WHAT'S UP WITH THE SUDDEN ATTACKS ON SCHOOLS THAT TEACH CRITICAL RACE
THEORY?
By Jeff Bryant, LA Progressive.
June 4, 2021 | EDUCATE!
When North Carolina public school teacher Justin Parmenter penned an opinion
piece for the Charlotte Observer about the difficulties of teaching in
hybrid mode during the pandemic, with students both in-person in the
classroom and remote online, he didn't expect to get called out by a
legislator on the floor of the state House of Representatives.
The main point of his editorial, Parmenter told me in a phone call, was that
teaching his seventh-grade class in the hybrid model isn't sustainable
because it forces teachers to make compromises that limit the learning
opportunities of their students.
But that point was not what Iredell County Republican Representative Jeff
McNeely was compelled to comment on. Instead, he attacked Parmenter, who was
named a finalist for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Teacher of the Year in
2016, for attempting to "indoctrinate" his students about "environmental
pollution."
As Parmenter explains on his personal blog, McNeely's remarks referred to a
piece of writing Parmenter asked his students to respond to that happened to
be about pollution, and McNeely made his comment in the context of a
discussion in the House about a new bill, HB 755, that "would require
schools to post online a comprehensive list of all teaching, classroom, and
assignment materials used by every teacher in every class session,"
according to WRAL. McNeely spoke out in support of the bill in the House
Education Committee meeting because he felt it would "help the parents going
to the next grade be able to look and see what that teacher taught the year
before" and, apparently, avoid having their children exposed to teachers who
would "teach 'em in a certain way to make 'em believe something other than
the facts."
Aside from pollution being, indeed, a fact, what HB 755 proposes is
impractical, to say the least, Parmenter told me. "Teaching is an art form,"
he said, with multiple opportunities for "teachable moments" to arise
spontaneously during every lesson. Having to document that would not only be
tedious busywork, but it could also discourage teachers from tailoring
instruction to students.
Parmenter suspects that McNeely's comment, rather than being an honest
discourse on pedagogy, is more likely a ham-handed attempt at making a
"cheap political point."
"It's not surprising," Parmenter said, "given the current national context."
The national context he was referring to is the wave of agitation drummed up
by right-wing political organizations and Republican politicians over the
perceived "indoctrination" of students that occurs in public schools.
'None Of This Is Really About Critical Race Theory'
A prominent flashpoint in this upheaval is the supposed infiltration of the
teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in public school curricula. The
controversy "exploded in the public arena this spring," reports Education
Week, "especially in K-12, where numerous state legislatures are debating
bills seeking to ban. [CRT's] use in the classroom."
The bills have surfaced in at least 15 states, according to Education Week.
That includes North Carolina's version, which debuted in May, NC Policy
Watch reported.
The bills repeat a nearly identical set of prohibitions on "how teachers can
discuss racism, sexism, and other social issues," according to Education
Week, using language similar to that of an "executive order former President
Donald Trump put in place to ban diversity training for federal workers."
President Biden has rescinded that order, but efforts to ban diversity
training are continuing in universities and school districts, according to
the Washington Post, where the focus of legislation has extended beyond
employee training to include school curricula and teaching practices.
The specifics in these bills ban teachers from addressing concepts related
to race and gender, for instance, prohibiting teachers from making anyone
"feel discomfort or guilt" because of their race or gender. But the list of
transgressions seems purposefully vague and general, almost as if to invite
a lawsuit, explains Adam Harris in the Atlantic. And proponents of the bills
have adopted critical race theory, an academic idea dating back to the
1970s, as a "shorthand" for their concerns.
"But none of this is really about CRT," James Ford told me in a phone call.
Ford is a former North Carolina Teacher of the Year who currently represents
the Southwest Education Region on the North Carolina State Board of
Education and serves as the executive director of the Center for Racial
Equity in Education.
"First, in these calls to stop the teaching of CRT," he said, "there is no
clarification of what CRT really is. There's no argumentative critique of
the actual concept." Indeed, many of the bills don't even mention the term.
The real target, Ford explained, is "divisiveness." For the people who
criticize teachers and promote these bills, Ford believes, there can be "no
nuance at all" in discussing "matters of religion and customs and the values
of rugged individualism and free-market ideology." There can be no
challenges of assumptions and no revising of long-standing mythologies about
America and American society.
According to Ford, these people see education as a process about "making
kids assimilate," and "simply talking about a subject like pollution takes
on a heightened sense of alarm about society being undermined."
Outlawing 'Divisiveness' In Schools
Many of the bills specifically target the banning of teaching "divisive
concepts," according to Politico, with one bill, in West Virginia, going so
far as to call for teachers to be "dismissed or not reemployed for teaching.
divisive concepts."
Proposed laws against "divisiveness" in schools prompt Ford to question,
"Divisive for who?" and he notes that the people behind all these bills are
overwhelmingly white, wealthier folks who have generally benefited most from
the nation's education system. Ford suggests they may be provoking white
resentment against public schools because schools are now more populated
with Black and Brown children who may express doubts about a prevailing
narrative about the country that may not include people who look like them.
Ford also finds it ironic that people who are intent on outlawing school
"indoctrination" have chosen to impose their own agenda by attacking
critical thinking and questioning of cultural norms, which, to him, is what
truly sounds like indoctrination.
From a practical standpoint, it would be nearly impossible to police what
goes on inside hundreds of thousands of classrooms. And it's hard to imagine
how teachers of American history would steer clear of violating these laws
while teaching about the Trail of Tears, slavery, the Civil War, and the
suffragette and Civil Rights movements, or how English teachers could engage
students in writing while avoiding current events and topics that are apt to
elicit meaningful responses from students.
Because these concerted attacks on public schools and teachers make little
sense academically, they have prompted many observers to consider whether
there is more of a political intent behind the effort.
Parmenter suggested that attacks on schools and teachers are an attempt to
change political momentum at a time when national leadership under a
Democratic presidential administration enjoys high approval ratings.
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg seems to agree, writing, "Part of
the reason the right is putting so much energy into this crusade [against
the teaching of CRT] is because it can't whip up much opposition to the bulk
of Joe Biden's agenda." She concludes, "Telling parents that liberals want
to make their kids hate their country and feel guilty for being white might
be absurd and cynical. It also looks like it might be effective."
But that argument makes sense only if you ignore the other education agenda
right-wing politicians have rolled out at the very same time they are
whipping up white resentment over diversity in schools.
School Choice's 'Best Year Ever'
It's certainly no coincidence that in many states where there are bills
attacking the teaching of divisive topics-including Georgia, Missouri,
Arkansas, Iowa, South Dakota, and West Virginia-state lawmakers are also
considering or enacting new "school choice" laws to create or expand
programs that give parents vouchers so they can remove their children from
public schools and send them to private schools at taxpayer expense. Other
school choice acts create or expand programs that give parents taxpayer
dollars to spend on homeschooling and other educational expenses they incur
for their children.
The 2020-2021 school year has been the "best year ever" for school choice
advocates, says Alan Greenblatt on Governing: The Future of States and
Localities. Greenblatt notes the proliferation of new laws has created
education savings accounts that give parents public funds to pay for "a wide
range of education-related services." Other laws create or expand state
tax-credit programs that funnel donations from businesses and wealthy people
into school vouchers for parents.
Many of these new provisions have been passed in states that had previously
resisted school choice programs-such as Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and
West Virginia-or that-like Georgia, Maryland, Montana, and South Dakota-had
very small programs that are now ballooning into massive redistributions of
public funds for education.
"States that were long resistant [to school choice] have now opened up,"
Greenblatt observes, and once the programs start up, regardless of how
small, "they tend to expand, not contract."
Greenblatt credits the pandemic for creating a lot of the momentum for this
expansion of school laws. But he also quotes education historian Jack
Schneider who notes that the drive for more school choice was accelerating
long before COVID-19, during the expansions of charter schools under former
President Barack Obama and through the fiery denunciations of "government
schools" by former President Donald Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
Indeed, school choice proponents like the conservative Manhattan Institute
have long contended that a public school system funded by government, but
with private entities providing the education services, should be "the
democratic norm" for the nation. They call privatization of the school
system "educational pluralism," as opposed to the apparent divisiveness of
publicly operated institutions.
"Public schooling forces zero-sum conflict such as we are seeing over CRT,"
writes Neal McCluskey, the director of the libertarian Cato Institute's
Center for Educational Freedom, in RealClearPolicy. Of course, this
"conflict" is "zero-sum," as James Ford points out, only if you insist it
is.
But school choice proponents like McCluskey argue that having a public
system that allows people from different backgrounds to come together and
share varying points of view is not "diverse" at all because it might open a
window to a critique of America that potentially "demonizes" the country.
Instead, in this up-is-down and down-is-up view of the world, the only way
to solve divisiveness, according to McCluskey, is by "letting millions of
families and educators choose for themselves" by funding a system of
privately operated schools that cater only to those parents who already
share the same ideologies.
McCluskey might be correct that such a system could "end heated disagreement
over ideas like CRT" in schools, but it certainly would guarantee these
conflicts spill over into other arenas for these students later in life,
when they become adults whose views have hardened and become more resistant
to change because they never experienced real diversity of thought during
their formative years.
"[A] new era of school choice vouchers may be parents' best defense against
public school curricula," warned former Attorney General William Barr,
according to Just the News, in his first public speech since leaving office
under the Trump administration in December.
"Barr suggested," Just the News reports, that "some of the new woke
curricula pushed by the left might infringe religious and speech freedoms
and impose a secular theology that violates the Constitution's Establishment
Clause prohibiting government from imposing religious beliefs."
No doubt, as the effects of the pandemic wane in many places due to
vaccinations, fearmongering over supposed divisiveness in public schools
will only grow. It is likely that there will be a ratcheting up of the
rhetoric for greater school choice to enable parents to escape the supposed
adverse consequences of being exposed to anything other than long-accepted
narratives about subjects, regardless of a changing world.
A new nonprofit launched in March, Parents Defending Education (PDE), has
targeted "woke indoctrination" in schools, Fox News reports. PDE "is just
the latest" organization to take up the cause, according to the article,
which also lists Discovery Institute, Oregonians for Liberty in Education,
and Parents Against Critical Race Theory.
According to Education Week, PDE has already targeted school districts
around the country with federal civil rights complaints against schools that
address systemic racism. The article notes that "[PDE] staffers work or
previously worked at organizations such as the Cato Institute,"-where
McCluskey works-the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Coalition for TJ. The
Cato and Fordham institutes are ardent proponents of school choice, and
Coalition for TJ has filed a lawsuit to stop changes to admission standards
that would allow more enrollment diversity at a Virginia high school.
Ford agrees that these attacks on "woke" indoctrination in schools are
"unequivocally related to efforts to privatize education," and he points out
that many of the same people orchestrating these new laws targeting public
education are strong proponents of school choice. "Historically, there is a
pattern connecting race issues and privatization," he says.
Numerous studies have found evidence supporting Ford's argument, but it's
not at all hard to imagine that an effective strategy for pushing white
families out of public schools is to raise fears that their children are
being indoctrinated with values and beliefs that could divide them
ideologically or emotionally and draw a wedge between them and their
families and neighbors.
Nor is it a stretch to believe that families of color, seeing white families
become enraged about the teaching of structural racism, would consider
fleeing a public school to find a privately operated alternative that would
be more culturally affirming for their children.
'I Don't Think That's Funny At All'
In the meantime, public school teachers will be increasingly scapegoated by
conservative advocates who are stigmatizing the idea of addressing
controversial topics in schools. Proponents of these laws seem to not know
teachers "have to leave our politics at the door," Parmenter told me, and
these conservative advocates seem to believe teachers "don't have the
integrity and professionalism to understand that [they] know there are lines
you simply don't cross."
Parmenter senses that the negative impact these laws will have on the
teaching corps, already reeling from the stress caused by the pandemic, may
discourage future teachers from entering a profession where they're
constantly under the watchful eye of people who may not respect them and
understand how they do their job.
"Less mysterious" to him are the negative impacts these attacks on public
schools and teaching will have on students.
"For children to learn how to read and write, they need to engage with a
variety of different texts," he says, and while he found Representative
McNeely's accusations of "indoctrination" somewhat comedic-"like because I
just happened to mention that the piece of writing my class focused on was
about pollution, that made him think, 'I just caught one of these Commies
admitting what they are up to'"-Parmenter fears any new law that is so
"invasive of teachers" will ultimately be harmful to their students. "And I
don't think that's funny at all."