Kentucky schools don’t teach critical race theory so we don’t need to ban it
Kentucky’s public schools have lots of problems. The Bluegrass State still has one of the worst funded pension systems in the country. Kentucky’s cuts to education rank among the worst in the nation, as well. In 2019, the SEEK (Support Education Excellence in Kentucky) formula remained 13% lower than it was in 2008, when adjusted for inflation. Schools haven’t gotten new textbooks in more than a decade. I can’t remember when the state last funded professional development for teachers. Kentucky schools, like schools nationwide, lack enough counselors, mental-health professionals, nurses and related-arts teachers to create healthy, well-rounded, successful students. And I won’t even get into all the disparities revealed by the coronavirus pandemic between those who have access to computers, Internet, and more, and those who don’t.
One problem Kentucky doesn’t have is Critical Race Theory. Don’t believe me. Trust parents. If there were a problem, wouldn’t someone have noticed during the time of virtual learning? Somehow the CRT crisis didn’t arise until the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation prepared a paper on it and got Fox News to turn it into its latest culture-war outrage vehicle. Fox News may be inflaming hate over this issue, but no one is teaching anyone to hate anyone in schools. If it were so, you would have heard before.
Kentucky is a red state, a conservative state, but it’s not an extremist state. We’re not a state that, when Charles Koch snaps its fingers, we jump. That’s for QNuts and hacks. We’re a state that values education — not one where we dumb down our schools by banning novels by Nobel Prize-winning authors (Beloved, The Lord of the Flies), Booker Prize-winning authors (The Handmaid’s Tale) or Pulitzer Prize-winning authors (To Kill a Mockingbird). We expect our serious legislators to put Kentucky — not the Koch Machine — first. Instead, the sponsors of HB 14 and HB 18 were in such a hurry to craft something to please far-right billionaire donors that the resulting bill initially threatened the very certification of our state universities. These bills threaten to destroy Advanced Placement programs and to dumb down history and English courses in Kentucky order to please extremist billionaires from outside of the state.
If a tiny minority of extremist parents want to dumb down their own kids, there are already mechanisms for them to obtain alternative instruction for their children. But, for heavens’ sake, leave our kids alone! The majority of parents want the 21st century education their children deserve, not an 18th century one. No wonder so many of these loud parents want to ban The Crucible; they don’t want people to see how much they resemble the ignorant townsfolk who wanted to hang witches to solve a non-existent problem. Let’s solve Kentucky’s real problems.
Ivonne Rovira is a teacher in Louisville.