Dear Colleagues:

This week we’re writing you from Austin, Texas, where we’ve been participating in engaging conversations at Heritage’s annual Resource Bank conference. Jonathan Butcher led an excellent discussion between Heritage’s Mike Gonzalez and the American Enterprise Institute’s Ian Rowe – newly elected to the Pelham School Board – on the problems with Critical Race Theory. As Rowe stated, “school boards are where the action is.”

Jonathan also spoke to KSAT in Texas about a proposal to protect children from the discriminatory ideas in critical race theory—a philosophy teachers are using in some schools today that treats students differently based on skin color. Jonathan explains that the application of such ideas is not only illegal according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but denies students the opportunity to learn that America’s promise of freedom and opportunity for all is an idea we—all Americans—should share. Watch the clip here.

Jonathan also wrote for the Daily Signal last week and explained that Black Lives Matter supporters and activists from the Zinn Education Project are planning to protest on June 12 in cities around the U.S. in an effort to try to keep critical race theory's discriminatory ideas in schools. Jonathan interviewed a parent from Texas who has seen critical ideas in her son's classroom. Read the story here.

In Case You Missed It

The Biden Administration proposed a 41 percent increase for the U.S. Department of Education in its FY2022 budget proposal. We’re at a loss as to why the federal agency deserves such a proposed increase, all of course on the backs of taxpayers.

Last month, Jude Schwalbach joined Respect Life Radio to discuss how teachers unions used their political clout to affect CDC school reopening guidelines. You can listen the conversation here and read his Daily Signal commentary on the subject here.

Upcoming Event

Join us virtually on Thursday, June 8 for Biden’s Bureaucratic Plans for American Families: Education, in which I will sit down with Andrea Mrozek, Senior Fellow at Cardus Family, for a 30 minute Policy Pulse discussion. RSVP here.

Lindsey Burke,

Director
Center for Education Policy

Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity

The Heritage Foundation