Minnesota State Wire

Two state representatives, former teachers themselves, have called on the Minnesota Department of Education to get back to what it’s supposed to be doing—educating children.

“The state should not be pushing radical agendas and trying to dictate politically driven curriculum and learning materials,” write Reps. Sondra Erickson and Ron Kresha, who both serve on the Minnesota House education committee“

“Their agenda [CRT] promotes that capitalism, our constitutional republic, and other American institutions are fundamentally racist systems, and therefore, anyone promoting free markets or defending American patriotism is supporting a racist worldview,” they explain. “A common theme to their agenda is the so-called ‘myth of merit’ where achievement is predetermined rather than earned. Imagine a curriculum that teaches our children that character and hard work are immaterial to success or a history class where George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are the villains to be torn down.”

Critical race theory (CRT) has an ally in Minnesota’s teachers’ union, Educate Minnesota. And it’s arming teachers and school board with talking points to counter the very real concerns parents have about CRT.

“A growing number of people understand and publicly acknowledge the ways our laws, practices and institutions in the United States harm Black, Indigenous and other people of color,” the union says in one handout before they attempt to guide teachers on how to lie to parents about CRT in the classroom and dodge hard questions from parents. 

The union tells teachers to spread the narrative that attacks on CRT occur because “they’re trying to distract and divide us so we don’t come together to demand the richest 1 percent and the largest corporations pay what they owe for what our communities need” when that could not be further from the truth. 

CRT is a theory that describes all the history and laws of the United States as racist—saying that they work to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and non-whites, especially African Americans. CRT works to purposely divide children by teaching them to believe that the color of their skin is more important than the content of their character. CRT teaches kids they are either oppressors or the oppressed.

Parents know this and they aren’t backing off; some are filing lawsuits and others are running for school board positions themselves.

In some states, education bureaucrats deny they’re teaching critical race theory. But not in Minnesota. 

As National Review reports, “A group of 162 principals and assistant principals in Minnesota signed a statement suggesting that educators get into ‘good trouble’ by ‘de-centering whiteness’ and ‘dismantling practices that reinforce white academic superiority.’”

Parents aren’t having it. Some minority parents have even organized a group called TakeCharge, which is committed to “the idea of America works for everyone regardless of race and station in life.”

“We also denounce the idea that the country is guilty of systemic racism, white privilege and abhor the concept of identity politics and the promotion of victimhood in minority communities—a notion supported by Critical Race Theory,” the group says on its website. “TakeCharge will build a coalition of community champions, academic professionals, and business leaders to ignite a transformation within the black community by embracing the core principles of America – not rejecting them. These principles are embedded in the belief of hard work, education, faith, family, and free enterprise in the personal pursuit of dreams that can be realized by anyone regardless of race or social standing.”

On Nov. 2, dozens of school board elections will take place in Minnesota. Now is the time to learn about the candidates in your district, and to ask what they believe—is America irredeemably racist? Are Black, Hispanic, and Native American students blocked from success by their skin color? Are white students automatically oppressors?

Or is America, though not without blemish, still in the process of becoming an ever-more perfect union? 

Support candidates who wish to lift up our children, not those who wish to divide them—and us—by race. And please—vote on November 2nd. The future of Minnesota schools depends on it.

Brooke Rollins is president and chief executive officer at the America First Policy Institute and previously served as an assistant to the president and Director of the Domestic Policy Council under the Trump administration.