Auguste Meyrat writes for the Federalist about one important lesson to be learned from a Texas school district’s fight over skewed ideological instruction.

[C]ritical race theory asserts that society is racist, whiteness is a problem, and that all unequal outcomes between different racial groups are proof of racism. To address this, employees are asked to denounce their whiteness, pledge their support of antiracist organizations, and work to equalize outcomes by penalizing privileged groups and rewarding victimized groups.

One can easily imagine how this kind of thinking can easily corrupt any organization. On an intellectual level, it is divisive, illogical, and unfair. On a practical level, it only worsens the problem it intends to solve. A school district that adopts critical race theory training and antiracist policies in the hopes of improving the academic performance of racial minorities only enables the behaviors and attitudes that create academic disparities in the first place. …

… The third, and most important, lesson to take from this story is how much parents’ voices matter for public school policy. It was angry parents who first pushed the critical race theory in Southlake, and it is angry parents who are stopping it.

While it’s true that public schools have a monopoly that discourages its leaders from making needed reforms, it’s also true that these same people will respond to parents who raise a fuss. In most cases, whoever raises the most fuss will get their way in the end. …

… This same strategy of pushing back against bad district policies can be done in other areas as well. If a district is imposing questionable COVID-19 regulations, spending millions of dollars on iPads, changing graduation requirements, loosening the grading policy, adopting gimmicks to address an issue, watering down or politicizing curriculum, or a host of other actions, parents should show up and make their voices heard at school board meetings and other public events.

They should also do this at the campus and classroom levels.