Title: Critical Race Theory in K-12 Education | RealClearPublicAffairs
Headings: Critical Race Theory in K-12 Education
Critical Race Theory in K-12 Education
The 1619 Project Embraced by Virginia College Admissions Organization
VAIS Pushes Critical Race Theory on Educators
VAIS Pushes Critical Race Theory on Parents
Critical Race Theory Discounts Responsibility and Agency
Entire California School System to Partner with Critical Race Theory Apologists
CRT’s Stifling Effects on Civil Society

Content: Part of their statement includes a suggested reading list for educators on race, which includes an endorsement of the 1619 Project. A series of essays published by the New York Times last year, the 1619 Project reframes U.S. history by arguing that 1619, the year slaves were first brought to Jamestown, is the year of America’s true founding. In partnership with the Times, the Pulitzer Center created a curriculum based on 1619 that they distributed to over 3,500 schools. The curriculum teaches that slavery has had a lasting impact on all U.S. institutions, according to a Pulitzer Center lesson plan. One discussion guide question asks,
How do societal structures developed to support the enslavement of black people, and the anti-black racism that was cultivated in the U.S. to justify slavery, influence many aspects of modern laws, policies, systems, and culture? In a video created for the curriculum Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the 1619 Project, explains that growing up in the Midwest, she “saw the landscape of inequality” through her school bus window. The most telling portion of the video is when Hannah-Jones discusses American history, first describing 1776 positively as the year that set in motion the most “liberatory democratic experiment in the history of the world.” As she speaks, iconic images play of the pilgrims, the American Founders, the 1950s, and the Statue of Liberty. Then the images begin to rewind, and Hannah-Jones says, “The only way you can believe that this country was the most liberatory democratic nation that the world has ever seen is to, of course, erase the indigenous people who were already here… and to ignore the enslaved Africans.” Hannah-Jones claims that nearly everything in modern American life is tainted by the legacy of slavery.