Last week, Republican Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears said that Loudoun County Public Schools had spent $300,000 on Critical Race Theory training last year. PolitiFact has decided that it’s time to set the record straight on Sears’ claim:

And if we can trust anyone, it’s an official from Loudoun County Public Schools, right?

PolitiFact ultimately rated Sears’ claim “mostly false”:

Earle-Sears said, “We know last year the Loudoun County School Board spent about $300,000 – that’s real money, that’s going-to-jail money – to bring CRT in some form or fashion to the school system.”

Earle-Sears has a little ground beneath her. In 2020, the school system paid a consultant $34,167 to conduct seminars for senior officials on critical race theory and equity training.

But that sum is almost nine times less than the $300,000 Earle-Sears claims. We asked her office three times how she came up with the figure and did not get an answer. It appears that she has greatly overstated the cost of the seminars.

As it turns out, the “mostly” in “mostly false” is doing a lot of heavy lifting:

Trending

If we’re going to get technical about it, then we can indeed point out that the bulk of the payments shown in the above screenshot appear to have been made in 2019, and not last year. And if we’re gonna get technical, then we can point out that the $34,167 payment cited by PolitiFact was not the only payment made in 2020, or even the highest payment made in 2020. And if we’re gonna get technical, then we can point out that those payments listed add up to a lot more than $300,000.

Just as soon as they can put out their flaming pants.

Fact.

***

Related:

PolitiFact adds ‘context’ to explain why Joe Biden wasn’t ackshually comparing his opponents to racists when he compared them to racists

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Tags: Chrissy Clarkcritical race theoryCRTEquity Collaborativefact checkLoudoun County Public SchoolsWinsome Sears