Submitted by Joe Solari
Response to Indivisible Greenwich / Letter from Nerlyn Pierson (PIERSON: Greenwich Republicans’ Talk of Indoctrination Lines up with the MAGA Agenda Sept 27, 2022)
Ms. Nerlyn Pierson is a founding member of Indivisible Greenwich, an organization obsessed with all things Trump.
Indivisible sees Trump wherever they look and would like you to see whatever the “MAGA Agenda” is wherever you look. If there is an extreme in Greenwich politics, Indivisible Greenwich surely is it.
In that vein, Ms. Pierson and her Indivisible friends would like you to believe that there has been takeover of the local RTC by an extremist group. The reality is that the prior RTC leadership was ousted in large part because of their failure to understand the issues in the Greenwich Schools.
Here are Ms. Pierson’s misrepresentations in her recent letter to the Editor (also please see the links below):
1. Throughout the Pandemic, parents in Greenwich fought desperately to keep our schools open. The science out of Denmark and elsewhere in Europe was clear as early as May 2020: infection and transmission rates were much lower in children. Schools in Europe went fully open with minimal precautions in late May and early June 2020.
In the US, the powerful Teachers’ Union resisted the science, and in places where the Union is most influential, like NYC and Chicago, schools shut even in 2022. Fortunately, Greenwich Parents yelled loudly enough to have at least the elementary and middle-school grades open in August 2020.
Now, the results are in and remote and hybrid learning got a failing grade. Test scores are down, and the parents who objected to extreme Covid measures were clearly right. Inexplicably, Ms. Pierson and her heavy-handed government devotees, like Chicago and the Connecticut Teacher’s Union want to expand remote learning even though it clearly did NOT WORK and hurt our children.
2. There is no doubt whatsoever that CRT-based curricula are being taught in Greenwich schools, as well as elsewhere under misleading names like “anti-racism” and “anti-bias.” The “anti- racism” teachings are spelled out on Greenwich Curriculum providers’ web sites, and their aim is to divide children by race and teach with a focus on race rather than on character.
These anti-racism/CRT ideas are racist, political, and divisive. Anti-racism curriculum teaches Black children to mistrust whites who they are told are implicitly racists, and anti-racism/CRT teaches white children to feel personally ashamed of and responsible for misdeeds of long past generations. This is neither kind nor inclusive. Most understand that the idea that all should be judged equally based on their character is the foundation of our republic and that this is the ideal which should be taught in our schools.
3. Counter to Ms. Piersons’ opinion, “book banning” is not anyone’s objective. Our society has long recognized that parents best understand their children and their family situation. To this end, we have rating systems for movies, TV-shows and video games, and there are tools to block inappropriate content online. Parents are concerned that this has broken down in our schools for political reasons, and parents insist that parents be allowed to, once again, understand and control the content, manner and timing of their children’s exposure to adult content including explicit images of sex, violence, drugs and alcohol. Democrats, Unaffiliated, Republicans and even the American Academy of Pediatrics agree that content targeted at children can be harmful.
Meanwhile, Ms. Pierson contends that the schools should make available sexually explicit material that suits her political, intersectional agenda.
One could also surmise that to the extent kids are ready for more sexually explicit material, that material should be balanced and equal in encouraging traditional sexual relations and values. In any case, decisions on whether and what to include in a section on sexual development in the High School library should be made in consultation with parents, and not focused on Ms. Pierson’s or politically minded teachers’ desire to appeal to or support intersectional politics
4. Furthermore, there is clearly a question about the hiring and teaching practices in Greenwich and other schools. Anti-racism (a racist dogma) is rampant. An investigation is ongoing, but if this goes beyond a very few misguided and misinformed teachers we need to know. What’s clear is that the administration has a vested interest in minimizing the extent of whatever happened on their watch. Therefore, the administration should at the very least recuse themselves from any aspect of the investigation, and the Board of Ed should require such recusal or place administration on leave.
Ms. Pierson would like you to forget declining learning, teachers preaching their political fads and radicals injecting sexuality in elementary school. She also wants you to forget that our local economy in CT is in shambles, last in almost every measure.
Ms. Pierson wants the people in Hartford dictating what is best for Greenwich to line the pocket of special interests, unions, big-donors and real-estate developers. Perhaps she hopes to make Greenwich real-estate as valuable as Hartford’s (hint, Greenwich real property value is 10x Hartford’s).
Ms. Pierson’s screed is politically motivated, hoping you will believe that any of this has something to do with Trump. Know this: Your vote this year is about whether our schools and curriculum are controlled by the fringe intersectional left, whether our town is controlled from Hartford, and whether our economy continues its decline.
Ms. Fiorello, Mr. Fazio, Mr. Sherr and Mr. Lopez will continue the fight to keep zoning local, to stop wasteful spending in Hartford and to put parents back in charge of our families and education.
Notes:
Teachers’ union push for school closures that hurt children:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/remote-learning-fails-the-test-nber-study-schools-11638463245
Persuasive materials targeted at children produce unhealthy outcomes:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23498101/ https://today.uconn.edu/2017/06/food-advertising-kids-still-promotes-unhealthy-foods/
Many are angry at CRT-based anti-racism nonsense
Black law scholar explains how critical race theory is a ‘dangerous and destructive ideology’
https://www.newsweek.com/listen-black-parents-furious-critical-race-theory-opinion-1601990