The Republican Women of Shelby County on Wednesday held a joint session with Alabama Eagle Forum and the Alabama Conservative Coalition to urge the Alabama School Board and the Legislature to abolish Common Core education standards and ban instruction of Critical Race Theory in Alabama’s public education system.
Over 40 people attended Saturday’s conference at New Hope Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Indian Springs. The event had been scheduled for June 19, but was postponed a week due to Tropical Storm Claudette and the expected hazardous travel conditions.
Republican Women of Shelby County President Robin Litaker is a former teacher.
Alabama Common Core opponents say that the Alabama College and Career Ready Standards is simply the Common Core Standards reworded.
State Rep. Terry Collins, R-Decatur, chairs the House Education Policy Committee. Litaker and other speakers blamed Collins for blocking all efforts at education reform in Alabama.
“Terry Collins said that only retired teachers oppose Common Core,” Litaker said. “That is because retaliation is alive and well with the state department. People should be able to speak up and speak out even if they are not your opinion.”
Litaker said that the Standards were never validated.
“People in power blame the teachers,” Litaker said, postulating that the real culprit has been the standards that were passed by the state school board. “We are 52nd in the nation in math.”
“Democrats in the media blame Republicans,” Litaker said. “I personally blame the bureaucratic nightmare known as the state department of education.”
“Call the governor’s office and tell them enough is enough,” Litaker urged.
Dr. Lou Campomenosi is with the Campaign for Common Sense and is also the chair of the Planning Committee for the Alabama Conservative Coalition.
“This is an extremely important discussion,” Campomenosi said. “We have four votes on the State School Board pledged to repeal the Common Core standards. We have not been this close since Gov. Riley imposed Common Core.”
Campomenosi said that the reason that the state adopted the controversial experimental education standards in the first place was “Money. The BCA funded it. They are one of the major supporters of Common Core.”
Campomenosi said that the media does not report on Critical Race Theory because “the media really doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Campomenosi said that the school board needs to be “moving against Critical Race Theory, 1619, and Action Civics.”
Campomenosi said that the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 have “been very positive” for the country. The “communists” have been trying to cause racial turmoil in the U.S. since 1963. Critical Race Theory has its roots in Marxism and can be traced all the way back to the 1970s.
“We have to deal with it in a smart way and we have to deal with it in a biracial way,” Campomenosi explained.
Campomenosi urged that citizens go to their local school board meetings, preferably in groups with both whites and Blacks, to urge that the local boards pass resolutions to ban Critical Race Theory and Action Civics.
Eagle Forum President Becky Gerritson said, “This is nothing new. It goes back to Karl Marx. He thought there were two parts of society the oppressors and the oppresses.”
Gerritson said that the Communist Party in 1963 released a list of 45 goals.
“Goal 29 to discredit the American Constitution,” Gerritson said. “Goal 30 was to discredit the American Founding fathers.”
“Goal 31 was to belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history,” Gerritson said.
Gerritson said, “They are using the same tactics when they took over China.”
Gerritson wias that the communists used the word “woke” then as now and they are the ones behind Critical Race Theory.
“Critical Race Theory got started in the 1970s,” Gerritson said. “It teaches that America is fundamentally racist.”
“Yes we did have problems,” Gerritson said of the nation’s past. “Yes we had slavery but slavery was all over the world. We are beyond that we are making great progress.”
“Critical Race Theory teaches that racism is normal, its everywhere and its unavoidable,” Gerritson said. It teaches that Black people are not as capable as other races and need to be propped up. It is absolutely an insult. I would be highly insulted if I were an African American person.”
“It teachers that there are no absolutes,” Gerritson continued. “This is where we come into the whole transgender movement.”
Gerritson said that the schools are talking about equity instead of equality.
“Equality is where you have an equal foundation where people have the same opportunity to come up out of where they came from,” Gerritson explained. “Equity is when you want everybody to end up the same.”
“Equality is good equity is communism,” Gerritson concluded.0
“If you are a White, male, married Christian you are the devil,” Gerritson said of this instruction. “If you are Black, female, gay, Buddhist you are great. This is intersectionality.”
Gerritson warned that advanced placement courses in Alabama are particularly dangerous because indoctrinating the smartest children is one of the prime goals of the Left and the communists.
One textbook that Gerritson singled out was, ‘AMSACO Advanced Placement Edition World History Modern 1200-Present.’
“Find out if your school has a diversity committee,” Gerritson said. “That is a big red flag. Try to get rid of it. If you can’t, try to get on it to find out what they are doing.”
Gerritson urged Alabamians to sign your kids up for the Eagle Forum Student Eagle Leadership Conference.
“We want them to adopt that resolution in August,” Gerritson said of the coming state school board meeting. “We are drafting legislation to ban CRT in Alabama schools, government agencies and businesses.”
“The whole transgender cult ties into Critical Race Theory,” Gerritson added.
Campomensi said, “We should all be finding out what books are being used.”
“We are going to be labeled as book burners,” Campomenosi warned. “That is going to happen. We have got to be ready to answer those questions.”
Ann Eubank is the Chair of Alabama Legislative Watchdogs and a Heritage Foundation Sentinel.
“I have been to Florence,” Eubank said. “They are using CRT in Florence.”
“I had a parent (in Florence) give me a paper on a homework assignment where students were assigned to determine your Whiteness,” Euband said.
“It just eats you alive to think of what our country has become,” Eubank continued. “If we do not stand and deliver we are lost our country is gone.”
“Last month I said to (Chairwoman) Terri Collins, who needs to go, We told you ten years ago what was going to happen,” if the schools adopted Common Core,” Eubank said of a recent Education Policy Committee meeting on the failing schools. “You can see it in the streets and it is your fault.”
“Our government has forgotten its place,” Eubank said. “We have forgotten our place. We are sovereign over government and we need to remember it.”
Eubank said that in coming weeks politicians will be giving speeches about how, “Everything is great in Alabama. Jobs are up, the economy is great, budgets are up. How many of you believe this trash?”
“This year they locked us out,” of the state legislature Eubank said. “They passed 600 plus bills. Did we need 600 more bills? No.”
Eubank said that the state school board has drafted a resolution on CRT but “Eagle Forum has come up with a much better one.”
“Common Core was step one,” Eubank warned. “CRT is step two. It is all connected back to one world government and the UN agenda 21 agenda 30.”
Eubank urged everyone to call their state representatives and urge them to support House Bill 9 which has been prefiled by state Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville.
Eubank also urged North Alabama to find someone to run in the Republican primary against Chairwoman Collins next year.
“Terri Collins is the number one reason we still have Common Core because she refuses to allow the stop Common Core bill out of committee,” Eubank said. “Ted Cruz has national legislation. It probably won’t go very far but we have to try.”
“You need to know who you are voting for,” Eubank said. “We have Republicans in office right now who will not do enough to protect the citizens of this state.”
“You need to know who owns them,” Eubank continued. “Go to follow the money.org.”
Eubank urged members there to contact their legislators.
“Unless we make our wishes known, they are not going to listen to us,” Eubank explained. “You cannot be nice about it.”
Eubank warned that there are people in Alabama government who will give away, “Our God given rights for sake of federal dollars.
“I am not telling you to start an insurrection; I am telling you to vote the bums out and put into office true conservatives,” Eubank concluded.
