Are These States Using COVID Relief Funds To Push CRT In Schools?
It looks like COVID relief funds are now being used to push different educational agendas in the United States, including CRT in schools
The Biden Administration’s push for “equity” and implementing race-based practices in the classroom is not only awarding schools special grants for teaching culturally responsive lessons (which include Critical Race Theory (CRT) ideology), they have allowed COVID relief funds to fund programs which indoctrinate students into a line of thinking that teaches children to judge each other based on their identity.
Billions of taxpayer dollars came out of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act relief package to support public schools. Being that the money was allocated during the pandemic — to combat losses brought on by lockdowns and other COVID-19 responses — parents, students, and teachers expected that these COVID relief funds would be utilized for those purposes only. Now it’s being reported that public schools in California, Illinois, and New York have been spending COVID money on identity politics instead of allocating those funds for COVID-related issues.
$122 billion went to reviving the decimated public education system. It was dispersed state-by-state through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER). But in the most populous blue states, these COVID relief funds are not all spent, yet some schools are still asking for more money. Could it be that they are in need of a bigger budget because they have not utilized their government afforded, tax-payer-funded money wisely?
Democrats were quick to demand that COVID relief funds were essential. They worked to quickly pass a relief package under the premise that the money was needed to “safely reopen.” Yet it was blue areas that remained locked down for longer. Students were taught virtually, and the facilities needed for in-person teaching no longer needed maintenance or utilities. In further examining how these schools spent their stimulus money, taxpayers are quickly learning that they have paid to have children taught that “America is racist,” and other extreme political views.
In California, COVID relief funds were utilized to train staff about “implicit bias,” “ethnic studies,” LGBTQ+ issues, and more. In New York, the state received $9 billion for ESSR funding. They directed that funding toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategies like, culturally responsive teaching, exploring “privilege” and implicit bias, among other identity-based topics. $5.1 billion in ESSR funding went to Illinois, another state more focused on emphasizing “equity and diversity,” than safety, health, or core classes that teach basic life skills and prepare students to be productive adults.
Minnesota is another state that quietly used COVID relief funds for other purposes than health and safety practices. Minnesota public schools received $1.5 billion. The state itself has a massive surplus, yet lawmakers have argued for a bigger education budget. This may be due to the fact that ESSR money in the state was spent on eliminating racial bias and stereotypes, critically examining gender bias, free tutoring for Asians, helping American Indians fix their credit, and more.
COVID relief funds were approved during a national state of emergency in order to combat the effects of emergency procedures. Unfortunately nowhere in the American Rescue Plan did lawmakers specify how public schools were to spend ESSR funding. This allowed districts in liberal areas to take advantage of a crisis to pander one-sided politics to young impressionable students without parental consent or even knowledge. Whether taxpayers can take legal action against schools for misappropriating funds is undetermined, but record enrollment drops are displaying how families feel about their tax dollars being misrepresented and spent for purposes other than what they were originally approved for.
