INFORMED PARENTS – CALIFORNIA
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When Education Divides: The Problem With Critical Race Theory in Our Public Schools
Monday, November 02, 2026
Our schools should teach students to think critically, understand history, and treat one another as individuals... not divide them by race, identity, or perceived privilege.
Public education should bring students together around a shared commitment to learning, intellectual curiosity, and mutual respect. Our classrooms should be places where young people learn about America's triumphs and failures, examine difficult historical questions, and develop the ability to evaluate competing arguments. They should not become places where students are encouraged to see one another primarily through the lens of racial identity, privilege, or oppression.
That is why we are concerned about the growing influence of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and related approaches to instruction in public schools. The issue is not whether racism exists, whether historical injustices should be taught, or whether every student deserves equal opportunity. Those principles are fundamental. The question is whether certain classroom approaches help students understand complex issues—or instead encourage them to interpret history and their classmates through a divisive framework of racial categories and group identity.
Recent reporting about North Monterey County Unified School District in California raises important questions that parents, educators, and taxpayers deserve to examine.
A California Curriculum Raises Difficult Questions
In an August 24, 2026, report, the Washington Examiner described instructional materials from North Monterey County Unified School District's newly introduced ethnic studies course. According to the report, the curriculum emphasizes themes associated with CRT, including power, privilege, and oppression, and characterizes America as an “imperial colonizer.”
One unit slide depicts a map of the world, with Western countries labeled as “imperial colonizers.” (source: Defending Education)
The report also identified a particularly troubling example involving the September 11 terrorist attacks. According to the Washington Examiner, a course unit references Osama bin Laden's writings in connection with the assertion that the United States targeted Muslim communities and that the attacks of September 11 contributed to increased discrimination against Muslims.
One unit slide on “9/11 — Labeling and Categorizing the Enemy” teaches that “jihad” is simply an “Arabic word which literally means striving or struggling, especially with a praiseworthy aim.”
On the following presentation slide, the unit suggests that Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America,” his 2002 manifesto outlining al Qaeda’s grievances, serves as evidence that the United States was intentionally “target[ing] Muslim communities.”
Slide capture from Defending Education
These are serious matters of curriculum and interpretation. Students should learn about the terrorist attacks, the victims, the perpetrators' ideology, and the historical events surrounding that period. Students must learn to evaluate a source's credibility, consider its purpose, compare it with independent evidence, and distinguish an author's assertions from established facts.
The Danger of Dividing Students by Race
Our central concern with CRT-informed instruction is the risk of reducing complex individuals and historical experiences to categories of privilege, disadvantage, oppressor, and oppressed.
Race and racism are legitimate subjects of study. America's history includes slavery, segregation, discrimination, and courageous efforts to expand civil rights. Ignoring these realities would be irresponsible. But acknowledging injustice is not the same as teaching students that racial identity should determine how they understand themselves, their classmates, or their place in society.
When classroom activities ask students to assess their personal identities through frameworks of power and privilege, educators should carefully consider how those exercises are designed, explained, and used. Do they encourage thoughtful reflection? Do they allow students to disagree? Are students free to describe their own experiences without being assigned a predetermined social or political identity?
A student should not be made to feel personally guilty for historical events because of race, nor should another student be told that their race defines them primarily as a victim. Neither approach promotes individual dignity or meaningful understanding.
Students from the same racial or ethnic background can have vastly different family histories, economic circumstances, beliefs, opportunities, and life experiences. Likewise, students from different backgrounds can share important values, challenges, ambitions, and friendships. An educational approach that overlooks these realities risks reinforcing the very divisions it claims to address.
Federal Investigation Puts Student Privacy and Parental Rights in the Spotlight
The controversy surrounding ethnic studies instruction in California has now drawn federal attention. On October 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education announced investigations into three school districts: North Monterey County Unified, Palo Alto Unified, and San Francisco Unified.
According to the department's announcement, the investigations concern activities called “Wheel of Power/Privilege” and “Mapping My Identities.” Federal officials allege that these activities may have required students to disclose sensitive personal information involving subjects such as race, sexual orientation, gender identity, mental and physical health, and family economic circumstances, and then assess their privilege. The department is examining whether the districts violated the federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), which provides parents with certain rights concerning student surveys and parental access to instructional materials.
The appropriate question is whether a course is academically rigorous, historically balanced, age-appropriate, and open to critical examination. Does it present evidence accurately? Does it distinguish facts from interpretations?
Parents have a legitimate interest in understanding what their children are being taught, reviewing instructional materials, and knowing when classroom activities involve sensitive personal information. Schools should make curriculum review accessible and communicate clearly with families. Students should not feel pressured to reveal private information or disclose personal beliefs simply because an exercise is part of a classroom assignment.
Transparency and parental involvement should not be viewed as obstacles to education. They are important safeguards that help build trust between families and public schools. Whatever the outcome of these investigations, districts should ensure that their instructional practices respect students' privacy, comply with the law, and allow parents to participate meaningfully in their children's education.
A Call for Transparency, Accountability, and Unity
The debate over CRT and ethnic studies in California should not be dismissed as merely a partisan disagreement. It concerns the purpose of public education, the quality of classroom instruction, the protection of student privacy, and the relationship between schools and the families they serve.
The North Monterey County curriculum controversy, together with the federal investigations involving three California districts, provides an opportunity to ask important questions. Are students being encouraged to think independently? Are sensitive classroom activities appropriately designed and explained? Are parents able to review the materials their children encounter? And are schools fostering mutual understanding or reinforcing divisions based on identity?
We should insist on clear answers. School boards should scrutinize instructional materials, administrators should respond openly to legitimate parental concerns, and teachers should have the support and freedom to teach history accurately and fairly.
Our position is straightforward: public schools should prepare students to become informed, thoughtful, and responsible citizens. That requires honest history, intellectual freedom, respect for individual differences, and a shared commitment to equal dignity.
America's history is neither flawless nor beyond criticism. But teaching its failures should help students understand how to build a better future—not persuade them that they are divided into opposing groups by the circumstances of their birth.
We should teach our children to challenge ideas, not condemn one another; to examine history, not inherit animosity; and to recognize each person's worth, not reduce it to race.
That is the kind of education that can unite students, strengthen communities, and serve the public good.
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