Weeks after winning a school board seat in her deeply red Texas county, Courtney Gore immersed herself in the district’s curriculum, spending her nights and weekends poring over hundreds of pages of lesson plans that she had fanned out on the coffee table in her living room and even across her bed. She was searching for evidence of the sweeping national movement she had warned on the campaign trail was indoctrinating schoolchildren.
Gore, the co-host of a far-right online talk show, had promised that she would be a strong Republican voice on the nonpartisan school board. Citing “small town, conservative Christian values,” she pledged to inspect educational materials for inappropriate messages about sexuality and race and remove them from every campus in the 7,700-student Granbury Independent School District, an hour southwest of Fort Worth. “Over the years our American Education System has been hijacked by Leftists looking to indoctrinate our kids into the ‘progressive’ way of thinking, and yes, they’ve tried to do this in Granbury ISD,” she wrote in a September 2021 Facebook post, two months before the election. “I cannot sit by and watch their twisted worldview infiltrate Granbury ISD.”
But after taking office and examining hundreds of pages of curriculum, Gore was shocked by what she found — and didn’t find.
The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism. She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.”
I’m cynical, so when I say I’m impressed by her ability to both do the hard work of pouring over that much data, and admitting that there was no evidence supporting g her claims, I mean it. I’m thoroughly impressed. I hope she serves as an example to others on how to do the right thing.
And what this post doesn’t highlight from the article, is that she went against her party’s narrative and spoke out about the truth.
Gore rushed to share the news with the hard-liners who had encouraged her to run for the seat. She expected them to be as relieved and excited as she had been. But she said they were indifferent, even dismissive, because “it didn’t fit the narrative that they were trying to push.”
So, in the spring of 2022, Gore went public with a series of Facebook posts. She told residents that her backers were using divisive rhetoric to manipulate the community’s emotions. They were interested not in improving public education but rather in sowing distrust, Gore said.
“I’m over the political agenda, hypocrisy bs,” Gore wrote. “I took part in it myself. I refuse to participate in it any longer. It’s not serving our party. We have to do better.”
There is more, of course, so if you have t read the full article, go read it.
I agree with you, generally.
The hard part is convincing every other alt-right winger. They aren’t convinced by research and facts.
Ironically, it’s their feelings that matter more and since they “feel” like indoctrination is happening, it must be true.
“The damn libs must have given her fake curriculums.”
Or “She just got bought by the deep state.”
Or “Now SHE’S going to indoctrinate the kids!”
Sadly, you’re absolutely right: there will always be some excuse as to why she’s (and the “libs” are) wrong and they’re right. We are an unapologetic society hellbent on blaming the other guy for the problems we caused ourselves.
Yeah no shit. Everyone who hasn’t been brainwashed by conservative opinion stations knows that they’re straight up lying about that shit. They straight up lie about a ton of shit to get more money and power and there are still millions of Americans that fall for their constant, daily lies. It’s a real shame that no one is doing anything to stop them because their constant lies will contribute to the downfall of America eventually. Yet supposedly their lying and damage they cause to Americans is protected under “free speech.”
End the bullshit thinking that corporations are people… They have no “inalienable” rights, only the rights we give them. No right to free speech, and make companies responsible for anything they broadcast.
and she could find no examples of critical race theory
gotta be tough for these people to find something they can’t define
Actually, if you just embrace ignorance, the answer is simple.
Everything you don’t like is the thing that you don’t really understand.
That sounds like woke. Stop doing a woke or else I’m gonna first-amendment your rights away with my Brandon diaper.
Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.”
Honestly, I can respect this. It’d be much easier to pull a Trump and claim that you fixed something that was never an issue by doing absolutely nothing, but she actually went through with it and admitted that she couldn’t find the issues she was looking for.
It kinda goes to show that there are actually sincere people (albeit ones that still tend to have disagreeable stances) on the right that just keep getting tricked by the grifters and conmen that won’t just bury their heads in the sand when something doesn’t fit their narrative.
The optimist wants to believe that makes up a lot of them, but the realist in me isn’t so sure.
Gore rushed to share the news with the hard-liners who had encouraged her to run for the seat. She expected them to be as relieved and excited as she had been. But she said they were indifferent, even dismissive, because “it didn’t fit the narrative that they were trying to push.”
So, in the spring of 2022, Gore went public with a series of Facebook posts. She told residents that her backers were using divisive rhetoric to manipulate the community’s emotions. They were interested not in improving public education but rather in sowing distrust, Gore said.
“I’m over the political agenda, hypocrisy bs,” Gore wrote. “I took part in it myself. I refuse to participate in it any longer. It’s not serving our party. We have to do better.”
Agreed.
Good for her. Now the voters she duped with fearmongering, most of whom haven’t gone over the curriculum themselves, probably won’t learn that she found nothing. They’ll probably credit her for eliminating what was never there.
If they think that’s impressive, they should hear about the time I saved my nephew from the sabre-tooth cat that lived under his bed with nothing but a laser forcefield and a big hug and kiss.
To be fair, if you read the article, it seems like it completely changed her tune, and she’s super supportive of the current policies now.
She’s getting a ton of backlash from her former supporters.
In that case, they accidentally end up with a politician with some actual decency. I was imagining they’d vote in a less honest fear monger.
They and she will vote exactly the same the next time around anyway, so it really doesn’t matter if they learn the truth or not.
Ok, but who is she voting for next election? You can say “you see the light now” all day, but if you keep voting for liars, have you really changed all that much?
You clearly didn’t read the article. She specifically endorsed the candidate for the school board that she ousted previously. She’s speaking against the party line. There is a real shift that happened for her, and her actions speak to it.
According to Gore, Criswell also pressured her to stop speaking with all of her fellow school board members, except for Graft. “They’re just lying to you. They’re not your friends,” she recalled him saying.
Cult much?
looks like all your sources of “news” are in fact infotainment! Congratulations, now you can join the rest of us out here in reality, trying to deal with all your former fucking friends. Right? … right?
crickets
