A new rule called “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards,” has already been approved by the Illinois State Board of Education. On February 16th, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) of the Illinois General Assembly will officially decide whether to enact the rule.

 

EPPC reports:

The new Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards are filled with commands that utterly politicize the classroom and very likely trample the free-speech and religious-liberty rights of teachers.

The larger problem, however, is that Illinois has already laid the groundwork for this assault on the Constitution by enacting a so-called civics law that forces teachers to discuss current political controversies in class.

The Illinois civics law also compels teachers to organize adventures in “action civics” (student protests or lobbying expeditions on behalf of causes like gun control or the Green New Deal.) These so-called civics requirements are transparent attempts to import leftist political activism and indoctrination into Illinois schools.

Whiteness is clearly an issue and the new rule mandate would address this. Teachers would “assess how their biases affect how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.)”

Bettina L. Love is a prominent advocate of Critical Race Theory in education and she believes “White Teachers Need Anti-Racist Therapy.”

If teachers do not do so voluntarily the new standards would allow schools to force teachers into therapy for their whiteness , along with punishing them with a loss of license and certification if complaints are made about them not adopting “progressive” ideologies. Teaching about “systemic racism” will be required as well.

Teachers will be encouraged to push progressive activism and even substitute “social justice work” or “action civics projects” over traditional testing when it comes time to grade students.

A “wide spectrum and fluidity of identities” are to be embraced and prioritized in the curriculum. EPPC wrote, ” traditionally religious and/or conservative teachers are commanded here to affirm against conscience that there are a vast number of genders, and highlight that claim in their teaching.”

Click here for the full story.