Parents Of Bank Street School Angry Over "Racial" Curriculum

Upper West Side School Is Teaching Young Kids About White Privilege

How young should kids be learning about white privilege? Some of the parents of kids who study at the Bank Street School for Children on the upper West Side aren’t so thrilled with their Racial Justice and Advocacy curriculum.

The NY Post interviewed several parents, who chose to voice their concerns anonymously:

“Ever since Ferguson, the school has been increasing anti-white propaganda in its curriculum,” said a parent who requested anonymity because he has children currently enrolled in the school.

Under Bank Street’s “Racial Justice and Advocacy” curriculum, parents say, teachers push white kids to grapple with America’s history of racism. Then they indoctrinate them into thinking “systemic racism” still exists, and that they’re part of the problem and must hold themselves accountable even for acts of racism committed by others.

“One hundred percent of the curriculum is what whites have done to other races,” said another Bank Street parent. “They offer nothing that would balance the story.”

Added the parent, who also asked to go unnamed: “Any questions they can’t answer they rationalize under the pretense of ‘institutional racism,’ which is never really defined.”

The program, these parents say, deliberately instills in white children a strong sense of guilt about their race. Some kids come home in tears, saying, “I’m a bad person.”

They say white kids are being brainwashed into thinking any success they achieve is unearned. Indeed, a young white girl is seen confessing on a Bank Street video: “I feel guilty for having a privilege I don’t deserve.”

Sorry but do you feel bad for these parents or do you think they’re just completely lacking a clear understanding of what kids of color have to go through? White kids definitely shouldn’t be put down for not being of another race BUT they should understand that they get an automatic advantage. It’s not something to cry over BUT maybe more conversations need to happen between teachers, parents and kids so that we all can make a difference in how the next generation views race.

We don’t really see anything wrong with this Goals slide from the program’s presentation — but some parents are upset the kids of color come back to class with cupcakes after going to their dedicated space…

Bank Street has created a “dedicated space” in the school for “kids of color,” where they’re “embraced” by minority instructors and encouraged to “voice their feelings” and “share experiences about being a kid of color,” according to school presentation slides obtained by The Post.

Meanwhile, white kids are herded into separate classrooms and taught to raise their “awareness of the prevalence of Whiteness and privilege,” challenge “notions of colorblindness (and) assumptions of ‘normal,’ ‘good,’ and ‘American’” and “understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to privilege.”

The same slides point out that a number of leading private schools across the country also have segregated students by “race-based affinity groups.” It lists several in New York, including Riverdale Country School, Brooklyn Friends School, The Cathedral School, The Calhoun School, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, and Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School.

What do you think about the Bank Street curriculum. Would you be upset if it was your kids’ school?