EXTREMISTS: Targeting basic education

Idaho public education needs all the support it can get. Unfortunately, extremists in our Legislature defeated House Bill 226, a bill that would have brought federal assistance (dollars approved by the Trump administration) to Idaho to support early childhood education and literacy.

Fear mongers within the Republican party claimed the money would be used to “indoctrinate children to social justice ideology,” a false and inflammatory claim that Kootenai County Republicans have made before.

Social justice ideology is a theory that this country was founded by white people who took unfair, brutal and systematic advantage of non-white people. There happens to be a lot of proof to social justice ideology, but evidently some people are afraid of that.

So instead of accepting money from the federal government to teach Idaho’s children valuable reading skills, this got turned into an effort to censor the curriculum.

It’s important to note that the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children denied that social justice ideology plays any part in the teaching of our children, saying that the federal dollars would have no impact on curriculum. And that “this got turned into something that it’s not.”

It’s also important to pat Representative Paul Amador on the back for not opposing HB 226.

Thanks to a bunch of extremists, Idaho’s children have been left out and cut out.

EVAN KOCH

Coeur d’Alene