Don’t dismiss this case as as a one-off: It’s all too likely a warning sign of growing “critical race theory”-driven bigotry across the city school system.
The faculty at the HS for Law and Public Service in Washington Heights voted to condemn Principal Paula Lev for having “flagrantly but unsuccessfully attempted to divide our school by race,” The Post’s Sudan Edelman reports.
Lev allegedly told one educator she “was going to get rid of all these white teachers that aren’t doing anything for the kids of our community” and has already been slapped for a similar racist remark to the school’s union rep — whom (other staff report) she also advised should read Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility,” a preposterous work that pushes the ugly claim that all whites are inherently bigoted and any defensiveness about it is just more proof of the prejudice.
The principal is almost certainly not alone: This idiocy was pushed hard in training under former Chancellor Richard Carranza, complete with claims that “white-supremacy culture” includes such concepts as “objectivity,” “individualism” and “worship of the written word.” Other workshops told teachers that “racial equity” means favoring black children regardless of their socio-economic status.
At least one school surveyed students on “white privilege” (another hallmark of critical-race-theory balderdash) and at least one principal did the same with parents. At least four top Department of Education officials sued over Carranza’s own anti-white discrimination. And the chancellor, with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s rabid support, waged war against race-blind admissions standards for the city’s top high schools and all across the system.
Critical race theory is hot all across the left, endorsed by the national parent of the city’s United Federation of Teachers as well as by the National Education Association.
So forgive us for worrying about the $10 million “education equity” initiative the City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus inserted into the new city budget. This doesn’t have to be bad: It’s perfectly fine to, say, increase lessons on slavery and its legacy and to highlight the contributions of Africans and black Americans across US history. But it’s easy to see the Carranza-remade DOE using the funds for bogus propaganda instead.
Standardizing instruction and teaching a more inclusive world and American history is one thing. It’s quite another when class discussions are used to indoctrinate and shame.
Our doubts are even stronger about the new “universal mosaic curriculum” that de Blasio and Chancellor Meisha Porter just announced. They say it will standardize English and math instruction as well as “promote anti-racism” starting in fall 2023, but it’s more likely to end advanced lessons in the name of fairness (as CRT-driven “reformers” are doing nationwide, while “anti-racism” as promoted by the likes of Ibram X. Kendi is in fact all about being racist in the name of racial justice).
Sadly, this madness runs to the top of the Empire State’s education system. The state Board of Regents is on the verge of scrapping the Regents Exams on the theory that the tests are barriers to high school graduation for poor and minority students.
Bizarrely, it’s entirely up to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to rein in the Board of Regents and the State Education Department, since he de facto controls both. But New York City’s next mayor will have the power, and the duty, to name a schools chancellor who’s dedicated to weeding out this noxious nonsense and every school leader and top bureaucrat who buys into it.