As recent retirees, we moved to West Newton less than a year ago, after raising two children in a high performing school district in Connecticut. I have been following the news coverage and social media discussions of ImproveNPS’s petition. Petitioners’ assumptions and false choices are striking. The first false choice is you are “for” academic excellence and thus support formation of APAC, or you are “against” academic excellence and oppose the committee. You can be 100% be “for” academic excellence without supporting this petition. The group’s prescribed solution to the alleged problem is the second false choice, a choice between academic excellence and DEI. These concepts are not mutually exclusive, however. Petitioners assert a high level of parental dissatisfaction necessitates their call for an insular group to form a committee tasked with implementing vast changes to the “Statement of Values and Commitment to Racial Equity.” Only 168 people signed, however, representing approximately 118 distinct households, representing less than .4% of households in Newton. If the mission was truly about academic excellence for all, the petition would be much more succinct calling for a committee to examine whether, in fact, there has been a decline in academic excellence and why. Instead, their petition is backed by the robust ImproveNPS website, which mirrors national anti DEI/”anti-woke” efforts, like those of the Pro-Human movement (as this group was named at the start), FAIR-Foundation Against Intolerance &Racism, the Manhattan Institute, Parents Defending Education and the American Enterprise Institute to name a few. The School Committee has a petition before them signed by less than .4% of Newton households preemptively asserting a problem, declining academic excellence, and prescribing the solution, an insular committee tasked with rolling back DEI efforts. No, thank you.
Heather L. Wilcauskas
