I have worked as a freelance copy editor for textbook publishers for over 20 years. I have read hundreds of textbooks and worked for nearly every textbook publisher in America. Never have I come across anything that might remotely be called “critical race theory.” The textbooks I proofread teach almost exactly the same milquetoast history I was taught as a Montana elementary school student in the 1980s. Those who invest energy in opposing CRT might first ask if such a thing even exists in K-12 education –and secondly who benefits from their outrage.
The moral panic being pushed by our Attorney General and Superintendent of Instruction is no different from similar moral panics under different names of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, and it has just as little basis in fact. I have read more reading instruction textbooks than I can count, and all of them simply do what parents would want: teach reading. Classes do often include a wider variety of books for children to learn from than the traditional Dick and Jane options but reading a wider range of human stories harms nobody and in fact benefits all of us.
Antonia Malchik
Whitefish