Representative Valerie Hodges of Denham Springs, a Republican, has filed Louisiana’s first anti-Critical Race Theory bill of this legislative session. I imagine it won’t be the only one.

What you have to understand is that none of the people mentioned in this story – including the writer – actually seem to know anything about how history is taught in Louisiana.

This week Denham Springs Republican Rep. Valarie Hodges became the first to pre-file a bill before the March 15 Regular Session begins that would require schools to teach “race-neutral history.”

“CRT relentlessly focuses on the negative aspects of America’s founding and ignores anything good about our history,” Hodges said in an interview with USA Today Network. “It’s irrational and delusional. The left liberals are pushing this crazy ideology that American is bad.”

This week Denham Springs Republican Rep. Valarie Hodges became the first to pre-file a bill before the March 15 Regular Session begins that would require schools to teach “race-neutral history.”

“CRT relentlessly focuses on the negative aspects of America’s founding and ignores anything good about our history,” Hodges said in an interview with USA Today Network. “It’s irrational and delusional. The left liberals are pushing this crazy ideology that American is bad.”

Louisiana’s Legislative Black Caucus Chairman Vincent Pierre, a Lafayette Democrat, said Hodges’ bill and others like it are an attempt to whitewash American history.

“We’re going to stand together as a caucus to keep that type of legislation from coming out of committee, and if it comes out of committee we’ll stand together on the floor to try to defeat it,” Pierre said.

“Slavery and racism is a thread that weaves its way throughout American history; how can you ignore its impact,” Pierre said. “It’s unfortunate, but it’s part of our history and if we don’t teach it we’re doomed to repeat it.”

Hodges said her bill won’t create historical gaps in history instruction and argues that CRT creates division rather than unity.

Here is the text of H.B. 27, the alleged anti-CRT bill. The problem is that it does not do what she says it does. Nor does it do what Vincent Pierre says it does. Nor does it do what the writer, Greg Hilburn, says it does.

The text is aimed at education in grades 5-8. Fifth grade social studies focuses on American history from the early indigenous people to the French and Indian War. Sixth grade focuses on World Civilizations from early humanity to the Renaissance. Seventh grade focuses on American history from the Revolution to Reconstruction. Eighth grade focuses on Louisiana history from settlement to the modern era.

In other words, a lot of the content she wants to force into the requirements for those grade levels is irrelevant or inappropriate to the content being taught. Most of what she wants to add is already taught in seventh grade. You can’t teach Revolution to Reconstruction without the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Federalist Papers, Bill of Rights, and many of those foundational documents. Some of the concepts she wants to add though simply don’t fit in, primarily because they’re taught in high school already. You can’t do comparative government against communism, etc. when those governments aren’t taught until they, you know, actually happen in history.

Here are the standards taught in social studies from kindergarten through the 12th grade. Nothing she is wanting to add to the current Louisiana code is actually not taught already. It’s all currently necessary knowledge if you want to pass the LEAP test, or meet the standards and objectives of the course as it is already.

So, Hodges’ bill does not actually do… anything.

This already renders Rep. Pierre’s comments null and void, but nothing about the bill actually discusses the history of race and issues surrounding it in the United States. It doesn’t take anything out. It just adds to the statutes that already govern what should be taught in schools. At no point does the bill actually change anything to say “Hey, we’re just going to ignore slavery now,” or anything remotely similar. It’s just a bill adding a lot of unnecessary stuff that doesn’t address race at all.

And Hilburn’s framing in the story is no better. Actually reading the bill and researching the standards before writing this article would have been a great idea. I realize he’s a state government reporter, but the whole idea of journalism is to present facts, and the story does not do that at all. It presents quotes and frames them. It does nothing to actually address the issue of CRT or how this bill actually does or does not address it.

Moreover, on all sides of this, there continues to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what critical race theory even is. It is not a curriculum, nor is it something you can inject into or remove from a curriculum. It is a largely sociological framework on how you perceive the world and how the world works. And, yes, it has the potential to be divisive and controversial, but the most egregious stories you see in the media represent such a small handful of all the school districts in the country, the vast majority of whom aren’t pushing this stuff.

But there are movements that seek to ban certain books, cut back on teaching the seriousness of the slavery, indigenous peoples, and immigration issues that are rife in our history as a nation. But there is no set of state standards that actually omits these issues. In fact, they highlight them in most states, especially in the south where slavery was a major issue.

Yes, there have been times when states and curriculum developers tried, but those instances are also rare or even virtually extinct now.

We should be on the lookout for anything that distracts from the true job of education. Anything that stands in the way of teaching students what they actually need to know. Your kids’ education is at stake, but it’s more about the quality of the schools and systems than it is the content they’re being taught.