Woke Studies in Colorado Schools
An in depth look at Colorado's proposed CRT infused State Social Studies Standards
One of the biggest misconceptions of many conservative commentaries on education is targeted toward the ubiquitous “teachers.” The assumption is that teachers decide what is taught in their classroom. Instead, the more likely scenario is that teachers are trained precisely in what they are mandated to teach according to their state’s standards.
“State Standards” have become a huge cudgel on center-right teachers. Conversely, however, these same standards often serve as a launching pad for left-leaning teachers.
Nowhere is this more evident than the state of Colorado’s latest attempt at rewriting its Academic Social Studies Standards. The state revamped its standards only two years ago, and most teachers have barely had time to implement them fully into their lessons. Unfortunately, however, the political winds in the state have swept progressivism into Colorado politics rather quickly. As a result, academic liberals have seen an opening for indoctrination and have blown through that opening like a Kansas tornado.
Colorado Academic Standards: Social Studies
The overall theme that runs throughout the new standards is grievance. Grievance is so promoted that one would assume all history, mainly western and even more so American, is shaped exclusively through the oppression of minorities and the poor. The standards carefully weave the concepts of Critical Race Theory, collectivism, and socialist political and societal worldviews from beginning to end.
Pre-school through Fifth Grade
As early as kindergarten, the standards require teaching education’s latest buzzword, “equity.” Equity should not be confused with equality. Equality is an equal opportunity, while equity means equal outcomes. The belief that equal outcomes are possible for nations, cultures, and societies is the foundational goal of Marxist and socialist theories. Why introduce a concept this early in a child’s development if the purpose is not gradual indoctrination towards a progressive socialist worldview?
The standards also cross out the term families for first graders and replace it with communities. This again is a primary tenant of traditional marxism. Replace the family as the core of society with the state.
We also see the beginning of a trend in the standards of removing the word “entrepreneurial.” The term has been removed from the previous standards 60 times. Whenever a word, concept, or idea is removed, it is replaced with another word, concept, or idea. That word is once again, you guessed it, equity.
So, as early as first grade, “family” is replaced by “community,” and “entrepreneurial” is replaced with “equity.” First graders are also called upon to “Identify similarities and differences between themselves and others,” including race, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, ability, and family makeup. The assumption that first graders consider such new societal concepts as “gender identity” seems odd at best, and at worst, it smacks of indoctrination and social engineering.
In second grade, the standards remove the idea of physical boundaries between nations and present current systems within government as causing an “imbalance of power” between the haves and have-nots. The prescription for correcting these imbalances is, you guessed it, equity. There will be no imbalance between varying social groups because our current “systems of inequality” will be replaced with socialism.
In third grade, students are introduced to the need for citizens to “break rules to demand justice.” This concept is highly nuanced on many levels. Do eight-year-olds have the cognitive ability to work through ideas and questions that have been debated throughout history? The standard’s purpose is more likely to indoctrinate students into a path of thinking that highly values one type of channel for correcting wrongs. Instead, the standards almost exclusively rely upon extra-legal tactics, including violence.
So, in kindergarten, we see that we need to pursue equity. In first grade, we see that one way of establishing systems to achieve the goal of equity is to replace specific “systems” such as family and entrepreneurial economics. Now, in third grade, we learn that we may have to resort to illegal and violent means to do this.
The fourth grade is about Colorado State history. One might assume that the standards would break from their inherent woke view of history, but that assumption would be wrong. This is where students get to be introduced to the historical boogyman of colonialism. Those who settled in the state are referred to as “colonists.” This is strange because colonialism is generally reserved for a prerevolutionary time in American history. So why is it used here? This term has taken a negative meaning in the modern era, and educators know that 9 and 10-year-olds see the world in very black and white terms. They categorize people as “Good guys” or “bad guys.” Therefore, settlers (Americans) are presented as being on the wrong side. Once again, we see the aggrieved and the oppressors.
According to the standards, the entire study on Colorado history could be a study of the implementation of Critical Race Theory. First, you have the oppressors - white settlers. You have the oppressed - native Americans. Then you have “social and economic decisions” that “caused African American, Latino, Asian American, Indigenous Peoples, LGBT, and religious minorities to be relocated in various regions of Colorado.”
In the words of one reviewer, “this phraseology infuses critical race theory concepts of the oppressed vs. the oppressor into the standard without mention that many indigenous groups pushed others out of geographic regions” and took economic advantage of each other.
Fifth-grade standards do not have as many issues as other grades except for their use of “genocide.” Genocide is a loaded term in the same vein as we discussed with “colonization.” The standards surrounding the settlement of North America refer to genocide several times. However, they never once consider the contextualization of events. An example would be teaching that the smallpox epidemic within Native American communities was a genocide, although there was never an intentional killing. Instead, it was an unknown pathogen spread from Europeans to Native Americans. To refer to this as genocide is either ignorant or intentionally misleading. I fear the latter.
Middle School
Once the standards move into middle and high school, they drop all pretense that the end goal is anything other than intentional indoctrination. With Middle School, it is clear that students are expected to embrace a Critical Race Theory interpretation of history and civics. Inquiry questions are obviously intended to lead students to conclude that the United States was not founded upon the enlightenment ideals of natural rights, individual liberty, equality, and opportunity but rather upon oppression and exploitation of marginalized groups.
The leading through inquiry questions continues for the study of Civics. “How has the development of the American government had an impact on the rights of the underrepresented, vulnerable, and target groups of people?” and “How has civic participation for underrepresented, vulnerable, and targeted groups changed over time?” Initially, one might not see these questions as troublesome; however, an entirely different portrait appears when placed in context. The questions follow students already having been led to the conclusion that American representative democracy is oppressive rather than a catalyst for equality, individual freedom, and natural human rights.
High School
Once in High School in Colorado, students are asked to evaluate “institutional racism” and “legislated racism.” These phrases are loaded and indicative of CRT’s postulations that racism permeates every United States institution and legislation. They presuppose that our governments and history pit the powerful against the weak. While history has instances of such behavior, the standards do not encourage a well-rounded discussion of the topic using contextualization. High schoolers are old enough to recognize these political buzzwords and dogmas. It is relatively straightforward the standards are leading them to embrace CRT.
High School Civics circles back around to the idea, first proposed in third grade, that violence is warranted and good if exercised toward an end the student finds justifiable. It asks, “Under what circumstances, if any, is it necessary to act outside of established methods of civic participation?” When one considers adolescent psychological development, this vein of thinking could easily lead a High Schooler to a call to violence in some cases. For example, it might suggest to an adolescent brain that “if a court decision or legislation does not produce a group’s desired result, that group is justified in conducting ‘extra-legal’ activities.” Civics standards also repeatedly encourage students to “Engage in advocacy” for “group rights” such as “African American, Latino. Asian American, Indigenous Peoples, LGBTQ, and religious minorities.” There is no mention in the standards of engagement and advocacy for ALL Americans, rather than various carved-out subgroups.
General Concerns
Throughout the revised Colorado Social Studies Standards, American history and civics are discussed and presented within a CRT understanding. Students are repeatedly led to understand the nation as a clash between minorities and the economically opposed and oppressors. Those supposed oppressors are almost exclusively of white European descent. NEVER in the standards is the nation viewed as a unified people drawn together by its founding ideals. Instead, countless times and a laundry list of numerous separate aggrieved groups are superimposed into history, economics, and civics sacrificing a unified nation for a continuously divided and oppressive country. The concept of historical contextualization is missing throughout the standards. History is almost exclusively viewed through a 2022 lens rather than the lens of the time and place where events occurred.
In the end, Colroado’s revised Social Studies Standards appear to have a clear political orientation. They want students to view the world as various aggrieved groups divided upon racial, religious, sexual identity and gender, haves and have nots, etc. There are no ideas, rights, or unifying beliefs that propel our story and unify our nation but instead oppression and domination of one group over another. The standards are divisive and appear meant to divide an already fractured country further.
Below I have added a link to the proposed standards to read yourself. Also, I have included the contact information of the Colorado State Board of Education members. They will be voting on the standards in June.
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