McAuliffe Won't Define CRT, Wrong About It Not Being Taught in Virginia

Former/Wannabe Gov. Terry McAuliffe Obviously Hasn't Met Andrea Weiskopf, Among Others. He Encountered Real Journalists and Fumbled Badly, Repeatedly in WAVY-TV Roundtable

Gov. Terry McAuliffe, meet Andrea Weiskopf.

You said several times during your WAVY-TV Roundtable yesterday (Oct. 7th) that Critical Race Theory “is not taught in Virginia” and has never been taught in Virginia. Journalist Anita Blanton asked you three times to define CRT. You refused and instead reflexively and wrongly repeated that it doesn’t matter because it is not taught in schools.

Andrea Weiskopf might differ, and proudly so. She’s a Loudoun County, Virginia, River Bend Middle School teacher in America’s wealthiest jurisdiction who is excited to teach “critical race theory” to her students. And she’s not bashful about saying so.

Perhaps she was facetious. A walk through her Twitter feed is highly informative and consistent with Twitter’s leftist “progressive” culture, full of nasty snark. But there’s not much doubt that she is quite woke and features all kinds of things in her classroom that are quite consistent with critical race theory. And she believes the Loudoun County Public Schools supports her, or did.

And after Gov. McAuliffe meets Andrea Weiskopf, perhaps he could meet Albemarle County (Charlottesville, home to the University of Virginia) middle school teacher Dan Ferraro. Make that former teacher Dan Ferraro. This, from Breitbart:

Dan Ferraro, a sixth and seventh grade language arts teacher, shared Henley Middle School’s “Courageous Conversations About Race” slides with parents in an effort to be “transparent” and, as he described to Breitbart News, because he felt he had a “moral obligation” to do so. As a result, according to Ferraro, school Principal Beth Costa told him his “views were inconsistent with the direction of the school,” and that his contract would not be renewed for another year of teaching.

Breitbart News released an initial exposé using slides provided by Ferraro, reporting that Albemarle County Public Schools (ACPS) implemented a “radical ‘anti-racism’ policy aimed at ‘building the racial consciousness’ by requiring children to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities and ‘understand that anti-racism is an action’ for which they have a ‘personal responsibility.'”

While Costa and other County officials maintain the program is not Critical Race Theory, Ferraro told Breitbart News, “Although they say it’s not the curriculum, it is not a Critical Race Theory, it’s based in it, if you track it, it is.”

I guess if you don’t call it “critical race theory,” it isn’t CRT. Even if it looks like CRT, walks like CRT, and quacks like CRT. George Orwell, call your office. Your book, 1984, is being recategorized from a work of fiction to an instruction manual. I don’t think that’s what you had in mind.

After McAuliffe meets Ferraro, he might place calls to the Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent and ask why over $34,000 was spent with The Equity Collaborative to provide coaching to teachers. What kind of coaching? Their own words and emphasis:

Our goal is to help organizations develop their own capacity from within—the capacity to create educational equity, to further social justice, and to stand up to bias and oppression. This requires solutions beyond the technical approaches of implementing policies and “best” practices.

Frameworks don’t change anything. To the contrary, it’s people who change things. In fact, they can change everything. That said, we do use a simple framework to help clients understand how we approach our work. No matter what the project is, we root our approach in the following:

• Equity and Fighting Oppression: We set goals and measure progress toward building more equitable learning environments and interrupting inequities.

• Culturally Responsive Learning Theory: We use neuroscience and culturally sustaining approaches to help adult brains grow and change so that they can get better at helping people learn.

• Coaching and Facilitation: We support individuals and teams to develop new practices that help them move toward their equity goals.

Equity - equality of outcomes, not to be confused with equal opportunity -is a hallmark of critical race theory training and education. Note that they don’t use the actual words. But the odor is unmistakable.

And that’s not the only issue McAuliffe fumbled badly during his 20-minute session (watch the whole thing, followed up by another flawless performance by GOP nominee Glenn Youngkin). McAuliffe affirmed his opposition to Charter Schools.

He fumbled as he attacked Glenn Youngkin on the issue of election integrity. WAVY showed clips of McAuliffe in 2004 claiming that George W. Bush stole the election from Al Gore in 2000. He tried to weasel out of it by claiming it was the only election to go to the US Supreme Court. Challenges of the 2020 election went to SCOTUS as well, and they just declined to act on them.

He fumbled again when asked by journalist Andy Fox if he was “proud” of his endorsement from a “defund the police” organization, New Virginia Majority. He eventually welcomed the endorsement. No wonder 50 county sheriffs have endorsed Glenn Youngkin.

Crime and schools are top issues in any gubernatorial campaign, and Youngkin is winning strongly on both. And if demeanor is an issue, the smarmy, unctuous, and arrogance of Terry McAuliffe was on full display. The WAVY Roundtable wasn’t a debate - they were consecutive interviews - but again, Youngkin won the comparison.