School Teachers as Political Indoctrinators

School Teachers as Political Indoctrinators

– By Howard Sierer –

Labor Day provides an opportunity to review how far to the extreme left the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have raced. They’ve left behind not only most of their own members but the vast majority of Americans as well.

The NEA’s positions were spelled out in resolutions adopted at its recent national convention. Right off the top, the organization stated “we oppose attempts to ban critical race theory and/or The 1619 Project.” This was followed with calls for the union to support and lead campaigns that “result in increasing the implementation of culturally responsive education, critical race theory, and ethnic (Native people, Asian, Black, Latin(o/a/x), Middle Eastern, North African, and Pacific Islander) studies curriculum in pre- K-12 and higher education.”

I addressed neo-Marxist Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project in previous columns. Both make race the centerpiece of all teaching, even in the hard sciences. CRT calls for Marxian redistribution of the nation’s wealth to ensure black economic equality, calls for ending merit evaluation of performance and replacing “white systemic racism” with black systemic racism. All this to overthrow the country’s existing institutions that preserve white supremacy and “the patriarchy.”

Another resolution directed the NEA to lobby for “professional development around cultural responsiveness, implicit bias, anti-racism, trauma-informed practices, restorative justice practices, and other racial justice training’s” for “all school employees.” NEA delegates called for similar training for students.

Ask yourself whether elementary school children should be taught that they have implicit biases and that skin color should be the foundation of their relationships with others.

The delegates approved preparing a study that will criticize “empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.”

How about the convention’s call to “join with Black Lives Matter at school and the Zinn Education Project” to hold a rally on George Floyd’s birthday, honor other victims of police violence, and promote “a National Day of Action to teach lessons about structural racism and oppression.” Former Communist Howard Zinn was a radical who characterized our nation’s history as one long tale of the people versus the oppressors in power.

Yet another resolution called for the union to share resources for “decolonizing the curriculum” with educators to use in the classroom, whatever that means. There were more but I’ll spare you.

It might be easy to dismiss all this foolishness as the product of convention delegates who are far more committed to the extreme left than are the three million NEA members back home. But the delegates will return home spreading the gospel of American oppression in faculty meetings. Dues paid by all three million will repeat the message in publications sent to all. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’s quotes on the power of propaganda apply all too well.

Not to be outdone, Randi Weingarten, president of the smaller American Federation of Teachers, denounced anyone who dared to oppose Critical Race Theory. In a July speech, she said “culture warriors are labeling any discussion of race, racism or discrimination as CRT to try to make it toxic” and “bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching students accurate history.” Apparently, she’s referring to “accurate history” as seen by Howard Zinn and Black Lives Matter.

Calling tens of thousands of parents around the nation who oppose CRT “culture warriors” is over the top. My column next week will make clear that responsibility for today’s culture wars lies clearly with left-wingers like Weingarten, not with parents.

In school districts across the country, parents are recoiling when teachers tell their children that all white Americans are bigoted racists and therefore our society needs to be overturned with a radical, race-based transformation. Many of these protesting parents are themselves minorities whose lives belie what their children are being taught.

In May of this year, Utah’s legislature passed resolutions that recommend that the Utah State Board of Education prohibit teaching Critical Race Theory concepts in the future. They say CRT “degrades important societal values,” which would harm students’ learning.

Bottom line: The NEA and AFT have become radical leftwing political advocacy groups, far from their origins as unions striving for better pay, better pensions, and better working conditions for teachers. Few NEA and AFT members signed up originally to endorse radical left-wing politics but their continuing membership implies support.

I recommend that Utah’s NEA and AFT state-level governing bodies explicitly disavow the national organization’s racist resolutions. Absent state-level union board action, I recommend that individual teachers drop out or form a new organization that reflects their values and cease paying dues that promote divisive racist values.

It’s time to teach students to think for themselves and not to become blinded by extreme partisan ideology of either the left or the right.

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