North Carolina‘s top Republican official released an 831-page report Tuesday based on the findings of a task force that examined indoctrination in the state’s public-school system.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson spent months gathering the data for the report on Fairness and Accountability in the Classroom for Teachers and Students.
“The immaturity I see in the school system is just mind-numbing,” said Robinson, a former teacher, in an exclusive interview with Headline USA in June.
While lawmakers expected the report largely to contain criticism from concerned parents and members of the public at large, they were surprised to see page after page from teachers expressing their alarm with leftist curricula, including the controversial Critical Race Theory.
“Many of us are too afraid to lose our careers and reputations by speaking up,” said one of the teacher comments, according to a press release from state Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, a Republican from Rockingham County.
Several comments excerpted by Berger relayed similar concerns, including one from a veteran teacher near retirement who feared getting fired for failing to promote the biased and factually unsound Marxist propaganda.
“I am 5 years away from retirement and that seems like forever right now … Please keep my letter private because I don’t want to lose my job so I can still get my retirement but I couldn’t just sit back and act like what is happening is okay.”
Many feared their classrooms, far from being safe spaces to explore ideas and pursue intellectual discourse, had become career mine-fields where any push-back may be punished.
“Anyone who speaks up is afraid they will be ‘canceled’ or ‘terminated’ because they have a different opinion,” said one teacher comment. “This is not the work environment we should be exposed to or the environment our students should be presented with when they enter the classroom.”
Berger said the report effectively debunked the common leftist refrain that CRT was being blown out of proportion, as parents across the nation flood school-board meetings to voice their opposition.
“The Democratic Party position is that this doctrine ‘doesn’t exist’ in schools,” he said.
“Not only is that plainly untrue, but teachers who object to the doctrine fear for their careers,” he added. “This is not an acceptable state of affairs.”
