Coloring Righteous Teaching in Education Is Right

By Joe Renfro, Ed.D.

Initials can be set up to designate most anything. This article is going to use the initials of “C-R-T” to explore and evaluate three different uses of these initials:   1.) The Critical Race Theory, 2.) The Criterion Reference Tests, and 3.) What I wish to call the Coloring Righteous Teaching into Education to rebuild a moral foundation, and this is the step to truth and to redeem the educational demise in our land that continues to falter regardless of the increasing great amounts of money our nation is spending on education.  It is a moral question, not a money question!

1) The racist CRT that is before us as at this time as Critical Race Theory is actually an indoctrination with the goal of creating a divisive attack against the Judeo-Christian heritage of this nation and the democracy that developed from it.

It is a tool that distorts history so as to subvert morality and individual responsibility and develops from the Marxist theory of class struggle, wherein those classified a victimized workers overthrow the employers.  Racism to these proponents is seen as being innate in the structure of capitalism, and history to them should be understood only in this this context. They wish to replace the concept of class with that of race to set up a class warfare.

The villain they classify as “systemic racism.”  Those promoting the Critical Race Theory imply-that it is present in every interaction and institution of daily life—setting the stage for dark skinned people to be against those who would be classified as white–the so-called privileged white against oppressed people of color, something very much in conflict with Martin Luther King’s vision where people will be judged not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.

Supporters of this type of CRT they have established believe this teaching is to give the “oppressors” a better look at the everyday lives of the “oppressed.” However, in reality, the concept shows students a warped view of reality in which racial significance is implanted on everything.

There are various groups within this radical thinking such as the Woke, Black Lives Matter, and Critical Race Theory advocates in this movement in education, etc.  These movements were especially introduced so as to spark a revolution. 

George Floyd, the hero of this violent revolution, had personally landed himself for five years behind bars in 2009 for an assault and robbery two years earlier.  Before that he had been convicted of charges ranging from theft with a firearm to all types of drug offenses.

The autopsy of his body after his death showed he was inebriated with Fentanyl which is a type of prescription painkiller that has sold on the streets like hotcakes over the past several years and has an astronomical death rate.

This is in no way, however, to excuse the terrible fact that Floyd’s murderer, Derek Chauvin, here was a terrible example of being a policeman and the complete example of the police brutality.  He ended up being sentenced to 22.5 years in death of George Floyd.  Many of us feel he should maybe had been sentenced more harshly. but this gave a springboard for leftist thinking to promote things evidenced in things like Critical Race Theory.

The Woke movement developed and is developing. An example in more contemporary education was in March 10, 2022, as the Yale Federalist Society hosted both a progressive and conservative speakers to come and participate in a debate over civil liberties. Though the two speakers disagree on many topics, both generally agree on protecting free speech.

The history of Yale is outwardly Christian, and it remained that way for the first two and a half centuries after its formation, but things have changed. Yale Law students from the leftist thinking let their true colors be seen. The “woke” mob threatened and shouted profanities at the conservative speaker and Federalist Society members that were to speak at the college. These law students wanted to cancel any speech that went against their progressive worldviews.  The bipartisan panel on civil liberties at Yale Law School was disrupted when more than 100 law students tried to drown out and intimidate the speakers, who eventually needed police to escort them out of the building.  Yes, they wanted to revoke any free speech rights that even allowed more conservative thinking to be heard!

In an article, April 30, 2022, by Alice Green entitled “Florida Rejects Woke Math Textbooks” brings out how Progressives are seeking to add the Critical Race Theory even to mathematics. It emphases how math textbooks were rejected by Florida education officials for failing to comply with the state’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking Standards, including references to the prohibited topics of critical race theory, social emotional learning, and Common Core fallacies.

The article stated that: “More than eventy percent of books intended for grade levels K-5 were refused, which shows how encompassing this leftist thinking is in our educational establishment.”  At least one of the books even suggested to students that most people were racist. Additional photos shared by CNN showed bar graphs measuring racist attitudes by age and political identification; and of course, conservative individuals sixty-five and older are labeled most racist.

It has been observed by Green that: “Supporters believe CRT provides the ‘oppressors’ a better look at the everyday lives of the ‘oppressed.’ In reality, the concept shows students a warped view of reality in which racial significance is attached to everything. CRT can foster intense feelings of guilt among genders and races that are presented as ‘oppressors’ and exacerbate racial and ethnic divisions.

The Governor of Florida noted that math should be about equations, not emotions.  He said, “We’re not going to allow and teach that a person simply by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive. That’s wrong.”  (“Florida Rejects Woke Math Textbooks” –by Alice Green, Punching Bag Post, April 30, 2022)

In a May 7, 2022 article entitled, “School Tells Students To Focus on ‘Skin Color – A Shocking Revelation” presented by the Presidential Insider, it brought out a criticism of how in Virginia in the name of being anti-racist CRT was actually promoting racism with their “alleged racist and color-based curricula.”

The article proposed that the CRT curricula was very much in error.  Kate Anderson, lawyer for the concerned parents in the case against the Virginia program said the kids were to place “white” and “Christian” into a “dominant box,” then encouraged to “dismantle the box” and complete an anti-racist vow, which she felt was being indoctrinated into the children’s minds to be anti-white and anti-Christian.

This educational policy sought to make the white students feel they were racist just because they were white.  How sad it is in the name of progress that kids are being indoctrinated that they are prejudiced just because of their skin color, as this racist CRT tends to do. This course attempts to divide races and to conquer traditional morality from personal values to socialistic values.  It is to divide and conquer through education!

2.) The second reference to a type of CRT is the Criterion Reference Tests which have been and are very much part of our educational establishment, used to measure achievement academically.  Students are assessed independently; their performance isn’t compared to that of another student.  The focus is student learning rather than scoring well (grades). The assessment criteria are fixed, and this type of test which usually delivers quick results has been very useful in education!

For the Criterion-Referenced Test, The Glossary of Education Reform, April 30, 2014 gives a good summary of what this academic test does and how it is used:

Criterion-referenced tests and assessments are designed to measure student performance against a fixed set of predetermined criteria or learning standards—i.e., concise, written descriptions of what students are expected to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education. In elementary and secondary education, criterion-referenced tests are used to evaluate whether students have learned a specific body of knowledge or acquired a specific skill set.

Criterion-referenced tests have been compared to driver’s-license exams, which require would-be drivers to achieve a minimum passing score to earn a license. This is needed in order to build up individual student achievement.

Well-known examples of criterion-referenced tests include Advanced Placement exams and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which are both standardized tests administered to students throughout the United States.

Criterion Referenced tests are the most widely used type of test in American public education.   These tests certainly should not be confused with something like the racist indoctrination of the CRT-Critical Race Theory!

The CRT, The Criterion Referenced Tests, should never be confused with the CRT, The Critical Race Theory although they have the same name!

3.)   As I thought about this situation, another type of teaching came to my mind that I wish to also call the CRT, which is Coloring Righteous Teaching into education. Righteous Teaching in the secular understanding could be to do right thinking, and in the spiritual understanding it as well should be right thinking.  In 2 Timothy 3:16 the Bible says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” and this can provide a resource we need to turn back to in our education world, an integration of learning with morality, characteristic of the moral foundation once central in American education.

Conscientious parents and educators know this, and we strive to teach our children and students accordingly. We do this not only for the children’s sake, but also for our own; we want to live in a healthy society, one populated by good, rational, productive people—people who respect individual rights and rule of law—people with whom we can trade and enjoy life. What children are taught about morality or values, and how they are taught it, is of great concern and is part of our Judeo-Christian heritage, which the Progressive thinking wishes to demolish in our world.  Morality does not have to be religious, but when morality is supported by religious convictions, so that neither should not be cast out.

There is a warning in Colossians 2:8 that says: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”

In contrast to the Judeo-Christian understanding in the 20^th Century J. B. Watson, a  father of educational Behaviorism, said: “Give me a dozen healthy infants well-formed and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, chief, and yes even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and race of his ancestors.”  Behaviorism says what matters are proper facilities, materials, methods, and teachers—totally neglecting morality and self-discipline. 

If these classifications are not provided equally, there is no equal education in Watson’s understanding.  Much of the contemporary educational, rooted in Watson’s understanding, directs the mass of the public school expenses toward improving the lower students.  We focus on those below the average to the neglect of the higher achievers.  Is this equality?       

The Christian home once was a high idea in our land and provided family pride, a positive environment, and parental encouragement.  We were proudly “One nation under God!”  The understanding of God, the Creator,” was that of Judeo-Christian tradition not just anything someone might conceive to be ultimate. The Bible gives a great guideline with the Christian Declaration of Equality in Galatians 3:28 saying, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  This statement was influential in the development of the concept of equality in our land, including that of education!  So why do many of the Behaviorists and others in the quest for equality in education seek to totally negate Christians influences? 

Contrary to popular belief, the first slaves in the American colonies were not Africans. Also, the majority of Africans taken from their homelands for the purpose of slavery were not destined for the shores of what would eventually evolve into the United States.

From the pre-Christian era up to colonization of the New World, slavery was an accepted part of daily life in countries and cultures across the globe, and whether or not a particular culture was enslaved was generally determined by their weakness in warfare.

The Spaniards were the first Europeans to use Africans as slaves in New World colonies such as Cuba and Hispaniola (where the first African slaves arrived in 1501).  The Slave Trade Act of 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 by British Parliament effectively ended slavery in Britain.  (Blaming Revolutionary War Against Brittan on Slavery)

Slaves from Africa were slaves in Africa long before they were slaves anywhere else in the world. From 1300 to mid-1800, nearly all African countries had a slave population that comprised one-third of their total populations. Even as the late 1990’s, evidence has shown that West Africa still actively engages in the practice of enslaving its own people for the purpose of forced manual labor.

The racist CRT wishes to teach that slavery in America began in 1619 when a group of twenty Africans were brought to the English colony in Jamestown, Virginia by a Dutch soldier and sold as indentured servants.  But the transition from indentured servitude to racial slavery happened gradually, and it was not until 1661 that a reference to slavery entered Virginia law (the law was directed at Caucasian servants who ran away with African servants). It was not until the Slave Codes of 1705 that African American status as slaves was sealed into American history.  Critical Race Theory has this all wrong!

Despite the popularly held belief that British North America (later the USA) was the prime destination of African slaves, only about five percent of slaves brought out of Africa actually ended up there. According to the 1860 Federal Census only 1.4 percent of the total white American population owned slaves, with 4.8 percent of the southern white American population being slave owners.

While slavery is most often considered a black eye on the history of the United States, the United States actually played a very small part in the Atlantic slave trade from Africa, and an almost nonexistent role in the global slave trade. The first slaves in the United States were actually Caucasians and were brought from Britain when America was colonized.

We need to turn to the right kind of CRT—Coloring Righteous Thinking into public education. The facts are very clear that it as the Judeo-Christian morality in our land and in the world that has proclaimed freedom more than any other ideologies, and this was not the product of Behaviorism that is so dominant in contemporary education!  

 Coloring righteousness into the painting of education can be an influence that can transform education into a moral influence that is right.  Part of the understanding that people as being created in the image of God is the realization of righteousness, and this should not be ignored in schooling!  Righteousness is what is right, and righteousness is a form of morality!