Open Letter for Action

I am writing you today to share my concerns as a fellow community member and to ask for your support in doing what is right for our children, our neighbors, our colleagues, and our friends. You have significant authority over how public education in our state moves forward, and with that you also have an even greater responsibility to those who are often too young to speak and act for themselves. My specific concern has to do with the actual or potential inclusion and application of critical theories & ideologies, such as Critical Race Theory and Anti-Racism, in public K-12 education.

Critical Race Theory has become one of the most polarizing subjects today. I have taken time to better educate myself on CRT and the common "left" and "right" positions, and I want to share what I firmly believe is the third, correct position we must take.

THE CHILDREN AND EDUCATORS IN OUR COMMUNITY ARE NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE PART OF A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT.

I believe we share the same ultimate goal, which is to provide all people the same opportunity to succeed in our society. Sadly there are examples in our society where discrimination still occurs. We also see how biased thinking can also harm others. Where I believe there is disagreement is in how to tackle these issues. Rather than adopting proven, evidence-based approaches to identifying and correcting biased behavior we are seeing a push toward a radical, unproven approach with critical theory.

We should not rush to implement any new movement, curriculum, or training just because we "have the votes" or whatever authority is necessary to make a change. While many public departments and school districts claim they are not rolling out Critical Race Theory, we are not blind to their actions. 

When you use terms anti-racism, white privilege, white supremacy, Social Justice, and systemic or institutional racism in policy statements, staff training, and external communications, we know where they come from.

When you equate lived experience to scientific evidence, we know what you are doing.

THE CHILDREN AND EDUCATORS IN OUR COMMUNITY ARE NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE PART OF A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT.

Critical Race Theory and other critical theories involving gender identity, ableism, and sexuality are THEORIES. They were developed by academics and activists and have slowly grown in study in higher education over the past few decades. They somehow were able to make the leap from academia to mainstream in the last couple of years, but their rise in pop culture does not replace the need for proof. 

I'm sure you're familiar with other popular myths that regularly get repeated even though there is no proof.

- Lightning never strikes the same place twice

- Toilet flushes spin a different direction in the southern hemisphere

- Humans only use 10% of their brains

Like those popular myths I just mentioned, critical theory in all its forms remain unproven. These new theoretical approaches should be treated the same as any other approach we want to take in our schools - an evidenced-based approach. 

Can you cite any scientific, quantifiable evidence that demonstrates how the application of Critical Race Theory or other critical theory concepts has improved any key metric like high-school graduation rates, absenteeism, or other academic benchmarks?

Can you cite any examples of any public school districts that have implemented these concepts and explain what the outcomes were?

If you personally have advocated for the use of these anti-racism, critical theory concepts - will you provide the evidence you used to support this?

This is a very difficult time in our community and in our country. The COVID-19 pandemic isolated us for so long, and now that life is beginning to return we are seeing the very human need for unity. The challenge is we seem to be presented with two extreme choices, and naturally people are leaning into one or the other given no other choice. I am asking for your support in taking the third choice: 

Halt any implementation of Critical Race Theory and related concepts in any form within public education (including policy statements, curriculum, staff training, etc.) until they have gone through the necessary study and rigor to demonstrate they are effective at addressing relevant issues we are facing.

Thank you very much for your time and your serious consideration of my concerns and the approach I have laid out. I welcome your thoughts and feedback, but most importantly I hope I have your support to take action.

Sincerely,

[Your name]