Critical Race Theory

[Cartmann99]

Sorry about the boring title. I think my snark generator is temporarily broken.

Florida wants to avoid critical race theory and ‘social justice’ in social studies texts

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s Department of Education is explicitly aiming to keep critical race theory and “social justice” out of social studies textbooks that the state will ultimately adopt for its new teaching standards.

The agency, in recent undated guidance, asked textbook publishers to avoid those topics on top of “culturally responsive teaching, social and emotional learning, and any other unsolicited theories” as the DeSantis administration and Republicans continue to scrutinize what students are learning in public schools, especially on the issues of race and gender identity. Florida already has received national attention after rejecting scores of math books for broaching topics state leaders deemed “impermissible.”

“Instructional materials should not attempt to indoctrinate or persuade students to a viewpoint inconsistent with Florida standards,” FLDOE officials wrote in its undated specifications to publishers. Bids formally opened March 12 and textbook publishers have until June 10 to submit their social studies proposals to the state education department.

Florida education officials, in the guidance, told publishers that all proposed social studies content must abide by the state’s rules outlawing critical race theory, known also as CRT, and similar teachings.

The state, through a rule passed by the Board of Education in 2021, defines critical race theory as an ideology that “racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but that racism is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons.” Critical race theory, along with “The 1619 Project” from The New York Times, are theories that “distort historical events,” according to Florida leaders.

Critical race theory, an analytical framework developed by legal scholars, is generally known as a way to examine how race and racism have become ingrained in American law and institutions since slavery and Jim Crow.

Social studies lessons are also required to follow the “Stop WOKE Act” passed by Republican lawmakers in Florida earlier at the request of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who made a major push to prohibit schools and companies from leveling guilt or blame at students and employees based on race or sex, taking aim at lessons over issues like “white privilege.” To that end, the guidance to publishers notes that possible critical race theory components could include making someone “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.”

Additionally, the Florida Department of Education wants to avoid references to “social justice” in its textbooks and gave publishers a few examples to help guide them.

Social justice lessons, according to Florida officials, would be “seeking to eliminate undeserved disadvantages for selected groups; undeserved disadvantages are from mere chance of birth and are factors beyond anyone’s control, thereby landing different groups in different conditions; and equality of treatment under the law is not a sufficient condition to achieve justice.”

The state is also targeting social emotional learning, which has recently emerged as another topic under criticism from DeSantis. Social emotional learning aims to teach students how to manage their emotions and develop strong relationships with their peers. This is counted as an “unsolicited” strategy to FLDOE, which told publishers to refrain from teachings on “identity and identity identification concepts; managing emotion; developing relationships and social awareness.”

Florida’s slate of math textbook rejections, along with recent laws passed in the state like the Parental Rights in Education bill, on Thursday were key topics during a congressional hearing on “curriculum sabotage and classroom censorship” led by the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

One Florida Republican on the subcommittee, Rep. Byron Donalds, asked the panel of witnesses, ranging from parents to school leaders and free speech advocates, if they believed the math lessons flagged by the state education department were appropriate. Donalds, a former member of the Florida House, used examples of questions asking students to measure racial prejudice by age and political affiliation.

A representative from free speech organization PEN America agreed with Donalds, acknowledging that there was a “risk that this was going to stoke division, detract from the lesson.”

“If we’re going to talk about history, let’s talk about history,” Donalds said. “But if we’re going to bring subjective material into the classroom, that is the problem that has some parents upset in the United States.”

Democrats frequently criticized Florida’s policies along with others across the U.S. that they say prohibit discussions of race and LGBTQ issues and violate free speech principles, mirroring authoritarian governments. They used last week’s racist shooting at a Buffalo grocery store as a “horrifying” example of what could happen if “ignorance and hatred spread.”

“Gov. DeSantis is bringing a brand of authoritarianism to Florida that Putin, Maduro or Castro would applaud,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).

Also...

Laws restricting lessons on racism are making it hard for teachers to discuss the massacre in Buffalo

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This week, educators are once again grappling with how to discuss a mass shooting that appears to have been motivated by bigotry, just as they did in 2019 after a shooting rampage targeting Mexicans at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas; in 2018 after a massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh; and in 2015 after a white gunman killed Black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

This time, however, teachers and education experts say these already difficult classroom conversations are being complicated or suppressed under a wave of state laws and school board policies that restrict the ways educators discuss racism. Fearing for their jobs, teachers in some communities are avoiding the conversation altogether, said Anton Schulzki, a high school social studies teacher in Colorado Springs and president of the National Council for the Social Studies.

“If a student brings up Buffalo, the teacher will simply say, ‘Sorry, I can’t talk about that,’ or ‘We’re not allowed to talk about that,’” said Schulzki, noting that educators have been disciplined or fired after discussing racism, sexuality and politics with students. “And ultimately what that does, unfortunately, is we’re actually depriving our students of an important discussion.”

Educators took to social media and wrote essays debating how to talk about the Buffalo shooting. A math teacher in Atlanta wrote of being afraid to answer when his students brought it up. Responding to a tweet about how teachers should discuss the shooting, an educator in east Texas wrote, “Legally, I can’t touch it.”

NBC News sent messages to the Republican authors of four state laws that limit classroom discussions on race, including state Sen. Bryan Hughes in Texas. Hughes and two of the other bill authors didn't respond.

State Sen. John Schickel, the primary sponsor of a Kentucky law that restricts the ways teachers discuss racism and “controversial” subjects, said he thinks it’s good that teachers are spending less time talking about current events, which he said students could learn about on their own by reading newspapers or watching TV.

“Our educational system I believe should be teaching reading, writing and arithmetic and factual history, and stay out of politics,” Schickel said.

A spokesman for the Texas Education Agency, which is responsible for enforcing state education policy, did not respond to a message requesting a comment.

Chloe Latham Sikes, the deputy director of policy for the Intercultural Development Research Association, an education nonprofit based in San Antonio, said Texas education officials have not published clear guidance on how teachers should interpret the state’s so called anti-critical race theory law.

“Because of that confusion, we’ve heard from a lot of teachers who are steering clear of any conversations dealing with racism and gender inclusivity and these issues that are incredibly pertinent and relevant to students’ lives,” Sikes said.

Education experts describe social studies and history courses as a potential antidote to the types of extremist ideologies that appear to have motivated the suspect in Buffalo, providing students with historical context about the legacy of racism in America and media literacy skills that could help prevent them from being radicalized online. 

Authorities say the suspect in Buffalo wrote extensively about his belief in the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which falsely claims white people are being replaced in America as part of an elaborate Jewish plot.

The challenge for teachers who want to discuss that subject, said Ryan Crowley, a professor of social studies education at the University of Kentucky, is that aspects of replacement theory have been embraced in recent years by mainstream Republican leaders and conservative commentators, making the once-fringe theory into a widely debated issue. Crowley cited a recent poll that found a third of adults believe an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born voters with immigrants.

“I think personally that would be an important lesson,” said Crowley, whose college courses prepare social studies teachers for the classroom. “But I can understand why teachers might be hesitant to engage in that discussion and just avoid it.”

Crowley rattled off other ways a high school teacher could connect the Buffalo shooting to historical context and current events. A teacher could use the incident as a launching point to introduce a lesson about debates over gun control legislation in America, Crowley said, or a deep dive on how online spaces can breed extremism. But those discussions might also put a teacher at risk in the current climate, Crowley said.

“I think a lot of teachers have a sense of fear right now,” he said.

Terry Harris, the executive director of student services at the Rockwood School District in the suburbs of St. Louis, said educators have an obligation to teach the historical context of current events, while also creating a space where students feel safe expressing their feelings.

“The teacher doesn’t necessarily have to have the answer, but the teacher can say, ‘Why do you think that happened? How do you feel about that? What should we do about that?’” said Harris, whose district has been the target of parent protests over its diversity and inclusion efforts.

“We used to have the room to have these conversations,” he added. “With these laws, teachers are thinking, ‘I’m not really willing to risk that conversation and lose my job because I have a family to feed.’”

In an essay published three days after the Buffalo shooting, Sari Beth Rosenberg, a history teacher in New York City, detailed her plans to discuss the attack with her students and connect it to topics related to racism and U.S. history that they’d been studying all school year. If she was teaching in a different state or school district, Rosenberg said her impromptu lesson plans might have cost her her job.

“What the states are doing is asking teachers to commit — and I’m not being hyperbolic — educational malpractice,” Rosenberg said in an interview. “It’s like telling a doctor to operate in a way that he knows is not going to be the best outcome for the patient.”

These lessons are vital, Rosenberg said, not only to help students of color process a deadly attack that targeted Black people, but also for white students who might be persuaded by the types of racist ideologies that can lead to violence.

“I’d like to think that if we can start at a young age teaching these concepts and this history to kids, they’ll be less likely to fall prey to online radicalization,” she said.

Jonathan Feingold, a professor at Boston University School of Law and an expert in education law, has been studying the wave of state laws restricting lessons that Republicans have branded as critical race theory. Feingold said he believes the Buffalo attack and the national conversation about replacement theory offer educators, students and parents an opportunity to turn those laws on their heads.

In Texas, for example, Feingold said the law that requires balanced perspectives on controversial issues also includes a provision that prohibits schools from teaching that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.”

“One could persuasively argue that the text of the law actually compels teachers in Texas to affirmatively denounce white supremacist ideologies like great replacement theory,” Feingold said. “Because great replacement theory or white replacement theory is predicated on a notion of racial hierarchy.”

 

[Ozlsn]

On 5/22/2022 at 5:49 AM, Cartmann99 said:

Social justice lessons, according to Florida officials, would be “seeking to eliminate undeserved disadvantages for selected groups; undeserved disadvantages are from mere chance of birth and are factors beyond anyone’s control, thereby landing different groups in different conditions; and equality of treatment under the law is not a sufficient condition to achieve justice.”

So definitely no teaching of the Gospels then. 

It shouldn't shock me as much as it does, but honestly - this is appalling. 

[Alisamer]

5 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

It shouldn't shock me as much as it does, but honestly - this is appalling. 

It is appalling. They are using large words to try and hide it, but they are basically saying "Don't you dare teach our white kids not to be racists!" Because you know full well that law against lessons that might hurt someone's feelings because of their race only applies to white people. They want to prevent kids standing up for the underdog, now. 

I think this has been brewing for a while now. When there's a school shooting, often it's the students who become activists for their own protection. Now, they will be actively prevented from showing support for people of other races, gender identities, or sexuality. That anti-social justice lesson rule will essentially ban gay-straight alliances, to start with. 

They start with what NOT to teach. How soon before they start promoting what TO teach? Republicans, once again, are accusing Democrats of doing what the Republicans are actually doing themselves. 

The right wing indoctrination is beginning in earnest, now. They're not even being subtle. They are starting with "all history must be whitewashed, as must everything else". Next up will be rewriting history.

I was, actually, in school in the late 80's, taught that the Civil War was all about "states rights" and not about slavery and that "slavery was on it's way out anyway as it was becoming economically unfeasible" so if those damn yankees had just minded their business slavery would have ended in a couple decades anyway. 

Really.

I learned better, later. Thankfully. But this is absolutely the sort of thing that is going to be legislated as the "official" history at some point soon, in some states. It's terrifying. They are actively misleading students in order to keep them as stupid and angry as the Trumplican base tends to be.

[Cartmann99]

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