Southern Poverty Law Center Pushes Common Core-Aligned LGBT Curriculum

The radical Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has developed a Common Core-aligned “anti-bias” LGBT K-12 curriculum–which it says is meant to teach tolerance in schools.

SPLC’s “Teaching Tolerance” project has joined with Perspectives for a Diverse America in designing a curriculum guide called “Critical Practices for Anti-Bias Education,” which is a tool for “social-emotional learning” in the classroom.

Teaching Tolerance, according to the guide, is also a magazine that is “sent to 450,000 educators, reaching every school in the country, three times a year.”

“Tens of thousands of educators use the program’s film kits and more than 5,000 schools participate in the annual Mix It Up at Lunch Day Program,” the guide continues.

“As more and more emphasis is placed on improving academic outcomes, it can begin to feel as if there just isn’t enough time for relationship building and social-emotional learning,” states the Teaching Tolerance website. “But that doesn’t have to be the case.”

The curriculum guide trains young children and adolescents in identity politics and social justice.

Some of the program’s strategies include:

• creating classroom environments that reflect diversity, equity and justice;
• engaging families and communities in ways that are meaningful and culturally competent;
• encouraging students to speak out against bias and injustice;
• including anti-bias curricula as part of larger individual, school and community action;
• supporting students’ identities and making it safe for them to fully be themselves; and
• using instructional strategies that support diverse learning styles and allow for deep exploration of anti-bias themes.

The introduction to the curriculum guide states:

Perspectives for a Diverse America … is an online K-12 literacy-based anti-bias curriculum designed to help teachers deliver culturally responsive instruction while meeting the requirements of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts/Literacy.

On its website, SPLC – which raises about $40 million annually in direct mail campaigns – lists 784 organizations it considers to be “active hate groups in the United States.” Last year, however, the FBI removed SPLC from its hate crimes website where it was once listed as a resource and partner.

In 2013, SPLC referred to the “Patriot” movement as “antigovernment” and one that was expanding “for the fourth year in a row as hate groups remain at near-historic highs.”

SPLC continued:

Capping four years of explosive growth sparked by the election of America’s first black president and anger over the economy, the number of conspiracy-minded antigovernment “Patriot” groups reached an all-time high of 1,360 in 2012, while the number of hard-core hate groups remained above 1,000. As President Obama enters his second term with an agenda of gun control and immigration reform, the rage on the right is likely to intensify.

Theresa Lucas-Hubbard, a board member of both Alabamians United for Excellence in Education (AUEE) and the Alabama Eagle Forum tells Breitbart News she attended a session promoting the Teaching Tolerance Perspectives for a Diverse America program in July that was sponsored by the Montgomery Public Schools. The session was taught by both Dr. Courtney Bentley, associate professor of University of Montevallo, and Mary Davis, special education teacher in the Birmingham City Schools.

Lucas-Hubbard said the anti-bias curriculum is free and teachers can sign up at Perspectives for a Diverse America to create a lesson plan. She continues:

When I signed up, I chose grades K-2-appropriate reading texts, and then formulated a question pertinent to a classroom situation. The teacher has a list of essential questions to choose from, such as, “What identities do I share with my family? What identities do I have that are different from my family?”

Lucas-Hubbard said that, from the drop-down menu of readings, she chose what was most popular, and she discovered that the first highlighted story in that category was 10,000 Dresses by Marcus Ewert. The book’s description at Amazon.com states:

Every night, Bailey dreams about magical dresses: dresses made of crystals and rainbows, dresses made of flowers, dresses made of windows. … Unfortunately, when Bailey’s awake, no one wants to hear about these beautiful dreams. Quite the contrary. “You’re a BOY!” Mother and Father tell Bailey. “You shouldn’t be thinking about dresses at all.” Then Bailey meets Laurel, an older girl who is touched and inspired by Bailey’s imagination and courage. In friendship, the two of them begin making dresses together. And Bailey’s dreams come true!

This gorgeous picture book–a modern fairy tale about becoming the person you feel you are inside—will delight people of all ages.

Lucas-Hubbard continues:

Once a teacher asks a question and finds a relevant book or story, she can build a learning plan based on what she wants to get across to the class. It can be anything from a classroom discussion asking questions such as: “How did it make Bailey feel when his family did not support his wish to wear a dress? What could you do to help support Bailey?”

Classroom instruction could also include an activity that would involve all students playing dress up and choosing what type of dress each child would like to wear. The reading is linked back to the Common Core standards, showing transition words, sequence words, and the relevance of the vocabulary to human or civil rights. It will also tell you which of the four curriculum goals–identity, diversity, justice and action–are touched upon in the book or story.

“Children are being indoctrinated into the LGBT agenda without ever realizing what is going on and parents may never know about this type of reading/activity going on in the classroom,” said Lucas-Hubbard. “This program/curriculum is about indoctrinating our children and reducing emphasis on family and solid moral values by emphasizing tolerance for all despite societal norms.”

Lucas-Hubbard said that when she signed up for access to the curriculum, she was able to see how many teachers in the Mobile area were using it, and was surprised to discover the number of private schools on that list.

“This SPLC-sponsored program incorporates the goals of Common Core with the goals of those who want to change our traditional American culture and accomplish fundamental change in America,” she added.