Carbondale Reporter

In the wake of a video recently made public of a Chicago Public Schools teacher administering a test to students asking them to apologize for the color of their skin, newly-elected Republican state Rep. Paul Jacobs (R-Carbondale) thinks too many educators have lost their way.

“Our focus should be on teaching kids the fundamentals,” Jacobs told the Carbondale Reporter. “Education should be about empowering students to learn how to think — not what to think. What we are seeing in so many classrooms is nothing more than indoctrination. Let's give students the tools they need to learn and continue to learn and let's allow them to make up their own minds.”

The teacher in question is also reported to have been captured lecturing second-graders about politics.

Jacobs argues there’s definitely a better way.

“Let's give students the tools they need to learn and continue to learn and let's allow them to make up their own minds,” he said. “We need to take the politics out of the classroom and focus on helping students learn the essentials to either go onto college or go into the workforce.”

Jacobs argues he’s seeing too much of the wrong thing now becoming common practice in too many different places.  

“I represent Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and I hear stories all of the time about some of the lengths instructors will go to promote a far left agenda,” he said. "Sadly, I think the problem is only going to get worse. The House Joint Committee on Administrative Rules just approved new rules that essentially mandate teachers not only to teach far left dogma but to also embrace it as their own.”

Jacobs said he believes what’s being taught in schools lies at the root of many of the problems that are gripping the entire state.

“Part of the reason we are so divided is due to the radicalism being taught in our schools,” he said. “Schools should be a unifying force in our society. This radical, far left approach is ripping our country apart.”