The Illinois Education Association, a teachers’ union with 135,000 members, is the Illinois affiliate of the National Education Association, with three million members. Both organizations support teaching the racial politics in K-12 schools that has infuriated parents across America, though both dissemble about that.
NEA President Becky Pringle recently sent a letter to social media platforms demanding that they “stamp out” messages opposing critical race theory – or call it whatever you want – racialized politics, wokism, antiracism or whatever. From the letter:
Take for example, the alarming growth of a small but violent group of radicalized adults who falsely believe that graduate level courses about racism are being taught in K-12 public schools because of misinformation spread on social media. And there are another small yet vocal group of extremists who are putting the safety of our children, educators, and families at risk over the notion that wearing a mask is in infringement on personal liberty. The speed and reach of these lies that are manipulating so many of our citizens would not be possible without the use of social media platforms.
Censorship is the answer, concludes the letter. “Your companies have both the power and responsibility to stamp out disinformation and violent trends – for the sake of Public Education and the future of democracy.”
The letter repeats the persistent lie that critical race theory is not taught in K-12 schools but only in higher education. “Radicalized adults,” the letter says, “falsely believe that graduate level courses about racism are being taught in K-12 public schools because of misinformation spread on social media.”
Nonsense. Widespread teaching of critical race theory, often using that very title, has been documented over and over again, and the NEA even expressly endorsed it. The IEA last year gave a “Teacher of the Year” award to a teacher in part because he “incorporates many texts that embody Critical Race Theory.”
Dishonesty on this subject isn’t new for the IEA/NEA. Last year, in promoting the controversial Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards now in force in Illinois, which is poorly disguised critical race theory, the IEA claimed those standards were not mandates for current teachers but merely optional professional development. Not true, as we wrote at the time.
More vile than their dishonesty is their call for censorship – “for the sake of Public Education and the future of democracy,” the letter says.
“The NEA letter is antithetical to the very essence of education,” wrote law professor Jonathan Turley. “Nothing captures the Orwellian message more” than Pringle’s demand, he wrote.
It’s antithetical to the very essence of democracy as well.
– Mark Glennon
Read more about CRT and education:
- Everybody should watch what’s happening in Chicago. Unions want to export that playbook to the rest of the nation.
- How can 84% of Chicago Public Schools students graduate when only 26% of 11th graders are proficient in reading, math?
- Why Americans Overwhelmingly Reject Critical Race Theory
- Politicizing the classroom: 9 things to know about Illinois’ pending ‘culturally responsive’ K-12 teaching mandate
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Why would the head of the NEA send such a letter? Didn’t they learn their lesson from the NSBA fiasco? But then, we have learned that the White House actually solicited that letter.
Social media is already censoring; an arrogant letter from the NEA does not change anything. But there must be some reason why she decided to write it now…
Confident enough in their power that they can reveal their true face without fear? Or getting desperate that the plan is going off the rails?
She sent it before the DOJ announced their directive telling FBI agents to start looking at parents speaking up at school boards, It’s reasonable to suspect a connection.
Like every weak occupying regime, they focus their energy domestically. They keep saying that domestic terrorists are the greatest threat. This of course is categorically false but they’ll create the perception that it’s true – by targeting threatening parents, pro-life groups, insular religious communities, gun clubs, etc. They’re looking for easy targets to set up, entrap or straight up frame for crime, to send a message to their enemies. The Biden Regime is clearly paranoid, thinking every Republican is out to get them. It’s so obvious it’s not like every other weak regime in the history of the world hasn’t… Read more »
True dat. Except now they can play their game with a massive tool, the Internet and any device connected to it. The Internet itself is being appropriated for this, Amazon trashes Parlors servers when asked, Facebook fact checks against leftist opinions, not facts. Google decides what you see etc. There is now no physical limitation to propaganda, like how much ink or paper you can afford, or what the range of your radio transmitter has.
Remote learning and masking students has disproportionately harmed the most vulnerable students (disabled, learning challenged, impoverished, suffering abuse at home, etc.), mainly it seems to protect teachers with preexisting conditions. There was no equivalently strong parents union to fight back, advocating for in person learning and masks optional. It is not a level playing field. Federal, state, and local taxes, grants, student fees, etc. fund school districts that pay teachers, and union dues are deducted from that pay. There is no such flow of money for a parent advocacy group. The PTAs and PTOs are often just another spoke in… Read more »
Some teachers are just sick and get pleasure from turning all the non-white kids in the class against the white cis-gender kid(s). When your white kid becomes the target, then you’ll wake up no matter how woke you are. The country is waking up to this propaganda, thats why the union is asking for censorship, thats why the Justice dept was sent to hunt down school board meeting attendees. Teaching kids to hate, at an early age is what this is all about.
Did anyone see the response Gregory Pratt got for posting leaked internal CTU documents on Twitter? They immediately called for him to take it down, even thought the documents were valid. Censoring the press for doing their job.
https://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2022/01/18/union-reporting-101/
Good post.
It wouldn’t be the first time and it won’t be the last that Leftists “make rules for thee but not for me.”
The teachers union have shown their ass to everyone! All are in complete agreement it stinks! Teachers union, friends of Brandon.
One thing the Left is very good at is changing definitions of words and creating new euphemisms for bad ideas. They are also very good at doing it quickly. They pride themselves on their ability to manipulate the media and to create “optics.” In short, they are professional bulls**t artists. The woman who wrote this letter is trying to assert a very narrow definition of the grievance, which is completely false. So what was once — not so long ago — “Critical Race Theory”, became “Anti-Racism”. And it has been called “Cultural Sensitivity Training”. Anti-bias training. Anti-Meritocracy. Centering or De-centering. Unconscious Bias. Critical pedagogy. Cultural Appropriation (my favorite absurdity). Cultural Awareness. Culturally… Read more »
Add BLM to the NEA teacher union race agenda.
https://neaedjustice.org/black-lives-matter-at-school
You kind of wish the teachers union would be concerned with educating kids but I guess they are not.
I assume they are not all that different than most people in that they may well give lip service to one thing while putting a higher priority on another. I’ll let you guess which has higher priority to most people, guality of work output or their level of remuneration.
You are probably right. That is why in the private sector remuneration is most often tied to quality of work output. For most, that is a needed incentive to perform well in their work.
On the other hand, public sector unions strive to disassociate pay from performance. I think the results speak for themselves.
Well, its not really all that simple. First, you need to remember that the teacher is the only “adult in the room” while doing his job. Imagine if you had two dozen kids in your house and you had to corral all them literally every minute to do tasks of your agenda rather than theirs. How well do you think that would go minute by minute? How well do you think that would go for some 180 days each year of your working life? ‘t aint’ all that easy to do all that the adults running the system want to… Read more »
I did not say teaching was easy. I simply agreed with your point that most people are more concerned with pay than job performance. That has ramifications in the working world.
You may also want to consider that jobs other than teaching may be difficult too. Teachers don’t have the monopoly on tough jobs.
I’m not all that oppposed to superior pay for superior performance in theory at least. Many times, though, the implementation hasn’t been well accepted at all for districts where its been tried. I think you may agree that some variation of the Bell Curve and the idea that 80% of the “profit” of any attempt is done by 20% of the employees, I’d guess that overall maybe 10% of teachers are truly superior at what they do and how well they do it. The rest do credible jobs with likely another 10% being slugs as man of the tax-payers would… Read more »
Well, yeah, but this is where parents should be a little more discerning. Listening to my kid tell me “what a great teacher so and so is” makes me immediately skeptical. I ask questions and ask “why” they think this. Then I’ll make my own judgment, not take the word of a child.
Children are smart, but not wise. It is up to us to help them gain wisdom by whatever means will connect with them.
There you go showing signs of what true parenting means! Your chidren will be the better for it. Mostly, kids of all ages want to be entertained, and don’t we all for that matter? But, adults know that to get ahead in this world you need to give your sustained attention to what the objectives are and to work diligently toward attaining them. That whole notion is lost on a great many young people at least until they start to have to pay their own bills. While they are on the “welfare system” of Mom and Dad they tend to… Read more »
James, I can only imagine the nightmare of trying to teach kids who are oriented like this. The short of it is that these kids lack discipline. That seems to have evolved from the occasional parenting issue to now a widespread cultural issue. So why has the culture evolved this way? Well, a lack of respect for the principle of personal responsibility and discipline. It is everywhere, from DA’s to judges to government to politicians to parents themselves. It’s no secret that we coddle kids to the point of detriment. Many Americans are very comfortable in their lifestyles, and our… Read more »
I don’t know either. But, the generation of my World War II era parents seemed to have a more focused attitude toward education. There were more “standards” then as was shown in various was culturally: you “dressed up” church, you were respectful of your elders and showed it both in your behavior as well as how you addressed them. You knew perfection at anything requires sustained effort and practice. Now, “standards” such as those are essentially non-existent and people are encouaraged to “do your thing.” The whole American culture has been a slope sliding downwards with today’s everyday events and… Read more »
Sorry for the obvious typos. Proof-reading is one of my weaknesses. I find expressing my thoughts in writing to be interesting but literally only for that immediate moment, and considering word-by-word reviewing of it to be absolutely of no interest to me whatsoever prior to sending it along. I am invariably embarrased if/when I do review what’s been already sent as I’ve done here. Believe it or not, I’m a reasonably good speller, but that’s not to say my words always cast a spell upon those who read my thoughts, is it? I just hope the majority here will ponder… Read more »
I used to be more pedantic, but I realized that was unproductive. We are just sharing thoughts on a comment board. I only get irritated when someone uses zero punctuation and their comment is a total thought streaming run-on. I look at that as laziness, as they want me to interpret their run-on sentences and expend mental energy (that they don’t) sorting through it, rather than insert a period and capital letter from time to time. I see that as disrespectful of the reader and I just move on without reading the rest of the comment. You are in no… Read more »
Here is one more admittedly trivial example of how standards of yore have deteriorated. Both of my parents were taught by surely mentally painful hours and days of repetition in their early schooling to have absolutely beautiful cursive writing, something that was a minor source of pride. My cursive writing is average and certainly not beautiful, and my son’s has deteriorated noticeably since he’s reached middle age as well as the full-gallop of his career-demands years. Maybe some six months ago I was standing in line at a grocery check-out station. The lady in front was asked to sign the… Read more »
I agree 100%. TV and movies tend to be a microcosm of culture, and I tend to see these kids being treated like adults there. I see some kid swearing and telling adults off, and I’m thinking, is that how kids are, now? If I had acted like that I would have had my ass beat. But that’s TV and movies, so I don’t know.
All I know is that if your kid acts like that they can expect a whole lot of nothing in life.
James – you attitude reflects that of a public sector worker. In the private sector, those with successful careers care deeply about the quality of their work first and foremost because producing high quality work makes for a sound career. It comes down to continually adding value considerably in excess of one’s compensation. Sure, doing high quality work feeds my ego a bit, and makes me feel like I truly earn what I get paid (it can be desirable in the long run to be slightly under compensated), but the key is adding considerable verifiable value in excess of what… Read more »
I agree that if you have reasonably reliable statistics and generally positive feedback from various kinds of sources that the work you do is both valuable to employer and even gives you obvious reasons to feel good and display some hubris about your lot in life. In the world of public education its usually a lot more difficult to get nearly any of that. First, if you inquire of your employer or almost literally anywhere as to what ought to be the purposes of good public education you will find literally dozens of answers all vaguely stated in non-measurable ways.… Read more »
James – again, an enterprise doesn’t obtain revenue unless they consistently add value to their clients or customers. If they don’t, in most markets without large barriers to entry someone else will. Revenue and expenses matter (they do in public education as well) but if an entity can’t add value they don’t survive. Teacher measurement is made much harder than it should be. The best way would be to objectively measure student improvement over a defined time period. Of course teachers by and large resist having any consequences for this because there are way too many students who come from… Read more »
As a taxpayer I question the cost vs. benefit ratio of the dollars spent on public education. America seems to have this silly, unsupported idea that almost literally ANY kid can grow up to be a doctor, lawyer, scientist,etc. So, we pour tons of mone into hiring STEM teachers for that kind of pre-college preparation to soothe the over-achieving helicopter parents when many such students often haven’t some reasonably good combination of intelligence, dedication, work-study habits, and general persistence of character to reach those heights. For them its a wasted expense except to become at least minimally “educated citizens” as… Read more »