From the Atlantic article cited above:
The idea that critical race theory is an academic concept that is taught only at colleges or law schools might be technically accurate, but the reality on the ground is a good deal more complicated. Few middle or high schoolers are poring over academic articles written by Richard Delgado or Kimberlé Crenshaw. But across the nation, many teachers have, over the past years, begun to adopt a pedagogical program that owes its inspiration to ideas that are very fashionable on the academic left, and that go well beyond telling students about America’s copious historical sins.
In some elementary and middle schools, students are now being asked to place themselves on a scale of privilege based on such attributes as their skin color. History lessons in some high schools teach that racism is not just a persistent reality but the defining feature of America. And some school systemcarranza-held-doe-white-supremacy-culture-training/) denounced virtues such as “perfectionists have even embraced ideas that spread pernicious prejudices about nonwhite people, as when a [presentation to principals of New York City public schools](https://nypost.com/2019/05/20/richard-m” or the “worship of the written word” as elements of “white-supremacy culture.”
I agree with this. The Dems have done a great job of handwaving the leftist teaching in schools by telling people what CRT is not and chiding people for being ignorant about CRT. It is purposeful. If you ask what it is, it is described in vague, high-minded ideals that nobody really disagrees with, but in practice it is nearly exactly what people are complaining that it is. Minor differences between “true” CRT and what people are complaining about are simply exaggerated and highlighted to show that there is no CRT being taught, when the crux of the complaint is true. It is just linguistic sophistry; people are not up in arms over absolutely no change in the school curriculum.