Former US President Donald Trump has said that he will ban critical race theory from US schools if he is reelected. He also said that transgender athletes would be forbidden from competing against girls.
Trump made the pledges during an address in Iowa.
According to The Telegraph:
The former president used his speech to slam the “insane” US education system and vowed to bring back “common sense” schooling as he focused on culture wars issues that have helped elevate Mr DeSantis to a major force in the Republican Party.
Republicans are competing to assail Democrats over what they see as the encroachment of “wokeness” into teaching.
“We have to get back to common sense, and that is reading, writing, arithmetic,” Mr Trump told the crowd in Davenport, in response to an audience question about schools becoming “indoctrination camps” that are “focused on sexualising our children”.
“What they’re teaching in schools today is insane,” said the 76-year-old Republican, who is running for president again after failing to win a second term in 2020.
Mr Trump had previewed his education policy blueprint in January, calling for federal funding cuts to programs teaching children “critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content”.
On Monday night, he also promised to champion school choice, the right of parents to elect principals, and state – rather than federal – control over curriculums.
“School choice is where it’s at,” Mr Trump said, referring to a movement that seeks to use tax credits and vouchers to allow parents to opt out of the public school system in favour of privately managed charter schools.
“As president I’ll fight to expand that right to every single state in America,” he said.
And he repeated a previous pledge to “keep men out of women’s sports” – a reference to Republican efforts to ban transgender women and girls from sports teams that match their gender identity.
