Op-ed by Jessica Marie Baumgartner | Photo: Alamy
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has wasted no time since being sworn in. One of her first acts in office was to sign the Executive Order to Prohibit Indoctrination and Critical Race Theory in Schools on Thursday.
This huge win for proponents of parental rights seeks to rein in the public school system’s failing policies. The most recent assessment from the National Center for Education Statistics revealed serious declines in grade school students’ math and reading abilities.
Gov. Sanders has vowed to “make sure our teachers are actually focused on teaching our students reading, writing, science, math. These are the areas that we have to improve here in Arkansas.”
While school officials are quick to blame the Covid-19 pandemic for learning loss, Fox News reported that multiple states spent billions in taxpayer-funded Covid relief money on instituting identity-based lessons in the public education system.
Gov. Sanders discussed her decision to sign the executive order on Fox News Sunday in great detail:
She stated, “We should never teach our kids to hate America or that America is a racist and evil country, in fact it should be the exact opposite. We know for a fact that the Federal Department of Education issued CRT guidance and policies to every school district in the country.”
Per the National Review, the Department of Education announced that they would be awarding grants based on “equity” in order to uphold Biden’s Executive Order 13985. By directing education funding based on identity policy, schools have been pressured to support ideologies that teach students to focus on race above merit and introduce gender theory into the curriculum.
Gov. Sanders has vowed to “protect the students” in Arkansas.“We have to make sure that we are not indoctrinating our kids and that these policies and these ideas never see the light of day,” she added.
Most parents have expressed serious concerns regarding what schools are teaching. Per the September “Satisfaction with U.S. K-12 Education” Gallup Poll, American trust in the education system has dropped to a second all-time low.
Public school enrollment is down via K-12 Dive, and the United Press International reported the nation’s ongoing teacher shortage is affecting more than half of American schools.
In order to turn things around, Gov. Sanders is swiftly working to reinstate core curriculum focus in Arkansas schools with a harsh stance against CRT and other identity-based practices.
She expressed concern for teachers and the need to offer accurate lessons without political bias. “Our teachers absolutely need to teach our history but they shouldn’t teach our kids and our students ideas to hate this country,” Sanders said.
This sentiment has been expressed by parents at school boards across the nation. Their concerns sparked the passage of Parent Rights bills in over a dozen states, according to parentalrights.org.
Arizona has previously passed legislation to protect parental rights, and now, Gov. Sanders’s executive order is offering additional support to families and individuals who support education free of indoctrination and identity politics.