Education Week - June 2, 2021 - 8

Efforts to Root Out Racism in Schools Would
Unravel Under 'Critical Race Theory' Bills
By Eesha Pendharkar
Thousands of schools across the
country may soon be forced to upend
curricula, discontinue ethnic studies
courses and anti-bias training for
teachers, and shut down classroom
discussions on Black Lives Matter
and other race-related events like the
insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and
murder of George Floyd.
That's because a wave of legislation
in some states aims to severely limit
how teachers and schools address
race-a campaign that district leaders
and experts say would squash a range
of efforts to root out discrimination,
bias, and racism experienced by students
of color.
Such initiatives, they say, acknowledge
in some way conscious and unconscious
acts of racism by individuals
and the government.
But they could now be perceived as
breaking the nascent series of laws,
which have been proposed in 16 states
and now passed in four.
The effects are immediate. Right
now, in Oklahoma, schools don't
know if and how they can teach about
the Tulsa Race Massacre under the
state's new law. Exactly 100 years ago,
a white mob attacked a prosperous
Black business district and neighborhood,
killing hundreds of Black residents
and burning down homes and
businesses. It was one of the worst
racial terror attacks in U.S. history.
Conservative lawmakers and proponents
say the bills are necessary to
prevent the teaching of " critical race
theory, " a four-decade-old legal and academic
framework that examines how
racism has shaped the U.S. legal system
and other institutions. They argue that
the concept pits people of color against
white people, is demoralizing for white
children, and divides the country into
" oppressors " and " the oppressed. "
But experts say the laws ultimately
will unravel years of administrators'
fitful efforts to improve educational
opportunities and academic outcomes
for America's children of color,
who today make up the majority of
the nation's student body.
" This is one of the most ludicrous
things that I personally have experienced
in my lifetime, is that you actually
have lawmakers who are trying to
outlaw the teaching of structural racism, "
said Prudence Carter, dean of
the Graduate School of Education at
the University of California, Berkeley.
" The idea that you can't even teach
that means that you can't teach the
history of this country. You can't teach
the then, the now, nor the tomorrow. "
The Dallas Independent School District
has hired attorneys to figure out
how to lawfully retain several expensive
efforts launched in recent years to better
support the learning and academic
performance of its Black students.
If the proposed Texas bill that
would restrict how teachers discuss
race in the classroom becomes law,
Superintendent Michael Hinojosa
said he will sue. The measure has
been approved by both chambers of
the Texas legislature.
" ...We would have to engage with
other districts throughout the country
that may be facing the same issue in
red states, " Hinojosa said. " And there
is a desire to move forward to try to
challenge this in the courts. We're not
at that point yet. But we're not going to
be afraid to inquire if the law passes. "
Withholding money from districts
that teach about white privilege
This spring, Republican lawmakers
in several states introduced bills
that aim to restrict what schools can
teach about racism and sexism as part
of a national effort to ban critical race
theory. The bills have gained traction
in 16 states, and have been signed into
law in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma and
Tennessee.
Tennessee's law will withhold public
funding from districts that teach
their students about white privilege.
Arizona's bill threatens to fine teachers
$5,000 if they discuss racism in
the classroom.
Many of the bills, including Texas'
and Oklahoma's, use the same language
to explain what teachers can't
teach, including that " one race or sex
is inherently superior to another race
or sex, " and that someone by virtue of
their race or sex, is " inherently racist,
sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously
or unconsciously " and " bears
responsibility for actions committed
in the past by other members of the
same race or sex. "
" America is not a fundamentally
racist country, " Oklahoma Attorney
General Mike Hunter said in a statement.
" And encouraging more racism
and discrimination is not the solution
to racism. "
Students of color, for a variety of
historical and contemporary reasons,
8 | EDUCATION WEEK | June 2, 2021 | www.edweek.org
have lower test scores, lower graduation
rates, and lower participation in
gifted education compared to their
white peers. District administrators
in recent decades have taken on a
series of controversial and expensive
race-conscious strategies to redesign
curricula to be more culturally relevant,
and make Black, Latino, Native
American, and Asian students feel
more welcome.
That includes forming diversity, inclusion
and equity committees, hiring
equity officers, incorporating more
voices of color into the curriculum and
offering ongoing teacher training to
root out unconscious bias, which experts
argue leads to the disproportionate
disciplining of students of color.
Administrators overseeing rapidly
diversifying schools say they can no
longer ignore overall lagging academic
outcomes and a growing pile of
evidence that shows that students of
color are systemically denied the same
privileges offered to white students.
" Research shows that teaching a
more inclusive curriculum significantly
impacts standardized test scores, " said
Amanda Vickery, an assistant professor
of social studies and race in education
who teaches a course on critical
race theory at the University of North
Texas and trains teachers on how to
incorporate Black women's voices into
curriculum. " But not only does it raise
student achievement and helps them
do better in schools, but it makes them
feel better when they see themselves in
positive ways. "
The Black Lives Matter movement
in recent years has spurred on many
of these efforts as parents of color
have demanded that teachers more
readily acknowledge in the classroom
students' violent encounters with the
police and other forms of institutionalized
racism.
In 2017, Dallas' school board established
a racial equity office, which
compiles and publishes data on disparities
between student groups,
trains teachers on ways to better engage
with families of color, and leads
districtwide discussions about racism
inside and outside classrooms.
Then, last summer, after Black Lives
Matter protests galvanized the nation,
Dallas' school board passed a resolution
that explicitly acknowledged its
role in allowing Black students, who
make up almost a quarter of the district's
student body, to be suspended
at a significantly higher rate than white
students for the same infractions, to be
disproportionately diagnosed with special
needs, and to be regularly steered
away from Advanced Placement, honors,
and gifted and talented programs.
The Texas bills, if signed into law,
would upend almost all of the district's
diversity, equity, and inclusion
work, Hinojosa said.
In addition, the district would
have to reengineer its entire professional
development plan, most of
which regularly acknowledges unconscious
bias and institutionalized
racism, and discontinue its Mexican
American studies and Black studies
courses (the bill says that a teacher
must explore historical " topics from
diverse and contending perspectives
without giving deference to any one
perspective " ).
" In Texas, when you teach the
Alamo, you teach it from the perspective
of people who were in control
at the time, not from the Latino perspective.
Same thing when you teach
about slavery, " Hinojosa said. " So we
don't apologize for teaching about
history from the African American
or Latino perspective, or the Asian
American perspective. "
Can schools teach about the Tulsa
Race Massacre?
In Oklahoma, administrators
this week are questioning whether
they can even mention in class the
centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre
in which a white mob, with
the assistance of the local government,
murdered hundreds of Black
people and burned down dozens of
businesses.
Oklahoma's law, which was passed
on May 7, bans from the schools' curriculum,
the idea that a person " by
virtue of the individual's race or sex,
is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive,
whether consciously or unconsciously, "
among other concepts.
Members of a statewide commission
set up in 2015 to educate residents
about the massacre, said the
law would undermine their work
and moved to kick Gov. Kevin Stitt,
a Republican, off the task force after
he signed the bill.
State schools Superintendent Joy
Hofmeister said that schools will
still be required to teach students
about the Tulsa Race Massacre.
" Schools will still teach all of the
academic standards, including the
Tulsa Race Massacre, " she said. " I
am troubled by the message this
bill sends, especially at a time when
we're preparing to observe the centennial
of such a tragic and horrific
event in our state's history. "
Cecilia Robinson-Woods, the superintendent
of Millwood Public Schools
in Oklahoma City, runs a school district
of 1,000 students, more than 90
percent of whom are Black.
When her students come to school
with questions about the racism and
discrimination they witness in the
world, Robinson-Woods said she wants
teachers to be able to answer them.
" Schools emulate communities, "
she said. " So if these things are
happening in the communities, of
course conversations are happening
in the schools. It would not stop my
children from coming in wanting to
have the conversation, as much as it
will probably hinder some teachers'
responses. "
Throughout this school year's
turbulent news cycle in which clips
of Black people being shot and
killed by police were all over social
media and regularly played on the
news and politicians spouted racist
ideas about people of color, Robinson-Woods
sent frequent emails to
teachers, most of whom are Black,
asking them if they would be able
to discuss the day's events without
getting emotional.
But while her school district will
not stop discussing racism in the
classroom, she is worried that majority-white
districts in Oklahoma
and beyond might give up on that
work now.
" What I believe is that the work regarding
cultural reckoning, cultural
responsiveness, equity, inclusion
will decrease, " she said. " And that
it could definitely stifle the growth
of minority students who might feel
more disenfranchised, just based on
a teacher's approach. "
Illustraton by Mary Hassdyk for Education Week
http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - June 2, 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - June 2, 2021
