We need to defund the school committees. In this context, “defund” is a term used to denote a lack of respect. “Defund the police” means that Woke progressives do not respect the police and would like to see their involvement and influence on society lessened. However, that definition of “defund” needs to apply to the many school committees around the country who are ruining our children’s education with their stubborn, misplaced backing of Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Let’s face it, every day in “President” Joe Biden’s America, some new proposed legislation or government-mandated edict comes along that the average person just can’t believe is really happening. Personal freedoms and the daily quality of life in this country are spiraling downward at an alarming rate. Our personal freedoms and the norms we’ve come to expect and rely on are at a tipping point now, in real danger of being permanently wrested away from the average citizen as a result of hyperpartisan progressive government overreach. 

No issue encapsulates the attack on the values and the foundation of our society and culture like the phenomenally destructive concept of Critical Race Theory. Directly contradicting the elemental American ideal of an equal opportunity color and ethnicity blind society, CRT seeks to give credence to the absurd notion that Caucasians are guilty of a longstanding oppression of minorities and therefore their undeserved “white privilege” needs to be addressed with punitive action, reverse discrimination (against whites) and a drastic reteaching of American history. The goal is to assign the requisite blame to slave-owning Founders, remove credit for their so-called accomplishments and recast the entirety of American history into a new wokeist light where whiteness is exposed for the grievous crime against American culture that it supposedly is.

We all know what CRT is, what groups support it, and why. It’s bad enough in the workplace when major corporations like Coca-Cola send out official memoranda telling their employees to be “less white.” It’s bad enough when major colleges and universities have “safe space cultural centers” where only students with the newly approved cutaneous pigmentation are allowed to go.

But the real danger to the long-term health and normalcy of our society occurs when CRT becomes part of the official public school curriculum when teaching impressionable kids from ages 5-18 that one’s arbitrary skin color matters more in life than an individual’s personal character, honesty, work ethic, compassion, and generosity.

Because of the controversial introduction of CRT into the public schools, the previously lowly office of school committee member has suddenly burst into the limelight. Being on one’s local school committee used to be nothing more than an initial launching point for a person’s political ambitions. It’s an easy first step, a way to get your name out to the town. From there, you might aspire to something a bit higher, perhaps serving on the town’s housing committee or the board of health. After that, maybe town selectman. Then, after four or six years, you have a name, a local following. You could make a run for town manager or mayor or even state representative. But the school committee was often the entry point, the start.

Nowadays, of course, the school committee is front and center in the CRT controversy. Irate parents who never before attended a town meeting in their lives are now packing local committee meetings, voicing their opposition to what they see as a wildly distorted presentation of American values and a disastrous end to giving students an accurate and balanced view of traditional American history. Instead, CRT deems that “whiteness” is bad and whites need to atone to the specific benefit of government-approved minority groups for the supposed crimes of their forebears. Note that CRT completely ignores the ever-increasing population of mixed-race children.

Most parents -- of all colors and ethnicities -- oppose CRT with a fervent intensity. There are countless viral social media videos of impassioned parents expressing their vehement displeasure with the hundreds of emotionally and intellectually detached, clueless school committee members masquerading as informed public servants. That the woke progressives are trying to label these parents’ protests as “domestic terrorism” reveals exactly how scared the Left is that the anti-CRT sentiment resonates strongly with a majority of the public.

CRT is just another way that woke progressives are trying to punish traditional-thinking people, shape the minds of future voters towards the progressive side and convince themselves that they are accomplishing a societal good, correcting a historic injustice -- all the while safe in the knowledge that all of their spiteful actions will affect “other people,” not themselves. Like all woke progressive acts, CRT never negatively affects them. They already have “theirs” and their intent is to simply hurt their targeted political adversaries.

The heretofore innocuous office of school committee member has now risen to a position of about the highest visibility and importance at the local level. When someone attends a local school board meeting for the first time under this new reality, the likelihood is that he will be struck by the singularly unimpressive nature of the school committee members, the majority of whom seem to be nothing more than unqualified political rookies, hoping for anonymity as they snake their way up the local political ladder. (There are unquestionably some dedicated, level-headed members. But it doesn’t seem like there are anywhere near enough.) In video after video, viewers see that school committee members are completely tone-deaf when it comes to how CRT worsens, not improves, race relations and transactional outcomes, while at the same time, CRT diminishes students’ knowledge of American history and contributes to a markedly lower standard of social skills, national pride, and awareness among young people.

The new meaning for “defund” -- lacking respect for and wanting a diminution of involvement and influence -- definitely applies to the out-of-touch, bollixed woke revisionists who seem to populate far too high a percentage of many local school committees.

Image: Manassas High School Alumni Association

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