Critical race theory, by any other name, is just as toxic

Originally Published on The Washington Examiner

Education higher-ups, woke corporations, and Democratic politicians are using words as their weapons in the culture war against parents and their children.

When parents voice their disdain for critical race theory, public school bureaucrats rebrand it as "social-emotional learning." When mothers and fathers question social-emotional learning, the woke alliance relabels it “mental health.” When school officials say that they aren’t teaching the 1619 Project, it’s because they’ve signed up for online services that push the same ideas under a different label instead.

There is a rename game going strong in public school districts throughout America, and parents are calling it out for what it is: an attempt to push them out of the classroom once and for all. Undercover journalists recently caught various Idaho school officials mocking parents’ concerns and fessing up to their rebranding tactics.

Nampa School District instructional coach Cindy Dion admitted on hidden camera her school’s attempt to circumvent parental concerns. “We’re just learning how to worm around all of those weird things that are out there,” Dion said. “Social-emotional learning — we can’t say that here anymore. We already had a big blow-up with that. So, it’s just our mental health curriculum now.”

According to Dion, Newsela is one of the sources her district uses to teach similar aspects to the 1619 Project without admitting that they are using the concepts of the banned curriculum in the classrooms. Newsela is a content website that takes articles from publications such as the Washington Post and the Associated Press, rewrites them for five levels of reading, and publishes them online as supplementary teaching materials…