CRT Teacher: CRT Isn’t Taught In Schools

CNN, which bills itself as “the most trusted name in news,” repeatedly contradicted itself during a segment chalking up the nationwide, multiracial backlash against Critical Race Theory to a “panic” caused by “relentless propaganda.”

The interview features a CRT public school teacher who insists CRT is not taught in America’s public schools.

“Keziah Ridgeway says she’s the only teacher she knows in Philadelphia who teaches critical race theory in public high school,” says the written version of a video report from CNN reporter Elle Reeve.

Ridgeway, the CRT teacher, then says that CRT is not being taught in public education — and that, if it is, that’s a good thing.

She tells the camera that “Critical Race Theory is not being taught in schools. It is a theory. It is a lens by which to view history and the way that law and race kind of overlaps [sic] and connects in society.”

Ridgeway then backs down. “Can it influence the way that some teachers teach? Uh, yeah, but that’s a good thing, right? Because race and racism is [sic] literally the building blocks of this country.”

Ridgeway shows CNN the books she uses in her class, including “Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement” — and the late socialist Howard Zinn’s error-rich “A People’s History of the United States.”

“I’m creating little free thinkers and future politicians, and lawyers, and teachers, and changemakers,” says Ridgeway. “I’m teaching children to question America. And that’s what makes a good patriot.”

The public school teacher then explicitly ties her pedagogy to shaping her students’ political beliefs and future voting patterns. “Not only do they become critical thinkers, they also become voters, and that is what’s scaring a lot of these people because they know that as this generation gets older, a lot of these people that are making these laws will be voted out of office.”

Despite a taxpayer-funded schoolteacher admitting she is proselytizing students on behalf of a far-left political agenda, Reeve portrays any concern over such teaching materials as the erroneous product of a well-funded, right-wing disinformation campaign.

“Relentless propaganda from some conservatives has created a panic that white people, and especially white children, are under attack,” says Reeve, the disinterested journalist. She later adds, “Anti-CRT propaganda is drawing big crowds.”

As parents have become aware of CRT’s aims and principles, polls have shown the majority of Americans oppose teachers using them as the interpretive “lens” inside U.S. history or civics classrooms. Its advocates have responded by denying that anyone teaches CRT and accusing Republicans of pouncing on the issue.

“Critical Race Theory is not taught in elementary schools, or middle schools, or high schools,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the nation’s second-largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers. “Culture warriors are … bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching students accurate history.” But as The Daily Wire’s Chrissy Clark reported, the AFT previously tweeted its support of CRT as “an irreplaceable lens with which we can view our difficult history,” alongside a photo of students studying in school.

Weingarten’s denial that CRT is being taught in public schools came just days after the National Education Association vowed at its annual convention to teach CRT nationwide and to investigate anyone leading a grassroots backlash.

To paper over the discrepancies in her reporting, Reeve employs all the hallmarks of legacy media bias. She uses laden language. (Has she ever described environmentalists’ exaggerations or myths as “propaganda”?) Every one of Reeve’s questions to Ridgeway contains an invitation to explain her views, while every question posed to CRT opponents contains an accusation. While Reeve never interrupts Ridgeway, she frequently interrupts nearly every critic of CRT. And Reeve injects opinionated monologues into discussions with concerned parents, including repeating the ubiquitous canard that the U.S. Constitution once counted slaves “as three-fifths of a person.”

Parents nationwide have awakened to the reality that their children are being taught to consider the United States a systemically racist and unjust nation, made to look at their fellow Americans as oppressors or oppressed based on immutable characteristics, and turned into the foot soldiers of a radical political movement aimed at changing the fundamental character of the United States.

The fact that CRT’s principles permeate public education is so undeniable that ultimately, Reeve could not keep it out of her own report.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases