Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson Introduces FACTS Task Force to Combat Indoctrination in the Classroom

RALEIGH – When it comes to education, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson asserts that boards should stick to objective curricula and teachers should leave their political opinions at home.

That standard is not being met on too many fronts, especially in the age of Woke instruction and classroom activism. That’s why Lt. Gov. Robinson announced Tuesday the formation of the F.A.C.T.S. (Fairness, Accountability in the Classroom for Teachers and Students) Task Force to fight indoctrination in public schools.

“If I go into the classroom and I can’t put my opinion aside long enough to go inside the classroom and give impressionable, young minds just the facts without my opinion, I have failed as an educator,” Robinson said Tuesday.

The body will be compromised of 12 members, including teachers, professors, lawmakers, and education leaders. So far the announced task force members include:

N.C. Senator Kevin Corbin; Rep. David Willis; State School Board Member Oliva Oxendine; Linda Kakadelis and Dr. Terry Stoops of the John Locke Foundation; Melissa Merrell of Union County Board of Education; Judy Henion with the Classroom Teachers Association of NC; and, Melissa Oakley with Onslow County Board of Education.

The task force will collect and analyze reports on instances such as discrimination or harassment due to political opinions, examples of teachers leveraging their position to force their own political opinions and ideologies, and proof of inappropriate content or subject matter. [SEND REPORTS HERE]

Watch the full press conference below:

While the liberal leanings and influences of some classrooms is hardly a new phenomenon, the pervasive and aggressive social justice movements of recent years have grown into full on cultural behemoths that essentially turned Woke proselytizing into an unofficial teaching certification.

Robinson’s example of the student being turned away from covering his life story for Black History Month project, turning the student toward a rapper instead, embodies the nudges of indoctrination.  Some are more like a shove, though. We’ve covered multiple reports of instances of Woke Warriors in schools in just the last year that would certainly qualify for review by this task force.

The task force faces a heavy lift. Not least of which because this isn’t some smattering of nutty, bra-burning history teachers with flower power behind the lectern; this is a widespread, energized, and activated sociopolitical movement that is dominant across education, corporate America, media, and now governance.

Perfectly encapsulating this reality, a local Raleigh news reporter, fittingly, sought a response from the aptly named Education Justice Alliance, whose spokesperson said:

“There is inequitable treatment of Black, Indigenous and other students of color in some of our schools especially as it relates to suspensions, expulsions and referrals to law enforcement. We can look at data collected yearly that shows the disparities. We think the Lt. Governor’s task force would be better served to look at real instances of inequities in our public schools.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

As if to make Robinson’s point for him by providing a real time example of overtly political Woke bias, this statement from those opposed to the task force is EXACTLY WHY WE NEED THIS TASK FORCE.

This is what the task force — the parents, students, and community leaders who care about sound education — is up against. This isn’t just a feel good measure aimed at a straw man; it is the first in many necessary defenses against a larger, pernicious cultural battle that has come to define our current era, and will define our future in one way or another.