Critics Oppose NC Bill Requiring Financial Literacy High School Class Because It Lacks Social Justice Indoctrination

RALEIGH – It would be hard to understand why an established metro-newspaper like the Raleigh News & Observer presents political coverage like it does if you incorrectly assumed it to be an honest arbiter interested in neutrally reporting the news. Like most mainstream media, however, the N&O takes an active role in advancing the Left’s agenda by amplifying their voices and their cause.

The N.C. Senate voted in overwhelmingly in favor of House Bill 924 Monday, a bill that would require a personal financial literacy course for North Carolina high school students. The new course would cover paying for college, home mortgages, credit scores, car loans, managing credit cards and “the true cost of credit.” In covering the bill’s advance, though, the aforementioned newspaper artificially elevated critics who oppose the bill because the course wouldn’t include enough indoctrination about income inequality and lack of living wages. In other words, the financial literacy course would not be social justice-y enough, and the N&O wanted readers to know it despite the fringe nature of the complaint.

From the N&O:

“[…] The bill was passed over the objections of some social studies teachers who argue that personal finance is already part of a required civics class. They also say the bill paints a one-sided view of why people have financial issues.

“It scapegoats teachers as if they’re the major problem with people’s personal finance when in fact there are systemic problems including lack of living wages and lack of appropriate benefits,” Angie Scioli, a social studies teacher at Leesville Road High School in Raleigh, said in an interview. […]”

If Mrs. Scioli sounds like a social justice warrior, that’s because she is. The author neglects to mention her role in founding the Red4EdNC until several paragraphs later. You know, the group that organized teachers strikes the last two years to demand more pay and Medicaid expansion, and electing Democrats. The marches were replete with socialists, communists, unionists, and pamphlets offering help from the International Workers of the World. The founder of that group is given center stage as some sort of credible critic of a financial literacy class requirement?

Of course, she is. After all, it advances, not merely the news of the apparent bipartisan support for the legislation, but the social justice narrative the paper seems to subscribe to.

More:

“[…] But Scioli, founder of the teachers groups Red4EdNC, argues that the bill does not educate people about how financial institutions prey on vulnerable populations.

Rep. Terry Garrison, a Vance County Democrat, unsuccessfully tried to get wording included in the House budget that said the class would include instruction on “the history of the wealth gap, with emphasis on racial disparities and on the role of federal, state and local policies in creating or contributing to the wealth gap.”

Scioli and other social studies teachers are also worried about the major changes it will have on the social studies curriculum, including potentially squeezing out a U.S. history class to fit in the new personal finance course. […]”

First, let’s get this out of the way: Do you think politically motivated, outwardly progressive teachers like Mrs. Scioli are teaching U.S. History in an honest, objective manner? The odds that a Scioli-taught class on U.S. History is overflowing with Leftist indoctrination are exceedingly high.

And that is exactly the kind of indoctrination these forces want implanted into a basic, and incredibly necessary, financial literacy class. Instead if basic financial knowledge, they would like students to be convinced that capitalism exists to prey on vulnerable populations and that wealth is unfairly distributed because the government doesn’t do enough to redistribute it.

This isn’t necessarily surprising coming from Democrats and Leftist activists, but it is notable how heavily featured this fringe critique is a supposedly venerable paper.

Despite the helpful amplification of the Left’s agenda by their media friends, the bill will not go to the House for a vote. If it becomes law, incoming 9th graders of the 2021-2022 school year will have the benefit of taking the course.

You can read more ‘coverage’ from the N&O here.