Bob Shepherd, resident polymath, has been a teacher, a textbook writer, an assessment developer, and a curriculum writer. I am grateful that he shares his thoughts on this blog on a daily basis.
He recently wrote a post about the Republicans’ obsession with critical race theory, which turns out in most states to be an effort to suppress any discussion of racism, past or present. The war on CRT is an effort to censor teachers and college professors and to make sure that they eliminate any unpleasant or downright disgraceful aspects of American history and society. To teach accurate history, it now seems, is “indoctrination.”
Shepherd writes, in part:
It’s another example of the same phenomenon that occurred a few years back when red state Repugnicans started passing ludicrous legislation against teaching Sharia Law in K-12 pubic schools, even though no U.S. K-12 Public School ever did this, not one. NOT. A. SINGLE. ONE.. The whole business reminds me of when a Flor-uh-duh Mayor issued a proclamation banning the nonexistent medieval bad boy Satan from her town. (Yes, this actually happened.) However, the latest wave of legislation is much, much worse than was that nonsense, for it attempts to ban any and all informed teaching about the history of race in America. It is Thought Control legislation that attempts to dish up for kids a mythologized history that serves the ends of white supremacists, and CRT in K-12 public schools is just the fabricated excuse for this.
BTW, if you are a Repugnican all worked up about CRT, consider this:
Why this particular obsession with what is obviously a phantasm?
Why does CRT in K-12, of all things, which doesn’t even exist, get your panties in a wad, but not, say, the facts that if you are black in America you will pay more for the same house, get paid less for the same job, get a stiffer sentence for the same crime, and on and on and on and on? These are examples of SYSTEMS in America that are racist, of Systemic Racism. And we won’t fix these and other similar problems until we face, squarely, our execrable history and the execrable current state of affairs. You might also want to ask yourself, Karen or Chad or whoever you are, why you are all worked up about the same stuff that works up overt, declared White Supremacists and Nazis. You are concerned about the same stuff that matters to ACTUAL NAZIS. Think about that. Think. Think for a freaking change.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perfect. Really.
The justification for Republican efforts such as this is simple: the cost of the outrage is zero (it fact it attracts news coverage one might not ordinarily get) and second it benefits from Brandolini’s law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, which addresses the debunking of false, facetious, or otherwise misleading information: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.”
So, it costs nothing and it makes your opponent work like crazy to counter it.
This is a ploy common to classical negotiations. One negotiator puts something on the table they know their opponent loathes. The opponent organizes around it, marshals forces, etc. and in the end may even bargain away one of their points to eliminate the objectionable one. But there was no serious intent in making that first move, it was just the creation of a bargaining chip that could be discarded easily if necessary but may exhaust the opponent or cause them to bargain for its demise.
But in classic negotiating strategy, one side always has the advantage when they are good with either outcome. That’s why you can’t negotiate with terrorists who don’t mind blowing themselves and their hostages up. The Republicans aren’t looking for a middle ground where everyone wins. The Republicans can put in something repugnant or outrageous because they are actually fine with having that repugnant or outrageous outcome. They are also fine with the status quo, especially if they pay no political price for it.
To me, the fundamental problem is that Democrats and many Americans still believe that there are two negotiating sides. There is a terrorist side – the Republicans – who are fine with any outcome because the ONLY way the Republicans lose is for the Democrats to gain anything at all.
The only way to negotiate with Republicans is for Democrats to agree to lose. (Obviously there are a few Republicans who actually care about achieving an outcome where everyone gains something, but those few have been marginalized in favor of their guiding mantra, that the only suitable outcome is a total victory or the status quo.
^^^The only way to negotiate with someone who is willing to walk away from a deal if they don’t get 100% of what they want is to call their bluff and walk away from a deal, too. But Democrats can’t do that because they get hammered from the public. The Democrats get hammered when they compromise and they get hammered for not compromising and for walking away.
What some voters don’t understand is that the best solution is to give Democrats such a gigantic majority that they don’t have to negotiate with Republican terrorists anymore. The Democrats haven’t had this for decades – even with their brief 59 vote Senate majority for 2 years under Obama – because at the time, many people simply did not understand quite how much like terrorists the Republicans had become and how much the few so-called “moderate” voices (like Susan Collins) were willing to enable the terrorists as long as they could pretend not to be being allowed to “vote their values” by the terrorist leaders whenever it was meaningless.
(One of Senator John McCain’s most brilliant last acts — which I believe has not been fully appreciated – was that he led Mitch McConnell to believe he was going to vote to repeal Obamacare. I feel quite sure that had Mitch McConnell known McCain wouldn’t vote for repeal, he would have ordered his lapdog Susan Collins to vote to repeal Obamacare and I suspect she would have complied while expressing her concern over it.)
A 51-49 majority is too slim. But even with 55 Senate votes, or even 53, the Democrats could have repealed the filibuster, or at least amended it.
well said: too many believe that they must validate ‘two sides’ — two sides to racism, to misogyny, to sexism, to teaching facts inside our schools
Great, Mr. Ruis! Brandolini’s Law is a new one for me, but it is most certainly the rule that Trump has lived by throughout his “adult” life.
Like to check in periodically with the ed reform echo chamber and see if any of the hundreds of paid “education advocates” are doing any work for students who attend the unfashionable public schools:
“Lori Armistead
There has been much fanfare around Ohio’s private choice advancement here, as there should be. But the charter expansion is just as exciting for kids! ”
Ohio public school students have been erased. They don’t even count enough within the echo chamber to be mentioned. Almost 90% of students in my state attend public schools and no one in this supposed “public education movement” does any practical or productive work on their behalf.
The last time ed reform checked in with our students they were ensuring we made them sit for standardized tests. Once that mandate was in they all went back to their real work-promoting and marketing charters and vouchers.
Public schools should cut this “movement” loose. They don’t deliver any value for public school students. Surely we can find some education policy people who have some interest in public schools and public school students and will perform some actual work on their behalf.
Ed reforms contribution to public schools during and post-pandemic:
standardized testing mandate
ridiculous critical race theory panic
Tell me again how these folks work “for public school students”. They contribute nothing of positive value to our schools. Public school students would genuinely be better off with no “assistance” whatsoever.
Why does (fill in) get your panties in a wad?
I asked Howard.
(our father whose arts in heaven, Howard be thy name)
He splained: Panties can only bunch if you wear them.
An honest measure of a man, is the size of the thing
that bothers him. If a piss-ant can dampen your spirits,
that’s your tell.
Excellent! Channeling Bierce, eh!
Hannah-Jones will be going to Howard. The faculty at UNC’s school of journalism said, “The appalling treatment of Hannah-Jones…we will be frank: it was racist.”
Her statement was brilliant!
I love that she is setting up a center to train journalists.
” “In the storied tradition of the Black press, the Center for Journalism and Democracy will help produce journalists capable of accurately and urgently covering the challenges of our democracy with a clarity, skepticism, rigor and historical dexterity that is too often missing from today’s journalism.”
So badly needed in education reporting.
People who make a living lobbying for private school vouchers have now decided they will strictly police what is discussed and said in the public schools they didn’t attend, don’t use, and don’t support.
It’s the ultimate ed reform lunacy. None of them support our schools or in fact contribute anything of positive value to our schools but they WILL police our schools.
They won’t police or even regulate their own privatized systems or schools but they’re more than happy to micromanage ours. 100% negative for public school students. Never anything positive or productive.
“Fordham Institute
Fordham’s new report fits the lackluster showing of students on NAEP’s US history and civics exams, and suggests that some schools barely teach this content. And the obstacles in the way of improving this sad state run up and down the line, says Dale Chu.”
Gotta love the echo chamber. They have utterly dominated public education policy for the last 20 years to the extent that no other voices are heard and they all sound identical and yet when these scores come back they launch into their usual public school criticism.
At what point does this “movement” take responsibility for their work? How long will they be permitted to blame public schools and operate with no accountability at all?
If US students are “lackluster” after 20 years of pouring billions of dollars into the ed reform echo chamber and following their directives perhaps we could consider trying something else?
I have a suggestion. Instead of hiring people who work on privatizing and replacing public schools what if we hired some people who sought to improve them? Seems reasonable, right?
Billionaires don’t take responsibility for the harm they cause.
When the public finds it egregious enough, they will act. The current disparity in wealth makes the forthcoming upheaval predictable.
Zuck water skiing outside of his Hawaiian palace while waving an American flag- poor optics.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute has been called “..a propaganda outlet for ed reform, including school choice and the Common Core, and a fine example of how a few well-positioned, unaccountable, and otherwise unqualified individuals have achieved the veneer of expertise regarding American education, also garnering for themselves amazing salaries from the cushy employment of promoting their propaganda as expertise.”
See
https://nonpartisaneducation.org/Review/Articles/v14n6.htm
Schools owned by the communities’ citizens in states like Ohio are forced to kowtow to Fordham policy because the state’s GOP-ruled government is corrupt e.g. gerrymandering and ECOT. Media in cities and states that seek and post Fordham interviews are complicit in the corruption.
With justice, the first people targeted after we the people rise up against the distant billionaires who control us will be those at the oligarch spin tanks. Their staff don’t have the Gates’ security apparatus.
Nailed it. The folks at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute for Securing from Oligarchs Enormous Paychecks for Officers of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has its staff picture next to the word meretricious in the dictionary. Oh, it pays to service the oligarchs.
They love their terms. 99% of the legislators, ralliers, and all around haters couldn’t define CRT if their lives depended on it. But – they can shout it out at bar-b-ques and rallies and local board meetings and know they’ll get some hootin’ and hollerin’ support. And, for the gop legislators, it’s fundraising manna (but not from heaven). “CRT” “The Laptop” “The emails” “The birth certificate” And, Texas law would now add “Holocaust” to that list because it is a “systemic” and they declared there is no systemic racism and therefore it can’t be taught.
Sadly, the only people who can shut this down are the gop legislators who haven’t said a word since 2016 and their silence validates white supremacist marches in Philadelphia, a riot in the Capitol, and millions of preventable covid deaths.
Mike Lofgren wrote this about a completely different right wing source for rage . Their rage is interchangeable. The point is the rage.
“The past month has proven that right-wing ideas supported by little or no credible evidence are like the Terminator: they rise time and again from seemingly certain death. They even gain currency in the mainstream, due to their proponents parroting them over and over until they achieve the illusory truth effect….
False or unproven assertions constantly repeated are more likely to be taken as true by the bulk of the population than prosaic truths that do not achieve the same amount of retelling. This explains the success of Republican talking points: the GOP’s disciplined, machine-like reiteration of false but simple and confidently stated propositions carries the day against scattered, desultory statements describing a messy and complicated reality.”
I watched a progressive and conservative argue about CRT on one the news channels. In addition to racism, the right is losing its mind over Hannah-Jones’ castigation of capitalism.
CRT is turning your kids against America! CRT doesn’t pick up its socks off the floor. CRT hogs the remote. CRT put coin locks on bathroom doors. CRT fills bags of potato chips with almost nothing but air. CRT invented Chippy the paperclip! CRT is dating your daughter! Beware! Beware!
CRT is too complex for any high school curriculum, requiring deeper investigation than any survey course could require. Bob is right: this is not going to happen in high school unless some kid reads a lot of literature for him/her self. Obviously, this outrage is based on the typical political language we have grown used to hearing (as Steve Ruis explains above).
Still, I fear a new level of intrusion into public education from a lunatic fringe of the GOP. To date we have seen only occasional salvos directed at the actual ideas embodied in the courses we teach. There was the accusation some years ago that an English teacher was being unreasonable when she refused an essay written about Jesus (prompt: Describe someone you know who is influential in your life). Students often confuse the explanation of why communism rose during the industrial revolution with a sympathetic view of the Soviet’s or Chinese communists. Evolution has always been controversial. I recall biology professors in college being required to go through various myths of creation prior to explaining natural selection. Still? An element of this seems new to me.
I wonder if this is not an attempt to push the camel’s nose of censorship deeper into the tent to see how much content can be legislated. Will GOP legislation also ban discussion of Keynes? Of the Black Panthers? What about the Freedom Riders? Will names like James Lawson join a list of taboo topics?
Part of me hopes the answer is yes. As we all know, the best way to get a book to fly off the shelves is to ban it. But this could be a precedent for too much intrusion into the lives of good instructors. Consider a seminar on human genocide. Is the instructor free to introduce policy advocated during the slavery era in Santo Domingue that assured that the average sugar plantation slave die from over work within 4-8 years? Is the instructor free to mention Wilmington, Tulsa, or lynching? How about California legislation during the nineteenth century funding bounties paid for native death? All these ideas and more fall within the legitimate boundaries of such a course.
We probably do not want to expend political capital to discuss this too much or trade away some other need to get this to go away. Still it is serious, and coupled with all the other attempts to muzzle legitimate discussion in our country it is a problem. So what should we do?
Call them out on it. Say the GOP is about to take away their religious rights. That parallels the bombast you hear from the right when they claim that the limitations on high volume magazines is tantamount to taking away your hunting rifle.
Here’s an analysis of CRT in K-12 that is far more knowledgeable and insightful than what the far Left ideologue Bob Shepherd writes. Before the ad hominem attacks on National Review begin – from people here who haven’t looked at NR in 20+ years, if ever – it’s worthwhile to note that NR has published many dozens of essays strongly critical of Trump, including an entire print issue headlined Never Trump. NR doesn’t fit the uninformed caricatures of all conservatives seen every week on this blog, and in many ways it’s not the publication that William f. Buckley founded in 1955.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/07/12/dewey-defeats-critical-race-theory/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=top-of-nav&utm_content=magazine&utm_term=title
“National Review fits” the caricature of conservatives as do women and Catholic bishops who vote Republican. There’s no reason to give any credit to a party furthering the Mitch McConnell/Koch agenda just because some of its members held their noses while they voted for Vlad’s puppet, the valueless, womanizing grifter, Trump.
We should no more prohibit the teaching of CRT than we should ban teaching ideas published in the National Review. You are changing the subject.
“far Left ideologue Bob Shepherd”
Awww, shucks, person assuming for the purposes of this post the nom de troll Michelle Adams, you shoudn’t have!!!
“the far Left ideologue Bob Shepherd”
That’s pretty hilarious though, Ms. Adams, given that I have spent much of my professional life teaching about the dangers of ideological thinking and, as a textbook writer and editor, played a key role in making Critical Thinking a ubiquitous strand in U.S. curricula and pedagogy. Even now, as I write this, I have on my laptop a book-length work I recently finished writing on the subject of tehe value of uncertainty, and a passing perusal of the writing on my blog will turn up piece after piece about the stupidity and dangers of absolutism and thus ideology. As the great American poet Wallace Stevens wrote, and as I have repeated many times, “Theology after breakfast sticks to the eye.” Or, as Robert Frost put it, “I never hold tenets on anything—just tentatives.” Falsifiability is what distinguishes science from religion from science, and religion is just old, established cultism.
some typos there, but so be it
Critical Insanity Theory
Republican Insanity
Has reached a critical mass
Where everyone is Hannity
And saying nothing fast
One of your best, SomeDAM!
Agree.
There is a manic quality to the style of hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, McEnany.
Left out Tucker (spell it with an F)
When politicians create ways to control intellectual freedom in education, democracy’s future walks on thinner ice.
A rethug lifelong friend of mine has stated that there will be mandatory CRT training in the Washington’s public schools starting in 2022-23. Does anyone know anything about that. What he quoted (without attribution of course-he’s a retired businessman not an academic) had a number of questionable statements which leads me to believe that it is a bunch of bull.
Any help given will be greatly appreciated! TIA.
Apparently Washington State passed a law that attempts to reverse structural racism by training teachers to recognize what it entails. The wording of the law does not require any particular part of CRT be taught to students. Ideas that pertain to the subject of diversity training will be taught in teacher training, and one might assume ideas from CRT might be included.
Editorial comments from sources like The Federalist are simply stating that they are going to teach CRT in schools. Opposite this are those who point out the effort is simply to make all students feel safe and welcome.
More importantly, I marinated summer cucumber, squash, and onions for a nice summer treat. Said Candide: “…let us cultivate our garden.”
But, but, Roy, CRT scribbled a mean remark in the dirt on my car window!
And good for you, Roy! Made some homemade sauce, today, with my new food mill and the basil and oregano and Italian parsley from my herb garden. Don’t have the space or knowledge to grow tomatoes, but I know how to order the good ones!
Good luck with any tomatoes grown in Florida.
Mandatory cathode ray tube training?
I thought most of those had been replaced by flat panel displays.
Thank you so much for reposting this, Diane. Means a great deal to me! Bless you.
Not just Republicans.
Arne Duncan was obsessed with Critical Race to the Top Theory.