Breaking Trust: Critical Race Theory and PUSD – David Stringer

Since its founding in 1868 as Arizona’s first school district, the Prescott Unified School District (PUSD) has educated generations of Prescott youth and earned the reputation as one of the most trusted institutions in our community. Even a decade of falling enrollment and lackluster academics have not shaken support from the most ardent defenders of Arizona’s oldest government-run school system. But recent complaints from students and parents about the introduction of a “woke” curriculum have put all of that in jeopardy.

Like so many district school systems in Arizona’s more multi-cultural and racially diverse precincts, PUSD has drifted into a “social justice” philosophy of education that has replaced traditional lessons with indoctrination in identity politics and elevated “equity” over merit and achievement.

Anecdotal reports about lefty teachers and radicalized lessons have circulated for years. Over the past decade, PUSD enrollment has dropped from the mid 4000 range to well under 4000 today, as parents have pulled their children out of District schools in favor of higher performing charter and parochial schools. Many families have turned to home schooling.  These children are a particular embarrassment for PUSD. In terms of academic achievement, as a group, children schooled at home by lay parents outperform children taught by professional educators.

Nationally, home schooled kids outperform public school students on standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT with an average score at the 87^th percentile.   Two thirds of home-schooled students graduate from college—a rate higher than for any other education model. For many years, PUSD has been classified as a “declining” District. In contrast, some local charter and parochial schools report waiting lists. District school supporters sneer at these facts as “elitist.”

One local parent, Brooks Compton, found out the hard way just how “woke” PUSD has become and how tenacious they are in protecting their ideology. In a Prescott Talks interview with Prescott eNews columnist Buz Williams, Mr. Compton discusses a bizarre encounter with his son’s teacher and the staff at Mile High Middle School over a Life Skills lesson about “black achievers” and “white oppressors.”  ()

As Mr. Compton tells the story, he picked up his 13-year-old son after school one day to find him unusually quiet. He finally blurted out, “They taught us today that white dads and white men are racists.” He went on to explain that in his Life Skills class that day he was told that American society was full of “systemic racism” and that white people benefit from and perpetuate a system that oppresses and exploits people of color. According to the school lesson, all white people, no matter how poor or modest their circumstances, no matter their age or gender or personal background, enjoy “white privilege.” They are perpetrators and can never themselves be the victims of racial discrimination.

Mr. Compton was dumbfounded and asked his son to see the lesson. His son replied that they were not allowed to take the lesson home. Mr. Compton told his son to let him know if this happened again. The very next day his son got in the car and told his dad that they did it again but today it was white moms and white women who were racists.

During that school day the enterprising teenager sensed something was fishy. He took pictures of the lesson with his cellphone and shared them with his dad. He also took a picture of a school hallway display with the images of “black heroes” he was admonished to emulate. They included black Nationalist Malcom X, the black Marxist poet, Langston Hughes, civil rights martyr Emmet Till, and leading proponents of Black Lives Matter such as Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).

Armed with this information, Mr. Compton asked to meet with his son’s teacher and the principal of Mile High Middle School. [Ed. Note: Mr Compton has provided their names, but they have been omitted from this article.]  When he asked about the teaching of anti-white lessons and the ideology of Critical Race Theory, he was told that this “could not have happened as it would be reverse racism.”  It was “absolutely not the policy of Mile High Middle School to teach anti-white lessons or celebrate anti-white figures.”

“OK,”’ Mr. Compton responded, “then what about this?”, showing them the cell phone images his son had taken of the lessons. According to Mr. Compton, they never missed a beat.  “Well,” the Life Skills teacher responded indignantly, “You’re the only one who has ever complained.” And then fell into gibberish about finding the information on a website called “The Conversation”.

The meeting ended awkwardly.  Since his son was still enrolled at MHMS, Mr. Compton asked that we hold the story until his son moved to another school. “My son didn’t know about race,” Mr. Compton tells us, “until he was taught racism at Mile High Middle School.”   Brooks Compton is now a candidate for the PUSD school governing board.

As a matter of policy, Prescott eNews does not endorse candidates. But we are happy to tell his son’s story. And we will tell the story of any other candidate or parent or student with information on this issue. In the interest of free speech and fair play, PUSD and the staff of Mile High Middle School are welcome to present their side of the story.

What exactly is Critical Race Theory? The following discussion draws heavily on an article by Christopher Rufo, published in the March 2021 issue of Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College, Vol 50, Number 3, at Hillsdale.edu.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is rooted in Marxism. Classical Marxism is an economic theory based on class conflict which is said to be inherent in all capitalist societies. It advocates a revolution by the working class to eliminate private property and establish economic justice and social equality.

Marxism, more popularly referred to as communism, has been a hard sell outside of academic circles since the spectacular failures of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the fall of the Soviet Union. Wherever communism has been attempted—Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea– the result has been authoritarian brutality and economic failure. But the intellectual framework of oppressed and oppressor lives on in CRT, which substitutes race for class.

Leftist revolutionaries have adapted their goals and ideology to the social and racial tensions of Western societies. Instead of capitalism, the enemy is now “white supremacy”.  Nowhere has this effort been more successful than in colleges, universities, and teacher training programs in particular. No one qualifies for a teaching license from any of Arizona’s state universities without indoctrination in “equity”, “social justice”, “diversity and inclusion” and “culturally responsive teaching”. The goal is a racially divisive curriculum that promotes race consciousness and collective guilt.

During the Trump administration, President Trump issued an Executive Order that banned Critical Race Theory and forced “sensitivity” programs in the federal government. President Biden rescinded this Executive Order on his first day in office.

The assault on western culture and the denigration of white students in our nation’s schools is greatly facilitated by the changing demographics of the United States. According the most recent 2022 Census, all white children under the age of 18 are now a racial minority in the United States. Here in Arizona, the percentage of white children in our public school system is 38 percent.  It is now virtually impossible for a white child to attend a government run school in Arizona without being racially stigmatized as the member of an oppressor class who bears a burden of white guilt.

In his recent race for Arizona Superintendent of Public Education, Tom Horne made ending Critical Race Theory the linchpin of his campaign.  Here in Prescott, Brooks Compton and others have called for public transparency in our school curriculum and the eradication of Critical Race Theory, root and branch. We wish them well.