The Woodland Park School District in Colorado has been the target of a smear campaign by left-wing teachers’ unions and the compromised corporate media. The district earned the attention of the leftist mainstream media after deciding not to use Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book “Between the World and Me” in its curriculum.
According to the district leaders, the book violated state and local social study standards, which direct schools to teach students to become responsible citizens and respect their fellow Americans’ rights.
Smeared By MSNBC For Refusing To Teach Kids To Hate Each Other, Colorado School District Hits Backhttps://t.co/hs4C1XT4UL
— The Federalist (@FDRLST) February 11, 2023
During a board meeting on January 25, Woodland Park’s Vice President Dave Illingworth interviewed an applicant for a board position, quoting from Coates’ book and asking the interviewee if they agreed with the teaching. However, Illingworth stated that he wasn’t grilling a teacher but talking to someone who had applied to serve on the Board of Education.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who is more concerned with pushing progressive narratives than providing objective reporting, criticized the conservative district on his show. Hayes brought on Coates to defend his book on live television. However, Illingworth was not invited.
Despite the media’s lies, Illingworth and other Woodland Park parents and leaders are fighting back and correcting the record.
The first lie presented by the media was that Woodland Park wants to indoctrinate kids. Illingworth rejected the assertion that removing Coates’ book from the curriculum was meant to suppress black history. Instead, the book was not a good fit for the standards adopted by the district.
The second lie was that Coates’ book does not teach hate. During his interview with Hayes, Coates argued that his condemnation is not against white people but against “whiteness” as a category.
However, Illingworth says that Coates used the interview to strawman the values of Woodland Park, which has committed to teaching history as it is, with a web of complex issues that cannot be simplified to winners and losers or victims and oppressors.
Woodland Park continues to teach classic literature that educates its students about respect, with writings from Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and many others. Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” will replace “Between the World and Me” in the school curriculum. The district will not replace one divisive, racist document with another, according to Superintendent Ken Witt.
Woodland Park School District’s leaders believe that educating students with classical literature and responsible teachings will allow them to become responsible citizens and respect their fellow Americans’ rights, regardless of the backlash from national leftist media outlets.
