“Let me say also: You know the bills that have been filed about teachers, requiring teachers to post their materials online? When I taught in Johnston County … I used a virtual learning environment called Moodle … I posted everything in Moodle and any parent could access it at anytime. So, you know, get over the bellyaching.”

State Supt. Catherine Truitt to Orange County Republicans

As a teacher and public school advocate, I have been called a “thug,” “loser,” “communist democrat,” and part of a “godless mob.”

“Bellyaching” is a new one to me.

BUT SO VERY APPROPRIATE.

Why? Consider all of the unhealthy things that we as teachers and public schools have been “fed” from this General Assembly. Such non-nutritious fare would wreak havoc on any “digestive” system. And teachers are supposed to have “immune systems of steel” according to someone that Supt. Truitt shared a stage with last fall.

Truitt’s simple gleaning of a bill and over-generalization of its intent only further shows her interest in being a politician rather than an educational leader.

Before the social unrest that brought about the Black Lives Matter movement, before we had as divisive a president as modern times has known, before the pandemic, and before NC passed a host of targeted voter ID laws and racial gerrymandering, Catherine Truitt taught in Johnston County. When she said that she “posted everything” on Moodle, did she include all of this?

As a teacher, Truitt must have been able to make time stop to put all of that on Moodle.

But time and timing are vital to the state supt.’s message. So is the selective audience.

In that same speech in front of the Orange County Republican Party, Truitt offered these thoughts for appeasement (as reported here):

“You all know that when the House filed their bill that would make critical race theory in our schools illegal, I stood up for that bill. I said I publicly supported it. I was quoted in the media as supporting it, much to the disappointment of a lot of people in the education community, because like I told you, Republicans don’t tend to work in the education community.”

For someone who once stated that politics should not play with education, it sure sounds like she did not heed her own words.

“I just want to say that our children’s education is too precious to play politics with, and I am going to try my hardest to separate politics from this role — to do what is right. The fact that we elect this position makes it difficult to eliminate politics, so let me just say that I cannot eliminate politics, but I’m going to do as much as I can to take the temperature down and keep this about students instead of politics.”

Back to her words with Orange County Republicans which focused a lot on Critical Race Theory:

“It’s the idea that every aspect of American society is racist. That racism permeates every aspect of our society, even though we have laws that we have passed and enacted on the books that are moving us towards a more perfect union. Okay. That is what critical race theory is. Critical race theory proponents also believe that because those laws were in place in 1783, that they can never really be amended, and therefore our nation will always be flawed. And that, my friends, goes against my core belief as a Christian.”

Not only is there a little of the “all-or-nothing” fallacy going on with that “every aspect” comment, her explanation is deliberately understated. If we have laws that are supposed to move us to a “more perfect union” then what has prevented us from actually getting there? Adherence to those laws and our inability to evenly enforce them? And I believe that most people who are Christian and do not use it as a political prop might tell you that people are innately flawed which might explain that need for salvation.

If Truitt is a state official charged with the education of all of North Carolina’s public school students, then she should have the guts to say those exact words to any audience, not just that manicured one.

Would she be willing to speak with an audience of democrats and defend her words?

Would she be willing to speak with an audience of veteran social studies teachers and defend those words?

Would she be willing to speak with an audience of NCAE members?

Would she be willing to speak with a group that does support Critical Race Theory and who have studied it much more than Truitt has?

AND THEN ANSWER DIRECT QUESTIONS?

It also makes this teacher wonder was this a big issue back in 2015 when she served as a senior education advisor for then Gov. Pat McCrory whose current campaign as an “outsider” is just about as ludicrous as his defense of the now famous HB2 / Bathroom Bill.

There is one guarantee from this open “discussion” of CRT and using it as an umbrella for all “systemic” things that Truitt wants to try to ignore: more people will want to look at it and educate themselves about it.