LETTER: Ideologically Driven Schools Constrain Objective Truth

SOMERS, CT — The Connecticut Department of Education and its network of resource groups have developed a K-12 public school program aimed at segmenting groups by broad racial, identity and cultural generalizations as a method to address racial academic outcome differences driven by systemic racism. The primary objective being to activate a civically engaged student body to carry out this ideological worldview to end white institutionalized racism.

Somers schools, like many others throughout the state, have embraced this program, calling it Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training.

It’s critical to point out that this program was not legislated nor was it approached in a manner that required a curriculum change, and hence approval by the board of education. Instead, all of these traditional oversights were avoided by using teacher professional development as the means to roll it out into the individual K-12 classrooms.

Why should we be concerned about social activism recruitment in our school classrooms?

• It requires total adherence to all its ideas, theories, prohibits neutrality and ends the practice of tolerance to the new age forced acceptance.
• It maintains an overarching purpose not to improve the accuracy of the historical record or to correct it to the objective truth, but rather to enforce its strict doctrine.
• It’s a departure from objective educating to close-minded ideological indoctrination and student activist recruitment.
• It requires a continuous and acute creation of sub-identities and ethnocentric subculturalization that unnecessarily fractionalizes and negatively divides the student body.
• It assumes all racial and identity academic performance gaps are from systemic racism driven by white dominance and oppression.
• It ignores the reality of natural individual differences and avoids the overwhelmingly common universal virtues of character development.
• It requires forced acceptance of things contrary to science, family and faith.
• It requires equity on educational outcomes that forces a collective view of the student body and that compresses resources and academic performance downward.

Education has well served the common good by developing thought from all the objective facts and inclusive to all perspectives, theories and ideas. Historically, any program based within a single ideology has rightfully been understood as a campaign of propaganda and indoctrination.

Schools are a place to develop academic discipline and not ideological activism.

If you are uncomfortable with any of this new educational framework, please consider voting for me on your board of education.

Bob Chester
Somers
Candidate for Board of Education

Patch welcomes letters to the editor on any topic, and reserves the right to edit letters for brevity or clarity. Acceptable letters regarding political candidates will refer to the positive qualities of the candidate; letters which are mainly negativity toward a candidate's opponent may be edited or unpublished. Email letters, including the writer's name, address and phone, to tim.jensen@patch.com.

To register for free Ellington and Somers news alerts and more, click here.