SE Illinois News

Illinois Rep. Adam Niemerg (R-Teutopolis) said the State Board of Education should be careful about supporting the newly proposed “Culturally Responsive” school standards.

“If these new rules take effect, it will be the job of Illinois teachers to become woke warriors and focus their time and energy on indoctrinating their students to also become woke warriors,” Niemerg told the SE Illinois News. “The emphasis here is not on opening students’ minds and giving them the tools to think for themselves.”

While supporters of the plan defend it as one that would create a more welcoming overall environment for students, the new rule would also spark such changes as teachers having to assess “how their biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.),” The Center Square reported.

Niemerg said it opens the door for more of the same madness level that now percolates from Springfield on a day-to-day basis.

“Students should not be subjected to this kind of indoctrination, and teachers should not have their consciences violated just to teach in public schools,” he said. “Teachers have a right of conscience, and parents have a right to know that their children are not going to be indoctrinated with far-left political ideology.”

With the 12-member Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) scheduled to take up the matter for debate on Tuesday, Feb. 16, Niemerg is hoping to see sanity prevail in the form of the measure being rejected.

At least eight JCAR members would have to support a motion to block the proposal to prevent it from taking effect roughly eight months from now in October.