If someone asked me to name the most radical state education standards in the country, I’d point to Minnesota. I did just that last year when I singled out Rhode Island, Illinois, and Minnesota as the embodiments of our “Blue State Education Nightmare.” Truly, Minnesota is the worst of the lot, and I’m going to tell you why.

Note first, however, that the story of Minnesota’s nightmare education standards isn’t just about Tim Walz’s radicalism, although it certainly establishes that. No, the problem is that America is still largely blind to the threat that Minnesota’s standards represent. Minnesota’s reworked education standards, steeped in the benign-sounding “ethnic studies” approach, are a kind of stealth critical race theory.

Ethnic studies derives from a different radical tradition than CRT, although the two traditions now blend and overlap. But while critical race theory is known and understood, ethnic studies still sounds to most Americans like innocent heritage boosterism.

In reality, ethnic studies — especially the brand of it Tim Walz has brought to Minnesota — is race-based neo-Marxism. Essentially, ethnic studies is a kind of anti-civics in which students are taught to reject and replace America’s system of government.

And the same neo-Marxist radicalism that now has Minnesota’s public schools in its grip pervades the new Advanced Placement African American Studies course. That AP African American Studies course is being contested in a few states but is still accepted in most. Once AP African American Studies is established, AP Ethnic Studies is sure to follow, not to mention AP Gender Studies and more. So between the College Board and state-standards takeovers like we’ve seen in Minnesota, a bizarre and radical brand of race-based Marxism — a kind of cousin of CRT — is on the march through our schools. Most Americans still don’t get that, so here’s the story you should know.

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