Teach truth, not racism, to the next generation of Americans

One of the most important things that families, communities and societies do is teach children how to grow up to be good citizens. That’s why I loved teaching U.S. history when I was in the classroom.

It was a chance to impart, as best I could, the theoretical and practical wisdom of the Founding Fathers, the framers of the Constitution and the great statesmen who came after them. More than a pleasure, it was an honor to teach these things, because civic education is critical to continuing this wonderful experiment in self-government that we call America.

Unfortunately, there is now an effort by ivory-tower academics, politicians and teachers unions to turn that kind of education on its ear. Instead of teaching our kids how to be patriotic citizens of a republic, they want to indoctrinate them with anti-American, racist ideologies that are anathema to our founding principles and alien to any honest reading of history.

The guiding philosophy that impels them to poison young minds with such ideas is known as critical race theory. Congress has already taken steps to root this ideology and its intellectual offspring out of some schools, but states and local school boards need to do the rest.

Critical race theory is an ideology that breaks down all of society into racial groups and teaches that these racial identities, along with their corresponding roles as either the oppressors or the oppressed, are what define each of us as human beings. This is fundamentally contrary to the great self-evident truth of our founding, that all men are created equal. It has no place in any school funded with American taxpayer dollars.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — its annual defense policy bill. That legislation contained a mostly overlooked education provision that will both prevent the promotion of these radical racial theories at schools on military bases and keep taxpayer funding from paying for it.

Specifically, the amendment, introduced by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), would prevent Pentagon school system funds (schools run for the children of servicemembers) from being used to promote the following ideas:

●  that any race, color, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior to any other.

●  that the U.S. is a fundamentally racist country

●  that the Declaration of Independence or Constitution are fundamentally racist documents

●  that an individual’s moral character or worth is determined by his or her race, color or national origin.

●  that any individual, by virtue of his or her race, is inherently racist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.

●  that any individual, because of his or her race, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past or present by other members of that individual’s race, color or national origin.

I am not alone in believing that this is just common sense. To the vast majority of Oklahoman parents and educators I deal with on a regular basis, the ideas listed above do not belong in the classroom for any reason, except perhaps to be warned against as ugly, discriminatory and racist attitudes to be criticized and rejected.

Although the U.S. Congress is divided, nine House Democrats voted for the amendment described above, making it even more bipartisan than the final passage of the overall bill, which received four Democratic votes.

The takeaway here is pretty simple: Keeping discriminatory, racist ideologies out of our schools and away from our tax dollars shouldn’t be treated as controversial, because it isn’t controversial.

Of course, this policy should not be limited to the schools that serve our military. Every state education agency and local school board in the country should work to prevent such racially discriminatory ideas from being taught. It’s critical to the future of our republic.

Benjamin Franklin famously warned that Americans would only have a republic for as long as we could keep it. If we teach our children that our country is fundamentally racist and evil, we will not be able to keep that republic.

If we teach them that they can only find salvation in race-based equity policies that divide us by color, and in other forms of state-sanctioned racism that undermine our founding principles, then we are just going to get more of the same racism, along with all the injustice and division that it brings with it.

If we want to keep this republic, the answer instead is to teach our future citizens honestly. Teach them that America’s greatness lies in the truth of its founding principles and our country’s passionate, albeit imperfect, striving to fulfill the promises made by our Declaration of Independence. Teach them thoroughly about the compromises that surrounded our Constitution, and the depredations that resulted. And also teach them that these should not be mistaken for the framers’ intent, as outlined originally in the Declaration of Independence and reflected in the Preamble.

A country that indoctrinates its citizens to hate their own history and founding will not survive long. Nor will a people whose common way of thinking is divorced from the truth.

America is great because America is fundamentally good. That’s what our public school curricula should reflect. And that’s what our tax dollars should support, because it’s the truth.

Ryan Walters is Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction.