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From NBC Chicago:
Leaders in education, politics and other areas gathered in suburban Evanston Sunday to ask that the Illinois State Board of Education change the history curriculum at schools statewide, and temporarily halt instruction until an alternative is decided upon.
At a news conference, State Rep. LaShawn K. Ford said current history teachings lead to a racist society and overlook the contributions of women and minorities.
Before the event Sunday, Rep. Ford's office distributed a news release "Rep. Ford Today in Evanston to Call for the Abolishment of History Classes in Illinois Schools," in which Ford asked the ISBOE and school districts to immediately remove history curriculum and books that "unfairly communicate" history "until a suitable alternative is developed."
Gee, I wonder what the “replacement“ will be????? We already know I bet. Rep. Ford wants to bring a new twist to history to all public schools in the state, one that’s already being talked about in Chicago Public School:
When my eyes moved across that sentence, I paused. Even as a former social studies teacher, it admittedly took my breath away. In the many ways that we have taught and have been taught about slavery, there has been a distance between us, the enslaved people, and the brutal institution that we fought over and resolved in 1865.
Perhaps in my mind, the Jim Crow Era, the Great Migration, or the Civil Rights movement were the lessons to study and teach—these were the moments that affected the here and now, and shaped the Chicago that we know. And perhaps, that’s why that sentence caught me. I pictured all of the factories and railroads that dot and criss-cross Chicago today, and wondered, how many enslaved people would it have cost to purchase it all? As educators, we are always looking for new tools and strategies to help students contextualize the world around them so they may one day become informed and effective citizens. In order for our students to engage with the issues of today, it is essential that they have an honest accounting of our country’s past. The 1619 Project from the New York Times and the Pulitzer Center’s supplemental curricular resources are compelling new resources that help us revisit slavery’s impact on our modern society.
Thanks to our partners at the Pulitzer Center, every CPS high school will receive 200–400 copies of the New York Times’ The 1619 Project this week as a resource to help reframe the institution of slavery, and how we’re still influenced by it today—from the workforce management system created to harness enslaved labor and the incredible wealth that came from its unsparing efficiency to the music that you may very well be listening to now.
Who didn’t see that coming, Rep. Ford? Why do you want to teach Illinois students to feel bad about the United States?
In response to numerous schools adopting a history curriculum based on The New York Times’s 1619 Project, Sen. Tom Cotton proposed a bill that would deny them federal funding. The 1619 Project is a series of essays asserting that the United States was founded on slavery and that its institutions continue to discriminate against black Americans. The curriculum is designed to introduce these arguments and themes to the classroom.
Several prominent historians have criticized the 1619 Project’s inaccuracies and obvious narrative-peddling. To introduce this into the classroom would give students a warped view of America and completely misrepresent of history as a discipline.
The 1619 Project reflects disputes about both the facts and meaning of American history at a time when the nation is divided by identity politics, including a movement to transform education in colleges and high schools through “ethnic studies,” an approach that emphasizes teaching about white oppression of minorities and their resistance to “whiteness.” Proponents of ethnic studies use the term “whiteness” to refer to the political, economic and cultural power structure imposed by a dominant culture of white Europeans.
So, Rep. Ford seeks to replace history with a narrative that aims to make Americans feel bad about how the country was founded and goes as far as saying that one of the reasons we fought the Revolutionary War was because the colonists wanted to protect slavery and the British wanted to abolish it!
Weeks before, I had received an email from a New York Times research editor. Because I’m an historian of African American life and slavery, in New York, specifically, and the pre-Civil War era more generally, she wanted me to verify some statements for the project. At one point, she sent me this assertion: “One critical reason that the colonists declared their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery in the colonies, which had produced tremendous wealth. At the time there were growing calls to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire, which would have badly damaged the economies of colonies in both North and South.”
I vigorously disputed the claim. Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war.
This kind of crap is why schools have become indoctrination centers vs educational institutions. Politicians and activists want to raise the next generation of “activists“ and use the schools to do so. They use the schools for gun control recruitment too:
McHenry County Democratic officials, who organized last year’s March For Our Lives anti-gun rally in Woodstock, conspired with high school teachers to recruit students for the rally, emails obtained by the McHenry Times show.
In so doing, they may have violated the state ethics act, which places restrictions on political activity by school district employees. The rally, held March 24 on Woodstock Square, moreover, turned out to be little more than a fund-raising scheme for the party, records show.
In one instance, Cathy Johnson and Ruth Scifo, both members of the executive board of the county Democratic party, sent an email to Woodstock High School English teacher Heather Brown on March 12 of last year explaining that they were organizing the march and rally in Woodstock. They attached a March For Our Lives flyer, and asked that it be distributed to the students and staff. They further said they had “feelers” out to several other area high schools.
Pay attention to what your kids are learning and doing in school. They are ripe for getting snatched up by lefty activists and political operatives. On a side note, Rep. Ford wants to change the way history is taught, yet can’t even keep his own website from being hijacked and being re-directed to a gambling site 🤷♀️.
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