Teachers in Massachusetts warned that President Donald Trump’s recent executive actions targeting “woke” education in America’s schools would hurt students and threaten the academic freedom of teachers in the classroom, according to a new report.
On January 29, Trump signed an executive order stripping federal funding from K-12 schools that teach critical race theory (CRT) and that promote “radical indoctrination” in gender ideology.
The teaching of CRT, and other controversial content in schools, has sparked backlash from parents at school board meetings across the nation over the past several years. During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged to cut federal funding for schools that promote CRT, transgender ideology and “any other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”
Some New England teachers are worried the new restrictions on teaching CRT could cause teachers to self-censor out of fear that any discussion on race would make them a target of the new administration, The Boston Globe reported.
TEACHER’S UNIONS PROTEST TRUMP’S EXECUTIVE ORDERS ON EDUCATION WHILE SCHOOL CHOICE ADVOCATES CHEER
Teachers in Massachusetts condemned President Trump’s executive order targeting schools that teach CRT. (Getty Images)
“It’s sending a chilling effect,” retired history teacher Tom Jordan said. “Every teacher I’ve talked to is completely freaked out by it.”
According to the Globe report, the largest teachers’ unions in the state have come out to denounce Trump’s attack on CRT.
Jessica Tang, president of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, told the Globe, “If we’re not taught that history and we don’t know what happened, then we don’t understand why things are the way they are today. And then I think it undermines democracy in the longer run.”
Marcus Walker, a humanities teacher at Fenway High School in Boston, worried that Trump’s actions would harm the academic freedom of teachers and set up students to learn a “dishonest” view of America’s history.
“As citizens, we are obligated to be responsible. We’re obligated to understand our government, to learn how the government works, and we’re obligated to get accurate information,” Walker said in the report. “All of that gets short-circuited if we’re teaching history that is dishonest.”
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Critical race theory (CRT) has emerged as a polarizing topic in recent years. (Robert Gauthier)
In 2021, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents released a statement denying that CRT was taught in K-12 schools in the state.
Trump’s order on CRT was met with criticism from national teachers’ unions and praise from school choice advocates.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten accused Trump of unfairly tarnishing teachers and making their jobs more difficult with the executive order on CRT.
“Today is a sad day because the Trump administration is doing exactly what it accuses others of: creating division and fear in classrooms across America,” Weingarten wrote in a press release.
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 29 targeting “radical” content in America’s schools. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, told Fox News Digital that she believes American parents want the reform Trump is bringing to the education space.
“President Trump’s Executive Orders on DEI, CRT, gender ideology, and school choice are extremely welcome news to parental rights advocates across the country,” Neily said. “We have been waiting for an administration that treats parents as allies rather than enemies and works to curb the proliferation of leftist political ideology in the classroom, while helping to reorient schools towards their original purpose of teaching students the fundamentals necessary to succeed and thrive.”
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Trump signed a flurry of executive orders targeting federal funding for schools as testing scores continue to drop, according to the Nation’s Report Card.
Trump administration officials are reportedly weighing a plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday.
Fox News’ Rachel del Guidice contributed to this article.
