No indoctrination

Idaho Republican legislators have recently cited “critical race theory” and “social justice indoctrination” as their rationale for failing to pass several education bills.

Critical race theory is not “teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other” nor is it teaching that “white people are inherently racist” as alleged by Lt. Governor McGeachin. Rather, critical race theory encourages people to examine how historical laws and policies trickle down and lead to invisible inequity today. So, critical race theory would examine the current racial wealth gap by analyzing how historical laws that limited black and brown people from owning homes contribute to this disparity today.

Moreover, critical race theory is only one of dozens of theories (many developed by white people) that we teach in our classes. If a student attends a university in Idaho, they are required to take courses from a variety of disciplines. Using the example of race, they would take an economics course and learn about race and race relations from a number of economic theories.

They would enroll in biology courses and learn about race through this lens. They would take history classes and look at the historical and changing understandings of race. They would read books written by authors from different races to understand people’s experiences and ways of making sense of current and past race relations. They would take a sociology class and learn several different theories on how race operates at a societal level.

There is no indoctrination happening in schools. We do the opposite: we teach students a variety of ways of understanding issues so that they are empowered to think critically and become strong leaders and innovators for Idaho.

Kristin Haltinner

Moscow

Hurting children

In the article "Tie vote kills Idaho teacher budget," Rep. Priscilla Giddings says "the problem is that in teacher development what's being required is for teachers to undergo specific training in critical theory." As an interesting thought experiment, change "critical theory" with "evolution." The same issues arose around evolution with teachers wanting kids to be prepared for the world they would be in that valued facts and science. Now our kids need to be prepared for a world where they will be more successful with some basic understanding of the increasingly diverse people they will be working and living with. Trying to hold back knowledge will just hurt our children.

Jeffrey Watt

Pullman

They have an agenda

I applaud President Green’s thoughtful and strong message in response to attacks on Idaho’s educational institutions. One can only hope the alum who received it, across the state, the nation, in the statehouse and governor’s mansion standup and make their voices heard in support of education and educators.

It is equally important that other citizens and leaders come forward in response to this radical attack by some state legislators. Emsi, SEL, Gritman and others, all of whom rely on educated and knowledgeable Idaho workers, need to forcefully speak out. These assaults are hurting Idaho’s economic future.

Wayne Hoffman, the radical dark money operative, has created a strawman to attack and found mouthpieces in the legislature. They are trying to destroy education in Idaho from pre-K to higher ed. This sounds like an exaggeration, until you hear their words and the transcripts of their robocalls. They have an agenda, and it’s not to improve public education, but to undermine it at every opportunity.

Roger Rowley

Moscow

Accuracy matters

Please accept my mea culpa for a mistake in my column “Rules are fundamental to civilization,” that resulted in an opposite meaning.

I had intended to write “Ioannidis has been no champion of “lockdowns to combat the COVID-19 pandemic … but in my own editing the sentence turned out to say Ioannidis champions lockdowns.

My apologies, he opposes lockdowns.

Terence L. Day

Pullman