school board meeting after a disturbance.

Steve Daniels, chair of the Patriot Party of Arizona, was arrested on suspicion of criminal trespassing after a school representative and police officers asked Daniels to leave the district office and he refused.

A video of the exchange, which Daniels recorded and was later posted to YouTube, shows Daniels and dozens of community members outside the district office on Frye Road protesting the use of critical race theory in the classroom.



Critical race theory was not on the board's meeting agenda. But as rumors have swirled that the district is using the academic framework in classrooms, the school board decided to address it head-on. In an announcement near the start of the meeting, Board President Barb Mozden said the district is not teaching critical race theory and neither the board nor administration has discussed implementing critical race theory in the curriculum. Her statement was included in the board agenda that was posted online.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/chandler/2021/06/10/patriot-party-member-steve-daniels-arrested-chandler-school-meeting/7647989002/

[Ron Green]

2. Right-Wing Assholes are Gonna Do This.

This is just who they are and what they do. I’m glad the ensuing battle in the Culture War will bring CRT to the fore, this useful set of tools for examining the lies of our “American story” and the harm still caused by the nostalgic hagiography that has passed for history in this country.

[Under The Radar]

3. This crap isn't any different than the anti sharia law spectacle

Obama was so clean they had to fabricate a scandal and none of them understood what Sharia law was, it just sounded like it came from the Muslim Terrorist handbook, but each Republican legislature passed it nonetheless.
This is another political sideshow, a spectacle, a fabricated distraction because they have nothing else.

[roamer65]

4. So DeSatan admits to the GQP ideology.

Loving your “country” means loving enslavement of Africans and genocide of Native Americans.

We knew it all along.

[salin]

5. I found this earlier this month

when I was wondering why this was happening in a number of districts (these sudden "protests" at school board meetings) in the wealthy suburban communities north of Indianapolis. None of them were expecting it - nor were teaching anything remotely close - but that doesn't matter. I wondered if the issue was being seeded to look grass roots - and happening in suburban areas where congressional districts are starting to turn purple (and in other states flip.)

I found this ....

Koch Connections and Sham Grassroots of Parents Defending Education
Posted on April 12, 2021 by Maurice Cunningham

Parents Defending Education is corporate school privatizers going hard right to attack school boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers. It’s a dirty game and it’s about as grassroots as say, a Koch political operation.

Mercedes Schneider has figured out the grassroots angle in Parents Defending Education: Prefab “Grassroots”—PDE needs local connections to claim standing in law suits to chill the free speech of any educator who questions white supremacy. Peter Greene minces no words in Parents Defending Education: Astroturf Goes Hard Right:

read more: https://www.masspoliticsprofs.org/2021/04/12/koch-connections-and-sham-grassroots-of-parents-defending-education/

[Ilsa]

6. Already happening in various counties in Georgia.

At some school board meetings, high schoolers have come forward to explain how the diversity programs have helped teens to bond to other teens who are "different." They talked about increased empathy and respect.

Occasionally, an immigrant student from an authoritarian nation will say that the central government shouldn't have any say in what the local governments prescribe for their students. They spout RW talking points.

But the adults don't typically listen to their children, no matter what side they are on.