2 + 2 = 4 is … racist?

I’ve shared with you many stories of “woke” policies damaging our children.

From Critical Race Theory to “social emotional learning” to racially segregated spaces, radical and divisive ideas are being forced on kids as early as kindergarten.

But did you know that woke school policies threaten the core of education — reading, writing, and arithmetic — as well?

The Oregon Department of Education recently encouraged teachers to register for training that encourages “ethno-mathematics.” Among the principles being taught in the training: the idea that emphasizing correct answers in math is part of “white supremacy.”

Yes, you read that right: encouraging kids to find the right answer to a math problem is racist.

Oregon middle school teachers are being encouraged to use a toolkit called “Equitable Math” for “dismantling racism in mathematics.”

“The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so,” the toolkit reads. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”

Amazingly, the toolkit says teachers should “come up with at least two answers that might solve this problem.”

Take Springfield Public Schools as another example. In one of the activities in their “Induction Equity Training” the teachers used beads to represent individuals’ races and placed the beads along a pipe cleaner.

The participants were encouraged to choose between various color beads to place on the pipe cleaner in response to questions like “My primary doctor identifies as…,” “The majority of my close friends identify as…,”The majority of my mentors identify as…,” etc.

At the end of the activity, they were encouraged to discuss questions like “How might this activity help you better address Anti-Racism and White Supremacy?” and “Do you now have strategies to expand your community so that the colors on your pipe cleaner may diversify?”

Chip, I know you believe as I do that our children’s education should be based on scholarship and facts that nurture their development into happy, resilient, free-thinking, and educated citizens.

America’s classrooms should focus on rigorous instruction in history, civics, literature, math, the sciences, music, art, and the ideas and values that enrich our country — not Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, and “woke” math.

But instead our kids are at the mercy of a new educational mission at war with basic American values and our kids’ happiness and ability to succeed in life. Many schools have already embraced this campaign, and many more are preparing to embrace it.

Schools are increasingly moving way outside their lane without the consent of the students, parents, and communities whose interests the schools are supposed to serve. 

Parents Defending Education is fighting back — with your help, Chip. Our children’s hearts, minds, and education are too important to sit in silence. You are not alone in being disturbed by these destructive developments — and it is time to join together and stop the madness in our schools.

Together we’re speaking out against the extreme, harmful, ideological agenda infiltrating our schools … and fighting to restore a healthy, non-political education for our kids.

Thank you for standing with us!

Nicole Neily, President

Parents Defending Education