As the1619 Project is being debated at the federal level, many states are making decisions to subject or free their students from such controversial, racist, and historically inaccurate curriculum. Should former Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) become the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, it's likely he'll be on the side of the 1619 Project, considering Collin Anderson with the Washington Free Beacon reported he took $25,000 from the American Federation of Teachers last month, as the AFT president Randi Weingarten praised the 1619 Project.
As Anderson highlights about AFT's role in the 1619 Project:
The union partnered with the Pulitzer Center in February to "explore a selection of essays in The 1619 Project" with founder Nikole Hannah-Jones and Weingarten. The union leader pledged to get the "invaluable and nuanced lesson plans about the 1619 Project directly to educators" and pushed back against efforts across the country to exclude the curriculum from schools.
"There's nothing unpatriotic about a cleareyed view of our nation's past," Weingarten said. "The country has to see its history in all of its manifestations and that history cannot be whitewashed.… The 1619 Project forces those who do not want to see, to see."
This is likely all we have to go on, considering the front-runner going into the Democratic primary hasn't exactly been forthcoming. He sounds like someone else, who is already in office, President Joe Biden.
There's a lot more of Anderson's reporting which isn't too comforting:
McAuliffe's deep ties to the union—he's received $175,000 from the AFT since 2013—could prove to be a vulnerability as growing numbers of Virginia parents bristle at the union's embrace of controversial critical race theory programs while resisting in-person schooling. In Loudoun County, a group of parents are attempting to recall school board members for pushing critical race theory after the district shelled out more than $400,000 in taxpayer funds to conduct diversity training and establish an "equity plan."
McAuliffe, who has yet to discuss critical race theory on the campaign trail, has also remained mum on reopening schools before Weingarten gave a May speech in favor of offering in-person learning for five days a week in the fall. Less than two weeks after the speech, McAuliffe offered tacit support for reopening schools and called for $2 billion in spending to "raise teacher pay and address inequities head on."
The Democrat months earlier sent a campaign flyer touting provisions to improve access to virtual learning, even though he would not take office until 2022. McAuliffe did not comment on Democratic governor Ralph Northam's February decision to open schools in the spring, which came as Weingarten and other union leaders pushed for teachers to receive priority access to vaccines in order to reopen schools.
Townhall spoke with parents in the Fairfax School District--the largest in Virginia and eleventh in the country--earlier this month as they raised concerns over "Revisions of the Controversial Issues Policy & Development of a new Anti-Racism, Anti-Bias Education Curriculum Policy," which will incorporate Critical Race Theory. Most of them were quite concerned and downright angry, with some considering taking their children out of the schools in that district.
Meanwhile, Virginia's Republican gubernatorial nominee, Glenn Youngkin, has spoken out against the 1619 Project. He's been vocal about it from the start, including during the primary season.
When I'm governor, we will NOT teach critical race theory in our schools. We WILL teach accelerated math classes.
— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) May 8, 2021
I ask you to please vote for me as your first choice today so we can teach our kids HOW to think, not WHAT to think.
Polling locations: https://t.co/1r3maR6rrp pic.twitter.com/tSBKotQ33y
During a Liberty University College Republican forum, where he won the straw poll, Youngkin acknowledged the divisive nature of CRT.
He also assured voters while speaking at a Virginia Federation of Republican Women debate and during a Tele-townhall that CRT will not be taught in schools in the commonwealth.
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