How to thwart the Biden CRT/Action Civics power play

The Biden administration is determined to see America’s youth indoctrinated with the noxious teachings of Critical Race Theory (CRT). And Team Biden is moving quickly to accomplish this.

Stanley Kurtz writes:

The new Biden rule favoring education grants that push Critical Race Theory is a disaster for this country. Put that new rule together with the massive federal Civics Secures Democracy Act that pushes both leftist “action civics” and Critical Race Theory, and K–12 education in America will be transformed beyond recognition.

Once the radicals in Biden’s Education Department get $6 billion worth of grants from the Civics Secures Democracy Act to play with, they will force mandatory political protests (action civics) and cures for “whiteness,” “Euro-centrism,” etc. (Critical Race Theory) on virtually every state and school district in the nation. If you don’t think Biden can do this to the red states, remember that Obama used Race to the Top grants to force Common Core on virtually every state.

How to stop this power play? Through state legislation that keeps both action civics and Critical Race Theory out of K–12. As Stanley says, “now that politicizing K–12 is part of the Democrats’ agenda, any state without a law that bars both action civics and Critical Race Theory is vulnerable.” (Emphasis added)

Stanley has formulated legislation, the Partisanship Out of Civics Act (POCA), that provides that dual bar. But he notes that most states considering such legislation are ignoring the threat of action civics and focusing only on attempts to keep Critical Race Theory out of K-12.

This is a mistake because, as Stanley explains, “action civics is just as dangerous as Critical Race Theory, and in fact is directly allied with it.” Indeed, “the new ultra-woke Critical Race Theory-inspired teaching standards in Illinois even encourage teachers to substitute “social justice work” and “action civics projects” for traditional testing when determining a student’s grade.” (Emphasis added)

Thus, “legislators need to bar both action civics and Critical Race Theory, particularly because grants authorized by the Civics Secures Democracy Act will demand adherence to both of these pernicious pedagogies.”

And time is of the essence. If the federal Civics Secures Democracy Act passes before the start of the 2022 state legislative session, it may be too late to keep action civics and Critical Race Theory out of the states. Left-leaning state education bureaucrats will apply for the massive pot of money governed by federal rules favoring action civics and Critical Race Theory before states legislature can even convene. And governors will be extremely reluctant to stop the bureaucrats from applying, out of fear of being slammed for turning away badly needed federal funds.

That’s why state legislators should promptly introduce bills along the lines of the Partisanship Out of Civics Act.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses