Investigation Finds Missouri Schools Teaching Children Divisive Concepts
A lawsuit claims that multiple Missouri schools have been using racist practices within their classroom curriculums.
7 Missouri schools have been subpoenaed regarding racist practices. The state’s attorney general Eric Schmitt released a transparency portal early this week, revealing numerous questionable materials and lessons being taught by numerous school districts across the area. This is part of Schmitt’s Students First Initiative which seeks to bring transparency to Missouri school districts and keep parents informed about school curriculum.
The investigation found that at least 9 Missouri schools were incorporating questionable teaching materials that inserted identity politics in the classroom and led children to question their gender identity, their race, and cultural heritage. The St. Louis area had numerous schools teaching divisive concepts. The School District of Clayton, Rockwoods School District, and Ladue School District are all set in well-to-do areas of St. Louis County. The average annual household income in Ladue is just under $215 thousand. Being an upper-middle class area, parents were concerned to learn that students were taught about a “Cycle of Oppression/Socialization” which named “misinformation” as a main source of inequities.
Rockwoods is another higher-income area that is teaching students that they are privileged in Missouri schools, but not because their parents work hard to earn a nice living, instead, they are instructed in a “witnessing whiteness” class to realize that being white is racist and leads to white supremacy. This district also instructed students to fill out a “privilege chart” and lumped working-class Americans into a category with “poor” and “homeless” individuals. The School District of Clayton is another district serving upper-middle-class students and utilized a “Wheel of Power/Privilege” to shame students for being well off.
These materials are not exclusive to the St. Louis area. In nearby St. Charles County, students were forced to do a privilege walk in history class at the Wentzville School District. Parents have also complained that this district allows teachers to vilify conservatives in the classroom and has partnered with left-leaning organizations Core Collaborative and The Southern Poverty Law Center. Other Missouri schools have employed large corporations to direct equity programs and data collections that ensure students are learning material that awards them grants from the federal government — which The Biden Administration is using to punish successful schools that do not pander to identity politics in the classroom.
In Springfield Missouri, The Gender Unicorn is being used to teach gender identity, and an oppression matrix is ensuring that white students are taught about their “racism,” and that they are a “privileged social group,” even though over 3 million white families live below the poverty level. In Warren County, students were given a Race Implicit Association test through a website that clearly stated that the material was for “adults, aged 18 or older.” Other similar materials have been circulated through Missouri schools or been presented in teacher training. Most are connected to outside organizations with ties to political figures.
Education Equity Consultants LLC has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Missouri public schools to facilitate divisive lessons. This is a St. Louis-based company which provides services to districts in other states including, California, Illinois, Kansas, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Companies like this were formed to meet the needs of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This was introduced in 2015 during the Obama administration and noted how, “high school graduation rates are at all-time highs. Dropout rates are at historic lows. And more students are going to college than ever before. These achievements provide a firm foundation for further work to expand educational opportunity and improve student outcomes under ESSA.”
Based on the own act’s declaration, students have not benefited from this measure. Public schools and the education system were highly successful when the ESSA was passed, but after seven years of federal government interference, the system is now experiencing record enrollment drops, failing performance rates, increasing levels of school violence, a lack of college interest, and a subsequent worker shortage. Missouri schools are experiencing this along with the rest of the nation’s districts.
Parents have expressed their opposition to biased political classroom rhetoric time and time again. A Parent Bill of Rights has been developed in Missouri to ensure that families can gain access to what their children are being taught, but it has been an uphill battle. How the information uncovered by the Missouri attorney general is used to prevent further divisive teachings in Missouri schools depends on the lawsuits that follow. Concerned parents are instructed to file complaints regarding harmful teaching practices at Eric Schmitt’s government website.
