The Biden administration has promoted a group that wants to “disrupt whiteness,” and when caught doing that, immediately backed down, calling the decision an “error.”
Fox News said its reports found that the Department of Education was promoting a link to the “Abolitionist Teaching Network.”
That group “promotes justice, healing, joy, and liberation for all black, brown, and indigenous folx, (sic) inclusive of all intersecting identities,” it claims.
It insists teachers should “remove all punitive or disciplinary practices that spirit murder black, brown, and indigenous children.”
It also demands that “students, families, and educators” take action to “disrupt whiteness.”
The Department of Education had linked to the “Guide for Racial Justice & Abolitionist Social and Emotional Learning” that was posted online by the ATN.
That group also charges that social and emotional learning “can be a covert form of policing used to punish, criminalize, and control black, brown, and indigenous children and communities to adhere to white norms.”
When the agenda was publicized, the Biden administration claimed that an “error” was made in the promotion.
“The Department does not endorse the recommendations of this group, nor do they reflect our policy positions,” the federal department said in a statement. “It was an error in a lengthy document to include this citation.”
The department’s handbook states, “It is important for educators to recognize that social and emotional competencies can be expressed differently across cultures, especially considering that young students of color are living through, witnessing, and making sense of historic moments in American history and their place in it.”
The report explained the network was started last year by professor Bettina Love and doesn’t explicitly cite Critical Race Theory but “the idea that racism is not aberrational and that America’s institutions are inherently racist are commonly held tenets of the theory.”
Fox said it had reported on the link to the ATN in a handbook at the federal government that was “intended to help public schools reopen after the COVID-19 pandemic and spend funding received through the American Rescue Plan. The article also showcased radical rhetoric the network and its board members pushed that fall in line with critical race theory teachings.”
Then federal department was quick to recant.
“The Department of Education was provided with $122 billion through the American Rescue Plan. That funding would be distributed to state agencies, which would then pass down a portion to local school systems. The local agencies must spend 20% of the funding to address learning loss through programs that consider “students’ academic, social, and emotional needs,” the rescue plan said.
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