Despite Republican State Senator Sandra O’Brien (R-Ashtabula) re-introducing the Parental Education Freedom Act to empower parents to be the primary decision-makers regarding where and what type of education their children receive, an undercover investigation revealed that school administrators in both Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio are deceiving parents and teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the classroom.
As part of Accuracy in Media’s investigation, numerous school administrators acknowledged that teachers discreetly and subtly introduce CRT to their students without the parents’ knowledge, and that they have no plans to stop even if politicians approve legislation outlawing this practice.
Last year, Republican lawmakers in Ohio proposed legislation that would have prohibited CRT in classrooms.
House Bill 616, aimed to prohibit schools from “teaching or providing training that promotes or endorses divisive or inherently racist concepts.”
The bill, which Democrats disparaged as a “don’t say gay” law and juxtaposed with Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, failed to pass Ohio’s Assembly.
The state’s activist educators are adamant that their work would have continued even if the bill became law.
Treva Jeffries-Martin, Assistant Transformational Leader of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at Toledo, Ohio Public Schools said any laws that may pass will not deter the district as they receive aid from their “radical (school) board” who is more than happy to deceive parents and push radical ideas associated with critical race theory into public education.
“We have one of those radical boards that’s like nah we’re not going to do that. How much can we walk the line and still be in compliance so we’re working on it. We don’t know what’s going to happen. You know it’s all about semantics and a lot of things will probably just change names and stuff like that. You know even thinking about the name of our department we might become the department of belonging,” Martin said.
Rick McIntosh Executive Director of School Choice Cleveland, Ohio Metropolitan School District shared Martin’s sentiment and said that there are ways to be able to teach CRT in the classroom despite any prospective laws. They just change the label and phrase it differently.
“I think there are the subtleties between all of those. I think that teachers can teach those things it depends again on the language and approach,” McIntosh said.
According to Keith Ahearn Superintendent at Fairview, Ohio Park City Schools says that his district teaches to the state standards that are typically wide enough that educators can teach anything they want while pointing to the standards and insinuating that they are abiding by them.
“We are teaching to the standards and the standards particularly in social studies are pretty broad when you talk about some of those things that you could fit almost anything into it without drawing attention to it,” Ahearn said.
McIntosh clarified that social justice is more prevalent in schools than most people think and says that districts have embedded it to some extent in most every school district.
“There’s a significant investment of the district to make sure that the philosophies and vision of equity and inclusion are embedded in everything that we do from district to building to operations. I would say it’s probably embedded in almost every school to some extent,” McIntosh said.
Martin continued to say that a lot of their CRT discussions begin as superficial to make people at ease.
“A lot of what we talk about was superficial at first just to let people get comfortable because they are so bothered by still, implicit bias, microaggressions, because they think that you’re calling them a racist. and that’s not it,” Martin said.
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) isn’t always associated with CRT but school districts often use it as a Trojan horse to push the principles of social justice.
According to Stephanie Morgan, Director of Student Services at Westlake, Ohio School District social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion are all in their districts curriculum.
“Yes that combined with our efforts on positive behavior interventions and supports and I feel like the state has done… because the state of Ohio a few years ago adopted social and emotional learning standards managing self, managing interactions with others, being responsible. Like, that’s how those are organized into three big buckets across all the grades and so, I feel like the state as a whole has had a more whole-centered whole-child focus than just strictly academics,” Morgan said.
Ohioans are using their tax dollars to pay these radicals who are deceiving them. These public school administrators outspokenly share their commitment to advancing social justice in the classroom; and their commitment to teaching kids that capitalism is inherently racist and that America is systemically racist. When parents speak out against these practices, the schools dismiss them as dramatic or committing a slippery slope fallacy. However, the comments by the school administrators validate Ohio parents’ concerns.
Republican lawmakers are pushing for the passage of Senate Bill 11 (SB 11) to allow parents to make educational decisions that are best for their children and to help end the political games played by the public education system.
Under SB 11, the current EdChoice Scholarship Program would expand to all Ohio students for either a $5,500 scholarship (for grades K-8) or a $7,500 scholarship (for grades 9-12) to attend a private school. Families choosing to home-school would be eligible for a non-refundable state tax credit of up to $2,000 for reimbursement of educational expenses for their children.
According to Ohio’s largest Christian public policy organization, the Center for Christian Virtue‘s President Aaron Baer, “Ohio must no longer allow any student to be trapped in under performing and radically progressive schools that undermine parental rights and authority.”
This is the fourth undercover investigation Accuracy in Media has conducted in the state of Ohio where administrators have made admission of such indoctrination behind parents’ backs. Like their counterparts in Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton educators in both Toledo and Cleveland vocalize their willingness to go above and beyond to bring CRT into the classroom. They’re ready to give their lessons new names so they can keep incorporating social justice into them.
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Hannah Poling is a lead reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahPoling1. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Rick McIntosh” by Accuracy in Media.
