The OBSERVER article about the recent Silver Creek Central school board meeting where the district’s Professional Learning Plan was discussed was interesting. It was pointed out to the board that the plan’s focus was on academic achievement, character development, social and emotional well being and family engagement.

Certainly, everyone knows that academic achievement fostered by family engagement is vital in the learning process. However, I have some questions about the school’s engagement in student character development and the students’ social and emotional well being. I understand that we live in a far different world then the one in which my wife and I were raised in and later raised our own children in. However, are the schools the proper instrument to take on these issues?

I have always felt the job of the schools was to teach students reading, writing, math, English, a foreign language, teach what used to be called civics, geography, history and science. I may have left some things out but it’s still a lengthy list and one that most once considered the primary objective of our schools.

It should be noted that in studies of educational achievement around the world the United States ranks way down the list at 20th. In another study of education, the United States ranked 25th in science, 24th in reading, and 40th in mathematics, in each case out of 70 nations studied. Shouldn’t a nation with the largest economy in the world, that spends huge amounts on education at all levels, be achieving better results. I certainly think so.

Back in my school days things like “fostering character and improving overall emotional health were left to the family. Then in the 1960s federal social programs instituted by the Johnson administration encouraged federal and state intrusions in family life. At the same time there was an increase in single parent families and also of families where both parents worked. Many now feel these factors contributed to confusion over the role of the schools in a child’s development and education leading to the current issues with educational achievement in the United States.

Taking advantage of this confusion over the role of schools were progressive activists in teachers’ unions, colleges and those who developed educational policies who saw a chance to take advantage of this situation as a means of increasing their influence on society and on what and how our children were taught.

During the COVID-19 pandemic when most school districts went over to remote learning, parents finally had an opportunity to see what their children were being taught. In many cases they discovered that their children were not being educated but indoctrinated often in radical progressive and woke ideas. What parents were seeing was instruction based on DEI — or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Diversity in the classroom is said to develop tolerance and a sense of security in students. Equity is defined as a level playing field with equal academic outcomes the aim. Inclusion in education means ensuring that every child regardless of their individual needs has equal access to opportunities to achieve. Sounds rather benign doesn’t it?

However, much of the theory found in DEI has its origins in Critical Race Theory developed by Marxist leaning faculty on college campuses as a race-based form of Marxism with the oppressors and oppressed now being the White race and people of color.

Today advocates of CRT, such as the National Association of School Psychologists, the major organization of school psychologists in the United States, claim that CRT provides “a theoretical framework for examining American society with a belief that racism is embedded in U.S. laws and institutions and not just the result of individual prejudices or biases.”

Last July, the National Education Association the nation’s largest teacher’s union approved a plan to promote critical race theory in all 50 states and 14,000 local school districts. It also approved funding for three separate items related to this issue: “increasing the implementation” of “critical race theory” in K-12 curricula, promoting critical race theory in local school districts, and attacking opponents of critical race theory, including parent organizations and conservative research centers.

With several powerful and influential organizations in our schools advocating for CRT I believe it is important for parents and all citizens to be aware of what and how our children are being taught in our schools.

I fully believe that children must be taught about the evils of racism, slavery, and segregation but the problem with critical race theory is that it ignores the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the Civil War to end slavery or the efforts of men and women of all colors who fought in the struggles of the civil rights movement to end segregation.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com