Hello there. I'm Chuck Todd and welcome to another episode of Meet the Press reports.

Schools have long been on the front lines of America's culture war,

parents, teachers, and lawmakers trying to control what students learn. But 2020 ushered in perhaps the most important debate about school curriculum in modern American history,

debate over how race is taught in American classrooms. We saw the country experience a deep

reckoning on this issue following George Floyd's

death in Minneapolis in May of 2020. In the months that followed, statues memorializing Confederate

generals in southern states were taken down because now they've been seen as racist symbols

commemorating some of the darkest days of America's past. And the ongoing debate over voting rights

has sparked a nationwide conversation around minority voting access and disenfranchisement that goes back more than

100 years, all contributing to a reckoning in the halls of America's classrooms. And while efforts

like New York Times' 1619 project are aiming to reframe the dialogue around education and race,

conservatives have been pushing back, calling the teaching of critical race theory

racist against white people. Now, critical race theory is a framework that contends that

historical patterns of racism are ingrained in U.S. institutions. The idea of this theory is that racism is not

individualistic, but actually systematically rooted in American society, at least in certain

institutions in American society. And though critical race theory is not taught in public schools

right now, let me repeat, not taught in public schools right now anywhere in the country,

27 states in this country have introduced bills or have taken other steps to restrict

critical race theory and how teachers discuss racism in the classroom. Eight of these states

have passed laws to do this. My colleague, Antonio Hilton, she traveled to Oklahoma and Texas to report on how this

bitter fight over how our history is taught is playing out in the classroom and impacting

a lot of people's lives. All right, buddy, you ready? Let's go. This is what most days are like

...