Critical race theory has infiltrated California's public schools
Many Californians, who last went to school decades ago, are not familiar with critical race theory (CRT), nor do they realize how this ideology is infiltrating the state’s public school system. To understand what CRT is and its influence on public schools, read the following evidence the California Family Council has collected from recent news accounts and public websites.
Mandated Marxist Teacher Training
A California public school teacher called up the Glenn Beck radio program recently and lamented how she was forced to attend a CRT seminar by school administrators. “I did my own research online and I found out [Critical Race Theory] was founded by Karl Marx. Red flag! Red flag!” the teacher told Glenn Beck while disguising her voice in fear of retaliation from her union. “It states that facts, data, and the scientific method are ‘white concepts’. So, if you use facts and data to disprove an argument against a black person or an oppressed person, you are proving you are racist because, again, facts and data are, quote, the result of whiteness.”
As evidence, this teacher pointed to a 20-page handout she was given as part of her training titled, “How to Talk About Race Packet” published by Epoch Education, a education training center in Oakland, California. Almost the entire document is dedicated to promoting CRT theory. Here are a few bullet points on the first page explaining how CRT is a framework that helps us:
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- Understand racism as endemic to American life
- Express skepticism toward dominant legal claims of neutrality, objectivity, color blindness, and meritocracy
- Challenge the traditional telling of history and insist on contextual analyses of the law and systems
- Express skepticism toward dominant legal claims of neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness, and meritocracy
On page two, teachers were taught about the “Permanence of Racism,” and “Whiteness as Property.” The document also included articles about white privilege and how racism will never end. Read the document for yourself.
The organization that provided this training document, Epoch Education, is currently hosting a series of online presentations over the next month titled, “What is Critical Race Theory… Really?” The Epoch Education website has a “Resources” page with a video titled “Challenging How History is Taught.” Within this video, Program Specialist Nicole Kukral with San Juan Unified (a district just east of Sacramento) explains how she created an “Equity Audit Rubric”… “grounded in Critical Race Theory” and how this rubric is being used by California school districts to evaluate social studies curriculum being considered for adoption.
The rubic tells teachers to evaluate history textbooks in a positive light only if the people telling the history were “people of color and other diverse communities.” There seems to be no concern regarding whether the history is an accurate description of the important events of the past, only that history told by western white men should be seen as suspect.
Black Lives Matter Curriculum in California Schools
The Black Lives Matter organization, with the help of other advocacy organizations and teachers’ unions are pressuring California school districts to adopt race and ethic studies curriculum full of the same CRT ideology. The National Education Association website has a map of where Black Lives Matter events or teaching are happening within California schools.
The California Teachers Association has a whole page dedicated to promoting the Black Lives Matter ideology. On it you will find a chart that lists socially acceptable ways white people reveal their “covert white supremacy.” The list includes: “calling police on black people,” “colorblindness,” “Eurocentric curriculum,” “paternalism,” the “Make America Great Again” slogan, “claiming reverse racism,” and the saying, “There is one human race.”
If you want to read the BLM curriculum promoted in California schools, read the content yourself at BLM at School. As you peruse the content, you can see how kids will be taught the 13 guiding principles of the BLM movement, which include affirming transgender and queer identities and a commitment to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure…”
A video from 2015, connecting Black Lives Matter (BLM) beliefs to Marxism, has been circulating the internet. It shows BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who describes herself as a “queer,” artist, author, organizer and college professor, and who founded the organization with another lesbian feminist. On the video she admits BLM founders, like herself, are ”trained organizers,” and “trained Marxists,” and “super versed on ideological theories.”
BLM and CTR inspired curriculum could be required in every California public high school if Governor Gavin Newsom signs AB 331, a bill the Wall Street Journal editorial board calls “radical indoctrination.” Newsom has until September 30 to make a decision. If signed the bill will require every high school student in the state would take a semester ethic studies in order to graduate. The curriculum model posted on the California Department of Education’s website says the new course should “build new possibilities for post-imperial life that promotes collective narratives of transformative resistance.”
According to the WSJ editorial board, this new curriculum is so radical and biased it makes the New York Times “1619 project” (a revisionist account of race and the American founding) “look moderate and balanced” in comparison. Teachers are to provide students with “examples of systems of power, which can include economic systems like capitalism and social systems like patriarchy.” Students should then be taught “the four ‘I’s of oppression” — ideological, institutional, interpersonal and internalized,” WSJ editorial board explains.
Is Critical Race Theory Biblical?
“What Would You Say?” a project of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview put out a short video several months ago explaining the theory’s two primary claims. “First, everyone can be divided into two groups: those who have power and those who don’t. Second, those who have power always oppress those who don’t.” Oppressor and oppressed categories are based on which race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion group a person belongs to. White, straight, Christian males are considered the ultimate oppressors, while all other groups are somewhere on the scale of the oppressed.
The video also explains why CRT is not biblical. “Some people claim that since Jesus cares about oppression, critical theory and intersectionality should be embraced by Christians. But critical theory and intersectionality are not consistent with Christianity, and here are three reasons why.
- First, critical theory offers a different view of humanity than Christianity.
- Second, critical theory offers a different view of sin than Christianity
- Third, critical theory offers a different view of salvation than Christianity.”
Watch the video below to learn more.
Greg Burt is director of Capitol Engagement at California Family Council.
