CRT (now rebranded as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion DEI) and DOJ involvement in school board meetings

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

You can't win if you can't win. 

That's all pragmatism means.

Look at how you can win. School issues lost you this one - how do you ensure school issues don't lose you the next? 

Railing against the racist voters won't do it. Insisting that people should know better won't do it. 

So, what will? 

Or, perhaps more importantly, if youre not willing to listen to voters and go out there to win their vote, what alternatives are you suggesting? 

Seems to me you've got three options. 

Keep berating the electorate for being wrong and hope to G_d things swing your way. 

Anti-democratic revolution.

Listen to moderates in your own party and make some pretty minor adjustments in conversation with the electorate. See Mounk. 

We've got enough on our hands here with out own fool of a PM. We don't want another Trump presidency. Be tactical! Close those goals conservatives keep finding wide open. 

Justice of the cause means nothing if you're not in power. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaders should lead, not follow. 

[Melissa Louise]

17 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Leaders should lead, not follow. 

You can't lead if people aren't following. 

There's no valor in 'leading' if you lose the vote. 

I mean, this is how politics works. You have to win an election first before you get to enact policy.  

And that means appealing to swing voters. 

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

You can't win if you can't win. 

That's all pragmatism means.

Look at how you can win. School issues lost you this one - how do you ensure school issues don't lose you the next? 

Railing against the racist voters won't do it. Insisting that people should know better won't do it. 

So, what will? 

Or, perhaps more importantly, if youre not willing to listen to voters and go out there to win their vote, what alternatives are you suggesting? 

Seems to me you've got three options. 

Keep berating the electorate for being wrong and hope to G_d things swing your way. 

Anti-democratic revolution.

Listen to moderates in your own party and make some pretty minor adjustments in conversation with the electorate. See Mounk. 

We've got enough on our hands here with out own fool of a PM. We don't want another Trump presidency. Be tactical! Close those goals conservatives keep finding wide open. 

Justice of the cause means nothing if you're not in power. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only thing that’s worked in the past is to give white voters something they value even more than hegemony—full pockets. It’s crass and cold but also accurate. A relentless and effective economic agenda and message will wipe out their identity concerns for a time. That’s it. That was the Clinton playbook. That was what held Obama up. The economy. It’s not possible to even deliver on that tho when half the states are sabotaging their own recovery with mass casualties and there’s a bleeping pandemic affecting global supplies and work. There are plenty of people who will accept all of the stuff Fritz keeps complaining about (couldn’t care less about its impacts TBH) *IF* and only if they are doing very, very well. At the moment, most of us aren’t. COVID sucks.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

You can't lead if people aren't following. 

There's no valor in 'leading' if you lose the vote. 

I mean, this is how politics works. You have to win an election first before you get to enact policy.  

And that means appealing to swing voters. 

Um, except that a majority of the people in the US *don't* want the white supremacist agenda.  The gerrymandering along with our winner-take-all system, and combined with the recent purges of voter lists (mostly of non-white voters) and new restrictive voting rules and shutting down of polls in non-white majority areas meaning that many can't access them at all and those that do have to wait hours and hours in line, when many can't take a whole day off (or even a few hours) without jeapordizing their jobs.  The winner-take-all system also means that if you live in a district that tends to swing hard one way or the other, many people don't bother to vote - if you agree with the majority, you're going to win anyway, and if you're in the minority then your vote doesn't count at all.  Every vote in the district goes to the winner.

And they are doing this *precisely* to be relevant, to be catered to, to be appealed to.  There should be no need to appeal to the infamous 'swing' voters.  The last two Republican presidents have been voted in only by electoral college shenanigans - gerrymandering the Congressional seats both keeps Republicans much more in the majority in congress than is representative in their states, AND flows upstream to the EC.  We are locked into a dual system because unlike most democracies in the world, we do not have proportional representation, nor any way to introduce a viable third party.

[hshibley]

27 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Um, except that a majority of the people in the US *don't* want the white supremacist agenda.  The gerrymandering along with our winner-take-all system, and combined with the recent purges of voter lists (mostly of non-white voters) and new restrictive voting rules and shutting down of polls in non-white majority areas meaning that many can't access them at all and those that do have to wait hours and hours in line, when many can't take a whole day off (or even a few hours) without jeapordizing their jobs.  The winner-take-all system also means that if you live in a district that tends to swing hard one way or the other, many people don't bother to vote - if you agree with the majority, you're going to win anyway, and if you're in the minority then your vote doesn't count at all.  Every vote in the district goes to the winner.

This. If you don’t live in the USA you can’t appreciate the effects of gerrymandering on elections. I live in a state with a basic 50-50 split of Democrats and Republicans. However our Republican state house has redisticted our US House seats where 10 will be solidly Republican and 4 will be Democratic. 

[Faith-manor]

9 minutes ago, hshibley said:

This. If you don’t live in the USA you can’t appreciate the effects of gerrymandering on elections. I live in a state with a basic 50-50 split of Democrats and Republicans. However our Republican state house has redisticted our US House seats where 10 will be solidly Republican and 4 will be Democratic. 

Here too. We did vote on this statewide and an independent commission was to draw up new district lines that make sense. But a certain party that benefits very heavily from gerrymandering in this state has interfered, interfered, interfered.

Our system is beyond broken, and it is going to put fascists in the driver's seat.

[hshibley]

4 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Here too. We did vote on this statewide and an independent commission was to draw up new district lines that make sense. But a certain party that benefits very heavily from gerrymandering in this state has interfered, interfered, interfered.

Our system is beyond broken, and it is going to put fascists in the driver's seat.

We need to go to algorithmic computer drawn districts. Yes it could still be manipulated but it can’t be any worse. 

[Melissa Louise]

If you don't want to do democracy, then feel free to make the case for progressive authoritarianism or whatever the heck you have in mind to replace it. 

But if you don't play the 'get the swing vote' game, don't be surprised when the swing vote' doesn't go your way. 

 

[kokotg]

3 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

If you don't want to do democracy, then feel free to make the case for progressive authoritarianism or whatever the heck you have in mind to replace it. 

But if you don't play the 'get the swing vote' game, don't be surprised when the swing vote' doesn't go your way. 

 

I'll settle for an actual representative democracy: see above. 

[Melissa Louise]

Just now, kokotg said:

I'll settle for an actual representative democracy: see above. 

Go for it. Working towards that is certainly a better look than this kind of nonsense.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-white-women-who-just-elected-glenn-youngkin-are-killing-america

 

[kokotg]

Do we care what Black parents think about how their kids are taught about race in school? Or nah, because they aren't as likely to be swing voters? 

I mean, they literally ran an ad saying white kids in college level classes are too fragile to read Beloved. If that's the culture war, then, yeah, I guess you have to fight the culture war. 

[Melissa Louise]

5 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Do we care what Black parents think about how their kids are taught about race in school? Or nah, because they aren't as likely to be swing voters? 

I mean, they literally ran an ad saying white kids in college level classes are too fragile to read Beloved. If that's the culture war, then, yeah, I guess you have to fight the culture war. 

If you want to win, then yeah. You gotta play the game. My party just ditched policy on my top issue - it doesn't play with swing voters. They've dropped it to try and get in so they can deal with things like climate. They're right to do so, even though it sets us back on that particular issue.  

If you bothered to read the Mounk piece, he's not even talking about dropping policy! 

[Faith-manor]

7 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Do we care what Black parents think about how their kids are taught about race in school? Or nah, because they aren't as likely to be swing voters? 

I mean, they literally ran an ad saying white kids in college level classes are too fragile to read Beloved. If that's the culture war, then, yeah, I guess you have to fight the culture war. 

Oy! I didn't see the ad. Makes my brain twitch. Maybe they should take their special, fragile snowflake students home so the other college students can get an education and engage in meaningful debate.

[ktgrok]

No longer ignoring racial issues is not the same as being obsessed with them. 

[Dmmetler]

17 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Do we care what Black parents think about how their kids are taught about race in school? Or nah, because they aren't as likely to be swing voters? 

I mean, they literally ran an ad saying white kids in college level classes are too fragile to read Beloved. If that's the culture war, then, yeah, I guess you have to fight the culture war. 

My kid's college has an essay question on the application for "What is the book you've read which affected you the most, and why"? For the class who entered this fall, #1 was The Hate U Give, and #2 was Beloved.

 

All I can think is that the folks wanting to ban these books are scared that their kids will grow up to attend Liberal Arts colleges :). 

[kokotg]

17 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Oy! I didn't see the ad. Makes my brain twitch. Maybe they should take their special, fragile snowflake students home so the other college students can get an education and engage in meaningful debate.

This was an AP high school class...but I suspect the same sorts of parents are e-mailing professors once their kids get to college, too!

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

But if you don't play the 'get the swing vote' game, don't be surprised when the swing vote' doesn't go your way. 

That is literally the only game played in the US.  All the money, all the campaigning, all the ads, it's all focused on the few states that are 'purple'.   And then gerrymandering and voter suprressing the living heck out of the red states that have younger populations that might turn them purple so they don't have to be worried about.  And since even though a majority of the population lives in costal states and cities that are blue, we can ignore them becuase the states full of empty have way more voting heft (in the presidential election, one person's vote in Wyoming is worth almost 4x as much as one person's vote in California).

[Matryoshka]

dp

Edited November 5, 2021 by Matryoshka

[Melissa Louise]

28 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

That is literally the only game played in the US.  All the money, all the campaigning, all the ads, it's all focused on the few states that are 'purple'.   And then gerrymandering and voter suprressing the living heck out of the red states that have younger populations that might turn them purple so they don't have to be worried about.  And since even though a majority of the population lives in costal states and cities that are blue, we can ignore them becuase the states full of empty have way more voting heft (in the presidential election, one person's vote in Wyoming is worth almost 4x as much as one person's vote in California).

Political reform is a lot harder than shouting about how ww are killing America, that's for sure. 

Dem party advisors on TV in the last 24 hrs saying the same thing as Mounk. PBS News Hour. 

[Eos]

A bit of good news from the state that brought you Susan Collins:

https://bangordailynews.com/2021/11/04/news/critical-race-theory-and-mask-mandates-were-losing-issues-in-maine-school-board-races-joam40zk0w/

Centrists win here, screamers not so much.

[Sneezyone]

5 minutes ago, Eos said:

A bit of good news from the state that brought you Susan Collins:

https://bangordailynews.com/2021/11/04/news/critical-race-theory-and-mask-mandates-were-losing-issues-in-maine-school-board-races-joam40zk0w/

Centrists win here, screamers not so much.

Centrists generally win here too but we’re so close to DC that it taints local races too. Locally, the ads about CRT weren’t targeted toward my demo so I didn’t see them in real time. I heard about them tho. They ran on platforms where they would reach their intended targets.

[Sneezyone]

7 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

And Newshour hosted James Carville who hasn't been relevant since 1996. 

He’s been retired for 20 years and only gets trotted out at election time. Practically the crypt-keeper. He was the genius behind triangulation, pacifying white voters on identity issues with mandatory minimum/disparate drug sentencing laws for minorities and simultaneously serving up balanced budgets. Very popular, that combo, so popular that people largely ignored the personal peccadillos. That used to work in Arkansas and West Virginia. But people like former Governor Beebe and Current  Governor Hutchinson are a dying/dead breed. They won by CATERING TO OR AT LEAST ACCOMMODATING racism. I don’t think that’s a sustainable strategy going forward. It demotivates voters on the opposite side and creates a swell of anger that will eventually be the permanent governing majority in the US.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

Ultimately, “CRT” falls squarely within a long and sordid history of animating racist sentiment for the benefit of some over others. It’s not going away as a strategy but there is justifiable frustration (and venting) that it continues to be a successful strategy for swaying some voters. The blanket, ham-fisted policy changes that are made as a result HURT PEOPLE. That seems to get lost every flipping time. I would argue that accommodating this vicious cycle or catering to those most susceptible to dog-whistle/foghorn messages isn’t a working strategy anymore. I don’t know exactly what the new strategy will look like but I know it will have to include significant changes in our economic condition that probably won’t be possible until COVID is managed globally or there’s another world war to distract us. I also know it’s going to have to include giving voters most affected by anti-CRT like rhetoric something or someone to vote FOR.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Sneezyone

[hshibley]

9 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

That is literally the only game played in the US.  All the money, all the campaigning, all the ads, it's all focused on the few states that are 'purple'.   And then gerrymandering and voter suprressing the living heck out of the red states that have younger populations that might turn them purple so they don't have to be worried about.  And since even though a majority of the population lives in costal states and cities that are blue, we can ignore them becuase the states full of empty have way more voting heft (in the presidential election, one person's vote in Wyoming is worth almost 4x as much as one person's vote in California).

 

8 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

Political reform is a lot harder than shouting about how ww are killing America, that's for sure. 

Dem party advisors on TV in the last 24 hrs saying the same thing as Mounk. PBS News Hour. 

I live in a swing county in one of the few swing states in the nation. I volunteer with the DNC. The amount of money, volunteers from all over the country, and politician visits (and this applies to both sides) to my area is obscene considering the small number of Americans who live here. My parents live in a nonswing state have never seen a presidential candidate campaign in person in their entire lives. They live in a much more populated area but the reality is that their vote doesn’t matter. 
 

We don’t live in a democracy and never have. 
 

Also James Carville is part of the problem and why we are where we are. 
 

[Pam in CT]

re gerrymandering

10 hours ago, hshibley said:

We need to go to algorithmic computer drawn districts. Yes it could still be manipulated but it can’t be any worse. 

It's not the tools used that matters so much as who wields the tools.  Plenty of the very worst crack & stack gerrymanders (NC most recently) HAVE been algorithmic; they've utilized house-by-house datamining to cut districts with electronic scalpels. 

The real issue is who uses the tools.  And the real solution -- that most other representative systems in most other grownup countries use -- is to have truly independent commissions do the map work, rather than having state legislatures draw the maps.  Which enables, in the Terminator's immortal words, "the legislators to choose their constituents instead of the constituents to choose their representatives."

 

re "if you want to do democracy..."

10 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

If you don't want to do democracy, then feel free to make the case for progressive authoritarianism or whatever the heck you have in mind to replace it. 

But if you don't play the 'get the swing vote' game, don't be surprised when the swing vote' doesn't go your way.

There's actually a real rallying cry among one of our parties that the US is NOT a democracy. That we are a REPUBLIC.  This is a pretty good scholarly (pro-Republic) version of the argument (involving sober brakes ensuring against marjoritarian encroachment and the threat that "egalitarianism: threatens "economic distinctions that undergrid our liberty."

The version of the crowd now hoisting 1776 flags over their houses (symbolism very much related to this thread; 1776 has very recently emerged as symbology directly in response to the 1619 project, which sparked the  furious "CRT!!" backlash we're amplifying here) is rather more transparent.  Sure, Montana with 1M population has identical Senate representation than California with 40M. Yes, that translates to ~12% of the US population controlling the Senate.   Yes, NC votes ~50% blue in statewide races but due to district drawing place only 3-4 Representatives, and that is worse in state legislative races.  Yes, since 1992 Democrats have won the popular vote in every presidential election but one... and yet.

To the 1776 segment, all that "failure to do democracy" is a very cherished feature, not a bug to be corrected.  It goes far beyond the "protection against majoritarian infringement as laid out by Heritage; it enables, structurally, sustained minority rule. 

[It also, in all sorts of structural ways, functions AGAINST the "go for the swing voter" tactic, arithmetically.  But that is a longer post.]

The takeaway for this thread is: our society has not ever had "democracy" in the sense that later representative systems have gone on to develop.  And though our system does have mechanisms that could allow us to more in more "democratic" directions, we have a very large segment that is very determined to wield 1776 tools to ensure the 1776 distribution of power remains intact.

 

[Carol in Cal.]

12 hours ago, kokotg said:

Do we care what Black parents think about how their kids are taught about race in school? Or nah, because they aren't as likely to be swing voters? 

I mean, they literally ran an ad saying white kids in college level classes are too fragile to read Beloved. If that's the culture war, then, yeah, I guess you have to fight the culture war. 

Wow.

[Sneezyone]

17 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Wow.

Are you shocked by the ad or the question?

[Carol in Cal.]

7 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Are you shocked by the ad or the question?

The ad, obs.  What a stupid question.  I mean, I don’t think ‘Beloved’ is a particularly good book, but the idea that college kids would be traumatized by it is just ridiculous.  

[Sneezyone]

5 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

The ad, obs.  What a stupid question.  I mean, I don’t think ‘Beloved’ is a particularly good book, but the idea that college kids would be traumatized by it is just ridiculous.  

Actually, it’s not at all obvious. Lots of people were swayed by that argument. It’s hard for folks like my Dad in SoCal to understand the potency of those arguments in diversifying places like this.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Sneezyone

[kokotg]

 

3 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

The ad, obs.  What a stupid question.  I mean, I don’t think ‘Beloved’ is a particularly good book, but the idea that college kids would be traumatized by it is just ridiculous.  

Beloved presents an unflinching look at the horrors of slavery. It's important to understand that very often when people talk about "banning CRT" this is exactly what they're talking about. The argument is no more complex than that for many people: white children should not have to hear what slavery was like. 

[Carol in Cal.]

1 minute ago, kokotg said:

 

Beloved presents an unflinching look at the horrors of slavery. It's important to understand that very often when people talk about "banning CRT" this is exactly what they're talking about. The argument is no more complex than that for many people: white children should not have to hear what slavery was like. 

Right, it’s just not very well written.  There are lots of books that present that, and this happens to be one that I don’t care for.  It’s won lots of recognition from those who disagree with me about it’s specific value, and that is fine, but if I were picking something unflinching I would do one that read better.  Having said that, as all of us undoubtedly have experienced, there is a diversity of views on what constitutes good literature, and in college and even high school we have to study some books that we don’t like.  It’s ridiculous to think that this should be banned at the college level.

[Sneezyone]

3 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Right, it’s just not very well written.  There are lots of books that present that, and this happens to be one that I don’t care for.  It’s won lots of recognition from those who disagree with me about it’s specific value, and that is fine, but if I were picking something unflinching I would do one that read better.  Having said that, as all of us undoubtedly have experienced, there is a diversity of views on what constitutes good literature, and in college and even high school we have to study some books that we don’t like.  It’s ridiculous to think that this should be banned at the college level.

This was an AP Lit class which is ostensibly taught at the college level but the student  referenced in the ad was a senior taking a high school class.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Carol in Cal.]

5 minutes ago, kokotg said:

 

Beloved presents an unflinching look at the horrors of slavery. It's important to understand that very often when people talk about "banning CRT" this is exactly what they're talking about. The argument is no more complex than that for many people: white children should not have to hear what slavery was like. 

PS. IME what people are talking about when they talk about banning CRT is avoiding teaching kids from an early age that they are bad because of the color of their skin.  As Condi Rice so aptly put it, ‘We have done that before and should not do it again.’  I agree with her about that.
 

I also believe that unflinching presentation of the facts around slavery, racism, redlining, etc. in teaching history is both appropriate and necessary.  There was a good list of such facts earlier in this thread, I think by Snz, and I agree that it should be taught just that way, as fact.  

Hence I imagine that this nuanced view will offend just about everyone.  But whatever, it’s the truth as I see it.

[Sneezyone]

8 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

PS. IME what people are talking about when they talk about banning CRT is avoiding teaching kids from an early age that they are bad because of the color of their skin.  As Condi Rice so aptly put it, ‘We have done that before and should not do it again.’  I agree with her about that.
 

I also believe that unflinching presentation of the facts around slavery, racism, redlining, etc. in teaching history is both appropriate and necessary.  There was a good list of such facts earlier in this thread, I think by Snz, and I agree that it should be taught just that way, as fact.  

Hence I imagine that this nuanced view will offend just about everyone.  But whatever, it’s the truth as I see it.

If that is what folks actually meant (given the actual legislation that’s been passed/proposed I think it’s fair to say that it’s not) there would be tons of agreement. It wouldn’t be a wedge issue at all. I don’t want kids lined up by their privilege or whatever anymore than I want them to reenact slave auctions with brown kids being bid on. There’s a lot of questionable stuff.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Fritz]

31 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

PS. IME what people are talking about when they talk about banning CRT is avoiding teaching kids from an early age that they are bad because of the color of their skin.  As Condi Rice so aptly put it, ‘We have done that before and should not do it again.’  I agree with her about that.
 

I also believe that unflinching presentation of the facts around slavery, racism, redlining, etc. in teaching history is both appropriate and necessary.  There was a good list of such facts earlier in this thread, I think by Snz, and I agree that it should be taught just that way, as fact.  

Hence I imagine that this nuanced view will offend just about everyone.  But whatever, it’s the truth as I see it.

This exactly! But the left would rather double down on the narrative that white people don't want their precious children to learn about slavery etc... It is just a cover for what they really want to push forward which is what has (as we have seen in the Zoom lessons, books such as Not My Idea, deconstructing whiteness lesson, determining who is oppressed-vs-oppressors etc,) been being taught in these lessons that thanks to the pandemic parents got to see first hand. They continue to deny that this has happened or continue to use the argument "that's not CRT". I don't care what you call it it's racist garbage and has no place in the classroom. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by Fritz

[Carol in Cal.]

I just would like to say that it is super interesting that Sneezeyone, Fritz, and I all agree on what should be taught and what shouldn’t be taught, like 9 pages in.  I think there is a lesson there.  

I would also like to note that there is always a relentless law of unintended consequences, and nowhere is it more evident than in legislation.  

And also that sometimes the consequences are indeed NOT unintended, but rather a clever, nefarious scheme to accomplish something that most would decry.

Hence it is really important to have thorough legal vetting, and FOTCourt briefs are immensely helpful at times.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Carol in Cal.

[Sneezyone]

33 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I just would like to say that it is super interesting that Sneezeyone, Fritz, and I all agree on what should be taught and what shouldn’t be taught, like 9 pages in.  I think there is a lesson there.  

I would also like to note that there is always a relentless law of unintended consequences, and nowhere is it more evident than in legislation.  

And also that sometimes the consequences are indeed NOT unintended, but rather a clever, nefarious scheme to accomplish something that most would decry.

Hence it is really important to have thorough legal vetting, and FOTCourt briefs are immensely helpful at times.

Yes and no. This was not unintended consequences. From the time this issue reared its head, many of us said the intended goal was eliminating core content in history and English. Those arguments fell on deaf ears. We pointed out the instantaneous introduction of copycat bills in some 15 states that were rushed through within weeks without a lot of public testimony. Instead, we got clear and convincing evidence that a sizable portion of the electorate either agreed with those aims or ignored existing evidence.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Sneezyone

[kokotg]

11 minutes ago, Fritz said:

This exactly! But the left would rather double down on the narrative that white people don't want their precious children to learn about slavery etc... It is just a cover for what they really want to push forward which is what has (as we have seen in the Zoom lessons, books such as Not My Idea, deconstructing whiteness lesson, determining who is oppressed-vs-oppressors etc,) been being taught in these lessons that thanks to the pandemic parents got to see first hand. They continue to deny that this has happened or continue to use the argument "that's not CRT". I don't care what you call it it's racist garbage and has no place in the classroom. 

The left isn't who ran the ad about Beloved. YOU may think that's not what people are objecting to, but someone's spending a lot of money on ads to say that it IS what they're objecting to, and it's not the left. I'm not sure why I shouldn't take the Youngkin campaign at their word.

[Dmmetler]

One problem is that many schools/districts have cut funds for almost anything except reading and math. So, History and literature have been tossed out as priorities for training. The result is that you end up with teachers searching "Black History" or "Social-Emotional Learning" on teachers pay teachers or similar sites, printing out an activity and using it without knowing what they're doing. Or, in some cases, without really even reading it first. And then you end up with some thoroughly horrible stuff that is downright traumatizing to students. Add the push to add "cross curricular content" and you get stuff like kids being told to decide how much slaves should sell for in math class.  

 

Here's an example of an initiative that is local to me. The teacher training and materials they provide are excellent, and do a good job of following the Fred Rodgers adage of "Look for the helpers"-that yes, there have been a lot of dark times in history, but along with the bad, here are the people, the groups, the movements that were positive, and that it isn't clearly divided along set lines, and that you, as an individual, have the opportunity to make choices that will impact the future. It is an excellent history program with a lot of depth and a lot of use of historical fiction, while also being very empowering and supportive of students. But, funds for such programs basically stopped along with NCLB. I'm guessing there are a lot of their materials sitting in book rooms, but that many of the teachers who actually had the training and workshops and were able to use them in a more nuanced way have retired or moved out of teaching entirely.  And while I was thoroughly impressed and got a lot out of the training provided by this program when I did it, I could easily see it turning into "making kids feel bad because they're white" in the wrong hands. 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2021 by Dmmetler

[kokotg]

There's also the push to remove books from Texas school libraries: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1051471236/texas-governor-abbott-calls-for-removal-of-obscene-school-library-books

It's strange that people keep insisting the CRT panic has nothing to do with banning books when it very clearly does for a great many people.

[Sneezyone]

In addition, I have very real concerns that the incoming governor will impose these copycat gag rules on public schools by executive order. My kids will be directly affected by that. I feel like I’ve been running all over the world, state to state to country to state, trying to escape this nonsense. I’m tired.

[Carol in Cal.]

7 minutes ago, kokotg said:

There's also the push to remove books from Texas school libraries: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1051471236/texas-governor-abbott-calls-for-removal-of-obscene-school-library-books

It's strange that people keep insisting the CRT panic has nothing to do with banning books when it very clearly does for a great many people.

This article doesn’t read like a CRT ban push to me.  It’s a related but different issue.

And there is actually a genuine issue to be dealt with IMO, which is that lots of books currently available have very detailed, viscerally written descriptions of violence, sex, torture, and other harrowing topics that are actually inappropriate in a classroom, particularly if reading aloud is part of the learning environment.  It’s one thing to allude to and somewhat describe these things, but quite another to write them out so vividly that readers experience them like witnesses.  Auditing a school library for those is a step further away from what I would consider inappropriate but it’s right at that edge depending on the age of the students.

But I’m know I’m weird like that.  I mean, I refused to teach Huckleberry Finn to DD in 8th grade because I didn’t want to say the N word even in a read aloud.  So there you go.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Carol in Cal.

[Dmmetler]

In one of the local suburbs here, just over the state line, there is a call to remove books that are sending "bad messages to kids" from the PUBLIC library. Here's the example that was given on FB this morning-https://smile.amazon.com/Transgender-Children-Youth-Cultivating-Transition-ebook/dp/B01LQXHS18/ref=sr_1_2?crid=25B8KMDAG1PZD&keywords=transgender+children+and+youth+nealy&qid=1636131566&sprefix=transgender+children+and+youth%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-2

 

It's a parenting book for parents who have a child who is struggling with gender identity. 

[Sneezyone]

38 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

This article doesn’t read like a CRT ban push to me.  It’s a related but different issue.

And there is actually a genuine issue to be dealt with IMO, which is that lots of books currently available have very detailed, viscerally written descriptions of violence, sex, torture, and other harrowing topics that are actually inappropriate in a classroom, particularly if reading aloud is part of the learning environment.  It’s one thing to allude to and somewhat describe these things, but quite another to write them out so vividly that readers experience them like witnesses.  Auditing a school library for those is a step further away from what I would consider inappropriate but it’s right at that edge depending on the age of the students.

But I’m know I’m weird like that.  I mean, I refused to teach Huckleberry Finn to DD in 8th grade because I didn’t want to say the N word even in a read aloud.  So there you go.

Yes, well, you all know that I feel very strongly that Huck Finn is of the devil but you don’t see me leading the charge to remove it from library shelves. My son checks novels out of the school library every two or three days. I don’t restrict his reading. I don't want other parents to do it either.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Carol in Cal.]

Just now, Sneezyone said:

Yes, well, you all know that I feel very strongly that Huck Finn is of the devil but you don’t see me leading the charge to remove it from library shelves. My son checks novels of the school library every two or three days. I don’t restrict his reading. I don't want other parents to do it either.

Yeah, like I said the audit of the library is another step further.  And FTR I did not ban DD from reading it, I just didn’t teach it.  

[Fritz]

30 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

One problem is that many schools/districts have cut funds for almost anything except reading and math. So, History and literature have been tossed out as priorities for training. The result is that you end up with teachers searching "Black History" or "Social-Emotional Learning" on teachers pay teachers or similar sites, printing out an activity and using it without knowing what they're doing. Or, in some cases, without really even reading it first. And then you end up with some thoroughly horrible stuff that is downright traumatizing to students. Add the push to add "cross curricular content" and you get stuff like kids being told to decide how much slaves should sell for in math class.  

 

Here's an example of an initiative that is local to me. The teacher training and materials they provide are excellent, and do a good job of following the Fred Rodgers adage of "Look for the helpers"-that yes, there have been a lot of dark times in history, but along with the bad, here are the people, the groups, the movements that were positive, and that it isn't clearly divided along set lines, and that you, as an individual, have the opportunity to make choices that will impact the future. It is an excellent history program with a lot of depth and a lot of use of historical fiction, while also being very empowering and supportive of students. But, funds for such programs basically stopped along with NCLB. I'm guessing there are a lot of their materials sitting in book rooms, but that many of the teachers who actually had the training and workshops and were able to use them in a more nuanced way have retired or moved out of teaching entirely.  And while I was thoroughly impressed and got a lot out of the training provided by this program when I did it, I could easily see it turning into "making kids feel bad because they're white" in the wrong hands. 

 

 

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-red-pilling-of-loudoun-county

And yet many school systems find money to spend on this. 

 Still others were troubled by a controversy involving the process by which an outside consultancy called the Equity Collaborative came to be hired, at a cost of roughly $500,000, to conduct an “equity assessment” based on a report of racial insensitivity at one school.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9785805/Small-California-school-district-spend-40m-ethnic-studies-semester-high-school-students.html

A small school district in California is planning to spend $40 million teaching 'ethnic studies' to high school students - with consultants training teachers on the new curriculum at a cost of $1,500 an hour.

 

[Fritz]

25 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

In one of the local suburbs here, just over the state line, there is a call to remove books that are sending "bad messages to kids" from the PUBLIC library. Here's the example that was given on FB this morning-https://smile.amazon.com/Transgender-Children-Youth-Cultivating-Transition-ebook/dp/B01LQXHS18/ref=sr_1_2?crid=25B8KMDAG1PZD&keywords=transgender+children+and+youth+nealy&qid=1636131566&sprefix=transgender+children+and+youth%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-2

 

It's a parenting book for parents who have a child who is struggling with gender identity. 

Nothing to do with CRT but does prove my point of CRT and DEI being rebranded (or lumped in with) as DEI.

[Dmmetler]

1 minute ago, Fritz said:

Nothing to do with CRT but does prove my point of CRT and DEI being rebranded (or lumped in with) as DEI.

What it shows is that it doesn't stop with not reading aloud books in elementary school classrooms. This is a book, in a public library, that is not intended for children at all, is not shelved in a children's section, and would likely not be of high interest to children. But yet, it's getting caught up in the fervor. 

 

 

[Fritz]

2 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

What it shows is that it doesn't stop with not reading aloud books in elementary school classrooms. This is a book, in a public library, that is not intended for children at all, is not shelved in a children's section, and would likely not be of high interest to children. But yet, it's getting caught up in the fervor. 

 

 

Gotcha. I don't see a problem with this being offered in a public library. 

[Sneezyone]

22 minutes ago, Fritz said:

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-red-pilling-of-loudoun-county

And yet many school systems find money to spend on this. 

 Still others were troubled by a controversy involving the process by which an outside consultancy called the Equity Collaborative came to be hired, at a cost of roughly $500,000, to conduct an “equity assessment” based on a report of racial insensitivity at one school.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9785805/Small-California-school-district-spend-40m-ethnic-studies-semester-high-school-students.html

A small school district in California is planning to spend $40 million teaching 'ethnic studies' to high school students - with consultants training teachers on the new curriculum at a cost of $1,500 an hour.

 

What would you have them do, Fritz? Take the floor. Opine for us. In the absence of staff training and equity work do you expect things to improve? How so? For whom? We can all list a parade of horribles. These are just backed by confirmed evidence of ongoing and lasting harm.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.www.complex.com/life/texas-high-schoolers-disciplined-for-holding-mock-slave-auction-classmates

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/03/02/heres-why-racist-school-assignments-slavery-persist-u-s/4389945001/

Edited November 5, 2021 by Sneezyone