Unbelievable: Here's What New York City Is Teaching Fourth Graders About Race

Elementary schools in New York City saw the killing of George Floyd not just as a tragedy but as an opportunity to teach kids progressive talking points about race and white privilege. In the days and weeks following the Memorial Day death of Floyd, protests and calls for police reform gripped the nation as liberal leaders clamored to placate the masses.

School leaders in NYC, which has seen violence, rioting, looting, and daily protests, saw the unrest as a moment to reach out to their pupils and attempt to discuss "systemic racism." One New York mother, whose son is in the fourth grade at a public school, described the shock and horror she experienced when she observed her child's virtual education about inherent racism and his own alleged white privilege.

Writing for the Post Millennial, Libby Emmons said that her son recently sat down for a virtual learning session with his teachers and was shocked that the lesson on deck was going to cover white privilege and systemic racism. In the fourth grade, she said, none of the kids had yet learned about American slavery or the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Emmons' son is the only white child in his class, and for him, she wrote, the experience was particularly uncomfortable.

For the kids who are Chinese, Arab, or whose families come from Mexico, Central and South America, the lesson on racism between whites and blacks was just another study section that came with right and wrong answers. They learned that the country to which their parents had decided to journey from their homes abroad was founded on racist ideology and that, because it is permanently ingrained, there’s nothing that can be done about it. My son learned that he is perpetuating the problem of racism, and that he doesn’t even know how he’s doing it, and that his whole family is racist, even if they don’t think they are. The kids also learned that there’s no way to fix it.

Other than a few packets during Black History Month, fourth graders have not yet learned about the Civil Rights movement or the enslavement of Africans and their descendants in bondage. But they are now learning that the United States is founded on racism, that racism is the pervasive undercurrent in American governance, law enforcement, social interaction, employment, literature, arts, entertainment, real estate, and education.

Teachers then assessed the children's comprehension of the situation at hand, learning that the kids only vaguely knew that Floyd had been killed by police and what the difference between protesting and looting was. When one child incorrectly stated that Floyd was chased by police before he died, a teacher corrected her and described, in graphic detail, exactly what happened when Derek Chauvin leaned on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes.

After the shocking description of a man's tragic death to a class of nine and ten-year-olds, instructors segued into the meat of their lesson plan: systemic racism. They began with a video provided by the New York City Department of Education.

[The video] shows the social differences between a white boy and a black boy in terms of education and wealth due to prejudicial practices on the parts of banks, realtors, school funding, and employers. The video points out the barbaric practices of redlining, whereby black families were kept out of certain neighborhoods, and how property taxes have a direct impact on school funding.  Those are facts. The analysis was not.

“A big part of systemic racism,” the video says, “is implicit bias. These are prejudices in society that people are not aware that they have.” It states that “Unfortunately, the biggest problem of systemic racism is that there’s no single person or entity responsible for it. Which makes it very hard to solve.”

“Systemic problems,” the video says, “require systemic solutions. Luckily, we’re all part of the system, which means that we all have a role to play in making it better.”

The children responded to the video by expressing feelings of sorrow toward the animated black child who faced significantly more hardships than the white child in the video. After one student inquired why racism still persists even though it is a known problem, the teacher said that systemic racism begins in white homes with white family members.

“Unfortunately,” a teacher said, “a lot of racism stems from the home. And just like the video, a lot of people’s grandparents were raised a certain way, and things were different back then, and then their parents learn it and their children learn it, and we need to stop it. And it’s hard, too, because you learn first from your parents and from your family, and we need to learn how to love everyone, and skin color should not matter at all, so this is what we’re trying to do, we need to be the change, and we need to make a difference. And you need to form your own opinions.”

What my son heard was that he is racist and doesn’t even know it, and that his parents and grandparents provided this legacy to him. I told him that we need to treat all people with respect, kindness, and with a generosity of heart, and that skin colour is not indicative of a person’s heart.

In the second part of the lesson, children were shown a video produced by The New York Times that featured a variety of white people apologizing for their whiteness and explaining that the very fact that they were white made them a racist. Emmons wrote that her son felt particularly isolated by this experience.

It was when the teachers raised the issue of white privilege that my son said he felt weird being the only white kid in the conference. He couldn’t tell if he was supposed to feel bad for the kids who are mistreated or feel bad about himself for being racist or if there was anything he could do about it anyway since these problems are ingrained and that he would be racist even if he didn’t think he was.

No answer was given as to what action these kids should take to either be not racist or to see that racism does not throttle our country for generations onward.

Without solutions and with a new sense of self-consciousness, the children's two-day lesson concluded. But while her son was left to ponder whether he, at 10, was harboring previously unknown feelings of racism toward his friends and classmates, Emmons was fuming.

This kind of indoctrination will not make white kids think differently about their own biases, but will instead create biases where there perhaps were none before, and that goes doubly for the children who are in immigrant families. Dividing kids by race leads kids to think they should divide themselves by race, emotionally, socially, and institutionally. It’s easy to prove this, just look at the segregated graduation ceremonies and proms in schools today.

Having reached out to her son's teachers for an on the record comment on what she had just seen, she was rebuffed, saying her attempt to share the teacher's objective with the general public was not "appropriate."

I reached out to my son’s teachers for comment, and they responded saying, “I am not comfortable and cannot comment on the record but I would be happy to discuss any concerns you have as a parent and not as a journalist. For the conversations we had we followed the Chancellor’s regulations and guidelines on addressing the issue… I feel that it's not really appropriate to be using our classroom as research.”

I can totally relate, since the indoctrination of my 10-year-old into the world of critical race theory seems “not really appropriate” to me.

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COVID-19 Should Incentivize States to Make Education Dollars Student-Centered

We are seeing some rays of optimism after the COVID-19 pandemic has forced school districts to close for months: Montana and Texas have become the first states to allow districts to reopen some of their schools.

Unfortunately, we are also seeing more negative effects.

The government response to COVID-19 resulted in school closures and a weakened economy, which forced many states to brace for budget fallouts in light of unexpected revenue losses.

Right on cue, special-interest groups responded to state budget changes by loudly clamoring for more federal dollars for traditional public schools.

Federal bailouts, however, are not an appropriate response. As noted by Lindsey Burke, my colleague and director of Heritage’s Center for Education Policy:

Congress should not be sending blank checks to states and localities, which would only serve to bail out many states that are financially mismanaged and to prop up excessive levels of state and local government spending, and could set a dangerous precedent for the future.

Instead, states should allow districts to reopen schools as soon as possible.

Localities should reopen schools with strict health protocols and flexible truancy policies to ensure that students and their communities remain safe and healthy, as argued by Jonathan Butcher and Amy Anderson in Newsday.

At the same time, policymakers should focus on more flexible school choice alternatives.

One-size-fits-all education systems have demonstrated they are largely ill equipped to shift instruction online or have emergency management plans in place for when they must shut down.

Instead of funding this outdated paradigm, states should adopt a more flexible spending model where education dollars are student-centered and nimble.

That includes options like education savings accounts, which enable families to put their child’s share of education funding toward education expenses of their choice.

These parent-controlled accounts can be used for private school tuition, online learning, private tutors, transportation related to education, and textbooks, among other services.

That flexibility makes education savings accounts particularly well-suited to meet the needs of students when schools shut down.

Education savings accounts successfully operate in five different states today. In Arizona, eligible children receive 90% (approximately $6,000) of the education dollars that they would have received if they had attended one of the state’s district schools.

“[Education savings accounts] give parents a kind of ‘money-back guarantee’ if they want to opt out of their zoned public schools and choose other options,” explains Kathryn Hickok, vice president of the Cascade Policy Institute.

Additionally, policymakers should make sure that families can continue to access their education choice options after the pandemic. Children should not lose their eligibility to participate in school choice options once they have qualified.

Options like education savings accounts are based on the idea that education dollars should fund students, rather than physical school buildings. The dollars should follow each student to a learning option that is the right fit for them.

Such policy is not only a boon to students, but is now critical as private schools around the country are struggling to survive in the wake of COVID-19.

Innovative states like North Carolina have turned to school choice to alleviate some of the fiscal constraints caused by COVID-19. The state recently introduced a proposal that provides emergency tax credit scholarships for private schools and homeschooling families.

Under the North Carolina proposal, families that were eligible for the CARES Act stimulus checks or who have seen a 10% reduction in their adjusted gross income would be eligible for state-funded tax credit scholarships. These families could receive a $2,500 scholarship to pay for private school tuition.

Similarly, homeschooling families could receive a $500 tax credit scholarship.

This proposal would be a boon for many North Carolina families, particularly those in which a parent has lost a job due to the coronavirus shutdowns. 

In recent months, COVID-19 has forced families to sail in uncharted waters. This experience provides us with a helpful reminder that children are best served when their education funds are student-centered instead of institution-centered.

As state policymakers prepare for the 2020-21 school year, they should remember the lessons of this past spring, and provide families with access to flexible education options.

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Australia: Cost of Humanities degree set to DOUBLE while students will pay less to study nursing and IT

The price of an arts degree is set to double while students with better job prospects will pay less for their education in a huge university overhaul.

Education Minister Dan Tehan will today announce school leavers will get financial incentives to choose 'job-relevant' degrees such as IT, health, teaching, science and mathematics from 2021.

Nursing qualifications will cost just $3,700 per year while IT, science and engineering degrees will drop by $2,000 per year.

Meanwhile humanities degrees are expected to jump from $6,804 per year to $14,500.

The cost of a maths or agriculture degree will fall by 61 per cent, while students in humanities will pay 113 per cent more.

Teaching and nursing degrees are expected to drop by 45 per cent, while a law degree will cost 28 per cent more. 

There will also be 39,000 new places available to prospective students next year, with Mr Tehan expected to say it will 'give students a choice'.

'Their degree will be cheaper if they choose to study in areas where there is expected growth in job opportunities,' Mr Tehan will say in a speech to the National Press Club.

The ranks of the unemployed swelled to 927,600 - the highest number since December 1993

The overhaul comes as Australia's employment rate hit a two-decade high, surging to 7.1 per cent in May.

Up to 227,700 Australians last month either lost their job or felt so bleak about their prospects they gave up looking for work following the COVID-19 shutdowns.

'We are facing the biggest employment challenge since the Great Depression,' Mr Tehan will say.

'And the biggest impact will be felt by young Australians. They are relying on us to give them the opportunity to succeed in the jobs of the future.'

New official payroll figures show 980,000 jobs were lost between mid-March, before the coronavirus shutdowns, and the end of May.

The official jobless ranks are now the highest since December 1993.

Following the grim economic news, Prime Minister Scott declared: 'This is the biggest economic challenge this country has ever faced.'

He said the figures were 'heartbreaking,' adding: 'The sad truth is these numbers are not surprising in these circumstances.'

Mr Morrison said these 'are our dark times'.  'I can see that ray of light … but we have to keep moving towards it and work harder each and every day.' 

Inner-city Sydney and Melbourne have been the worst-hit by COVID-19, with new Australian Bureau of Statistics maps showing one in ten or 10.6 per cent of jobs in these areas were lost in just 11 weeks.

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