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

[KSera]

35 minutes ago, Fritz said:

Glad you noticed the dearth of reporting on this incident by the liberal press. Why is that? 

It's a specific problem of the mainstream (not just liberal) press that we have discussed quite a bit here as of late. I thought I had seen you in those discussions as well? I think quite frankly that this is a topic the mainstream press doesn't have enough nuanced knowledge on to report well. They are coming from a perspective that they think is the most helpful/correct and the whole topic is a land mine right now. Neither side tends to do well by it at all--both are way polarized in one direction or the other. Melissa Louise shared in one of those threads what has become one of my favorite pieces on this topic, which I have reshared a couple times. I will do so again here if you are genuinely interested in learning some nuance on this topic:

What the media gets wrong on gender reassignment

45 minutes ago, Fritz said:

I don't follow twitter or whatever the posting above is of

You don't have to follow Twitter to read it (I don't have an account there myself, but anyone can read). It was pasted in this thread twice for anyone to read. I was asking you if you had read it? What do you think of it? Here it is again:

Th

This is where all the uproar about "CRT" has come from. Rufo did some interviews on TV and then certain press personalities took it from there and their followers lapped it up just the way it was intended and now here we are.

[elegantlion]

Here's a video that was shared with me by an American historian whose area of expertise is race in modern America. 

CRT is a framework to use to interpret history, one of many existing frameworks for any type of history. It is not history, it is not black history. 

As a TA for a US history course, I am amazed every semester. I will have a number of white students who are astounded to learn how persons of color have been treated in this country. THEY'VE NEVER BEEN TAUGHT, even those from good schools. Many of my students of color are not surprised.at.all. Stories of Emmett Till, how slave ships were "packed," how prevelant lynchings were in non-southern states (more atrocious is that people involved might take home "souveniers" from the lynching). I learned about events I had never heard of previously. I heard stories from my students that made me cry - things as a white woman and as a parent of a white male child that I would never have to experience. 

Until we all realize that the story of history must include the lived experience of persons of color then we're just repeating the mythology the good old days were really the good old days. 

[Roadrunner]

I think until there is a common understanding of what CRT is and isn’t, this conversation will continue to drift to all sorts of places. 
Gutting history from schools is nuts, serves no purpose, and should be unacceptable for any side. It is against everything we as a nation  stand for. But I could see a healthy debate if current racism justifies giving precedence to group rights (based in ethnic or racial lines) over individual rights, which is where my original understanding the CRT was leading into, but I see that I might have this upside down. 
 

[SlowRiver]

You could equally talk about identity politics, if you didn't want to use the term critical theory, though they are pretty intertwined. 

The difficulty for the parents that are objecting is that they can see that these approaches they object to are tied together but they find it difficult to articulate the link. Telling them what they are experiencing just isn't really a think is a great way of dismissing their concerns. What they are trying to point to is the kind of approaches that come out of books like White Fragility, or which they see in unconscious bias training. It's pretty disingenuous to make out that they are not seeing something real and connected.

And FWIW, I work in a school, and have kids in schools, and the same books and materials and fads are making their way from the US into schools in other countries. I've also talked with as many American parents who are struggling directly with it as I've seen deny it, and since I see the latter types saying the same things that similar people are saying here, I'm rather skeptical.

[KSera]

22 minutes ago, elegantlion said:

Here's a video that was shared with me by an American historian whose area of expertise is race in modern America. 

CRT is a framework to use to interpret history, one of many existing frameworks for any type of history. It is not history, it is not black history. 
 

Thanks for sharing this. I mostly skip videos because they take longer to watch, but this one was well worth it. I hope some of those worried that CRT is a thing to be feared that is infiltrating our schools will watch with an open mind. 

[Danae]

48 minutes ago, SlowRiver said:

You could equally talk about identity politics, if you didn't want to use the term critical theory, though they are pretty intertwined. 

The difficulty for the parents that are objecting is that they can see that these approaches they object to are tied together but they find it difficult to articulate the link. Telling them what they are experiencing just isn't really a think is a great way of dismissing their concerns. What they are trying to point to is the kind of approaches that come out of books like White Fragility, or which they see in unconscious bias training. It's pretty disingenuous to make out that they are not seeing something real and connected.

And FWIW, I work in a school, and have kids in schools, and the same books and materials and fads are making their way from the US into schools in other countries. I've also talked with as many American parents who are struggling directly with it as I've seen deny it, and since I see the latter types saying the same things that similar people are saying here, I'm rather skeptical.

Words have meanings.  Critical Race Theory is an actual thing.  What’s going on with the anti-CRT propaganda is the equivalent of yelling about how middle schools are teaching quantum mechanics and then giving examples of badly taught algebra.  And then drumming up quantum mechanics opposition and using it oppose teaching biology.  
 

[AnotherNewName]

4 hours ago, KSera said:

 

 

Honestly, could you try to start finding some more reliable sources to share here if you want to share news articles and discuss seriously? There's plenty to be upset about in this case without starting from a place of misinformation. I found decent reporting on it in the much more reliable Newsweek (not one of my usual sources, but they aren't bad). The school board was NOT trying to cover up what happened to this man's daughter, they did not know about it. Loudoun County Officials Address 'Misinformation' Over School Assaults

 

You are putting a lot of faith in the statements from a school board and a superintendent who all seem to have some issues with the truth.

According to the law, the superintendent (not the school board) should have been notified about investigations of sexual assaults on school grounds.  They are also required to file reports of all incidents with the state.  Based on known assaults and the reports filed by the district of no sexual assaults on campus it appears the district had been violating the law and they are currently under investigatiion by state authorities.  I don't like the Daily Wire but they have been doing actual investigative reporting and they have the receipts.

EXCLUSIVE: Loudoun Schools Did Not Record Multiple Alleged Sexual Assaults Over A Period Of Years Despite State Law, Records Show | The Daily Wire

[Roadrunner]

2 hours ago, SlowRiver said:

You could equally talk about identity politics, if you didn't want to use the term critical theory, though they are pretty intertwined. 

The difficulty for the parents that are objecting is that they can see that these approaches they object to are tied together but they find it difficult to articulate the link. Telling them what they are experiencing just isn't really a think is a great way of dismissing their concerns. What they are trying to point to is the kind of approaches that come out of books like White Fragility, or which they see in unconscious bias training. It's pretty disingenuous to make out that they are not seeing something real and connected.

And FWIW, I work in a school, and have kids in schools, and the same books and materials and fads are making their way from the US into schools in other countries. I've also talked with as many American parents who are struggling directly with it as I've seen deny it, and since I see the latter types saying the same things that similar people are saying here, I'm rather skeptical.

So I found somebody who articulates this well. Listening now. 
https://www.pbs.org/video/john-mcwhorter-6jyifa/

[KSera]

7 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

You are putting a lot of faith in the statements from a school board and a superintendent who all seem to have some issues with the truth.

I don’t know about the rest of your post as that goes into a wider issue than the one this post was about, but I’m basing what I said on the sheriff department’s statement. 

[AnotherNewName]

1 minute ago, KSera said:

I don’t know about the rest of your post as that goes into a wider issue than the one this post was about, but I’m basing what I said on the sheriff department’s statement. 

The sheriff department only stated the crime was reported to them, which I don't believe is up for debate. School districts have reporting requirements under Title IX.  They don't report assault details but they have to report incidents regardless of judicial outcome.  The superintendent has tried to blame Title IX changes for causing confusion but the lack of reports of known assaults from the district is suspicious.  Added to the fact that the student accused was on another campus a few months later and committed yet another assault and you ahve to suspect this is a district that is hiding information.

To cut to the chase, I believe the superintendent is a lying liar who lies.

[KSera]

10 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

The sheriff department only stated the crime was reported to them, which I don't believe is up for debate. School districts have reporting requirements under Title IX.  They don't report assault details but they have to report incidents regardless of judicial outcome.  The superintendent has tried to blame Title IX changes for causing confusion but the lack of reports of known assaults from the district is suspicious.  Added to the fact that the student accused was on another campus a few months later and committed yet another assault and you ahve to suspect this is a district that is hiding information.

To cut to the chase, I believe the superintendent is a lying liar who lies.

Okay. This isn’t a rabbit trail that I’m going to delve into. I’m participating in the thread for the CRT discussion, and commented on this part, but  honestly, I don’t want to have to read a bunch of details about sexual assaults and go back and forth about it. We all know sexual assaults are often handled very poorly and it’s an emotional, angering topic.

[KSera]

Ohhhh. Now things are clicking into place. I just overheard some clips from Fox News, and it hit all the random points that keep being dropped in this thread—CRT, school board protests, choice and charter schools, FBI, focus on the basics, etc. And it’s totally ridiculously inflammatory stuff —that it’s okay with the government if you set fire to a government building, but it’s not okay for a concerned mom to speak out about her child’s education at a public school board meeting 🙄. 

Edited October 16, 2021 by KSera
Typo

[Melissa Louise]

I've never watched Fox and I know about all the above from centre-left US journalists and commentators.

Not because they're allowed to publish, but because they're not. So they discuss/investigate/commentate/write on their own time.

All of them are anti bans and vote Dem 😯

The broader point they all seem to make is that when schools/boards squander trust, it's unsurprising trouble follows. 

[KSera]

8 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

I've never watched Fox and I know about all the above from centre-left US journalists and commentators.

Not because they're allowed to publish, but because they're not. So they discuss/investigate/commentate/write on their own time.

This is not that. This is really ridiculous stuff, not serious journalism. People who are familiar with Fox commentators will know what I’m talking about (Fox lawyers for one of the most well known of their hosts used the defense in court that their client couldn’t be guilty of slander because any reasonable person would know his commentaries are not based on facts). And there’s a long standing pattern that I think one would have to see to know, where the right wing media controls the discourse in often strange ways, and then you hear clips of a recent show and you realize why your mom is suddenly saying such and such wacky thing out of the blue. (I know these comments always result in a reply about left wing media, and left wing media has its problems as well, but I’m talking here about a very specific pattern that plays out specific to US right wing commentators, who have an outsized impact on their audience and seem to exist more to inflame their audience than to inform them.)

[KSera]

42 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

I think to have a good discussion about "CRT" everyone needs to do some homework. People need to read scholarly sources, not news articles. There are two components of this, IMHO. First, what is CRT? Where does it come from? What is it based on? There are some good podcasts that delve into this. Should anyone opine about "CRT" without doing some homework?

 

 

7 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

As @Pam in CTwrote above, it's hard to discuss these issues. It's not just doing homework like I wrote above. It's emotionally difficult to discuss issues of race. It requires us to be vulnerable. That's difficult in an environment with so much hostility and trolling. 

I really appreciated @elegantlion’s short video shared above from the historian. It’s a low barrier for entry into the conversation (it does require ten minutes), and really doesn’t require any vulnerability to watch. It’s hard for me to imagine someone would watch that and come away feeling hostile, though I don’t doubt I could be proven wrong.

[felicity]

On 10/14/2021 at 10:55 AM, Roadrunner said:

So I always ask this question - what makes a school crappy? 
I think for every school we need the basics - clean and well maintained facility, good teachers, basics school supplies, Chromebooks (since this is a new century). And hot meals. You can’t learn if you are hungry. That we could buy with funds.

What makes a school good beyond that? I don’t know. 

I can tell you that we looked at private schools, and besides an incredible cost, I didn’t think putting my kids among super rich who can charter flights for private parties and have valet parking for birthdays was going to be psychologically a good thing for my rural kids in 1k sf house. I would much prefer a well funded school where my kids go with members of their community. Now this breaks down if you live among gangs and super high crime. In that situation I want kids on the bus to a safe place, because you can’t learn if you are afraid for your safety either. 
 

I am for school choice for a number of reason. At least in a town closest to us that has plenty of charter schools, the segregation hasn’t been racial but more along the value lines - some rushed to super academic IB school, some are at Waldorf, some went to “no homework” charter, some to dual language program. I think that has been very good for kids. And considering massive lotteries families play for those options, they are in high demand. However again, in a small community where distance isn’t as big of an issue, it works. In a city where you have to negotiate several bus stops, it might not. 
So I think in some ways communities need to be involved in sorting through this and supported by fair distribution of funds. 

I agree with you on your list of the basic things that make a school good but if the school doesn't have money, they aren't going to have the basics. The chromebooks (if they have them) will be old and broken with keys that done work and cracks on the screen. They were probably paid for initially with a grant (yay!) but there was no thought to new students or what happens when kids are, well, kids, and the chromebook isn't as nice as the beginning. You can't maintain a school without custodians which cost money. Over time it gets less and less maintenance and the kids know they are going to a broken down school so they stop caring as well. They go to other, nicer schools for athletics or other activities and compare. They start feeling worse about themselves and know that people don't actually care about them. And don't get me started on food distribution at schools. There are actually articles about kids going hungry because they have a lunch balance or even having food taken out of their hands. 

When the money follows the students to the new charter down the street, the kids that are left behind suffer. It's just the truth. I have never heard of a community that does more than give lip service to fairly distributing the funds. We can talk about how great it would be to have the choice between Waldorf, IB, or whatever, but the people that benefit from that are the parents that have the language skills, the time, and the energy to sort through all of the paperwork and small details. There are many many people that don't who dearly love their children. They get left behind to do the best they can in an unfair environment. 

[felicity]

On 10/14/2021 at 10:34 AM, Fritz said:

As I said I just don't think we can fix everything for everyone without the parents having to make sacrifices for what is most important for them. 

The charter school closest to my home requires parents to volunteer a certain number of hours. There are weekend projects they can help with etc, so not necessarily during school hours. I don't see this as a bad thing. Parents need to be involved.

This school has been able to remain open throughout the pandemic. I am sure this has helped the working parents. 

I think parent involvement is so important. The schools that need to most involvement tend to be the ones that have the least. At least in my experience. But I also recognize that there are significant barriers to involvement. Seriously, if you live in a place where you don't speak English and are working 3-4 jobs between both parents, there are multiple little kids, and money is a constant struggle, as much as you love your kids and want to volunteer, you just can't. It would be lovely to say that if you can't do it during the week, just come on the weekend, but many people don't have "weekends. It really feels fairly tone deaf to tell people that can barely keep a roof over their heads or feed their children that they need to sacrifice for their children. 

From my experience people at Title 1 schools need time to breathe, to enjoy their children, and to know that their kids will be safe and cared for at school.

[Roadrunner]

Just now, Ordinary Shoes said:

Yes, it's a low barrier for entry but let's acknowledge that it doesn't qualify any of us to discuss "CRT." CRT is a complicated legal theory. I think a discussion about CRT requires more work. Those of us who have listened to the podcasts (the New Yorker podcast recommended by Pam was excellent as is the Southlake podcast) know enough to understand that CRT is complicated and isn't being taught in elementary schools. But I don't think it qualifies us to have a discussion about CRT itself. 

The most frustrating thing here is essentially the Rufo 'doctrine' in action. CRT is now this free floating thing of whatever a poster says it is today, basically whatever they don't like. And then we push back, "that's not CRT," but that's not engaged with. It's on to the next outrage. 

 

What is being done in elementary schools is somebody’s poorly thought out ideas on how to teach kids tolerance. And I don’t think this is widespread, at least not here. 
I couldn’t sleep last night and went on searching up some examples. Ran into Bill Maher’s episode with Kelly. If half of what she says is being done at her son’s school is right, then I really question the intelligence of people who are implementing those poorly thought out exercises that do nothing but damage to kids.

 

10 minutes ago, felicity said:

I think parent involvement is so important. The schools that need to most involvement tend to be the ones that have the least. At least in my experience. But I also recognize that there are significant barriers to involvement. Seriously, if you live in a place where you don't speak English and are working 3-4 jobs between both parents, there are multiple little kids, and money is a constant struggle, as much as you love your kids and want to volunteer, you just can't. It would be lovely to say that if you can't do it during the week, just come on the weekend, but many people don't have "weekends. It really feels fairly tone deaf to tell people that can barely keep a roof over their heads or feed their children that they need to sacrifice for their children. 

From my experience people at Title 1 schools need time to breathe, to enjoy their children, and to know that their kids will be safe and cared for at school.

Having grown up in a different county where parental involvement in schools is nonexistent, I assure you one can run an excellent school without a single parent at school. What one needs is a parent at home who can drive the message that learning is important, somebody to ask if homework is done, somebody to turn off TV at night and tuck you into bed, somebody who can feed you a hot meal. You need learning to be valued at home even if parents done have time to actual spend helping. 
 

I have come to believe that we are paralyzed because we are all searching for the one model that solves everything. We can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. 

[elegantlion]

IMO - uninformed as it is - the larger conversation is about how to teach/talk about race in school. CRT has taken on this ominous "they" perception that only detracts from the actual issue. 

Beyond all the yelling, there are legitimate questions on how to do so. The need is there, as long as predominately white schools are doing things like having students sending petitions around to bring back slavery or inviting girls to dances using racist messages. 

What the instructor I TA for touches on a lot of racial issues, some of which may not be appropriate at the elementary age - but until the yelling about CRT stops, we can't have actual discourse. 

For instance, Sally Hemings - should we talked about an enslaved person having a s*xual relationship with Jefferson. Sure. Should we talk about the fact she was Jefferson's wife 1/2 sister and that by the time Sally had her first child with Jefferson she was only 16? Should we discuss the power imbalance and label it r*pe in middle school? I don't know, we can do a lot of talking about it before we help students the real horrific nature of enslavers.  Should we do like we do in the college classroom and show clips from Amistad in middle school? Maybe not.  These are long haul conversations that need to start in elementary and continue and build, not to traumatize and guilt or vicitmize modern individuals, but to inform and blast away the stereotypes of the past educators, such as the picture below, which shows a black family coming to the US as equals - something that is blantantly false. 

I took diversity training in the early 1990s as a corporate employee. The jist was to remember not everyone is like you, not everyone has the same experience as you, what you know about the others in the room may not be the actual reality, and it would be nice to consider everyone in the room. 

[felicity]

6 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

My daughter's private school requires a minimum number of volunteer hours from parents. You either work the hours or write a check. I find it nearly impossible to do enough work hours. They require you to volunteer hours but don't provide many opportunities. They rarely ask parents to volunteer. There is a tight little network of 'in' mothers who do everything. If they need help, they ask their friends. Every once in a while they will ask for volunteers but it is almost always during the workday. They don't give much advance notice to allow people to ask for time off. 

 

That is a problem with parent organizations at many schools. You have to be very intentional and careful with requiring parent volunteer hours. I have time and energy plus the money to donate if I didn't. I recognize my privilege. A lot of schools and school activities operate like we live in the "Leave it to Beaver" world which doesn't exist for most anymore and never did for many.

 

[felicity]

1 minute ago, Roadrunner said:

Having grown up in a different county where parental involvement in schools is nonexistent, I assure you one can run an excellent school without a single parent at school. What one needs is a parent at home who can drive the message that learning is important, somebody to ask if homework is done, somebody to turn off TV at night and tuck you into bed, somebody who can feed you a hot meal. You need learning to be valued at home even if parents done have time to actual spend helping. 
 

I have come to believe that we are paralyzed because we are all searching for the one model that solves everything. We can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. 

I guess I should have been more clear; you don't need to be a parent coming into the school constantly to be involved. By parent involvement I mean exactly what you stated above. Many students have parents that aren't able to give even those things to their children. 

The perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good but at the same time the perfect and good shouldn't be separated by socioeconomic lines. There are ways to make schools more equitable if we're willing to do them. 

[Roadrunner]

10 minutes ago, felicity said:

I guess I should have been more clear; you don't need to be a parent coming into the school constantly to be involved. By parent involvement I mean exactly what you stated above. Many students have parents that aren't able to give even those things to their children. 

The perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good but at the same time the perfect and good shouldn't be separated by socioeconomic lines. There are ways to make schools more equitable if we're willing to do them. 

Only things I listed aren’t things schools can fix, maybe with the exception of hot meals. 

What government can do though is figure out financially what it takes to run a school and give all public schools the same per student amount. Then it can make sure teachers we hire are well trained (in my opinion one of the biggest problems we have now), and maybe pay a little more to teach in areas that are having hard time attracting teachers. Funding is where equity can come. 
We could also fund bus system better. Money can’t buy everything, but it can pay for a lot that can make a difference.

I personally would bus the high performing kids out of terrible high schools to community colleges starting now. This sort of stuff can happen with funds and some ingenuity. 
 

[felicity]

1 minute ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

The work I've done at school is pretty worthless. I've helped xerox and staple. I've helped at school holiday parties with distributing cake and cleaning up. I don't think teachers should have to clean up after kids but why are we having a party in school anyway? A decently funded school wouldn't need that kind of assistance from parents. 

I have to say, if I had someone to help me make copies and staple, I would be thrilled!

We have dances that we ask for volunteers to help set and clean up. Those are after school. I think it's different in elementary sometimes. 

[felicity]

2 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Only things I listed aren’t things schools can fix, maybe with the exception of hot meals. 

What government can do though is figure out financially what it takes to run a school and give all public schools the same per student amount. Then it can make sure teachers we hire are well trained (in my opinion one of the biggest problems we have now), and maybe pay a little more to teach in areas that are having hard time attracting teachers. Funding is where equity can come. 
We could also fund bus system better. Money can’t buy everything, but it can pay for a lot that can make a difference.

I personally would bus the high performing kids out of terrible high schools to community colleges starting now. This sort of stuff can happen with funds and some ingenuity. 
 

No, schools can't help parents have more time to check homework and stuff but I was making it clear that when I was talking about parent involvement, I wasn't just talking about physically coming into schools. But those things take time and energy and affect how a school does overall. 

As I said above, schools in CA get the same amount per student. It follows the student if they go to a charter or stays at their neighborhood schools. The difference comes with fundraising. Schools with wealthier people can fundraise more and do more. Other schools have to make do with what the school gets per student. Which means they have to make tougher choices. Until school fundraising is equalized, schools won't be equal.

[rainbird2]

17 hours ago, elegantlion said:

Here's a video that was shared with me by an American historian whose area of expertise is race in modern America. 

CRT is a framework to use to interpret history, one of many existing frameworks for any type of history. It is not history, it is not black history. 

As a TA for a US history course, I am amazed every semester. I will have a number of white students who are astounded to learn how persons of color have been treated in this country. THEY'VE NEVER BEEN TAUGHT, even those from good schools. Many of my students of color are not surprised.at.all. Stories of Emmett Till, how slave ships were "packed," how prevelant lynchings were in non-southern states (more atrocious is that people involved might take home "souveniers" from the lynching). I learned about events I had never heard of previously. I heard stories from my students that made me cry - things as a white woman and as a parent of a white male child that I would never have to experience. 

Until we all realize that the story of history must include the lived experience of persons of color then we're just repeating the mythology the good old days were really the good old days. 

Thank you for sharing this.  I really do hope people will take the time to watch before discussing CRT.  Let's seek first to understand...please.

 

[Roadrunner]

7 minutes ago, felicity said:

No, schools can't help parents have more time to check homework and stuff but I was making it clear that when I was talking about parent involvement, I wasn't just talking about physically coming into schools. But those things take time and energy and affect how a school does overall. 

As I said above, schools in CA get the same amount per student. It follows the student if they go to a charter or stays at their neighborhood schools. The difference comes with fundraising. Schools with wealthier people can fundraise more and do more. Other schools have to make do with what the school gets per student. Which means they have to make tougher choices. Until school fundraising is equalized, schools won't be equal.

This isn’t true. Our district is funded differently and I believe has more than double per student because of local real estate taxes. 

[felicity]

1 minute ago, Roadrunner said:

This isn’t true. Our district is funded differently and I believe has more than double per student because of local real estate taxes. 

You're right, sorry. School districts get a certain amount also for "unduplicated students;" students that are homeless, children of migrant workers, or foster kids.

But the fact that local property taxes do pay a significant portion (a source I just saw said that it was 22% in 2018-19) makes it even more unequal and more of a reason to fix things. 

[Roadrunner]

1 minute ago, felicity said:

You're right, sorry. School districts get a certain amount also for "unduplicated students;" students that are homeless, children of migrant workers, or foster kids.

But the fact that local property taxes do pay a significant portion (a source I just saw said that it was 22% in 2018-19) makes it even more unequal and more of a reason to fix things. 

That’s what I have been saying all along. 
Have you read what I said? 

[felicity]

3 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Homework is a huge problem by itself. The standard is 10 minutes per grade for homework. In reality, that works out to about 20 minutes per grade when you factor in looking for pencils, etc. Homework is supposed to be review so a child shouldn't need assistance from a parent but that's not realistic in my experience. 

Homework requires a quiet environment with parents who can assist and check the work. My daughter needs access to a computer at home. 

I heard that some schools have eliminated homework because it promotes inequity. Some schools have done things like assign a family activity instead of homework but then they realized that highlighted inequality too. 

For all of those reasons homework is unequal. I rarely assign actual homework--if my students have any it's because they didn't finish their work in class. 

I've gotten messages from annoyed parents asking why their kids haven't had any. But I don't find it at all important until high school.

[KSera]

59 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Yes, it's a low barrier for entry but let's acknowledge that it doesn't qualify any of us to discuss "CRT." CRT is a complicated legal theory.

The suggestion was never that watching that one short video would qualify a person to discuss CRT. There are clearly people coming at this from only having heard inflammatory news clips about this though, and I wanted to encourage them to watch it. They are clearly not at a point in this where they are going to read scholarly tomes about CRT or even listen to the Southlake podcast.

16 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

I agree with the bolded. The real discussion here is how to talk about race in school. The moral panic of CRT distracts from that discussion. All of us with some knowledge of race in the USA can discuss this. 

I agree with this. Rufo and his ilk have been very successful at getting people to reframe any discussion of race in school as being about CRT and I agree that is a big distraction.

[felicity]

6 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

That’s what I have been saying all along. 
Have you read what I said? 

Yes, I was responding originally to other comments you made. Those about parental involvement. This comment was literally just to make sure you knew I saw your correction. 

[Melissa Louise]

1 hour ago, elegantlion said:

IMO - uninformed as it is - the larger conversation is about how to teach/talk about race in school. CRT has taken on this ominous "they" perception that only detracts from the actual issue. 

Beyond all the yelling, there are legitimate questions on how to do so. 

Well...yes? 

I think that's been my point over two threads. 

 

[Melissa Louise]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

Only things I listed aren’t things schools can fix, maybe with the exception of hot meals. 

What government can do though is figure out financially what it takes to run a school and give all public schools the same per student amount. Then it can make sure teachers we hire are well trained (in my opinion one of the biggest problems we have now), and maybe pay a little more to teach in areas that are having hard time attracting teachers. Funding is where equity can come. 
We could also fund bus system better. Money can’t buy everything, but it can pay for a lot that can make a difference.

I personally would bus the high performing kids out of terrible high schools to community colleges starting now. This sort of stuff can happen with funds and some ingenuity. 
 

The frustrating thing is that in some ways, I think privilege walking your 4th graders isn't radical enough!

There are real, huge problems in K-12 education and it needs radical transformation. This is like keeping the box, redecorating, and calling the job done. 

Money + imagination. More of both!

[Melissa Louise]

4 hours ago, KSera said:

This is not that. This is really ridiculous stuff, not serious journalism. People who are familiar with Fox commentators will know what I’m talking about (Fox lawyers for one of the most well known of their hosts used the defense in court that their client couldn’t be guilty of slander because any reasonable person would know his commentaries are not based on facts). And there’s a long standing pattern that I think one would have to see to know, where the right wing media controls the discourse in often strange ways, and then you hear clips of a recent show and you realize why your mom is suddenly saying such and such wacky thing out of the blue. (I know these comments always result in a reply about left wing media, and left wing media has its problems as well, but I’m talking here about a very specific pattern that plays out specific to US right wing commentators, who have an outsized impact on their audience and seem to exist more to inflame their audience than to inform them.)

Ok, but it's intensely frustrating when a good journalist fact checks the nonsense, and surprise! There's truth mixed in with the hyperbole and fibs. Yes, that ugly white man really did get arrested after kicking off because the board did not acknowledge an inconvenient sexual assault at school!

 And your own side of politics sticks their fingers in their ears and goes la la la about the true bits, because they are inconvenient facts. 

If journalists would do their damn job, they could cool things down immensely. 

[Pam in CT]

re : until we have a "common understanding" about what CRT is and is not... this conversation will continue to drift

18 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

I think until there is a common understanding of what CRT is and isn’t, this conversation will continue to drift to all sorts of places. 

Gutting history from schools is nuts, serves no purpose, and should be unacceptable for any side. It is against everything we as a nation  stand for. But I could see a healthy debate if current racism justifies giving precedence to group rights (based in ethnic or racial lines) over individual rights, which is where my original understanding the CRT was leading into, but I see that I might have this upside down.

Agreed.

The difficulty is, that seems to be precisely the point. 

The effect of "drift" is to gut history and in so doing take any possibility of that healthy debate off the table.  The effect of the "drift" is impasse, polarization, confusion, exhaustion.  In the immediate aftermath of simultaneously sweeping-and-vague statewide legislative bans that actually *do* excise content that might cause student "distress" and of specific content lists that excise Ruby Bridges, Tulsa Massacre and Letter from Birmingham Jail from the classroom.  That sprung up whole, and remarkably similar in 15+ states, within a single legislative cycle, of Rufo's clarion call and its rapid amplification by the then-sitting POTUS. 

Down with 1619, hoist the 1776 flag.

 

And it's not confusion about the language, so much as derailment with a purpose.

17 hours ago, Danae said:

Words have meanings.  Critical Race Theory is an actual thing.  What’s going on with the anti-CRT propaganda is the equivalent of yelling about how middle schools are teaching quantum mechanics and then giving examples of badly taught algebra.  And then drumming up quantum mechanics opposition and using it oppose teaching biology. 

Much as opponents of feminism re-framed that term to mean man-hating bra-burning zealots who demanded *all* women insert IUDs/ have hundreds of sexual partners/ sacrifice children to career.  Much as opponents of universal healthcare re-framed that term to mean communist advocating death panels who wanted Granny dead.  Much as opponents of BLM re-framed that term to mean Only black lives matter.

The folks best able to articulate what a framework is or isn't, are not those vested in shutting it down.  It's people who *adhere* to that framework:

18 hours ago, elegantlion said:

Here's a video that was shared with me by an American historian whose area of expertise is race in modern America. 

CRT is a framework to use to interpret history, one of many existing frameworks for any type of history. It is not history, it is not black history. 

As a TA for a US history course, I am amazed every semester. I will have a number of white students who are astounded to learn how persons of color have been treated in this country. THEY'VE NEVER BEEN TAUGHT, even those from good schools. Many of my students of color are not surprised.at.all. Stories of Emmett Till, how slave ships were "packed," how prevelant lynchings were in non-southern states (more atrocious is that people involved might take home "souveniers" from the lynching). I learned about events I had never heard of previously. I heard stories from my students that made me cry - things as a white woman and as a parent of a white male child that I would never have to experience. 

Until we all realize that the story of history must include the lived experience of persons of color then we're just repeating the mythology the good old days were really the good old days. 

This is a ten minute video, and CRT is more than a clip that length can contain.  But it contains a very specific historical FACT  (starts 3:50 to about 5:00) that exemplifies structures -- how black Americans utilizing GI Bill funds were limited by a specific clause from purchasing same-size same-price homes in certain geographic areas.  And she traces the direct legacy effect that has had on accrued wealth in the intervening decades, as property values in the then-white neighborhoods have increased ~8x more than they have in then-black neighborhoods. 

One small contained example that shows race-based difference resulting from long-rescinded legislative language that had, and continues to have, ongoing legacy effects.  An example sufficiently concrete and bounded that 11th graders in an APUSH could grasp it.   The one example isn't, alone, "CRT," which is -- as she, an adherent of CRT, describes -- a lens of analysis, not merely a dump of historical facts.

But the language in the legislative bans would ban the facts themselves, if covering the facts themselves might evoke "distress."

 

 

What makes it hard

2 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

As @Pam in CTwrote above, it's hard to discuss these issues. It's not just doing homework like I wrote above. It's emotionally difficult to discuss issues of race. It requires us to be vulnerable. That's difficult in an environment with so much hostility and trolling. 

Maybe.

But to my mind, even before we can get to the vulnerability of holding the thought that maybe what I see, is limited by where I stand... discussion of these things requires us simultaneously to thicken the skin, soften the language, and ignore the noise.  To not-take-reflexive-and-furious defense. To dial back the snark impulse. To not-taking every bit of bait. To refrain from snipe-and-run responses.  To not-get-derailed into side issues and return again to the core thread of the main discussion.  It's hard and I definitely do not always manage it IRL; it's harder yet on the interwebs where our language is read without the beneficial context of facial & body language cues / murmuring sounds.  And also the interwebs are filled with folks who delight in stirring the pot / derailing discussions.  That makes it harder too.

 

[kiwik]

2 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Homework is a huge problem by itself. The standard is 10 minutes per grade for homework. In reality, that works out to about 20 minutes per grade when you factor in looking for pencils, etc. Homework is supposed to be review so a child shouldn't need assistance from a parent but that's not realistic in my experience. 

Homework requires a quiet environment with parents who can assist and check the work. My daughter needs access to a computer at home. 

I heard that some schools have eliminated homework because it promotes inequity. Some schools have done things like assign a family activity instead of homework but then they realized that highlighted inequality too. 

The worst homework ever was the age appropriate stuff.  How many full time working parents have time or energy to bake or do craft stuff on week days.  The time would be much better spend reading or talking or even snuggling and watching TV.

[Melissa Louise]

There's zero evidence to support homework in elementary education. Get rid. 

[Kassia]

55 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

There's zero evidence to support homework in elementary education. Get rid. 

Absolutely.  And even in middle school and high school students are being assigned way too much work.  It interferes with family time, vacations (during breaks), learning basic skills, pursuing passions, or just allowing a child to have some down time.  It's not fair for kids to be in school all day and then have to spend their nights/weekends on homework.  When my kids were in ps, I would find myself doing everything for them to make their lives easier because all they did was go to school and come home and do homework (unless they had a job/sports/activities).  Summers, breaks, and even weekends were always ruined by homework.  It was a nightmare and I was so relieved when we pulled our youngest out to homeschool and were done with all of that.  And most of the homework was just busywork - some would either take forever to get graded or it would never be graded.  Made me so angry.

 

[AnotherNewName]

Seems like the United States Commission on Civil Rights htook issue with the letter from the NSBA and Garland's memo.

 Letter-to-Attorney-General-Garland-10.15.2021.pdf (newamericancivilrightsproject.org)

[KSera]

4 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

 And your own side of politics sticks their fingers in their ears and goes la la la about the true bits, because they are inconvenient facts.

FWIW, I don't know what you're intending to refer to with the bolded but I'm guessing from context, you're assuming I'm affiliated with the left? That would be an incorrect assumption. I am politically homeless as my views do not fall neatly in either of the two major parties we have in the US (or any of the minor ones, for that matter).

[Pam in CT]

21 minutes ago, AnotherNewName said:

Seems like the United States Commission on Civil Rights htook issue with the letter from the NSBA and Garland's memo.

 Letter-to-Attorney-General-Garland-10.15.2021.pdf (newamericancivilrightsproject.org)

Not the full Commission, only the subset of 4 members aligned with the party drivng the CRT brouhaha, right?  And the opening line of their letter is

Quote

We write as four members of the eight-member U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and not on behalf of the Commission as a whole.

right?

 

[Melissa Louise]

38 minutes ago, KSera said:

FWIW, I don't know what you're intending to refer to with the bolded but I'm guessing from context, you're assuming I'm affiliated with the left? That would be an incorrect assumption. I am politically homeless as my views do not fall neatly in either of the two major parties we have in the US (or any of the minor ones, for that matter).

No, I meant my side. 

[KSera]

3 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

No, I meant my side. 

Ah. Rereading it with that in mind comes through different. I get it now. 

[AnotherNewName]

2 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

Not the full Commission, only the subset of 4 members aligned with the party drivng the CRT brouhaha, right?  And the opening line of their letter is

right?

 

Yes, only half a federal commission, so far anyway.  I honestly think some of you have lost the plot.

[Pam in CT]

re vulnerability in even trying to engage in a substantive way

5 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

I often feel vulnerable in online discussions. I'm not sure if everyone experiences this but I do. It's hard to put yourself out there and express opinions and get pushback. Like you say, it requires us to thicken our skin. But I'm not sure if it's fair to expect this of people...

Oh gracious, I do too. 

More so in IRL discussions than in online ones -- it's vastly more mortifying to realize I've stuck my foot in my mouth or inadvertently hurt an actual breathing person before my eyes.  And this by-now-classic insight also helps...

But there are also so many ways in which going to the "hard" places is easier within IRL contexts.  At the barest minimum in the most random encounters (forex, a person I've just met for the first time at a one-off library discussion) there are facial cues, body postures, nodding, affirming sounds to help us over the rough spots.  Within more organized contexts (forex, interfaith group, civic organization, other common purpose) there is usually a stability of who's in the group and some sore of common purpose that holds us together across divergent viewpoints of what that looks like.  The circle of participants are naturally "bounded" by virtue of being physically together, without the constant parade of new people popping in 3 pages into a "discussion" that inevitably happens online. 

Also, most people use substantially better manners IRL than over the interwebs.

But the interwebs have obvious advantages too, and here we are.  And there certainly is a vulnerability in putting oneself out there too. 

It's a dangerous business, OS, going out the door. 

 

re in part because there be trolls, out there

5 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

....Regardless, this discussion got off on the wrong foot from the beginning. How do you have a serious discussion about this issue that starts with an article full of false information? It set everyone on edge from the beginning which is what it was designed to do. It wasn't intended to start a discussion. 

Well, right.  I wasn't entirely sure that was the case at the outset, and I do think it's important to TRY.  But I think we got there.

So, OK.  Live and learn. 

Keep that insight in mind for the next round. There always is a next round.

 

[Fritz]

On 10/15/2021 at 9:35 PM, KSera said:

It's a specific problem of the mainstream (not just liberal) press that we have discussed quite a bit here as of late. I thought I had seen you in those discussions as well? I think quite frankly that this is a topic the mainstream press doesn't have enough nuanced knowledge on to report well. They are coming from a perspective that they think is the most helpful/correct and the whole topic is a land mine right now. Neither side tends to do well by it at all--both are way polarized in one direction or the other. Melissa Louise shared in one of those threads what has become one of my favorite pieces on this topic, which I have reshared a couple times. I will do so again here if you are genuinely interested in learning some nuance on this topic:

What the media gets wrong on gender reassignment

You don't have to follow Twitter to read it (I don't have an account there myself, but anyone can read). It was pasted in this thread twice for anyone to read. I was asking you if you had read it? What do you think of it? Here it is again:

Th

This is where all the uproar about "CRT" has come from. Rufo did some interviews on TV and then certain press personalities took it from there and their followers lapped it up just the way it was intended and now here we are.

Oh ok, so this guy has confused the minds of all the parents who witnessed first hand what was being taught to their children in the classroom and on Zoom. Right🙄

[Dmmetler]

18 hours ago, felicity said:

I have to say, if I had someone to help me make copies and staple, I would be thrilled!

We have dances that we ask for volunteers to help set and clean up. Those are after school. I think it's different in elementary sometimes. 

One of my friends is a "support teacher" at a private school as her post homeschooling job. She's assigned to 6 teachers, and is the substitute if one is absent. If they are all there, she spends an hour in each classroom each day-and spends most of her time copying, stapling, filing, grading, etc. She was actually disappointed the first few weeks because she was convinced she was being handed busywork and they didn't need her.

 

I pointed out that I would have given almost anything, in ANY teaching job I'd ever held, to have had an hour a day of teacher support, and that if she weren't doing those tasks, the teachers would be likely doing them after school and on weekends. And that when one of her teachers is out, it means they have a substitute in the room who knows the kids, what the class routine is, and where the class is academically. 

 

 

[Fritz]

20 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

What is being done in elementary schools is somebody’s poorly thought out ideas on how to teach kids tolerance. And I don’t think this is widespread, at least not here. 
I couldn’t sleep last night and went on searching up some examples. Ran into Bill Maher’s episode with Kelly. If half of what she says is being done at her son’s school is right, then I really question the intelligence of people who are implementing those poorly thought out exercises that do nothing but damage to kids.

 

Having grown up in a different county where parental involvement in schools is nonexistent, I assure you one can run an excellent school without a single parent at school. What one needs is a parent at home who can drive the message that learning is important, somebody to ask if homework is done, somebody to turn off TV at night and tuck you into bed, somebody who can feed you a hot meal. You need learning to be valued at home even if parents done have time to actual spend helping. 
 

I have come to believe that we are paralyzed because we are all searching for the one model that solves everything. We can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. 

Agreed! The absolute MOST important thing is "a parent that drives the message that learning is important". I do understand that some parents may not have time to volunteer at the school. As I said, I think all could find time to send something to the classroom (A poster they made with their child for the class,or stapling as has been identified as a need here🙂 for example) or volunteer in some capacity. In my mind that helps to undergird the message that learning/school is important. 

Edited October 17, 2021 by Fritz

[goldberry]

Just an election update that our very conservative local school board was kicked out and replaced by an even more conservative school board.  Crazy.  We already had no mask mandates and no CRT (obviously since we are K-12).  The existing school board was trying to make clear that the school board oversees the superintendent and does not micromanage operations or individual teachers.  In the debates, the new candidates kept saying "That won't be the case when I'm on the board!" and believes the board should have the ability to dictate curriculum and hire/fire individual teachers. 

The new board members were backed with lots of money from the local Republican group.  They ran as a block.

Adding that they made a big deal that the "board didn't represent the people" because they haven't had an election in many years since no one wanted the position.  Okay....

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by goldberry

[Fritz]

I think it's pretty clear that CRT played a part in Youngkin's victory in Va.  McAuliffe bringing in Randi Weingarten the night before seems completely tone deaf.