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A Washington school board has just banned the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in classrooms.
The Kennewick School Board in Kennewick, Washington, voted unanimously to stop educators from teaching CRT.
CRT makes race the lens through which its proponents analyze and see all aspects of life. It categorizes individuals into groups of oppressors and victims. It is a philosophy that is permeating all of the American culture nowadays.
Watch the PragerU video below, to see James Lindsay explain more in detail why this is an ideology people should be aware of.
The school board is now directing educators to teach students facts about U.S. history in all subjects.
They say all curriculums will be reviewed for “neutrality, objectivity, and educational effectiveness.”
“Neither preferential nor disparaging treatment shall be applied to learning about any race, and no student shall be taught that their skin color determines their ability to succeed; that their race determines their moral character; or that their race make them responsible for past transgressions of their race,” the policy read.
Moreover, no student shall be taught that their socio-economic status or U. S. citizenship status makes them superior or inferior to others,” the policy also stated.
Florida also made moves to remove the ideology from the classroom.
Florida’s state Board of Education banned CRT from public school classrooms in June of 2021.
Governor Ron DeSantis said that students should be taught the facts, rather than “trying to indoctrinate them with ideology.”
The new rules say that classrooms should have teachings that “must be factual and objective, and may not suppress or distort significant historical events.”
DeSantis said this of CRT, “Some of this stuff is, I think, really toxic,” DeSantis told the school board. “I think it’s going to cause a lot of divisions. I think it’ll cause people to think of themselves more as a member of particular race based on skin color, rather than based on the content of their character and based on their hard work and what they’re trying to accomplish in life.”
Not everyone is happy about the move to get rid of CRT from the schools.
The Florida Education Association called on the board to reject the proposal.
The job of educators is to challenge students with facts and allow them to question and think critically about information, and that’s the antithesis of indoctrination,” Cathy Boehme, a public policy advocate for the association, told the board.
“No matter our color, background or ZIP Code, we want our kids to have an education that imparts honesty about who we are, integrity and how we treat others, and courage to do what’s right.”
Hopefully more and more school boards will follow suit, and get rid of the extremely divisive ideology of CRT.
