Oklahoma school district downgraded after teacher complains materials ‘shame white people’

Yes, it’s true Republicans are attacking reproductive rights. Yes, the GOP refuses to ban assault rifles, acknowledge climate change is real, or give sick veterans the funding they need to have healthy lives. But one of the most underhanded and insidious attacks from the GOP is on public education, particularly the party’s bans on teaching the accurate history of our nation.

The latest example took place on July 28, when the Oklahoma State Board of Education voted 4-2 to downgrade the accreditation of Tulsa Public Schools after a teacher alleged that the district’s training materials “shame white people.”

According to The Washington Post, the decision to give the Tulsa district an “accredited with warning” rating followed an August 2021 implicit bias training that it deemed violated Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt’s HB 1775. The legislation, signed on May 2021, prohibits certain training or “any orientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex.” In other words, anything that could be twisted to become the right wing’s scariest boogeyman: critical race theory.

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