by Eric Lendrum
A public school district in Louisville, Kentucky is forcing all teachers to undergo training sessions that feature far-left curriculum, including Critical Race Theory and pro-LGBTQ+ attitudes, in preparation for the new school year.
As reported by Fox News, Jefferson County Public Schools hosted a “Racial Equity Training” session earlier this summer, which featured such concepts as anti-racist math, implicit bias training, and “Whiteness theory,” among others. The session included forced reading for the teachers such as the books “How to be an Antiracist” and “White Fragility,” both written by black nationalist Ibram Kendi.
The presentation, given by Atherton High School Assistant Principal Julie Chancellor, declared that racism is “so pervasive” in America that it is “almost invisible,” and that such racism allegedly “affects education specifically.” The training featured a slideshow pointing out racial disparities between the student body and the faculty, claiming that while only 40 percent of students in the district are White, 84 percent of the teachers at the school are White.
“White teachers perceive the academic ability of their black and brown students as lower than their White students,” the presentation declared, without any evidence. The same presentation called for teachers to present their math curricula in an “anti-racist” manner, since a “focus on understanding social and racial injustices are an important piece of the broader struggle for justice.”
The incident was initially reported at The Chalkboard Review by investigative journalists Jason Anger and Daniel Buck, who described the training as a “greatest hits list of radical progressive ideas.”
The same district is set to host additional trainings on other far-left concepts, including support for the LGBTQ+ agenda. In October, another training session will be titled “Culturally Relevant Curriculum,” while the month of November will see the district host a session called “Supporting Early Child LGBTQ+ Students/Families;” the latter event will have a focus on how “preschool teachers can provide a welcoming, inclusive classroom environment for students and families that supports diversity and equity.”
“If schools across the country were to scrap all ‘anti-racist’ training and devotion to all things Queer, and instead focus on developing what it takes to be a professional – content-area expertise, classroom management techniques, curriculum development – then we wouldn’t see parents pulling out of public education in the numbers they are,” Anger and Buck wrote in their original investigation.
The issue of public schools forcing far-left political concepts on children as young as elementary or preschool has become a hot-button cultural fight in the United States, with grassroots groups protesting at school board meetings all across the country, and many parents rising up to run for school board positions themselves. Most recently, such a grassroots group saw five major school boards in Florida flip to conservative majorities, including the deep-blue district of Miami-Dade.
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Eric Lendrum reports for American Greatness.
Photo “Atherton Assistant Principal Dr. Julie Chancellor Presenting at the JCPS Racial Equity Institute” by J.M. Atherton High School.