Colorado Mother Blasts Board Members On Critical Race Theory: ‘The Jobs Of The Board Is Education’
A mother and radio show host slammed a Colorado school board for incorporating critical race theory into the school’s curriculum, calling out how ‘equity’ sounds great but is the exact opposite.
Deborah Flora, a radio broadcaster and member of the Parents United America advocacy group, also criticized the Douglas County School District (DCSD) school board for selecting the diversity consulting company “Gemini Group.” City and state governments, as well as educational institutions, are clients of the equity consulting business.
The Gemini Group aims to “address and eliminate institutional and systemic inequities, most specifically starting with race, through training and technical support,” according to its website.
Flora urged the school board to concentrate on its job, which is to educate children, in her remarks. The training, she said, was a “nightmare” that needed to “end now.”
“The training also, by the way, divides basically educators and parents. In the training, it refers to parents as ‘dissenters.’ We are not dissenters. We are the parents. [The training] goes on to say, ‘and train educators to tell dissenters that this is simply the way we are going to educate your children.’ They’re our children,” the mother shared.
Watch: Colorado Mother Blasts School Board Members
Full transcript:
We’ve heard a lot about how the equity education system is not equivalent to critical race theory. However, I’ve heard many things that are very disturbing that show it to be quite the opposite.
First of all, the term equity — it sounds great, but it’s exactly the opposite of equal opportunity. Equity demands an equal outcome. That only happens when you gerrymander things to favor one group or another. It’s not the same as equal opportunity.
The second thing that concerns me is when I heard the definition of equity that has been shared here and through many communications from the district. It talks about groups of individuals. When you talk about groups, it is collectivism. It is separating children into groups. That is exactly what it is doing.
And groups based on what? What we’ve heard … is that groups are broken down into race, gender identity, sexual preference, and oppression. When we look at the Gemini Group teaching — which I took time to watch the entire thing — it is even more disturbing. And this [diversity] group was hired by this board.
In that training, it talks about oppressors and oppressed. That is damaging to every group of children. First of all, some groups of children are thought of as being shamed for who they are. The others are taught that they’re victims without the ability to further themselves and to look at others as the enemies.
We all know the Dr. King quote that has been shared — “color of our skin versus the content of our character.” He had a dream, this is a nightmare. It is a nightmare for our children and it needs to end now.
The training also, by the way, divides basically educators and parents. In the training, it refers to parents as “dissenters.” We are not dissenters. We are the parents. [The training] goes on to say, “and train educators to tell dissenters that this is simply the way we are going to educate your children.” They’re our children.
We are the ones that have the moral authority over their education. We will not be marginalized. The board’s job is to represent the stakeholders. … The stakeholders who were consulted before this policy was implemented does not list parents. Neither does the advisory committee. We are the stakeholders and we need to be included in this.
Let me end [with] this. The job of the board is education. Right now, according to state proficiency tests, only 59 percent of Douglas County students are proficient in reading. Only 48 percent are proficient in math. That is the job of the school.
The teaching of morality, teaching students to be kind, we can teach them to be kind. The rest of it belongs to the parents. Not to social engineering in the schools.
