August 15, 2021 – For several years, I’ve been shouting from the rooftops that Maine’s K-12 government-run schools are indoctrination centers for Critical Race Theory, Identity Politics, and the LGBTQ+etc agenda.
Or perhaps a better metaphor is to say I’ve been a voice crying in the wilderness.
In any case, whether the alarm was sounded from the rooftops or the desert, school administrators have responded with a curt, “Nothing to see here, move along, peasant.”
Maine First Project is now putting their denials to the test.
I decided to make the CRT deniers put up or shut up, so I filed several Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) requests with local school districts, including the Ellsworth School Department.
The FOAA request asked for all teacher training material on diversity, equity, inclusion, unbias training, privileged or advantaged identities, targeted identities, and decolonizing the classroom.
After combing through the documents provided by the Ellsworth School Department, we’re ready to share with you what we’ve found.
Remember, school officials called us crazy for suggesting woke propaganda is seeping into our school systems.
I’m asking you to judge for yourself.
First, let’s take a look at exactly what is Critical Race Theory.
According to the Washington Post — hardly a beacon of conservatism and traditional values — Critical Race Theory is:
- “An academic framework centered on the idea that racism is systemic, and not just demonstrated by individual people with prejudices. The theory holds that racial inequality is woven into legal systems and negatively affects people of color in their schools, doctors’ offices, the criminal justice system, and countless other parts of life.”
Critical Race Theory rejects the vision of a colorblind society, where all men and women are judged by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin. Instead, this Marxist ideology looks at everything in America through the lens of race.
According to Critical Race Theory, America’s laws are steeped in white supremacy. Never mind that the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racist policies in employment, housing, and education. The CRT crowd even blames higher mortality rates of COVID-19 in the black community on racism.
Now that we’ve established what CRT is, let’s compare it to what was disclosed in the FOAA documents from the Ellsworth School Department.
To view the FOAA document dump from Ellsworth, click here.
Here’s a summary:
In a series of 90-minute monthly Zoom meetings beginning last September and concluding in May of this year, Ellsworth teachers joined K-12 public-school teachers from across the state for training sessions conducted by the Cultural Competence Institute (CCI), a creation of the Augusta-based lobbying firm, Maine School Management Association (MSMA).
The very first exercise teachers participated in is called “The Identity Wheel.”
The inner circle of The Identity Wheel lists six social identities: age, physical abilities/qualities, ethnicity, gender, race, and sexual orientation.
The training then dives deep into the question, “What is intersectionality?”
The answer: “Overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination.”
From there, teachers have to search their souls to determine their own “intersectional identity.”
Teachers were assigned to read I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Brown.
The first sentence declares, “White people can be exhausting.”
Try to imagine what the reaction would be if anyone voiced such a negative stereotype about any other racial group. Yikes!
The stated goals on MSMA’s website (available in English, Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish) for its CCI training are:
- Developing a deep understanding of creating a culture of inclusion;
- Developing brave spaces for conversations about race in our schools;
- Creating a cultural connection for students and parents;
- Creating a sustainable practice for diversity, equity and inclusion in our schools;
- Guiding policy development in school districts;
- Recruiting, hiring, and retaining faculty of color.
The documents also show the Ellsworth School Department plans to use so-called “Equity Response Teams” to implement everything teachers and administrators learned in their CCI training.
And this isn’t just for high schoolers. The school system is enacting these practices starting in elementary school. In fact, one of the training participants is a 4th-grade teacher in Ellsworth.
One of the reading assignments for CCI trainees was a book titled White Fragility by woke author Dr. Robin DiAngelo. Her simple-minded, largely debunked trashing of “whiteness” is one of the sacred texts of the high priests of CRT.
Notably absent from the suggested readings is a single reference to any of the numerous conservative authors who reject the Left’s narrative of America as a systemically racist country. Black author Shelby Steele’s White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era would make a fine addition to the reading list, but it’s nowhere to be found.
The FOAA material reveals that Ellsworth administrators are now looking into which textbooks need to go, because they’re “outdated,” in terms of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Meanwhile, classroom doors are decorated with Black Lives Matter posters, despite parents’ complaints directly to the school board.
What if you don’t agree with this agenda being taught to your kids and grandkids? In the documents, the administrators call people like you and me “privileged,” and “deniers.”
When parents in Ellsworth complained about BLM posters on classroom doors, how do you suppose the training material characterized that controversy?
Here’s how: “Teachers are ready, parents are not.”
Now that you’ve had the chance to compare Critical Race Theory to the content of the CCI teacher training on Zoom — what do you think?
Is the Ellsworth superintendent credible when he denies that CRT is in the curriculum?
If teachers aren’t conveying this ideology in the classroom, why would the school district spend $3,600 on the Zoom training for 13 participants, including the curriculum coordinator and the high-school social studies and English teachers?
Here’s my view:
Racial profiling, racial stereotyping, and racial scapegoating have no place in our K-12 classrooms. Whether the educrats call it Critical Race Theory or Cultural Competence or DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion), it will be up to parents and taxpayers to determine whether or not it takes root in Maine’s K-12 public schools.
I look forward to reading your feedback! Thank you so much for being a Maine First Patriot!
Sincerely,
Hon. Lawrence Lockman, R-Bradley
Maine House of Representatives, 2012-2020
Co-founder & President
Maine First Project
P.S.
Maine First Project was the first organization in the state to take a stand against Leftist indoctrination of our students in Maine classrooms.
With your support, we will continue applying pressure, fighting woke Leftist agendas, and holding politicians and school officials accountable!