The Patriot Post® · In Brief: A Model for Fighting CRT in America's Schools
Talk-radio host Dana Loesch sees Critical Race Theory as one of the biggest scourges facing American students and their parents. But she has a five-step plan:
On Saturday, parents of various ethnicities, faiths and ideologies scored a victory against Marxist critical race theory in highly publicized school board races in the Dallas suburb of Southlake. Organized and conscientious parents voted in new board members committed to resisting left-wing indoctrination with landslides of nearly 70 percent. As parents across the country fight back against attempts to institutionalize critical race theory in their children’s schools, Southlake developed a blueprint for winning back our school districts.
The first step: understand what and who you are fighting.
She relayed the story of two of Southlake’s high school students who faced a totally unreasonable “reckoning” for a racial slur. Part of it was punishing those students, and part was “a critical race theory curriculum for each grade and regular surveys of students on ‘inclusion and diversity,’” among other accountability (read: tyrannical) measures that would enforce the Left’s newest buzzword: “equity.”
The second step: gather numbers. One parent alone is easily attacked by the well-funded and well-organized opposition. Good, decent people may be scared to speak up because no one wants to be falsely maligned as a racist simply for opposing Marxist bigotry in schools. Southlake families organized online and in person with regular meetings and daily communication. It took a year to get to election night success. You cannot be afraid to speak in defense of your children and of your neighbor who echoes your concerns. Fear has no place here: you must speak out in defense of your children and of each other. If you cannot speak up for your own children against Marxist indoctrination, who will? This is part of parenting.
The third step: organize. Several Southlake parents created a political action committee to raise money and endorse candidates. Several subcommittees were formed within the group and parents volunteered their time and talents to the committee they could best serve. One committee fields candidates and interviews them before the PAC officially endorses them. Soccer moms, football dads and grandparents sat across from school board, city council and mayoral candidates and grilled them on critical race theory. …
The fourth step: demand answers. Southlake parents filed public information requests and discovered that several school board members may have violated Texas’s Open Meetings Act. …
The fifth step: outreach. Our candidates ran civil campaigns focused on the issues and held weekly events for months leading up to the election. They rented ice cream trucks for cul-de-sac socials and BBQ meet-and-greets. They did everything they could to be visible and accessible. The PAC supplemented candidate spending on mailers and ad buys, and those who supported their efforts went door-to-door and phone banked — one football mom donated specifically for a Facebook ad campaign. And it paid off, with anti-CCAP school board candidates winning in landslides.
Loesch rightly concludes, “Narrow wins against critical race theory in schools aren’t good enough; it must be resolutely defeated.”