SPRINGFIELD – Signed into law by GOP Governor Bruce Rauner six months ago, a new unfunded mandate requiring Illinois public schools to train their staffs about racial bias is drawing attention.
“Each school board shall require in-service training for school personnel to include training to develop cultural competency, including understanding and reducing implicit racial bias,” says the new law.
Wirepoints.com asks the question about the new law approved easily in the Illinois Senate and not-so-easily in the Illinois House earlier this year:
But the obvious question is whether this will become another self-defeating chapter of identity politics — champions of “equity” inflaming the racial divisions they claim to oppose. Specifically, will the training be done by the likes of the National Seed Project, PEG (the Pacific Education Group) and their supporters? They’re already training teachers in many Illinois schools.
The studies say this new mandated training that will have to be paid for by local school budgets simply doesn't work, Wirepoints says.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Harvard, and the University of Virginia examined 499 studies over 20 years involving 80,859 participants…. They discovered two things: One is that the correlation between implicit bias and discriminatory behavior appears weaker than previously thought. They also conclude that there is very little evidence that changes in implicit bias have anything to do with changes in a person’s behavior. These findings, they write, ‘produce a challenge for this area of research.
Governor Rauner signed HB 3869 – sponsored by Democrat candidate for lieutenant governor state Rep. Litesa Wallace – into law June 30, 2017.
Several Illinois GOP senators chose to withhold their votes while those Democrats and Republicans voting agreed the bill should become law:
The Illinois House divided along party lines for the most part – Republicans opposed, Democrats supported:
