Ed Secretary goes on 'The View' and tells a big lie

Unless Miguel Cardona knows nothing about what's happening in the schools he oversees, he is being dishonest and appears to reject the notion that schools should be transparent

*This piece has been updated with more evidence to contradict the US Secretary’s claim—it features Kimberlé Crenshaw, Nikole Hannah Jones, AFT prez Randi Weingarten and the NEA.

Miguel Cardona, our nation’s Secretary of Education, told a bold-faced lie during his visit to The View yesterday.

He may be playing the same word game that union heads and media personalities have been playing for months which is to insult the intelligence of parents and staff who see what’s going on with their own eyes but perhaps aren’t completely precise in their language. (Although it appears that Cardona didn’t get the memo that the teachers’ union bosses have pivoted from the lie that it’s not being taught to ‘of course it’s being taught because it is essential and should inform instruction!’) Cardona knows that the average American is neither a legal scholar nor a wordsmith and his declaration on the set of The View that CRT is not being taught is so demonstrably false that I actually thought to myself while watching the clip, “this guy has to be kidding.”

Famed critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw herself has shifted her talking points on this since the summer (but apparently forgot to loop in our Secretary of Education.)

When invited on MSNBC in June, Crenshaw claimed emphatically that CRT was not in K-12 schools and sort of mocked those who claim otherwise. The implication was that what parents see with their own eyes in their kids’ schools is not actually happening.

The ReidOut @thereidout

Kimberlé Crenshaw-@sandylocks coined the term "Critical Race Theory." She tells @JoyAnnReid of it becoming the latest right wing bogeyman: "It is a backlash effort to reverse the racial reckoning unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetime." #reiders

trib.alCreator of term ‘Critical Race Theory’ Kimberlé Crenshaw explains what it really is‘Critical Race Theory’ is explained as neither Marxist nor racist by its leading scholar, Kimberlé Crenshaw, who co-developed this framework of study, and coined this term.

Fast forward to October and Crenshaw celebrates the application of CRT in a host of settings, including K-12 education.

And check out this CRT Summer School event. Full flip-book here:

In another sign that the messaging on this is a hot mess, Nikole Hannah Jones of 1619 fame (infamy?) publicly claimed that no one pushing CRT argues that it’s about teaching history.

Paging union boss, Randi Weingarten who absolutely claims CRT is just honest history while the NEA has explicitly come out in favor of using CRT to inform curriculum.

From The 74:

Randi Weingarten @rweingarten

During my years teaching history & civics, I led my students in discussions & debates of America's past & present. We covered what we celebrate & what we abhor-this is essential 4 all children. And our union will support educators who teach honest history

cnn.comRandi Weingarten: You can’t keep us from teaching students honest historyRandi Weingarten

I told you the messaging was a hot mess.

Now, back to Cardona’s demonstrably false claim on national television…

Public documents on a school website in Bellevue, Washington state that 2nd graders “will have explicit conversations about race, equity, and access” and “will identify culture and begin to recognize and identify white culture through storytelling, sharing, and conversation.” That is critical race theory in practice.

Kindergartners in Evanston, Illinois were required to read and engage with the book Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness. The book states that “whiteness is a bad deal” and “always was,” and that “you can be white without signing on to whiteness.” Students were asked to identify “how whiteness shows up in school or in the community,” with the help of their parents. That is critical race theory in practice.

These are two pages from the book, “Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness”

In Cupertino, California, third-graders had to deconstruct their racial identities and then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” The teacher explained to the nine and ten year-olds that they live in a “dominant culture” of “white, middle class, cisgender, educated, able-bodied, Christian, English speaker[s],” who, according to the lesson, “created and maintained” this culture in order “to hold power and stay in power.” Students were then asked to deconstruct these intersectional identities and “circle the identities that hold power and privilege” on their identity maps, ranking their traits based on the hierarchy the teacher had just explained to them. That is critical race theory in practice.

Chris @HdxPhDChris

If CRT isn’t in VA schools why was it included in the memo titled “Resources to Support Student and Community Dialogues on Racism” from the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to all School Boards?

In Virginia, where the governor’s race is now a dead heat, largely over K-12 education issues, public documents reveal that Loudoun County Public Schools "The Equity Collaborative" more than $34,000 for 55 hours of training in critical race theory. (The words “critical race theory” literally appear on the contract!) Teachers learned that good teachers “accept responsibility for their own racism," and subscribe to the belief "addressing one’s Whiteness (e.g., white privilege) is crucial for effective teaching." The training relied, in part, on the Dismantling Racism Workbook.

It’s true that the documents don’t represent a syllabus in a 3rd year law seminar on Critical Race Theory and if Secretary Cardona wants to hide behind that lame technicality, so be it. But neither he nor anyone can deny that the training documents below are based in the tenets of critical race theory—and the trainings don’t only mention what teachers need to do but they lay out what students will do. That is critical race theory in practice.

If you still remain skeptical and think that four examples are hardly sufficient to build a case against Cardona’s comments, please know that the examples are countless across the country in both public and private schools and if I wasn’t swamped with work and life, perhaps I’d set out to provide a more exhaustive list. I spend my days sifting through materials, trainings and contracts and talking with parents and teachers all over the country—it is staggering to see how ideas and practices infected with critical race theory (and critical gender theory) have swept through the K-12 system like wildfire.

That very obvious truth does not change just because our Secretary of Education sits on a couch with Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg and lies to the nation.

If you are interested in taking a look at more examples, documents or contracts visit our map and our Consultant Report Card at Parents Defending Education.

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And here’s my favorite video of the week. I really do hope their vision of forming chapters across Louisiana and beyond comes to pass. Dads on duty in schools struggling with out-of-control behavior and violence would be a game-changer for so many kids.

philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_

The students say the intervention Dads on Duty provide is working: “I immediately felt a form of safety. We stopped fighting; people started going to class." The fathers would like to start chapters across Louisiana, and eventually the country

Talk soon,

Erika