Traveling around Pennsylvania during my U.S. Senate primary campaign, I talked to countless parents who, just like my husband and I, were outraged at the state of public education in our country. Instead of reading, writing, and arithmetic, our children are being taught the latest developments in “woke” studies. Critical race theory and gender ideology are just a couple of the radical dogmas being pushed on our children with devastating consequences.
A new coalition of parents, students, educators, and political leaders like myself are fighting this trend and demanding the restoration of integrity and accountability to our public education system. And while we have made a great deal of progress, one of the biggest threats to the parental rights movement today is the so-called “Civics Secures Democracy Act,” or CSDA, a $6 billion bill that would, in effect, federalize woke curricula and turn students into activists for left-wing causes.
The bill’s strategy is more or less the same as the Obama administration’s Common Core initiative. CSDA would empower the federal government by giving it control over $6 billion in federal funds, in the form of grants, to be dangled in front of states and local school districts that comply with curricular mandates. States, which have sole constitutional discretion in their public education systems, would be pressured into adopting the federal government’s vision for mandate. In short, CSDA is a way for the federal government to nationalize public education without being directly involved in the development of a national curriculum.
This bill in the hands of the Biden administration would be a disaster. As the administration has proved repeatedly, it will take advantage of every opportunity to use the power of the federal government to advance its far-left agenda. At this very moment, the Biden Agriculture Department is threatening to withhold school lunch funding for poor children if schools don’t comply with the administration’s transgender policies. On day one of his presidency, Biden ordered every federal agency to infuse “equity” into everything they do — an order that no doubt extends to the distribution of federal education grants. And last year, Biden’s Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, introduced a new rule governing the distribution of history and civics education grants, which explicitly held up the New York Times’s widely discredited “1619 Project” and leading CRT advocate Ibram X. Kendi as positive examples of “culturally responsive teaching.”
Unfortunately, some Republicans have been duped into believing the CSDA is a genuine effort to help students learn more about U.S. history and our republic. Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) have all signed on as co-sponsors to the bill, and some House Republicans have supported previous iterations of the bill as well.
These Republicans should remember that handing the federal government control of the purse strings means handing it control of our children. While proponents of the CSDA have repeatedly pointed to provisions in the bill that proclaim to “forbid the imposition of any national curriculum” and “leave decisions about what is taught and how it is taught to states and local school districts,” those disclaimers are of little comfort given that similar such provisions adorned Common Core — another federal education initiative that was undeniably used to seize power from states and localities. Moreover, there is no way around the fact that while the amount of grant money a school or organization receives under the CSDA may be determined by a set formula, which schools and groups receive that money in the first place is still entirely at the discretion of the Biden Department of Education.
Should this bill pass, it would be nothing less than a catastrophe for schoolchildren, including black children, like mine, who would be subject to toxic and dangerous rhetoric about our country and their place in it. Unlike most of the white progressives behind the CSDA, I actually have a vested interest in making sure our nation will welcome my black family and me into every arena of life. Teaching students to obsess over race and gender divisions won’t build the future that I want to see for my children.
In raising our children, my husband and I made sure that they knew the full history of our country — from the evils of slavery and segregation to the triumphs of the civil rights movement and beyond. They understand the legacy they are inheriting as black Americans, and, like my husband and I, they are immensely proud of the story of hope and progress that defines our nation. This is a hope that too many children in our country today don’t share because they have been taught to view our nation through the distorted lens of CRT.
As parents and as Americans, we have a chance to slow the progression of this evil and pernicious worldview by stopping this bill. Concerned citizens should call their senators and representatives and tell them to oppose the Civics Secures Democracy Act. At the state level, legislators should work quickly to prevent state education bureaucracies and local districts from accepting federal funding without the approval of the legislature. In the Senate, every Republican should urge Sens. Cornyn, Cassidy, and Inhofe to revoke their support for the CSDA and work to make sure it’s killed.
Every student deserves access to an education that inspires self-confidence and pride in their country — one that empowers them to live out their American dream. The Civics Secures Democracy Act does no such thing.
Kathy Barnette is the national spokeswoman for 1776 Action, a 2022 Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, veteran, and author of Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America .
* Article from: The Washington Examiner
(*) www.WhitePrideHomeSchool.com
