Virginia Scraps CRT Program Critics Said Would Have Destroyed Math Education

A state plan to abolish teaching advanced math in public schools that was seen as a means of implementing Critical Race Theory (CRT) was canceled Monday, according to a parents group.

The Virginia Department of Education (VDoE) has shut down the Virginia Math Pathways Initiative (VMPI), according to a message that flashed briefly on the website before taking people to the main mathematics instruction page on the VDoE site, Parents Defending Education said.

“The Virginia Department of Education has ended the Virginia Math Pathways Initiative (VMPI) project. Please see the Mathematics Instruction page, if your browser does not refresh,” the message on the site reads.

Parents groups had criticized VMPI, claiming it was part of an agenda by those pushing CRT, according to an April 2021 report by the Daily Wire.

“Ideologues of critical race theory, including Ibram X. Kendi, target advanced education, including math and advanced diploma programs, as emblematic of ‘systemic racism,’ and thus they are being targeted by activists around the country for elimination,” Parents Defending Education said on its website.

CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist yet teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race, and whose adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.

“For the last year, local school boards and the media have insisted that critical race theory is not in our schools, dumbing our kids down. But it is in our schools, putting us in a race to the bottom, especially with math and sciences,” Asra Nomani of Parents Defending Education said in a statement released by the group. “We have a mountain of evidence that this radical ideology has been infused into the curriculum of our K-12 schools.”

“Thankfully, the Youngkin administration with Superintendent Jillian Balow and Assistant Superintendent Elizabeth Schultz have eliminated the Virginia Math Pathways Initiative, which was going to deny students advanced math in middle school. This war on merit must end,” Nomani added. “Our schools must be places for all children to be challenged academically and grow. We expect this is just the first step in rolling back the damage that has been done by the insidious ideology of critical race theory and its destruction of education in the name of ‘equity.’”

VDoE did not respond to an email from the Daily Caller News Foundation requesting comment on the elimination of VMPI.