The war on local school boards, teaching and history is escalating as rightwing activists and Republican politicians prepare for the 2022 Congressional mid-term elections. In 2021, 66 gag orders preventing teaching about race and racism were introduced in 26 states and at least 12 became law. They include Assembly Bill 8253 introduced in New York State by Republican Assemblyman Colin Schmitt that, if passed, would ban students and teachers in K-12 schools from even learning about the 1619 Project. According a report by PEN America, many of these bills mirror legislation introduced into the United States Senate by Tom Cotton (REP-AK) and the Trump 2020 Executive Order “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.” Most include a provision prohibiting “divisive concepts.”
One frightening development is a shift in strategy by groups like the Proud Boys who were involved in the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election. The Proud Boys are now picketing school board meetings in protests against mask and vaccine mandates and school curriculum and reading assignments that they don’t like. This fall there were Proud Boy rallies on Long Island in Rockville Centre, Bay Shore, and Patchogue.
In New York State, school board elections are scheduled for May 17 2022, six months before the November mid-term Congressional election. Filing petitions are due in most school districts on April 18. The New York State School Boards Association provides a booklet for people considering becoming school board candidates.
On Long Island, insurgent candidates challenging COVID-19 mask mandates and a fictionalized version of Critical Race Theory won three seats on the Smithtown school board last May. Now, a Republican consulting firm is organizing classes to further polarize and politicize school board races. Among principals offering the classes is a former Trump activist, a former contractor when the Nassau County government was Republican controlled, and a Republican Suffolk County legislator
The latest Long Island school district to erupt with a Critical Race Theory Controversy is Great Neck. Some Great Neck residents accuse a Great Neck North High School 11th grade English teacher of presenting in class that whites are racist and students need to understand white fragility and reject privilege. The local parents appear to be working with a national organization Parents Defending Education that claims it wants to ensure that American schools do not promote “harmful agendas.” The group’s website has slides that were supposedly shown in the English class.
What is missing from their attack on teachings is any attempt to learn what was actually taking place in the classroom. Students were reading the book Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi sis Coates, which won a National Book Award. The slides were part of a lesson introducing students to the issues raised in the book and by other authors who question or challenge what they perceive of as racism and white supremacy in the United States. Students were asked to pledge to think about the issues raised in the book, not to agree with a particular author.
According to New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young, “the New York State Board of Regents policy, on diversity, equity and inclusion is not an attempt to, in fact, teach critical race theory. Critical race theory is not our theory of action. Our theory of action is cultural responsiveness.” The official position of the State educational governing body and the reality of what gets taught in the classroom have not stopped conservative Republicans from mobilizing white families to stop “CRT.” Jay Worona, deputy executive director and general counsel for the New York State School Boards Association calls the political assault on school boards a “false narrative.” Worona responds to the assault, “There are many people who are proclaiming that the curriculum is being designed to indoctrinate students to think in a particular way, as opposed to what we’ve done for eons, which is to teach critical thinking skills.”
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Media Watch December 13, 2021
Hosts Robert Anthony and Eric V Tait, Jr. and Guest Alan Singer discuss:
a) Chris Cuomo’s lack of professionalism/his CNN firing;
b) the current politicized Supreme Court, the SCOTUS Commission supposedly looking for ways to “Fix it” and the possible recommendations;
c) Other Criminal Justice “problems” when you’re black in America: a female stark-naked/hand-cuffed/interrogated for over-ten minutes in her own home by callous white male cops despite her screaming at them they’re in the wrong house & have the wrong person; being shot dead by a Cop’s “gun mistaken for Taser” ineptitude? And just last week: dying in police custody 2 days after being arrested, with no explanation.