Christopher F. Rufo  ⚔️

Im not sure I'm a centrist (politically, I've been in exile for some time in this country), but I'll take a stab at a good faith response to Chris.https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1413210996936626176 …

Chris has exposed a great deal of toxic crap about "whiteness" being taught in public school. I'm glad he has done that. There's been a ton of gaslighting from folks who know better about CRT, pretending it never left the academy or has no influence outside it. That's a lie.

However, I don't look favorably on what Chris has done politically with this. The legislative bans will do more harm than good. They are far too broad and will make teaching far more difficult. I'm also allergic to censorship and McCarthyism.

We've already seen calls to suppress CRT in the academy. There's no way I'm going to give up on academic freedom because some school in California has no common sense. No way.

Talking about racial injustice in this country is hard and fraught, but we need to do it. These bans make it even harder. They are very poorly written.

So how do we get the sort of toxic crap in the OP out of schools? I would favor an approach that stresses (1) reasonable transparency about curriculum (2) real and meaningful opportunities for community feedback (3) local control (4) parent protests. I love a good protest.

All of this fits with my general sensibility about education: the more local it is, the better, and the more parents are involved, the better. Parents, don't ask the government to do your job. Get involved!

We also need more and better public discourse about teaching race in school. The discourse is shamefully bad and yes I'm going to both sides this. Chris has publicly admitted to a cynical strategy of obfuscation and I'm completely against that. Words track reality not your ends.