In “Blue” Rhode Island, Parents Are Seeing “Red” and Rising-Up Against Critical Race Theory
A grassroots revolt in the bluest of blue states against an entrenched “woke” educational bureaucracy and teachers unions is a sign how the movement is sweeping the nation.
For most of the past year, the left has vigorously denied that critical race theory (CRT) was a “real” phenomenon in America’s government-run public school systems. According to their narrative, CRT was “fake” news, nothing more than right-wing propaganda.
Here in Rhode Island, following suit, state education officials and local school committee members – as well as their defenders in the media – also publicly denied that CRT was being taught in local school districts. In trying to obfuscate the truth … the critical theorists openly admit they are all about diversity, seeking to end the systematic racism they imagine is present in their schools; yet they are unable to produce any concrete examples and are unwilling to answer more specific curriculum questions from parents.
But in early July, the two major national teacher unions blew the left’s cover, openly admitting, and even doubling down on their desire to see divisive race theories advanced in K-12 education; a zeal that includes researching and harassing – potentially even taking legal action against – organizations that challenge the indoctrination of students with racial stereotyping. The malicious cat we all knew was there … was let out of the bag.
In the town of South Kingstown, the local school committee publicly threatened to file a lawsuit against a mother, Nicole Solas, who allegedly filed too many open records requests.
In the Chariho regional school district a black father who spoke out against CRT was led out of the local school board meeting in handcuffs, ostensibly, for not wearing a mask. In the town of Westerly, a resident, who dared to submit a resolution to ban the teaching of racial-equity principles, became the victim of a pre-orchestrated public-meeting hit job by the local teachers union in conjunction with brainwashed students and other race theorists, all sanctioned by the superintendent and school committee chair.
[Robert Chiaradio at Westerly School Board Meeting][Video]
And it’s not just about radical race theories – it’s a revolt against the entire pervasive “woke” agenda. Parents are further outraged at the many non-science-based and over-bearing Covid-19 protocols and mandates, the gender-equity agenda, as well as at the over-sexualization of their children in public schools. In one example, the RI Department of Health illegally declared that high school students aged 16-18 were “emancipated” from their parents and could unilaterally choose to “get the jab” at one of the hastily assembled school-based vaccine clinics; students would be subjected to coercion from school teachers and staff and to pressure from their peers … but away from the influence of their parents.
I have had the honor of working with and interviewing many of the leaders of these parent groups on my video blog show, In The Dugout with Mike Stenhouse. In February, the first such group I became aware of was Rise Up RI, a parent group outraged that their student-athlete children were forced to take an experimental (EUA) and invasive Covid test every week, if they were to be cleared to participate in spring outdoor sports.
Within the ensuing weeks and months, as the critical race theory issue gained national attention, and as it became clear that vaccines passports and masking was to be part of the fall school regimen, dozens of parent groups popped and started making noise all over our state: Unmask our Children RI, RI Parents Against Indoctrination, North Kingstown Parents Against Indoctrination, Westerly Residents Against Indoctrination, Chariho Community Fight Critical Race Theory in our Schools, Health Choice Rhode Island, Portsmouth Concerned Citizens, Lil Rhodies Against Mandates … and the list goes on – each with hundreds if not thousands of followers.
Most recently, I interviewed a mother of school-age children who is also a Providence school teacher. She provided stunning visual evidence what CRT actually looks like in schools … book covers and titles, posters, photos, emails describing race-segregated teacher development ‘affinity-groups’, etc.
And across America and in Rhode Island … parents are winning! In South Kingstown, the Chair of the school committee stepped down from her leadership position under pressure, before eventually being forced to resign, as did the school district superintendent, along with another school board member who just happened to be a teacher union executive for the RI National Education Association. Parents are putting the pressure on, demanding transparency and accountability, with more victories sure to be on the way.
And it’s not hard to understand why Ocean State parents are seething mad. Parents simply want their kids free from special-interest politics when in school. But, from union-demanded school mask mandates, vaccination passports, political mailers to young students, inappropriate sex-education materials, radical gender and identity politics concepts … and, now, to the divisive poison of inculcating our kids with critical race theory principles … parental rights are under assault. Right before our eyes, public schools are being transformed into a political tool of the far-left and other special interest groups.
This trend of indoctrinating our children with anti-American Marxist propaganda and the imposition of non-science-based medical mandates that may actually cause harm to students – both pushed by special interest teacher unions – is a bridge too far.
Parents are rising-up and taking matters into their own hands … literally. One ramification may be a rapid rise in parents exercising whatever educational freedoms that may be available to them – homeschooling their children or escaping public schools by enrolling their kids in private schools. There are already reports of declining public school enrollments for the fall semester.
If government-run public schools are to be perpetually politicized, the demand by parents for more school choice options will perpetually increase. Teacher unions may unwittingly be writing their own epitaphs.
And because, once again, the left has over-played its hand, whatever anti-Trump “suburban” votes the Democrats may have gained in the 2020 election, they may lose two-three times over in 2022 and beyond from outraged parents who are just now becoming “awakened” to the true agenda of the totalitarian-left.
Across the nation, and maybe even here in the deep blue Ocean State, the seething “red” parents are experiencing might result in an electoral ‘red tide’ next year.
[Featured Image: 10 News Video]
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Mike Stenhouse is CEO of the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity and one of Rhode Island’s leading conservative voices. With a degree in Economics from Harvard University, Stenhouse went on to have an eight-year pro baseball career and was a member of the 1986 American League Champion Boston Red Sox.
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Comments
Thank you, Mike. It’s great to read about so much activity on the CRT front.
Mike, I appreciate what you’re doing because it is ripping the mask off of the government schools’ claim to neutrality.
But where have parents and others been for the last 40 years? They have studiously ignored moral relativism, values clarification, anti-Judeo-Christian indoctrination, and socialist teachers. They have ignored the destructive effects of the government monopoly bureaucratic school system on children in low income districts.
In the 1980’s I attended a small meeting with some well-meaning sex-ed teachers in my school district. We asked them whether they would be able to tell 11 year old girls that it was wrong for them to be sexually active. They were unable to answer. Then we asked them whether they would be able to tell 11 year old girls that it was wrong for them to be racist. Moral relativism applied to sex, but not to racism.
This kind of madness has been going on for 40 years, and it will continue until we get the government out of the business of running schools.
Get the kids out now.
You are right. Parents must be vigilant and involved in their children’s education at every level. If I had school age children now, they would be homeschooled or in a classical Christian school (but again, with scrutiny as to curriculum).
However, we must not ignore or abandon what is occurring in public schools, because what’s happening there to those kids will influence our community and country.
Go to school board meetings. Know what’s happening and make your voice heard.
Our local parents put pressure on the school board who ended up denouncing CRT.
A success.
We must all also pressure our state and national reps on all issues too.
My state is presently in the process of banning CRT. My fear is that our dem. gov. will veto it.
Rise up parents and all citizens. Save our children to save our country!
Start organizing a potential recall for your governor now, make sure it is clear that the governor will be ousted if CRT is not banned.
I don’t know about the last forty years of indifference. However if anything good can be said about covid it’s that due to zoom schooling, I think parents now realize what kids are being indoctrinated with. CRT, sex Ed for pre-schoolers (and inappropriate sexual agendas even go too far through high school), & racial diversity are totally wrong and insane. I’m glad parents are finally awakened and being active in rooting out this insanity. Good luck all involved. Another thing that needs to be addressed is that about 75% of local property taxes are used to fund these public school; also retired people have already paid when our kids were in school and shouldn’t be penalized in our older years being forced to pay, pay, pay. Stop supporting other countries and use those trillions for American school kids.
How about requiring that students be taught an antiCRT class that is derived from MLK and Gandhi’s teaching with judging people by the color of their skin is always evil and equating CRT to how the Nazis and Communists indoctrinated children to become tools of government.
Gandhi might be more controversial than you may realize. He wasn’t exactly universally tolerant for one and two he certainly didn’t always act in good faith, third he flirted with the Japanese trying to leverage v GBR.
Gandhi also alienated his son who both took to drink and Islam (odd dissonance, I realize), and embraced every fad of educated Brits. His flirtation with the Japanese ended when Chiang Kai-shek, on a visit to India, personally pleaded with him to not disrupt the ALlied war effort, pointing out that China was the victim of a very aggressive and destructive Japanese imperialism.
Absolutely right. We Conservatives have been warning “moderate” 🙄 Democrats for that entire 40 years (or more) that their party leadership was incrementally “nudging” them into Socialism cum full MARXISM. Those evil actors have been successful , and now it may very well be impossible to reverse the process.
This is the fight of, and for, our lives, the lives of our kids, and for this great country. I am proud to stand with you all, as we battle to rid our schools of the evil lie that is Critical Race Theory.
Damn right! Everyone that is sponsoring CRT and defending it is our enemy. Beat them, never trust them again never turn your backs on them. Trust but verify worked on communist Russia. It will not work against these teachers unions and their allies.
This is what happens when you vote in the Left
Wondering what BIBi thinks
Israeli Government Approves COVID Fascism, Compulsory Vaccinations and Legally Required Masks For All Citizens Effective August 8th
July 24, 2021 | Sundance | 53 Comments
Comrades, it must be said that Israeli fascism is a particularly ironic form of Fascism. However, when you combine fascist government dictates from the Jewish state along with newly approved forced vaccinations, the level of irony exceeds adequate encapsulation.
The only level of irony missing is armbands for the non-vaccinated. Here’s the Announcement (with excerpt transcript below):
[TRANSCRIPT] – … “Dear citizens, those who refuse vaccines are endangering their health, those around them and the freedom of every Israeli citizen. They are endangering our freedom to work, the freedom of our children to learn and the freedom to hold celebrations with the family.
Those who refuse vaccines hurt us all because if all of us were vaccinated, we would all be able to maintain daily life. But if one million Israelis continue to not get vaccinated, this will oblige the eight million others to shut themselves in their homes.
Therefore, the [Corona] Cabinet decided today that as of 8 August, those who refuse vaccines will not be able to go to the cinema, the theater, the synagogue, the amusement park, the soccer game or any activity with over 100 people, indoors or out, unless they bring negative results from a coronavirus test, at their expense. Yes, they will fully bear the costs of the test. There is no reason why the taxpayers and people who have carried out their civic duty and have been vaccinated should finance tests for those who refuse to get vaccinated.
Regarding flights, people who have been vaccinated will be able to fly to the clean countries and return; after they receive negative test results in Israel, they will be exempt from quarantine.
But on the other hand, those who refuse to get vaccinated will enter quarantine for a week, no matter what country they will have returned from. These actions will help us block the morbidity. From here, I appeal to everyone who knows someone who refuses to get vaccinated: Persuade them. Explain to them that they will not hurt others.
[…] When two people wear masks, with all of the viral load that we mentioned, the likelihood goes down by 98%. Therefore, every citizen must wear a mask in closed spaces. This is not a recommendation, this is a legal requirement.” (read full transcript here)
The irony is jaw-dropping. The nation state of Israel has become the very embodiment of what it claimed to oppose. While it is often said that in order for some forms of ideology to exist they must pretend not to know things, this example is very remarkable.
Bibi is out of office, and if there is a story that has nothing to do with Israel it is this one
It has everything to do with Israel and BIBi
Unfort there is not a post where you can drop items of interest to be followed up on or just to alert or inform others
But, what has it to do with Rhode Island?
Bibi is out of office which means he has nothing to do with current decisions by his successor, it would be like tagging Trump for something Biden just did.
There are troubling things happening in Israel along with Australia and Canada among many other countries but this story is about Rhode Island parents attempting to fight back against CRT despite the fact that they live in a one party racialist identarian state.
CRT is fortunately not a thing in Israel, which could be one of the reasons why when it comes to education Israel is curb stomping the United States.
Well, we aren’t really that kind of site, gonzotx. Try parler or mewe, maybe for that sort of thing? Another idea might be to use the weekly roundup threads if you specifically want to reach LI readers; we publish two each week, one on college (and k-12) on Saturdays and one on everything else on Sundays. These would be great places to share such links and information!
Even dark skinned parents are cuffed and led out in handcuffs .
So much for diversity.
🇺🇸 1776 🇺🇸
Your only useful when you are a useful idiot regardless of color
Their efforts to try and hide what they are teaching, going after parents who dare complain, etc., are all indications that they know CRT is wrong and is not what the community wants their children taught and yet they continue pushing their ideology. How did teachers and their union get to the point where they are now the enemy of the public with their toxic wok ideology? When did they come to the opinion that they know what the kids should be taught and the parents should have no input? Perhaps it is time to fire them who push this ideology and hire teachers who teach instead of indoctrinating.
People ignored school boards for too long.
It seems like we should be able to elect good board members who hire good superintendents who manage good principals who manage good teachers.
Sadly, we mostly have exactly the opposite of that in a lot of places. We have a people problem and new regulations can’t solve people problems.
School board elections are a display of Identity Politics in SC.
They still haven’t figured out that you get what you vote for, and these people move the goalposts and call it progress.
The problem is that rot and incompetence is widespread, deeply embedded in public schools and colleges. We would need a massive purge to salvage this. Most certainly the union would need to be abolished, because they are also throughly corrupted.
I question if public schools can be salvaged.
JD,
Salvage public schools? Some sure, those that haven’t fallen into the clutches of CRT/Equity. In my rural area the local community is heavily involved with the schools, not just parents. This works to keep the ideologues at bay.
Large metro districts? Probably not. The unions have too much power and the the ideologues have burrowed too deep, IMO.
The best course is separating public funding from public schools. Let the funds follow the student to the framework that works best for the student as determined by the parents.
With actual widespread competition funded on an equal basis the government schools will lose enrollment. Market forces will eventually triumph. At a minimum it vastly reduces the power of the corrupted unions over policy and allows parents and students to escape the ideologues.
The 2020 lockdown and now the institutionalization of CRT in public schools have ripped the mask off the teachers’ unions and their lackeys. It should also motivate parents and citizens to push for the deployment of the nuclear weapon in this fight: school choice.
Replace most state funding to schools with state vouchers to parents for each school-aged kid under 18. If you like your local public school district, use the voucher there. If your local is more interested in indoctrination that education (or otherwise sucks), use the voucher to put your kid in another nearby public school / charter school (if they have room and you can manage the transportation), a private school (you’ll probably have to fund the difference in tuition, but a true voucher system would likely supercharge the availability of more affordable private schools), or homeschooling activities (ditto: with public vouchers available, I can see the rapid rollout of Khan Academy-style online schools coupled with local organizations that provide socialization/athletic/etc. activities becoming a viable alternative).
All it would likely take is for one state to adopt a true choice model, and I suspect other Red states would then follow. If the power of the free market is unleashed, “wokism” in public education in most of the country would be toast.
When “woke” public schools realize that their virtue signaling will likely result in the hemorrhaging of rivers of state funding (as parents would choose other options over woke indoctrination), watch how fast they backtrack. Indeed, I suspect that the mere threat of politically yoking anti-CRT fervor with pro-school choice efforts may cause these “woke” educators to reconsider whether they value their livelihood over their desire to virtue signal.
“Academy-style online schools coupled with local organizations that provide socialization/athletic/etc. activities becoming a viable alternative).”
Currently, public schools divert large amounts of education funds to sports. They hide most of that diversion. Take a look at how many administrators are washed up jocks. Most of them should be selling used cars.
When I was doing my field work for school districts in the South, my heart was broken more than once. I’d see science classrooms with virtually no supplies. Music rooms with pianos hopelessly out-of tune and in poor repair. Leaking ceilings, flickering lights, dripping faucets.
Then, there were the football facilities. Leather recliners. Gleaming locker rooms and showers. Large (for the time) flat screen or back-projection TV sets when they sold for four figures. Video recording equipment of mind-boggling quality.
I know, I know. Local donors and fund raising may have paid for much of it. That spoke volumes about the thinking and priorities of the community.
Yup. Particularly in many rural parts of the South, high school football is almost a religion, and absorbs a disproportionate share of resources and attention.
When I went to high school (1975-79) at a public school in what was then a rural area transitioning to suburbia (now it’s just part of the Houston sprawl), EVERYTHING in the fall was driven by football. Music instruction meant the marching band for football games. Girls dance was for the drill team for football games. All “spirit” activities were to support football, and half the school day on Friday was shot in order to have mandatory attendance at pep rallies. (And teachers knew better than to schedule tests for days that might distract the players from their requisite focus on the game.) But for the local community, “Friday Night Lights” was a very real, very big part of life and culture.
And yet I see this as another reason for school choice . . . if you want to send your kids to a school where football (or other sports) are viewed as the paramount activity in the community, have at it. But let others opt out and use their vouchers for schools that are focused on education if they want.
Selling used cars is an honest and honorable living, being an administrator who directs education funding away from education and uses a great deal of the rest on CRT and other ideological indoctrination is not.
I would like to see couples scale back working hours if both work and they have children. Say 30 hours a week, so that they can manage their children’s education. Alternatively, that they live on one income.
My approach was to work long hours early in life, before we had children, and get out of debt.
Start with a modest home, pay it off, the expand it as needed. People are giving up a lot of wealth by getting large homes. too soon in life, or by renting too long.
The type of teaching mentioned in this article is psychologically harmful to children, making them angry and fearful of people of other races at best to start. This tampering with their minds will likely result in more serious psychiatric illness as they age after being told, essentially, that their country is hateful and murderous and, if they are white, that they are horrible human beings.
The cleanup of this mass psychological harm, put upon our children deliberately and with foreknowledge of its harmfulness, will be expensive.
The teacher’s unions and other far left educational organizations need to be made to pay cold hard cash to repair this country from the cultural, ideological and racial damage they’ve done to our children.
That means billions. Call it “reparations” if you will.
It’s for the children.
“the true agenda of the totalitarian left” are words that need to be use4d over and over to drive the point home just how totalitarian the left has become. The left has been getting away with their totalitarian tendencies for far too long.
And Team USA basketball just lost its opening game to France. Not a good time to be a wokester. Maybe they should just declare an Olympics Covid shutdown and cancel this farce. The world isn’t watching anyway.
Here is a link to Chicago Public Schools’ “Accountability Redesign,” which contains links to many items.
https://www.cps.edu/strategic-initiatives/accountability-redesign/advisory-group/
Here’s another great example of parents poking the wokesters in the eye by singing the national anthem at a softball game even though the announcer told them they it was cancelled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKbYcs3cuNg
America is waking up. Let’s see what happens when “The Fauche” calls for a national 100% masking mandate very soon. I expect that may very well be the last straw. Woe to those so-called “conservative” RINOs who fail to rally to the cause this time. The day of reckoning is coming soon.
Fauci can certainly make a recommendation. Public health policy is largely in the hands of State government. It’s the governors who review the recommendation and decide to enact it in all or in part.
The problem with any proposed mask mandate is the efficacy of the mask and it’s proper use. The government can’t require us to wear an ineffective mask. They would need to demonstrate which masks were above a threshold of effectiveness at a minimum.
If the public health community doesn’t understand that we are over 1.5 years into this and many people have had quite the education about masks and transmission or attempt to simply say ‘shut up and do what we say’ they are going to be ignored at best and actively resisted at worst.
See Paris, London, Australia ECT. Those aren’t exactly hotbeds of right wing bitter clingers choosing a partisan MAGA stance.
The Feds can withhold money and all of the Marxists are speaking with one voice globally. They are desperate and are seeing their opportunity slipping away as Trump gains steam. This is a coordinated global effort and Europe is seeing huge angry demonstrations in many countries. They don’t care about national or state laws. They are making their big grab right now.
Don’t bet too much on the states not obeying the global mandate. I fully expect CA will be in lockdown again by the recall election in September. It won’t be enough to have an all-mail-in voting system. They will also have to manufacture more votes and that means ballot “harvesting”.
One good thing is that DeSantis won a big appeal case against the CDC yesterday and the cruise ships are liberated again. And today, the AZ Senate moved to decertify the 2020 election so those dominoes are about to topple making things even more desperate for the global Marxists.
Phil,
The feds could withhold dollars that have strings tied to the policy. They might even stretch that to ‘healthcare’ funds.
Of course that would place the feds in the awkward position of withholding health care dollars in the ‘pandemic’. That would, IMO, serve to undercut the rational basis for the policy.
CA and other deep blue States are passing around the kool aid. My recommendation is to depart those States while you can.
N95 and surgical masks are rated for 0.3 microns and up, Coronavirus is a bit over 0.1 micron.
They will not trap bare coronavirus, they will trap that contained in mucus, such as a cough or sneeze.
They do stop people from touching their nose and mouth, eyes are still a problem.
I have considered using UVC to disinfect the airstream as it passes through a length of stainless pipe. I am concerned that power consumption might be too high for portability.
JD,
Exactly. Certain masks perform because they are designed to specific levels of performance. Even those must be used, replaced and disposed of to a standard.
The public health community simply saying wear some unspecified mask that isn’t tied to a minimum level of performance isn’t related to public health. It’s theatre not science.
Do NOT THINK WE HAVE WON the war against CRT. Teachers are incredibly devoted to using schools as liberal indoctrination grounds. They will merely hide CRT better, and insist that children not tell parents what is going on. yesterday, in a story from a SMALL TOWN in Minnesota, children were told to NOT tell their parents what was going on in class.
Teachers will disguise their CRT teaching under other names – Diviersty, inclusion, History. Teachers already admit they salt all their teaching with communist ideas so that no one can complain. They teach half of history and distort everything. We are going to have to get rid of most current teachers.