(The Center Square) – The Trump administration’s Department of Education said it has cut $600 million worth of grants for “divisive” teacher training created by nonprofits and institutions for future classroom teachers.
The federal education agency said in a media statement that it had axed federal funds spent on training materials that included “Critical Race Theory; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); social justice activism; ‘anti-racism;’ and instruction on white privilege and white supremacy.”
The now-terminated discretionary grants were from the Department of Education’s Teacher Quality Partnership and the Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant Programs. Announced recipients of those grants include universities, organizations and school districts.
The Department of Education’s news release said that “many of these grants included teacher and staff recruiting strategies implicitly and explicitly based on race.”
“As The Nation’s Report Card (NAEP) recently indicated, America’s students are falling dangerously behind in math and reading,” said Savannah Newhouse, a Department of Education spokesperson, in an emailed statement to Chalkboard News. Like The Center Square, Chalkboard News is published by Franklin News Foundation.
“Teacher prep programs should be prioritizing training that prepares youth with the fundamentals they need to succeed for the future, not wasting valuable training resources on divisive ideologies,” Newhouse continued.
“The U.S. Department of Education will continue working to ensure taxpayer dollars are used wisely to strengthen America’s education system,” Newhouse added.
Chalkboard has reported on federal funds going to various state and regional equity centers, where speakers supported ideas based on critical race theory.
Speakers in equity webinars have referenced a wheel of privilege and oppression to illustrate the concept of intersectionality, which says overlapping portions of someone’s identity determine the amount of power or victimhood they have in society.
A Wisconsin state agency used federal IDEA funds to pay writer Ibram X. Kendi $15,000 to have a “generative conversation” on antiracism in which he said students should be receiving an antiracist education and spoke of how the current education system harms children.
Kendi told an online audience of teachers and school staff last May that children should be taught antiracist ideas before the age of 3. One of the best ways to do that, according to Kendi, is to get ideological control of a school system.
“The reason [opponents are] going after the school systems is because schools systematically educate almost everyone,” Kendi said. “It’s a bigger bang for your activism to ensure that the school system has the capacity and the ability and the resources to institute an antiracist education.”
The grant applications that were cut included different characteristics, which the Trump administration has criticized and worked to dismantle since President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January ordering the end of “radical indoctrination” in K-12 schooling.
The executive order defines a “Discriminatory equity ideology” as one “that treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability in favor of immoral generalizations.”’
Specifically, the canceled grants focused on requiring future teachers to “take personal and institutional responsibility for systemic inequities (e.g., racism) and critically reassess their own practices,” according to the Department of Education.
The grants also funded trainings and workshops on “Building Cultural Competence,” “Dismantling Racial Bias,” and “Centering Equity in the Classroom,” as well as provided direction for teachers on how to respond to systemic forms of oppression and inequity.
According to the Department of Education, examples of grants that were cancelled said they would build “historical and sociopolitical understandings of race and racism to interrupt racial marginalization and oppression of students in planning, instruction, relationship-building, discipline and assessment.”
Also on the chopping block were projects that provided “targeted practices in culturally relevant and responsive teaching abolitionist pedagogies and issues of diversity in classroom management” and “spaces for critical reflection to help educators confront biases and have transformative conversations about equity,” the department said in the release.
• This story first published at Chalkboard News which, like The Center Square, is published by the Franklin News Foundation