The endorsement interviews I’m most nervous about are with the teacher’s unions. I truly respect teachers and am grateful for all of the amazing educators that shaped my future. I want to do well but I think I have a lot to learn about education policy. Just because you went to school doesn’t mean you know anything about the complexities of educating humans. Some of the least educated Congressional members seem to think they are experts on what or how to teach. I don’t want to be one of those congress members.
Public school Teachers have been used as a political punching bag since the Reagan administration. Do you remember the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk? According to the article in the Guardian, It didn’t start with Trump: how America came to undervalue teachers. That report began decades of de-valuing teachers, stagnating pay, and opening the door for the privatization of public funding for schools with W’s education policy, No Child Left Behind. My opponent Kevin McCarthy is stuck in the past and is anti-teacher, anti-funding, and a pro-privatization of public education warrior. He and his fellow propagandists have a new shtick: Critical Race Theory.
The Republicans just can't get over the Reagan era. Critical Race Theory was discussed in length in the early eighties by legal scholars who were trying to make sense of policies such as redlining and how it prevented Black families from obtaining mortgages and buying homes. An article in Black Past gives a comprehensive explanation of CRT and reaffirms that it was never intended to be used as an educational tool or be part of the school curriculum, just a legal explanation of how institutional racism has long and deep roots in American economics and culture.
So why has this obscure legal discussion of the 1980s become the tool for showing up at a school board meeting and acting like an idiot? Why was it Youngkin’s main talking point, though he couldn’t explain CRT, in his gubernatorial race? CRT isn’t even part of Virginia’s school curriculum. It’s the new Nation at Risk, or any of the number of hysterical fake threats that are promoted by the conservative right, who have worked for decades to dismantle our public education system. They don’t think it should be your inalienable right to a free and appropriate public education funded by your parent’s tax dollars. They think everyone should pull themselves up by their ‘bootstraps’, but don’t understand that the institutional systems in place such as redlining have prevented some from being able to afford the boots and the straps.
School curriculum should include American history with its warts and all. The books that children read in school should be culturally balanced and include images of people that look like them. I know for me, growing up with immigrant parents that didn’t have the luxury of an American education, one of the most important things my teachers provided was a sense of inclusion and acceptance. I will continue my education in Congress, learning about what we need to do to support teachers, families, and our children so they can all meet their full potential.
I’m running against Mr. Critical Hysteria Syndrome himself, Kevin McCarthy. Check out what is going on with my campaign at www.brunoforcongress.com.
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