A top Democrat in Loudoun County is slamming Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin for comments he recently made about Loudoun County Public Schools on national television.
On Sunday during his appearance on Face the Nation, Youngkin was asked to give an example of "inherently divisive concepts" taught in Virginia schools, which the governor promised to end.
This was his answer.
"Well, in Virginia schools, and we saw Loudoun County literally be ground zero, we saw students being taught that they shouldn't do everything through a lens of race and judge one another," said Youngkin. "Again, we're not talking about forgetting our history. In fact, one of the things we have to do is teach all of our history. The good and the bad."
“The governor was dishonest," said Phyllis Randall, the Chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors told 7News. "He was dishonest. We don’t teach that in Loudoun County--- to go on national TV and say that --- the truth is, it becomes dangerous to the county. Whenever the governor does something like that I get one more threat in my inbox."
Randall is the Chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.
“I thought it was so ironic that somebody who's saying they're not going to be divisive gets on a national TV show and says something that is completely divisive and not true," said Randall. "And I think if we're going to heal this county, this commonwealth, and this country, we've got to stop this kind of MAGA divisive politics and rhetoric that's happening. I've raised two children in Loudoun County Public Schools system... I have been very involved in our public school system as a mother and an advocate. And I will tell you, none of those things are true there. There is no CRT curriculum. You talk to the educators, they have to pull nothing out of their curriculum because there's nothing [CRT] in their curriculum right now."
This year, Youngkin’s Virginia Department of Education issued a report that identified inherently divisive concepts – including “Critical Race Theory” in public education.
Several equity materials and resources were on the chopping block.
“The fact is we're not teaching CRT," Randall told 7News. "Those are not CRT principles.”
“I know he said those things as he was campaigning, maybe he's still campaigning. Maybe he just never stopped campaigning from governor to president," added Randall. "But at some point, you have to stop campaigning, you have to start governing. What Loudoun is ground zero for is our public school system, is a public school system whose SATs scores outrank everyone else in Virginia, the nation, and international. What we are ground zero for is having 15 of our high schools be ranked by U.S. News and World Report as top schools in the country. What we're ground zero for is a graduation on-time rate of 96%. Those are the things we are ground zero for. And those are the things we should celebrate. And if Gov. Youngkin wants to have the conversation with me, I’m more than happy to welcome him to my county.”
The governor also said this.
"We shouldn't play privilege bingo with children, we shouldn't teach children that they should judge one another and one group is privileged and another group is going to find it hard in life necessarily," said Youngkin. "And we shouldn't blame someone and have them form a view that they're inherently racist because of their race. Or their sex or their religion. We shouldn't judge one another. We can do this. And so right out of the box, we worked in order to remove inherently divisive concepts from [the] curriculum. We absolutely are pushing to teach all history, the good and the bad. And again, we can bring people together around this."
What is "privilege bingo?"
The governor’s office pointed to a lesson at Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), which asked students to identify their privilege. One of the criteria for the privilege was being from a military family.
FCPS apologized for any offense the lesson may have caused, including military families.
"A reflection activity titled 'Privilege Bingo' was used--- within a high school English unit on perspective in storytelling aligned to Virginia Standards --- to provide students with an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences while building their critical thinking skills," FCPS said in a statement. "However, the design of this activity does not reflect the seriousness of the topic and has understandably caused concern in our community, particularly among military families. FCPS recognizes and honors the experiences of all our families, including those in service to our country in the military. We are very appreciative of the contributions that our military-connected students and staff make in our classrooms every day and are proud of the many schools designated as Purple Star schools by the Commonwealth of Virginia in recognition of the support for military-connected families. We have revised this activity and will review the unit plan. We apologize for any offense it may have unintentionally caused. FCPS remains committed to equipping students with the skills to recognize multiple perspectives, analyze bias, and examine privilege as 21st-century learners."