Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Tamra Snell | Austin, TX
Our students deserve truth and honest history. We cannot deny the hard history of the United States. Students are capable of handling complex truths. Our LGBTQ+ students and families are part of our communities. Their lives deserve to be represented in history and on the pages of books that students have access to in classrooms and libraries.
Genevieve Van-Catledge | Wilmington, DE
Matt Rector | Schenectady, NY
Restricting people's access to information or perspectives is antithetical to the core concepts of education.
Jerise Fogel | New York, NY
History offers us a way to see ourselves and where we have come from. Distorting this mirror means denying ourselves a truthful and meaningful identity. Teach truth, love justice.
Alexia Buono | Montpelier, VT
Haley Binggeli | West Valley City, UT
Sebastian Foye | Winchester, VA
We need to be honest with our students. If we lie to students, then we would be doing the opposite of educating them. If the students discover that they've been lied to, it would cause them to lose trust in their education. There is no good reason to lie to students.
Elissa Waldman | Gaithersburg, MD
Educational justice depends on truth. Change depends on truth. Our children's dreams and opportunities depend on truth.
Royce Albert | Neilton, WA
Teaching the truth is all I know. As a Army Veteran and teacher the truth is all that matters. Our future depends on a truthful understanding of our past, so that we can capture the lessons learned and never repeat them.
Rebecca Berger | Bothell, WA
Teachers need the freedom to teach the truth. They should always teach the truth or our nation will end in tyranny.
Jill Davis | Racine, WI
I believe in teaching the truth from many different perspectives by using primary source documents so that students can learn to think critically in order to develop their own beliefs. This helps them to be informed citizens who can justify their beliefs rather than parroting what they have been told to believe.
Ashley Coder
Leslie Fitzpatrick | Kannapolis, NC
Text equity matters.
Taiyo Ebato | New York, NY
We the undersigned educators will not be bullied. We will continue our commitment to develop critical thinking that supports students to better understand problems in our society, and to develop collective solutions to those problems. We are for truth-telling and uplifting the power of organizing and solidarity that move us toward a more just society.
Rachel Stephens | Baltimore, MD
My students, and my own children deserve to learn a wholistic version of historical events. It will inevitably lead them to be more well educated, and understanding of the world they live in. We wouldn't expect students to ace a test after only being taught half the unit content, so how can we expect them to leave school and maximally contribute to society and their community if they have only been taught part of the human story?
Madison Sanchez | Indianapolis, IN
Mary Merryman | Coraopolis, PA
Debra Wilson | Stamford, CT
I am signing my name because the youth of this country have the right to know the truth about the full history of this country and how the policies and programs that we support will impact each and every member of society today and going forward. I am signing my name because I want my children and my my children's children to grow up in a world in which people are treated as precious treasures and no person is subject to discriminatory policies, whether those policies are bound in systems of education, health, housing, social status, or wealth. I am signing my name because it's time all humans are treated in a humane way.
Beth Levin | Portland , OR
Elizabeth Hershberger | Colorado Springs, CO
Annemarie Plumpe | Seattle, WA
the entire point of educating ALL students in ALL core subjects is so that we will create "Honorable, Thinking, Skillful Citizens of the World!" How can we do that if some are not being told the truth based on official documents, first-person testimonials, and published accounts, from both academic and primary sources?
Mary Mantelli | Ithaca, NY
My primary reason for being an educator is to teach children to think critically about the world around them and to teach a curriculum that will help to bring about social justice in our communities, states, and country.I will always teach curriculum that is historically accurate and presents the perspectives of historically oppressed or marginalized groups in our society. Every teacher in every district should be doing the same thing! Our children and the future of our world depend on it!
Danae Verba | Sioux Falls, SD
Accurate and Inclusive history is crucial for young BIPOC learners to connect with and learn from the past. Most important lesson is: we are not defined by the narratives of those who would oppress or erase us!
Jim Loveland | Saint Petersburg, FL
Isabel Hannigan | Chicago, IL
Selected Pledges
Click on pledge below to read many more.
As an educator who is serious about teaching the truth I will not be bullied into silence. I will do my part in the fight for equity and equality by making sure my students are most equipped to fight this ugliness in the real world.
Yes, the truth of American history needs to be taught, but also its impact on the rest of the world, such as its role in WWII. I just finished teaching a college-level course on the Holocaust, and could not believe how little the students knew about the rest of the world’s participation in the war! They seemed to believe that WWII was ended by the US alone!
“When you begin to do things that raise the achievement of the poorest and disenfranchised students, you may not always get applause. You need to be ready for that.” Dr. Asa Hilliard
“Resistance is a powerful motivator precisely because it enables us to fulfill our longing to achieve our goals while letting us boldly recognize and name the obstacles to those achievements.”
Dr. Derrick Bell
Our young people deserve the truth and it is our kuleana (responsibility) to give space and opportunity for the truth and the difficult conversations.
If we don’t teach it all, we teach nothing…
Social justice is a major theme of my Humanities 7 course, and my school uses Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s HILL framework (development of identity, skills, knowledge, Criticality) to frame our entire curriculum. Student agency through research work and essay writing, and action-oriented civic engagement work, define what we “cover” in my course.