School Leader

Equity and diversity are good; CRT is not

Evidently the crowd at last night's meeting of the Jefferson County Public Schools Board of Education got rowdy, with many attendees showing up to voice their concerns about how critical race theory (CRT) is being presented in the district's schools.

The board was meeting in a work session to discuss development of the district's strategic plan, slated for approval this December. CRT wasn't specifically on the agenda, but the strategic plan does include "racial equity" as a key component. This led some members of the media, who have persistently misrepresented parent concerns about CRT, to insist yet again that opposition to critical race theory is really just opposition to diversity and equity efforts in schools. JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio seemed to share or reinforce this view when he told the media, "We are looking at racial equity, which essentially means what does a kid need to be successful and providing that to them. It's not about holding anyone else back."

I wasn't at the meeting and I haven't talked to any of the parents in attendance, but as an educator who has been writing about this issue for nearly a year, I can say emphatically that concerns about how CRT is being presented are perfectly legitimate. A focus on equity is good and appropriate - as long as it doesn't take the assumptions of critical race theory as fact.

What is equity?

In one of my first essays on this topic, I wrote about how I approach the issue of equity in my own teaching. (As always, when I write or speak on current events or public policy issues, I am speaking strictly for myself and not WKU or anyone affiliated with the university). Equity is one of the major themes of WKU's school principal certification program. The way I frame it to my students (all of them adult teachers who are training to become administrators) is this: "For every decision we make or policy we implement, how is this decision or policy impacting our most vulnerable students?" 

This is an extremely important lens because of our long-standing pattern of achievement gaps between white and minority students, students with and without disabilities, students from low-income households and those who are not, and so on. We educators have a moral imperative to confront these historical differences in student achievement and ask ourselves how we got here. To some extent, implicit biases about how students learn and what they are capable of may be at work, and in that regard we need to confront whether our expectations differ and how we are delivering resources and instructional quality to students. Equity means setting a high bar for every student and then providing the instruction and support each student needs to meet those expectations. 

In my experience I have never met a single educator who resisted or rejected that goal. They might wonder how we can effectively achieve it. They might struggle over the appropriate strategies to pursue. They might quibble over whether proficiency is ever possible for every student - largely because of factors that are out of the control of educators (and often the students themselves), like disabilities and the immense learning barriers posed by poverty. They may be unaware of their own low expectations toward students. But they readily agree that we need to do better by all of our students and are eager to work together to figure out how.

I sometimes have my students read authors who operate from a critical theory lens to help them consider these issues from a different perspective. But that's the key - CRT in my classes is a perspective on the issue of equity. Not the only perspective and certainly not one that I treat as a given fact. 

How CRT actually undermines equity efforts

And this is exactly why so many people are concerned about how CRT is working its way into our schools. It's not so much that CRT is being taught. It's that some of the key assumptions of CRT are being regarded by educators as facts and that the lens of CRT is shaping the way they select instructional materials and how they are being presented in classrooms. 

These problematic assumptions include CRT's tendency to view every group outcome difference as the result of racism (with no other options permitted to be considered), to reduce individuals to their membership in racial or social groups and assign oppressor or victim status accordingly, and to view every institution of American society - in fact to view the entire American experiment - as irredeemingly racist. 

This is not a caricature of critical race theory. These are core assumptions of the theory itself and explicitly shape the way it is presented in various equity and diversity training sessions to educators and in how it is presented to children in classrooms.

Last summer I wrote (here and here) about the Kentucky Department of Education's new training materials, designed to help teachers implement the state's social studies standards using an "inquiry" design. Many of the examples of "guiding questions" provided in these materials reveal a deeply biased political and ideological perspective. These guiding questions are presented to students in ways that implicitly limit the range of views students can consider about complex social problems and guide them toward specific conclusions - ones that often align with a critical theory perspective.

JCPS leaders can say "we aren't teaching critical race theory in our schools" but that doesn't mean these kinds of biases aren't seeping into classrooms in various ways, and parents have every right to be upset about it.

Critical theory, presented this way, doesn't just leave students with an overly-simplified, biased, and sometimes outright false understanding of American history and its social, political, and economic problems. CRT also makes it harder for adults in schools to have a meaningful conversation about equity issues. By reducing the entire issue to racism, by dividing teachers and students according to their skin color and assigning oppressor and victim status, the kinds of collaborative work meant to help improve learning for all students is actually undermined.

It's also legitimate to ask JCPS why the focus on equity is strictly about "racial" equity? Obviously the district serves a large percentage of students of color and closing racial achievement gaps should be a top priority. But if equity is really about giving every student what they need to be successful...then shouldn't that apply to students of every skin color? It's these ambiguous ways that equity is presented that give parents and ordinary citizens pause about what the district's agenda really is.

How districts can better address equity and the CRT question

If the leaders of JCPS (or any district) want to reassure parents that critical race theory isn't being "taught" in the district's schools, there are some straightforward things they can say (and mean):

• "JCPS is committed to addressing equity issues for every student who needs more help and support, regardless of their skin color."
• "JCPS rejects any perspective that divides educators or students based on skin color or that assigns victim or oppressor status to educators or students based simply on their skin color."
• "JCPS is committed to providing a full and rich, developmentally appropriate presentation of America's history and our current social problems to our students in an unbiased way that addresses multiple perspectives and nurtures in students both a love and appreciation for America and her achievements and a commitment to continue to help Americans live more fully according to the nation's founding ideals."
• "JCPS is committed to transparency about curriculum and instruction and a full engagement with parents and the community about what is taught in our schools and how."
• "JCPS teachers are expected to exhibit the highest degree of professionalism; students should be largely unaware of a teacher's political or ideological biases."

Robert Pondiscio, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recently summed up the core concerns with critical race theory and its proper place within K-12 schools in a comprehensive overview of this topic for Commentary magazine:

Public education succeeds or fails at one principal task: A school either imparts the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to smooth the transition to a responsible and satisfying adult life, or it does not. In concert with other institutions (families, churches, the military, et al.), an American school can consciously inspire children to play a part in building a more perfect union. Or it can say, in effect, don’t bother. Hardened into orthodoxy, critical race theory insists on the latter. When it demands a place of privilege in our schools, it undermines the very purpose of public education. It is the opposite of welcoming children into the civic sphere; it preaches resistance to it and even its destruction.

To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with ethnic studies, “culturally responsive pedagogy,” or even critical race theory in public schools. No reasonable objection should be made or accepted to the earnest desire for black and brown students—American children—to see their histories and cultures woven firmly into their education. Nor should any excuse be made to elide our country’s painful history of racism and injustices, or to confront places where there remains room for progress. What schools cannot do while maintaining public support and legitimacy is to abide any kind of racial essentialism or insist that children are required to combat “whiteness.” Schools should not seek to impose an ideology that distills all of history and every human endeavor to a struggle between oppressors and the oppressed. 

It should be relatively easy for districts to reject the pernicious assumptions of critical race theory and still maintain their commitment to equity - and enjoy broad public support in doing so - unless district leaders really do endorse and want to advance those assumptions.

Related posts:

• Kentucky's SBDM Councils and critical race theory
• No, CRT is not just having a conversation about racism
• Beshear, Glass defend critical race theory in the classroom
• Critical race theory prevents real progress on closing achievement gaps
• Living not by lies in education.
• Warren County curriculum shows why parents, community need to be more aware and involved
• Fighting racism, rejecting critical theory
• Kentucky teachers are being encouraged to use "inquiry methods" to indoctrinate students in Leftist attitudes
• See for yourself: Biased Kentucky teacher training materials for social studies

Kentucky’s SBDM Councils and critical race theory

The national controversy over critical race theory (CRT) and how it is presented in K-12 schools has come to Kentucky. (See my discussion of Bill Request 60, which would prohibit key components of CRT, and why this whole issue is a source of legitimate concern for everyone). 

The Gallatin County Board of Education recently became the first district in Kentucky to try to ban the teaching of CRT in its schools. I haven’t been able to obtain the precise wording of the board’s resolution or action, but Superintendent Larry Hammond issued a statement explaining the board’s decision:

Gallatin County Board of Education feels strongly that individual student needs remain a priority in all aspects of planning and service delivery.  The Board further expects and promotes student needs being met equitably.  Such examples would include contracts to provide increased services to meet mental and behavioral health issues of students without respect of sex, race or socio-economic status.  The Board also believes no individual is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive” due to their race or sex, “whether consciously or unconsciously”.   Agenda item VI.I. from the June 15 BOE meeting “Discussion/Action to Ban Critical Race Theory in Gallatin County School District” was a statement to affirm the belief and commitment to ensure every child’s needs will be met.  Furthermore, the effort was to not create greater divisions among students and staff through the promotion of CRT.

It is not clear to me, however, that a local board of education can legally stop a local school from adopting a curriculum or instructional materials that include CRT’s controversial claims. 

This is because Kentucky’s law establishing School Based Decision Making (SBDM) Councils gives SBDM’s near total authority over such decisions. 

SBDM Councils are composed of 3 teachers elected by teachers in the school and 2 parents elected by parents of children in the school. If a school has minority students constituting more than 8% of its enrollment and the largest minority group isn’t already represented among the elected SBDM teachers and parents, additional teacher and parent members may be added, but the proportions of teachers to parents must be maintained. The school principal serves as chair of the council, which seeks consensus decisions but may operate by majority vote if consensus cannot be achieved. 

You can read the full statute on the SBDM Council’s composition and duties here. 

Among the Council’s responsibilities, outlined in section 2(g), is the following:

The school council shall determine which textbooks, instructional materials, and student support services shall be provided in the school. Subject to available resources, the local board shall allocate an appropriation to each school that is adequate to meet the school's needs related to instructional materials and school-based student support services, as determined by the school council. The school council shall consult with the school media librarian on the maintenance of the school library media center, including the purchase of instructional materials, information technology, and equipment;

The Office of Educational Accountability, charged with enforcement of SBDM law and regulation, has interpreted this to mean that school and district administrators may not usurp the Council’s authority when it comes to choosing curriculum and instructional materials. 

In one relevant instance, former Boone County Superintendent Randy Poe and two middle school principals were censured and forced to participate in additional SBDM governance training when several schools in the district adopted the Summit Learning curriculum without the express approval and involvement of the SBDM Council. 

While I am not aware of specific instances where local leaders tried to prohibit a school from adopting a curriculum or instructional materials (I’d welcome information on this from readers who might know for sure), the logic would seem to extend in that direction also: a local board of education cannot tell an SBDM Council what curriculum it may or may not have. 

[Update, 6/21: I'm not an attorney, but a Kentucky Supreme Court case from 1995, Board of Education of Boone County v. Bushee, seems to make it clear that when there is a conflict between the autonomy of an SBDM and the authority of the local school board, unless the board’s greater authority is explicitly allowed for in state law, the SBDM prevails:

The above examination of these statutes clearly convinces this court that each participating group in the common school system has been delegated its own independent sphere of responsibility. State government is held accountable for providing adequate funding and for the overall success of the common school system. The local boards are responsible for the administrative functions of allocating funding, managing school property, appointing the superintendent, and fixing the compensation of employees. The councils are responsible for the site based issues, including but not limited to, determining curriculum, planning instructional practices, selecting and implementing discipline techniques, determining the composition of the staff at the school, and choosing textbooks and instructional materials.

Emphasis added in the above.]

Under Kentucky law, if parents or citizens want to help shape what gets taught in an individual school, they have to appeal to the SBDM Council. 

Most Kentuckians are probably unaware of the work of SBDM Councils and their important responsibilities, which also include hiring school principals (with the superintendent serving as a Council member just for this purpose) and assigning personnel based on the staffing allocation received from the local board of education.

By and large SBDM Council members do their work with no fanfare and little appreciation. In my personal experience the teachers and parents who serve on councils work hard and sincerely want the best for students. In some schools parents have to be actively recruited (begged?) to run for Council.

But in most cases SBDM Councils tend to reinforce the status quo and operate according to the principal’s and teachers’ agendas. Parents, by statute outnumbered on councils, often lack the technical and cultural knowledge about how schools work and defer to teachers on key decisions.

Of greatest concern, non-parents have no representation on councils at all, despite their sizable responsibilities related to the deployment of public resources. They are largely unaccountable to the general public. If an SBDM Council wanted to adopt a controversial curriculum over widespread public opposition, there would be literally nothing the public - or the locally-elected board of education - could do about it.

Authors I greatly admire (see here and here) have argued that, despite the serious flaws in CRT assumptions, state-level bans on teaching critical race theory in schools is a form of big government overreach and sets a dangerous precedent.

I’m sympathetic to those arguments and believe that generally these issues are best handled at a local level. Parents and citizens must be far more aware and involved in SBDM Councils and insist on transparency for what is being taught in local schools.

But the flaws in Kentucky’s unique governance structure raise serious questions about how accountable SBDM Councils really are and what can be done if they override the will of the public. And that’s not to say that a strongly worded resolution from a local board of education wouldn’t carry a lot of weight. But for all these reasons Bill Request 60 and similar measures have started a valuable conversation about this topic.

Of course this also occurs at a time when some Kentucky school districts are suing taxpayers to stop the implementation of the state’s new school choice law. The education establishment can’t have it both ways. You can’t defend a system that isn’t really accountable to the public when it comes to curriculum and instruction and then insist that many families can have no other options.

Personally I’m happy for any school to openly teach anything it wants - as long as every family has the right to choose another school for their children. 

Related posts:

• No, CRT is not just having a conversation about racism
• Beshear, Glass defend critical race theory in the classroom
• Critical race theory prevents real progress on closing achievement gaps
• Living not by lies in education.
• Warren County curriculum shows why parents, community need to be more aware and involved
• Fighting racism, rejecting critical theory

No, CRT is not just having a conversation about racism

Last night I was a guest on KET's Kentucky Tonight program talking about critical race theory and its place in Kentucky schools. Fellow guests included Rep. Joe Fischer, who recently introduced legislation that would restrict teaching certain CRT concepts in schools (I wrote about the bill here), Sen. Gerald Neal of Louisville, and Dr. Andrea Abrams of Centre College. (You can watch the full program here).

I appreciated host Renee Shaw's attempt to have a meaningful discussion about critical race theory, as opposed to the intense and often extreme views expressed about CRT in the media and online. Unfortunately, a viewer could be forgiven for feeling confused at the end of the show, because it was clear that the panelists were often talking about totally different things.

I tried to point out the deeply troubling philosophical underpinnings of critical race theory, while my fellow panelists argued that what I was describing wasn't CRT at all. Instead, they seemed to claim CRT is entirely benign, consisting of teaching more about America's sometimes neglected history of racism, sharing different perspectives on the topic, and in general just having a good conversation about race and how we can make things better.

Of course if that's what CRT is, there would be no fuss, as nearly everyone can agree those are important and even necessary goals. But that's not what critical race theory is.

CRT rejects objective truth in favor of subjective narratives

Critical race theory is an offshoot of just plain old critical theory, a philosophical perspective that emerged in the mid-twentieth century from the schools of structuralism and post-modernism. These philosophies, which can be found, in part, in the writings of French thinkers like Jacques Derrida and Michele Foucault, started out as a kind of takedown of every idea that had come before. These authors were attempting to critique every grand explanation for the meaning of human life and the organization of human society. Whether it was against Christianity or Marxism, post-modernism is infused with the idea that there is no objective reality out there - or at least if there is, we can't objectively know it.

Instead, there is only the sense that we individuals make of the world, our personal, subjective narratives. There is no big-T truth, just "my" truth and "your" truth.

Of course, like most things, there is a kernel of, well, truth here. We do all experience the world subjectively. But most people assume there is a reality out there, and that to some extent it is knowable, through some combination of reason, inquiry, and perhaps revelation. In fact, the entire modern liberal order - democracy, individual rights, equality before the law, the rule of law...depends on rational human beings being able to talk their way to governing compromises, instead of the more historical, tribal way of dealing with conflicts: that is, the stronger tribe violently beating the weaker tribe into submission.

CRT rejects discussion and reasoning in favor of imposing its assumptions on others

But to critical theorists, language is violence and a tool of power. This is because in the 1960's, Marxism got looped back into the discussion through the work of philosophers like the German American Herbert Marcuse. Understanding that a pure critique of truth gets you just about nowhere, thinkers like Marcuse adopted Marx's idea that basically all of human history and social phenomena boil down to e class warfare: oppressors systemically depriving the oppressed of their just desserts.

Critical race theorists took this concept and simply injected race in place of Marx's understanding of class, but the message is the same: History is always told from the perspective of the winners, and so our entire cultural heritage - all of that democracy and freedom and individual rights and equality before the law - is just a narrative, and an illegitimate one at that, designed to keep the oppressed in their place.

If reasoning and argumentation and democracy are illegitimate tools of oppression, especially if they are nothing more than subjective narratives, they can - and in fact, must - be rejected by the oppressed, who are then justified by removing the "oppressors" and replacing them by any means necessary, including violence and coercion. The privileged will never be persuaded to give up power. A new regime that enforces equality of outcomes for all must be imposed. 

This is not paranoia and hyperbole. It is the explicit goal of every Marxist regime throughout history (with horrifying results). And it is the implicit - if not sometimes explicit goal of CRT.

 

Beshear, Glass defend critical race theory in the classroom

Over the last year American schools have seen an explosion of teacher training and classroom instruction based on critical race theory (CRT), which explores how racism is supposedly perpetuated in every aspect of society. Several state legislatures have moved to ban classroom instruction that reflects some of the more extreme and pernicious assumptions of CRT. Earlier this week Kentucky state representative Joseph Fischer introduced Bill Request 60, which prohibits local school districts or individual school councils from including or promoting a series of concepts in any course, curriculum, or instructional program.

Specifically, the bill would bar teaching or instructional materials that assume or suggest the following:

• One race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex;
• An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously;
• An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex;
• Members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex;
• An individual's moral character is determined by his or her race or sex;
• An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex;
• An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex;
• Meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another race;
• The Commonwealth or the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist;
• Values, moral or ethical codes, privileges, or beliefs can be assigned to a race or sex, or to an individual because of the individual's race or sex;
• Promoting or advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government; or
• Promoting division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class, or class of people.

Most Kentuckians would readily agree that most of the views expressed above are reprehensible and have no place in the state's classrooms. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, however, voiced what sounded like opposition to the bill, arguing that "I think once you start legislating what can and can't be taught in schools, especially in the framework of politics, it gets really dangerous."

Of course, Kentucky law and regulation already establishes a framework of educational standards that provides a basis of what gets taught in our schools, although it does not, to my knowledge, prohibit any specific concepts from P-12 classrooms. But which of the above viewpoints does Governor Beshear believe the children of the Commonwealth should be taught? Does Governor Beshear believe that teaching an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, should be allowed?

Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass, always a predictable parrot of the Governor's views, voiced his own opposition to the bill, saying that it limits "free speech" and is a "politically-driven effort to manage our local classroom teachers." But does Commissioner Glass really believe a "local classroom teacher" should be teaching kids that "an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex?"

Beshear and Glass's reactions are typical of the defensiveness we have seen from political Leftists in response to efforts to challenge or curb CRT. On the one hand, CRT defenders claim that CRT doesn't actually promote these kinds of extremist views. But if that's the case, why the fuss if Kentuckians, quite reasonably, want to stipulate that such views have no place in the state's classrooms? (In fact, Rick Hess and Max Eden of the American Enterprise Institute have repeatedly documented how these far-Left assumptions routinely surface in CRT programs and are central to CRT itself).

On the other hand, CRT defenders want to claim that these views aren't, in fact, extreme but are quite reasonable and somehow essential to making our schools less racist. That sounds like the view of Jefferson County Public Schools superintendent Marty Pollio, who told the Courier Journal that Rep. Fischer's bill would somehow interfere with the district's efforts in "expanding the curriculum to better represent the student population we serve" and that it would "potentially disrupt our plans to reduce the achievement gap in JCPS."