Prairie State Wire

Republican lawmakers are upset that a bill they feel pushes political indoctrination in public schools cleared the Senate this week. 

The bill, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, imposes a set of "culturally responsive teaching and learning standards," or CRTLS, and will require Illinois public educators to undergo a mentoring program to learn them. 

The CRTLS bill was an easy no vote for state Sen. Darren Bailey (R-Xenia). He addressed the standards on his Facebook page earlier this year, where he said that local school boards "can and should push back" against the legislation. 

"But unfortunately these teaching standards that we've been frustrated and concerned about, they were failed to be denied in [the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR)], so they will be entered into our education system soon," Bailey said. 

Bailey isn't the only one to criticize the bill. In a Facebook live discussion, state Rep. Paul Jacobs (R-Carbondale) expressed his frustrations. 

“Maybe we could get together and do some laws instead of just usurping our power and authority and letting all the other groups take care of it,” Jacobs said. “But, you know, JCAR did a 6-6, there are six Republicans and six Democrats, and any time it's a split 6-6 it will go, the rule is valid, and you know we had to have two Democrats to go along with it and we just didn’t.”

The representative added that people were flocking to Illinois for its good education systems a decade ago, but things have changed. 

These new standards will reportedly teach educators how to mitigate their own behaviors in racism, sexism, homophobia and privilege, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. 

"We don't need to spend time on progressivism and activism, it's just the wrong thing," Jacobs said. Personally, I want to be able to go out, and hopefully, we can maybe change some things with laws or elections.”

In the CST article, Bailey said he has "had enough of these programs with strings attached."

'They're funded through the hard-earned tax dollars of Illinoisans," Bailey said. “Let me be clear, our nation was founded on July 4, 1776, and this ridiculous theory and racially divisive rhetoric are not bringing our state or our nation closer together — it’s dividing us.”