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Parents Are Fighting A Racialized ‘Equity Audit’ In North Kingstown (RI) And So Far We’re Winning

Parents Are Fighting A Racialized ‘Equity Audit’ In North Kingstown (RI) And So Far We’re Winning

Equity Audits are the gateway drug to CRT: “The auditing company’s sole purpose is to SELL curriculum, to sell professional development, and to move their own army of teachers, administrators, curriculum materials, and political affiliates into the community and schools. The changes will damage schools, dismantle the faculty, and create irreparable harm to children.”

My name is Ramona Bessinger, I am a mother and a teacher. I’ve been teaching for 23 years; over 12 years at Middletown High School, and 8 years teaching English Literature grades 6 through 12 in Providence, Rhode Island.

My assignment for the past 3 years has been at the Middle School where I’ve witnessed the full rollout of the gender theory curriculum, and racialized curricula. It has been heartbreaking and disturbing to watch the complete destruction of our schools here in Rhode Island.

Last July, I decided to sound the alarm at Legal Insurrection on the many divisive, harmful elements associated with Providence school districts takeover by the state, I’m A Middle School Teacher And See How Critical Race Curriculum Is Creating Racial Hostility In School:

This past 2020/21 school year was a sad and worrisome turning point for me as an educator. Providence K-8 teachers were introduced to one of the most racially divisive, hateful, and in large part, historically inaccurate curriculums I have ever seen in my teaching career.

Yes, I am speaking about the controversial critical race theory that has infiltrated our public schools here in Rhode Island under the umbrella of Cuturally Responsive learning and teaching, which includes a focus on identities. You won’t see the words “critical race theory” on the materials, but those are the concepts taught. The new, racialized curriculum and materials focuses almost exclusively on an oppressor-oppressed narrative, and have created racial tensions among students and staff where none existed before….

Midway through the academic year, some students started calling me “America” because I was white. These students, whom I love, were turning against me because of my skin color. I don’t blame them, I blame the racial narratives being forced upon them in school.

My story received wide attention, including in The Wall Street JournalThe Washington ExaminerFoxNews.comBreitbart,  The Jewish VoiceThe John DePetro ShowThe Matt Allen ShowIn The DugoutFox and FriendsFox News America’s NewsroomFox Business, and even Australian TV.

I suppose it is safe to say I blew the whistle on what I believed to be a race-based political agenda that had made its way into Providence Schools. And I paid the price through retaliation and involuntary transfer to another school.

At the time I was unaware of the same education trends occurring all over Rhode Island but specifically my son’s school and district, North Kingstown School District. Concerned for my son’s education, I began to ask reasonable questions regarding curriculum materials and gender theories at the high school.

Over time, other parents in the community joined in the conversation and before you knew it, we had a grassroots parent-group that set out to get to the bottom of how this curriculum was making its way into our schools.

What I learned was disturbing. North Kingstown Schools set up a DEI committee, a diversity equity and inclusion sub-committee that would make recommendations to the School Committee. Right away, I learned the DEI committee was setting out to bring in an outside Equity Auditing company to overhaul the school culture and curriculum. Equity Audits are the gateway drug to Critical Race-based racialization of curriculum, as I witnessed first hand in Providence schools.

The Equity Audit advocated by the Democratic Town Committee, including NK School Board Member who opposes “colorblindness” and who wrote in support of the Equity Audit:

After evaluating the two responses to our RFP, the DEI Subcommittee is recommending that NKSD contract with Public Consulting Group’s proposal, as written [archive], to conduct a full-scale DEI community assessment that will examine all aspects of the educational process including board policy, district programming, curriculum and instruction, human resource practices, budget allocations, and NKSD’s culture and climate. The audit as proposed would cost $73,250, and it is anticipated that we will be able to use Esser III funds to pay for this if approved.

Knowing full well the colossal mess the Auditors had created in Providence and other districts across the country, myself and the other parents in our group set out to sound the alarm so that the community and educators could better understand the expense and harm the equity auditing company would inflict on children and the community.

We wrote factual letters in opposition to the school committee approval of the audit, we posted all over social media, we laid out the evidence of districts that have performed audits and we analyzed the company’s very own proposal. Much of the information was concealed from us or redacted, so we used the website and letters to present our arguments.

Speakers were limited to 3 minutes. Here is the statement I made at the school committee meeting:

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I would urge you to table the DEI equity audit.

The current approach from the DEI subcommittee, well intentioned no doubt, is flawed.

You have no right to make such drastic permanent, social, cultural and academic changes to the schools here in NK.

You have not provided metrics or rubrics or discussed how this audit will yield measurable outcomes.

In fact there are no measurable outcomes from past audits except of course if you consider the failing schools around RI that conducted equity audits: school districts like Providence, Pawtucket and other urban communities where equity audits were suppose to provide the miraculous solution to close the gaps in reading, writing, math and science.

Equity audits in urban communities have created a bigger academic deficit, racial divide, and a mass exodus of teachers leaving the profession.

What is left is total destruction with children and families suffering worse than prior to the audit being conducted.

Equity audits cost millions.

The auditing company’s sole purpose is to SELL curriculum, to sell professional development, and to move their own army of teachers, administrators, curriculum materials, and political affiliates into the community and schools. The changes will damage schools, dismantle the faculty, and create irreparable harm to children.

You claim to have data that supports the decision, but that is a lie. You have no data, and the data you are using is being interpreted to suit your political agenda.

An example of this would be the RICAS scores. RICAS historically shows learning deficits; the purpose of examining the gaps or deficits is to provide DATA to schools so they can complete gap analysis and discuss with their TEACHERS and administration ways to close those gaps.

You have no right to do that. NONE.

Further, you have not been forthcoming with the expenses to North Kingstown residents: the expense does not stop at 73K, the expense will go into the millions as the company advances a “road map” with detailed costly proposed changes.

Finally, after a rushed DEI move to advance the vote to the school committee, we prepared our speeches and prayed reason would prevail. At 10PM, after public comment the school committee voted to table the audit and send it back to the DEI subcommittee. The proposal can be modified and resubmitted by both vendors who bid on the project  so we may be back fighting this issue again.

The reasons were varied, but most significantly many people had written letters expressing concern over the fact that the 73K initial fee was truly the tip of the iceberg. The company would make changes and recommendations in the form of a “roadmap” that would cost families and educators millions and create irreparable harm to our schools. In particular, the anti-American, anti-Israel, gender theory, the hyper-sexualizatioin of children and racialized content concerned us all. We consider this a significant step forward for parents and children everywhere and hope this gives others hope that standing up for what is right sometimes has positive outcomes.

We’re winning, so far, but we know the activists will be back, and so will we.

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Comments

JohnSmith100 | March 10, 2022 at 8:30 pm

This is great, yet to be effective over the long term, everyone involved in promoting this stuff needs to be purged from schools. We also need to kill teacher certification requirements, the reason is simple, most certified teachers are probably corrupted beyond salvage.

    Jack Klompus in reply to JohnSmith100. | March 11, 2022 at 8:05 am

    Teacher certification is also a big money making racket for state coffers. Most states charge hundreds of dollars just to have a bureaucrat examine paperwork before you can be declared “qualified” to teach in the eyes of the government. Many if not most long-time teachers in well-run private schools have never earned their certification from the state yet have decades-long careers of successful teaching on their resumes.

“We’re winning, so far, but we know the activists will be back”

Indeed, they will never ever give up. There’s too much money to be made in this industry to just give up when the going gets a little tough.

Much too much money to be made.

    CDan in reply to irv. | March 10, 2022 at 11:44 pm

    Money may be part of it, but I also believe that Division, Dissolution, and Destruction are their main goals. CRT and 1619 are, IMO, the educational versions of BLM which burned, gutted, and plundered many of our cities in 2020-21. With a sympathetic Media and a political party behind them, they were also able to find corporate leaders who made generous contributions and offered support. IMO the leaders of CRT and the 1619 Project do not care about the children or their education. From the goals they’ve established and mission documents they’ve published, it’s clear they are anti-capitalist Marxists. Their long term goal is to weaken the U.S. socially, culturally, politically, and militarily. They are doing it school district by school district, state by state, all across the U.S. Thank God there are people like Ms. Bessinger who are fighting against this cancerous ideology. I hope she and her organization are harbingers of things to come. A defensive approach is necessary now, but if we are to survive as a nation, I feel we must stop reacting and start acting. As John Smith says above, a good place to start will be getting rid of certification requirements. Pressuring state legislators and legislatures that control higher ed funding would be a good next step.

JohnSmith100 | March 10, 2022 at 8:54 pm

How about cooperative schools, much like small towns created? I do not think public schools can be salvaged.

    So, how do you keep the ideologues from becoming teachers in the co-op schools, given that they make up most of the pool?

      SDN in reply to irv. | March 11, 2022 at 8:08 am

      You chlorinate the pool and then check the water supply.

      JohnSmith100 in reply to irv. | March 11, 2022 at 2:09 pm

      You weed out bad apples with pre employment screening and background checks. Upon hire they sign a document details causes for dismissal and you live stream class sessions for interested parties and to be fed to a computer for real time analysis, looking for trigger word or combinations of trigger words. Data of suspected breakage of those rules can then be reviewed by people.

      Wise_Jedi in reply to irv. | March 11, 2022 at 8:57 pm

      Pull your kids out of public schools, be danged careful of which private schools you put them in, or, better yet, show your kids how much you really and truly love them and make every sacrifice to home school.

    MattMusson in reply to JohnSmith100. | March 10, 2022 at 9:35 pm

    Do you support Discrimination to achieve Equity?

    I am absolutely convinced that public schools cannot be salvaged.

JackinSilverSpring | March 10, 2022 at 9:51 pm

Milton Friedman advocated for private schools, which would be funded by the money budgeted for public (socialist) schools. At private schools, parents have a great more clout than public (socialist) schools, if parents objected to the CRT nonsense, it wouldn’t be in the curriculum.

    But it is, we have seen numerous examples of it. It’s insane

      JackinSilverSpring in reply to gonzotx. | March 11, 2022 at 10:06 am

      In a private school system the parents would choose where to send their children. If a school was unresponsive to the wishes of the parents, the parents could choose to send their children to a different private school that was more responsive. The nonresponsive schools would lose revenue, and there us nothing like imminent financial to focus the mind. That does not happen to public schools, which is why they can be so insular in their ways.

    JohnSmith100 in reply to JackinSilverSpring. | March 11, 2022 at 2:16 pm

    No, people are not created equal, when someone is gifted in one area, it usually means there will be deficiencies on other areas.

    JohnSmith100 in reply to JackinSilverSpring. | March 11, 2022 at 2:19 pm

    I liked Milton Friedman, worked on and off with him for many years.

My daughter was a principal for 7 years in a small school system in East Tx. She was a great middle school principal and loved her job, but starred a family and 85 hours a week was too much. Her husband the pilot made enough for her to stay home.
Well it’s time for the oldest to start kinder in the fall, I have been working on my daughter to send her to a private, Baptist school. I’m not Baptist and although a Christian, I am not a frequent church goer because most of the churches around me are very woke. I can only take that to a point. Use to love the Unity Church service that was based on a 12 point AA program. Was great, full of Christ but related to everyday issues with very inspiring sermons. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist anymore.
Anyway, she took her child to “Kindergarden roundup” and was shocked, this in Conservative North Texas. It was uninviting and run like a prison, she was in shock and very upset. No one to greet them, all the walls were a grey green without any bright colors, all schooling done in very repressive environment. She was literally told they don’t have time for “fun” activities “.. this for z5 year olds. God k owls what else you don’t k ow.
So my daughter saw the light amd my granddaughter is enrolled in a wonderful environment, small12 kids, about what she has in Mother’s Day out, and we are all relived but so disappointed in what our schools, that she pays 10,000 a year in taxes, are doing to our children. And we get the gift of paying additional
To get them out of the prisons and to another, what should be public school system.
I had been a supporter of public schools all my life, had an excellent education amd felt my children did also, but I kept up with the changes in our schools even though mine had grown up. Reading here amd other places, seeing the Democrats make us out to be terrorists because we believe the children are ours and not theirs was a real eye opener, one that came gradual till the dam burst.
I will not feed my grandchildren to the trolls.
We must win this fight we must…

    MattMusson in reply to gonzotx. | March 11, 2022 at 12:29 pm

    Rule #1 – Don’t piss off the Moms. They will protect their children.

    Rule #2 – Don’t piss off the Grandmas. They have a lot more time on their hands.

Join this effort it is working. They don’t want to give up the information sure sign they are scared.

Please repost this video gives detail on how to go after corrupt government officials. http://clouthub.com/v/n63AxsnC you can make them personally liable for not following state and federal constitution to the tune of millions.

http://bondsforthewin.com this is the main site

each state has a telegram channel so people can work as a group

https://bondsforthewin.com/telegram-state-groups/

Steven Brizel | March 11, 2022 at 11:00 am

This ;looks like an important and explosive book on this and related issueshttps://www.amazon.com/Rac
e-Bottom-Uncovering-Destroying-Education/dp/0063056720/

Keep up the good fight!

The parent decides what is correct for their children not school board/teachers that are hell bent on non-American indoctrination BS. This is why we need transfer education vouchers that follow the children to their school of choice. Whether it be a private school, religious school, or home schooling. We also can eliminate the Department of Education and unions for government employees as they work for us and not the union or politicized organizations that destroy our history, culture, Democracy, or push radical destabilizing anti American norms!

there’s this pesky little metric called I.Q. after years of testing and data, it was proved that I.Q. is directly tied to scholastic aptitude. it was also showed that there exists an I.Q. gap between different groups… I’ll leave it there.

DEI seems to be opening up a new front. Local libraries are sponsoring DEI surveys to be completed by all residents.

As long as there is a DEI subcommittee, the proposal will be back, over and over and over again with different mustaches and haircuts until it sneaks through, or even gets a small piece through, which will lead to a larger piece, and so on.

Disband the subcommittee for starters.

Saint_Floyds_Banana | March 13, 2022 at 3:22 pm

I agree with what you are saying but it bothers me that a teacher does not understand “Me, Myself and I.”

You only use “myself” if you are the subject of a sentence.

“Myself set out to sound the alarm” is what you wrote.