The Commack Public School District is located on Long Island in New York. The district has about 79% white students, 9% Asian, 9% Hispanic, 1% African American, and a small number of multiracial students. The Commack public schools have strong academic outcomes. 95% of their graduates go to college.
Recently the district and its school board have been under attack by parents who insist that their children are subjected to Critical Race Theory and The 1619 Project. At a recent public hearing, parents listened to administrators and school board members, who assured them that the Commack schools did not teach CRT or The 1619 Project. Angry parents were not mollified, as you will see if you watch the video posted below.
Jake Jacobs, a NYC art teacher and co-administrator of the New York BATS, watched the video and wrote the following commentary.
CRT DEBATE BLOWS UP: In Commack, NY this school board forum shows how insane things have gotten. The audience comments are unhinged and mostly ignore everything the board and superintendent say. The first part of the video is just the staff going over the curriculum, explaining how they do not support CRT, but the parents already start interrupting and shouting.
The Commack board and superintendent said over and over they reject CRT and created a policy where no child feels “less than”.
Yet parents came up to the mic and accused them of lying, said CRT was “seeping in” and were convinced the state is going to impose CRT, that teachers were politically biased and only teach their side.
They pointed to board members and said they are all going to get voted out, just like they had in the neighboring district. Some parents came up gripped with anger, convinced that everything they didn’t like was indeed CRT, and that it has to be nipped in the bud before this can go any further.
Some spoke about their kids being bullied because they were conservative, or cops being negatively portrayed, they quoted MLK as not seeing skin color and they spoke about inappropriate images and themes in the book Persepolis, none of which were CRT.
Some speakers got on the mic screaming at the top of their lungs, accusing the schools of indoctrinating kids to hate, or threatened to put their kids in private school and sue for damages. One woman pointed repeatedly to the only Black trustee and said she “had something on him.”
Meanwhile, some brave Asian students got up and said they loved Persepolis, an award winning graphic novel taught in the district for 13 years. They noted it was the first time they saw themselves reflected in class readings and that the district has a severe lack of representation of diverse characters and authors. The students were constantly interrupted and badgered. One girl pointed that there were also graphic themes in Romeo and Juliet, Tale of Two Cities and To Kill a Mockingbird. A teacher who spoke in support of the students was also interrupted constantly and heckled.
One outraged NYPD officer got up and read a bullet point from the NY State Education Dept web page on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion which suggests schools cover “the senseless, brutal killing of Black and Brown men and women at the hands of law enforcement.” The Commack superintendent immediately took his side and disavowed the passage as inappropriate, promising cops would not be disparaged in the district, but the folks in the crowd wanted more.
They asked for apologies to police families, they asked for something in writing that CRT would not be taught even if the state mandates it, they wanted to know if teachers would be fired for political statements, they wanted to be notified when BLM will be mentioned in school so they can opt out. Some said schools should only be teaching math, reading, science and social studies and leave all the social-emotional and diversity stuff for parents to teach.
I don’t know if this was just a very loud minority or this is the prevailing view in this part of Long Island but these folks are 100% convinced that everything they don’t like is “CRT” and they are extremely animated, just like Christopher Rufo said. They said it is Socialism and Marxism and some got extremely emotional saying they need to hear the district will fight for their kids.
This is light years from what’s going on in NYC schools and the new Culturally Responsive framework approved by the Chancellor which centers racial, cultural and gender identity in the classroom, so this is a major clash of opposing ideas (fueled by wholesale misinformation) and it’s working really well in suburban areas to put school officials on the defensive and kids in the middle of electoral politics.
One day after he stood against removing Persepolis, the Commack English Dept Chair was removed from his position and stripped of tenure. The district also now has removed Diary of Anne Frank as well.
Click on this link to see the video:
This one works too:
https://boxcast.tv/view/community-forum-6-8-21-multiracial-curriculum-review-dyj9wrxcc8oqby2xtsbo
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Void That Critical Race Theory Was Created to Fill | The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-void-that-critical-race-theory-was-created-to-fill?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_072821&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd67b913f92a41245df0c6d&cndid=45272181&hasha=0b7efaaf843601e54e3ef31aad9169d1&hashb=50d2958d4a70081c1c4006fb9fb3751e9226fdbb&hashc=c5b01153be51da58eadd552486fa254a96c94b4ca28601d8a39c5d8829c7ecc8&esrc=&utm_content=A&utm_term=TNY_Daily
The Alternative Course cannot be counted as the sole genesis of critical race theory, which became a multidisciplinary movement that draws from the work of a mélange of theorists (including Antonio Gramsci, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Jacques Derrida) and earlier movements (critical legal studies, ethnic liberation groups), with contributions from legal scholars across the country. The core premises of critical race theory—that the invention and reinvention of race enable the status quo, and that liberal solutions prove insufficient—have been applied in recent decades within fields from education to disability studies.
But the ideological necessity of the course at Harvard Law in the early eighties is key to understanding the role that critical race theory has sought to fill within post-civil-rights America writ large. The Manichaean bent of popular American race narratives would incline us toward discerning what happened at Harvard in terms of conservatives against liberals, racists against people of color, but the architects of what would become critical race theory saw things differently. Harvard administrators at the time possessed what they considered, and what students considered, a liberal view on race. Vorenberg and the students “shared a desire to work towards justice and diversity,” Crenshaw and another member of the Black Law Students Association, Donald Christopher Tyler, recalled in the Crimson.
The fact that administrators could condemn race-based discrimination while also dismissing the study of race-based power exemplified the blinkered insights of the liberal doctrine. The vocabulary gifted by civil rights—“bias,” “discrimination”—amounted to a Pyrrhic win for racial discourse; the era’s legal victories outlawed only what the justice system narrowly understood racism to be. As Richard Thomas Ford, a professor at Stanford Law School, put it to me recently, critical race theory “is a reaction to a conventional liberal account that says, ‘Well, you know, if we just carry on with the mainstream civil-rights project, we will get to racial justice.’ ”
Thanks for this, Susan! For me at least, this article goes a lot further toward an understanding of what CRT is/ is not, & its intentions, than anything I’ve read so far. What I found helpful: mentioning some of theories it draws from, and contrasting CRT’s typical ‘de-fanged’ liberal [mis-]interpretation.
When explained this way, I saw the connection to a concept with which I’m much more familiar: the economic elites keeping the rest [those with whom they don’t care to share the pie], artificially divided, so that they squabble over the crumbs rather than recognize their common interests. It is indeed radical to imagine that our concept of race is created by our laws toward that end. But it makes sense.
Divide and rule at the local level. This is the ploy of the distant right in American politics. It has come to our local school board meeting, but not in the shouting and hostile form. This may be a very interesting year.
I like the phrase “distant right”, Roy. Yes, indeed.
And,the times are certainly interesting, and bizarre.
I find it very odd that a faction that tends to mock alleged, liberal “snowflakes” is so put upon by mere discussions.
BTW what does it mean, “The district also now has removed Diary of Anne Frank as well.”
The links above are to videos, right?
Removed from and to…..?
” what does it mean, “The district also now has removed Diary of Anne Frank as well.”
These people want to remove frank discussions of everything, including Anne.
Frank discussions scare them.
It sounds insane, and not in any, fun, I’m a crazy kind of guy way
Like, very dangerous.
Frankly, they don’t give a damn
I wouldn’t call it “the distant right”. Right now it is the mainstream right at the far edges of regressive reactionary absurdities.
Yeah, but it’s distant from what the right was, historically. At last recent history in the U.S.
Makes sense now!
The use of distant to describe the right wing of American politics is intended to point to the consistent movement from its place pre-Reagan. With each group elected since then the American right has become more friendly to the ideas that used to lurk in far corners of extreme political views. Finally, under its most recent standard bearer, it has found voices that used to be only in KKK rallies and groups of a few around secretive circles.
Well said.
Like!
Hopefully people didn’t miss the news last year when audio tape was made public of Reagan in 1971 calling black diplomats “monkeys” who still aren’t comfortable wearing shoes.
Imagine if the folks who reviewed these tapes decades ago had made public Reagan’s racism? Could potentially have changed history…
As to the behavior you describe in Commack: “Some speakers got on the mic screaming at the top of their lungs, accusing the schools of indoctrinating kids to hate, or threatened to put their kids in private school and sue for damages. One woman pointed repeatedly to the only Black trustee and said she “had something on him.” We are seeing this behavior across the nation on any and all subjects.
I recommend the PBS documentary PACKING THE MIND which describes (and illustrates with research examples) the human trait of CONFORMATIONAL BIAS — Once a human believes something, it is almost impossible to change their belief — but in the day, when people have the ability to tune in on the internet — and be overwhelmed with tsunami of agreement with view, and are targeted with stories and ads that confirm it— , now people are subjected to millions of others who constantly confirm their bias (like vaccines are dangerous, or it is one’s constitutional right to not wear a mask,– even it injures others).
So, add the nasty,** “I got a right to interrupt and bully”** BEHAVIOR to humankind’s CONFORMATIONAL BIAS (CB) — and you get Commack’s current disrespect and divisiveness.
It does not help that the internet and the media is owned and used **intentionally, ** by hackers and politicians who thrive on tearing America to shreds.
At this moment in time, the ‘rage’ in Commack, and the inability to reason with the parents Is matched by Laura Ingram — whose reaction to the TESTIMONY of the police officers who testified — is that these are concocted narratives. It is she that twists truth, and has a platform to sell her CB to Commack and millions of others who believe in the ‘constitutional rights’ of liars, traitors and criminals to disseminate disinformation, and to insight division for political purposes… even as people die.
Your recent blog on North Carolina gave us this: Justin Parmenter was curious about the hundreds of letters that parents wrote to the Lieutenant Governor about the need for this legislation, and he filed an open records request to gain access to them. Many were avowedly racist.
Many of the 506 complaints to Robinson’s task force come from North Carolinians who appear deeply concerned about what they perceive as a move away from a white Christian-centered system of public education.These submissions include recommendations to cancel Black History Month, pleas to stop making white students feel guilty by teaching so much about slavery–which one individual remarked “is getting old”–and suggestions to end hiring practices aimed at increasing diversity of school staff.
They provide a helpful lens to understand the real motivation behind moves across the country to restrict classroom discussions on race and various types of oppression under the false pretense of fighting the boogeyman “critical race theory.”
CRT is so open to interpretation almost anything may be perceived as “offensive” to some group of people. The right wants to divert our attention from the January 6th attack, and they want to blame Democrats for so-called CRT. It is all part of the scheme for the right to win in the midterms. So sad for Long Island!
AGREE.
The right does want to divert attention from the Jan.6th attack.
Exactly. The media pick up the chant and all of a sudden ther eis CRT, or the new one “Pelosi Republicans.” What?
You describe CONFORMATIONAL BIAS . Find the PBS documentary PACKING THE MIND which describes (and illustrates with research examples) the human trait of CONFORMATIONAL BIAS
Susan, is it Packing or Hacking? I just threw that title into Google and Hacking the Mind came up.
Thanks.
CRT was a manufactured crisis. The Republicans & their allies are going to start another Civil War.
Not was but is! They’re just getting started.
and Diane put up Peter’s take on this, wort going to: Peter Greene writes here about the growing ferocity and viciousness of the rightwing crusade against “critical race theory.” Leave aside the fact that 99% of teachers have never heard of CRT, the crusaders are targeting teachers who are suspected of teaching about racism and social justice.
The crusaders operate on the assumption that teaching the actual history of racism, segregation, and Jim Crow is subversive and unpatriotic. Nothing negative ever happened in the U.S. It was all good.
Greene writes about the growing ferocity… http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2021/06/crt-warriors-are-coming-for-individual.html
Mind-blower!
How is Persepolis offense? It’s an amazing story and great example of a graphic novel.
There are already factions who believe the Holocaust never happened and they would eliminate Anne Frank?
An embarrassment.
I seriously cannot believe that those two books were banned. How can people be so thin?
I’m wondering if the general Commack population is even aware of this. Too often a few loud voices dictate situations. Not all parents are aware of the specifics of HS curriculums as many kids are doing their homework more independently at that point. That the English chair was let go for supporting Persepolis is really very disturbing.
Thin is an understatement. Just wait until universities in Republican controlled states start eliminating liberal arts classes- not even college grads will be reading or writing about great literature, or history, or multiple cultures.
I just want people to look at the timing of this political campaign they launched in public schools and ask yourself honestly whether any of the people who promoted this panic and are profitting off it care at all about public school students.
They spent the summer after a pandemic completely hijacking school board meeetings and making it impossible for schools to get anything done on recovering after the pandemic.
They don’t care about students who attend public schools. They offer no practical or positiive benefit to public schools or public school students.
A wholly negative and destructive political campaign that will harm students in public schools, and they launched it at the exact time public schools were most vulnerable.
The cyncism is breathtaking.
Public schools need to cut ed reformers loose. They will not survive unless they break free from this “movement” that adds no value at all to public schools and instead seems designed to harm them. Cut em loose. Drop associations and affliations. Stop hiring their consultants and stop blindly following their directives. Public K-12 schools will not survive another coordinated political attack by anti-public school activists.
Normally I would object to your tying Commack’s angry “anti-CRT” public-school parents to ed-reformers, but… Ed-deformers are all about “school choice,” which is shorthand for anti-public school pro-publicly-supported privatized alternatives… And we have all read of how some publicized “anti-CRT” parent groups are instigated and organized by one libertarian activist parent, or have a small group of loud parents infiltrated & pot-stirred by ed-deformers once their FB cohort attains some sort of quorum. Everyone from pro-Trump cultists to ed-deformer & libertarian school-choicers are jumping on this tailor-made bandwagon. Aided and abetted by people like Chris Rufo.
The Venn Diagram of anti-CRT & republican/rightwing edu-reformers consists of a single circle.
Obama/DFER’s ed-reform movement is backfiring on them.
“New PACs have sprung up to support anti-CRT candidates. And a sophisticated network of conservative actors are helping to shape state legislation and offering toolkits to oppose CRT.”
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/why-school-boards-are-now-hot-spots-for-nasty-politics/2021/07?utm_source=nl&utm_medium=eml&utm_campaign=eu&M=62235530&U=&UUID=0a3bb29e6b50c236e0bda136e11b2a01
RE: this link… I don’t care what Daniel Hopkins [“author of a 2018 volume on the nationalization of American political identity”] says, the conversation at our local Bd of ed Mtgs [central-NJ town of 30k] is strictly focused on the ed we in town want for our local schdistr. My town has a historically-Rep base [just turning Dem] in a traditionally Dem state; they are basically moderate & have never engaged in vitriolic politics. It’s a rather small city [30k], & people have to live with their neighbors. I tune in to other Bd of Ed mtgs around the state, & they simply do not represent this polarized cons-lib debate á la Fox vs MSNBC– much tho natl media like EdWeek wishes to paint it so for clickbait.
Not saying this hasn’t occurred elsewhere, & obviously it is now. But the Common Core debates Vladimir Hogan points to, as well as today’s CRT agita, has been pretty much the bailiwick of Southern Rep politicians who stir the local pot re: race, fed govt interference, etc issue du jour, always looking to divide & conquer cuz they can’t count on winning without it.
“Obama/DFER’s ed-reform movement is backfiring on them.” On whom? Obama’s neoliberal policies [that one included] backfired on Dems. [Tho I give him super-kudos for pushing ACA through]. But I suspect Southern politicians would be covering all the same points the same way without it.
“I don’t care what Daniel Hopkins [“author of a 2018 volume on the nationalization of American political identity”] says, the conversation at our local Bd of ed Mtgs [central-NJ town of 30k] is strictly focused on the ed we in town want for our local schdistr…..”
This has been my experience, too, over the last 30 years as a parent and public school teacher in four districts: Northeast well-to-do district with 1,000 students; NE rust-belt district with 9,000; AZ small-city district with 7,000; and Reservation school with 1,700 students. I also experienced this in the unaffiliated charter school I worked at part-time for 2 yrs.
FUNDING BOTH SIDES: We know right wing PACs have stealthily funded anti-CRT efforts but it turns out some pro-Trump Republican billionaires have also been funding in-school racial equity trainings as part of the pro-charter New Schools Venture Fund, exactly the “indoctrination” they claim to oppose.
This well-researched post by a DSA organizer shows that Gates, Waltons, Bezos, Zuckerberg and the usual suspects have been pouring money into the controversial efforts to train school staffs on subjects like white privilege, white fragility and “uncomfortable” discussions of race. But other donors include staunch Republicans Charles Schwab, Bill Oberndorf and John Overdeck who have donated to Trump’s legal defense fund and cozied up to Betsy DeVos.
I asked author Matthew Thomas why he thinks this is and he suggests they may no even be paying attention to every expenditure of the NDVF and in their pursuit of charter schools and bipartisan ed reform might not have known:
https://vulgarmarxism.substack.com/p/billionaires
Jake– hee hee, I love it. It actually does fit their purported mission. Most likely, the Rep populists & Rep neoliberals just leave each other to their agendas.
Let’s review ed reform’s contributions to public schools and public school students since the pandemic began:
standardized tests
a huge national lobbying effort for private school vouchers
Anti-CRT panic
Why in God’s name are public school leaders still listening to these people?
They HARM YOUR STUDENTS. Cut em off. Look elsewhere for advice and direction.
If ed reform doesn’t serve public school students public school leaders are under no obligation to continue to follow ed reformers. Do a cost benefit analysis. Are they adding any value to your schools? Are your students better off as a result of their work? No? Then stop hiring them.
Liberal ed reformers can’t question the Right’s engineered CRT panic because if they do they risk losing their political allies on the Right.
Once again they failed to step up for public schools. They’re absolutely lousy advocates for public school students.
They perform no work at all that benefits our students. You owe them nothing.
I assume by liberal ed reformers you mean those on the payroll of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER)?
How about Joe Biden, Cardona and/or Duncan before as supposedly liberal ed reformers.
“Liberal” ed reformers is indeed a sketchy concept. I’m not questioning their existence: they’re out there, and they are neoliberals. But are neoliberals… liberals?
I’ve studied our new Sec’y of Ed pretty closely. His actions in CT do not place him in the classic neoliberal mold (at least not as that is applied to public school education). His support for stds-aligned annual state testing, e.g., relates more closely to having been a young admin [already] when those ideas took hold. In other words, more about leaning on “evidence”-based bean-counting to support policy initiatives, without the experience of a classroom teacher trying to teach to CCSS. Nevertheless, even in that position he focused on adapting the new methods to a middle ground that worked better for teachers in his district.
However, he is clearly a consensus-builder. Consensus- builders take support where they find it in hopes of moving toward their goals. On one hand, that can mean being able to move the needle (at least incrementally) in a more liberal direction. On the other, he’s green politically, so can get taken for a ride by giving an inch to people who routinely take a mile.
“I assume by liberal ed reformers you mean…”
“Liberal” ed reformers is indeed a sketchy concept…”
Indeed, these terms are jargon and code words that can have different meanings to different people, and the more they are used, the fuzzier they can become. Then the prefixes and qualifying adjectives start. This blurring of meaning happens both innocently and deliberately. This site (and many others) would benefit if everyone would follow two basic rules: define your terms and define your acronyms.
I agree. There are progressive ed reformers, too. But I don’t rail against “progressive ed reformers” just because there are some people who are both progressive (by some measurement) and are very big supporters of charters. Just like I know there are moderates who are strong supporters of public education. Putting Arne Duncan and Cardona in the same box as “liberal ed reformers” blurs the very important distinctions between those who are ideologues, those who take marching orders from funders*, and those who believe in public education and are trying to build consensus.
*In terms of those who take marching orders from their funders, I feel quite certain that the folks at the Thomas Fordham Institute and people like Arne Duncan would suddenly see the light if their billionaire funders decided that charters and vouchers were a bad idea and more money for public schools was a good idea. A few of them are ideologues who would support vouchers and charter schools even if that meant they would lose their generously compensated job and there were no longer any other highly compensated jobs promoting ed reform anymore. But many of them would suddenly “see the light” because they never cared about the issue as much as they cared about their position. That’s why the paid advocates of “school choice” never even consider having school choice within the public school system. That isn’t what their funders want, so that can’t be discussed at all.
/Joel Herman
Cormack School District is part of Smithtown NY as was the Smithtown district. A portion of Cormack
My friends who live there refer to Smithtown as Smithtown Ali-bama. But the good news is that Long Island as a whole Nassau and Suffolk counties voted for Biden by some 70k votes .
And Suffolk County only voted for Trump by a total of 232 votes. That is a far different picture than 2016. When Trump got 50,000 votes more than Clinton in Suffolk County .
It would seem that the State Department of Education should have no problem mandating policy. They never have the problem when it comes to other mandates, Common Core and testing . All it takes is the political will to stand up to fascists .
The NYPD residing in Cormack must be beside themselves, as murders and shootings in NYC have plummeted since the City reopened in May. In spite of the PBA/NYPD rank and file’s best efforts to have that not be the case. Race and fear of crime has always been part of the “bludgeon” used by the right and right wing media to hood wink working class voters .
Commack . Spell check got me .
My husband was raised in Nassau County where lots of well educated professional folks live. It is also the heart of the Opt Out movement.
Commack is Suffolk county and part of Smithtown far more working class than professional .
I don’t quite understand your saying Commack is part of Smithtown. Commack is a couple of miles west; each has its own school district. Commack has 1 hisch; Smithtown has 2 hischs. (Though it’s certainly possible the two towns share the same culture). We have boomer-aged cousins on what I call the Queens ‘diaspora’ [post-block-busting] that in their case extends from Levittown east to Commack, Patchogue and Holbrook [moved out there in the late ‘70’s & ‘80’s]. Things may have changed quite a bit, but in my day, the further east you went, the less the inhabitants resembled liberal NYC denizens who moved east for more space– or scared middle class sorta liberal (but not very) white-flighters– & the closer to throwback LI culture [very conservative lower-middle/ middle-class descendants of farmers and fishermen]. Just as one might expect, the eldest cousin (racist & NRA gun-collector) found joy in furthest east town, Holbrook, with middle-of-the-roader settling in Commack and more liberal brothers in Levittown.
Footnote: I expect the liberals must be gradually pushing the conservatives East on LI. Way back in the ‘60’s, our [liberal upstate-NY family] had a close younger friend/ employee in fam biz. We periodically visited his folks in Wantagh—which is in Nassau, like Levittown, & no further East. His mother was unique & non-conformist, the dad routine conservative. But on a Sunday the dad’s elder brothers would troop in in their worn black suits: they were children of poor Irish-immigrant farmers, & reactionary (politically, religiously, etc).
bethree5
I actually live in Huntington in the Half Hallow Hills School district. One of 5 or 6 SDs in the Town of Huntington. . HHH incorporates children from Dix Hills, Melville ,West Hills Farmingdale , Black Students from Wyandanch (Wheatley Heights) in the Town of Babylon. . . As well as students from the the Western most section of Commack which is part of the town of Huntington. .
All of these are neighborhoods , hamlets , villages call them what you like. With no village governing body or elected officials that I know of.The School Board being the only elected body smaller than the Town level. The distinctions mostly in the real estate office. As is Commack.
The majority of Commack is in the town of Smithtown which like Huntington has several school districts.
Like I said the difference is night and day. 43% of HHH being minority 12% Black , South Asians … Not only is the District one of the best in the state I am not aware of there ever having been a major racial incident .
However I assure you if the Suffolk County Police set up a stop and frisk outside either of the two HSs(which would never happen wealth has it’s privilege) the little darlings would have been attending the State Pen instead of UPen. And that would be the White students I am referring to , including my little darling sons who both now have Masters and gave up drugs shortly after college .
Please identify the acronym “BATS.”
Also, how was the Commack English Department Chair stripped of tenure? Did the school board immediately dictate this in response to the mob? Was the district administration involved? Is the union fighting this?
Stripping a teacher of tenure is tantamount to a nuclear explosion. The union must be fighting this to the nth degree, I would hope.
“Badass Teachers Association was created to give voice to every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality through education. BAT members refuse to accept assessments, tests and evaluations created and imposed by corporate driven entities that have contempt for authentic teaching and learning.”
“BAT members refuse. . . ”
I wish that were true but how many BATS have actually refused to Go Along to Get Along in implementing the standards and testing malpractice regime?
My guess is that the number is less than the fingers on my hand. I’ve not heard of a single one (Myself and the few others I know of were not/are not BATS.)
I don’t know about that, Duane. Their website shows them to be activists; their current push is anti-stdzd tests with exhortations & links for contacting lawmakers et al suggestions; scanning their FB site it appears the great majority post under their own names. They don’t come across as particularly GAGA.
A teacher really does have to be a real badass to refuse to give the tests. I am ashamed to say it’s a little too dangerous for my blood. I would love to and be unafraid to participate in a collective action with all my United Teachers of Los Angeles. I would need the safety of numbers to fight the army of billionaires amassed within the gates of my city. Any BAT who refuses to give the tests anywhere deserves our highest honors.
I meant to say my United Teachers of Los Angeles brothers and sisters.
“I would love to and be unafraid to participate in a collective action with all my United Teachers of Los Angeles.”
Why has your union not initiated such an action–do most UTLA members support all this testing as sound educational practice?
Try to keep in mind that “all this testing” has been federal law since 2001. Fed law [at this point, ESSA] is imposed on States’ Bds of Ed, which is imposed on all state districts. Any experienced, intelligent teacher understands that annual state-stdzd testing 3rd-8thgr + 1 hischgr is not “sound educational practice,” has in most cases warped curriculum in favor of tested subjects & has bred a generation of college freshman who greet classroom discussion with “just tell me what’s on the test.” However, K12 teachers not only do not have the option to ignore annual tests, they are exhorted to waste classtime with test-prep, because student scores are tied, to one degree or another [depending on state– and fed review/ approval of their ‘accountability system’] to school funding and their own evaluations.
Our two national teachers’ unions long kowtowed to this mandate, and have only in recent years begun to push back. (And let’s also keep in mind that only 40% of our states even have teachers’ unions). How is UTLA supposed to turn the tide?
I only became a union chapter chair last year. Working on it. And I need the support of this blog.
The anti-standardized-testing movement will get nowhere until the Unions get completely behind it can call for union-wide strikes until they are eliminated. That the unions have not yet done this means that they are colluding in child abuse and lack cajones and principle.
“The anti-standardized-testing movement will get nowhere until the Unions get completely behind it”
Bob– My thoughts exactly. Do you (or anyone reading this) know specifically WHY unions have not, particularly in strong union states? The only case I know of is the support of the “Opt Out” movement in NY, which is only a step in the right direction.
From a parents’ perspective —
I think the movement against standardized testing has been hampered by being characterized as anti all-testing. The strength of the parent-led opt out movement is that they saw the huge failures of the CC state testing mandates and how it was being horribly used for political grounds and hurting their kids. But I think at least some of those parents were not opposed to having their child voluntarily take the SAT or ACT outside of school, with the score being part (but just one of many parts) of the college admissions process.
When standardized tests aren’t used for political gain, there seems to be a natural de-emphasis on them anyway. That’s what happened with college admissions. That’s what happened back when I took Iowa tests in my public elementary school and parents didn’t care much because they could or could not pay attention to the score if they wanted to, but no one else did (except possibly internally at the school). I actually think that while those old standardized tests have little value, they could have some value at the edges. It’s another tool that teachers have. And by that I only mean that if the results are wildly different than the perception that the teacher has of that student, it simply informs a teacher that they should take a close look at the student again, knowing that it may very well be nothing, but also might be something. That’s my recollection of how those tests were used 50 years ago.
To Duane, there have been a few cases of NY teachers making the news for refusing to administer the tests. Jia Lee was one example but had the support of her principal and I think one year the whole staff at her school refused.
There were a couple of other NYC principals who encouraged parents to opt-out but had to offer the tests for those who wanted them. One of those principals was Jamaal Bowman who got notoriety for sticking his neck out on the issue.
There is also a great superintendent on Long Island named Mike Hynes who encouraged opt out but as mentioned, teachers could be disciplined even for talking about opt out because of the state gag rule.
The decision is better made by parents who are not supposed to be retaliated against (that is until DeVos came along – she retaliated against Mike’s district and other NY schools with high opt-outs).
This year was difference of course – we should see the state opt out numbers soon. My NYC school had over 98% opt out this year.
nycpsp: “When standardized tests aren’t used for political gain…”
An interesting way of phrasing it, & hits the mark. When you use student scores on state-stdzd tests to measure “achievement” that is tied to school funding [let alone teacher evaluations], you have politicized it.
Both those features are about $$, which refers to a particular fed or state budget—limited to a certain sum each year—which then will be parsed out according to… need? Erm, no… to student test scores. As if the fed or state didn’t already know which schdistricts served the poorest students &/or had the least $$resources.
Now I’m not saying, it’s not political to parse out sums according to those with the least resources. It is. But why do we insert the annual testing/ student scores—we have to prove it? So what does that mean: poverty-stricken schools in the same area have to duke out whether they get funding with dueling student test scores?
…And of course all the absurd actions rationalized by that sort of thinking, like let’s close the school with lower scores and send them all to the one with higher scores, but since there’s not enough room, let the losers go w/whatever charter started up yesterday to meet that market… !!
bethree5–
“Try to keep in mind that “all this testing” has been federal law since 2001. Fed law [at this point, ESSA] is imposed on all States’ Bds of Ed… only 40% of states have unions… How is UTLA supposed to turn the tide?”
Yes, I understand this—I have lived through it. My specific question, though, was about the position ONLY of UTLA and its members, in one particular large city– Los Angeles. And I asked in response to a teacher there who said s/he is willing to take action if others would. So, what about the others? Is it just a few? Many? Has the UTLA had serious discussions among its members? Have the UTLA Union leaders had serious discussions? What kind of leaders are they–are they trying to build support among members, or avoid the issue so as not to make any waves and disrupt their prestigious positions of power??
In other words, I’m interested in where things are headed, how and why; not what happened yesterday and what the obstacles are.
Here’s the BATS facebook page. Join us!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BadAssTeachers?sorting_setting=CHRONOLOGICAL
I would, but I don’t interact with nor trust facebook or zuckerberg.
What happens to BATs who refuse to follow their districts’ policies on testing?
Mark.
I don’t believe that there have been any who have refused. Prove me wrong jcgrim.
(Myself and the few others I know of were not/are not BATS.)
Duane, what were the circumstances and results when you refused to go along with your district’s test policy?
Duane, you are an anti-testing icon, and jcgrim is a very powerful anti-testing ally. Let’s be strong by strengthening each other. Jcgrim, if I knew of any BATs among my UTLA chapter leader colleagues, especially if they were in the same Area of Los Angeles Unified as me, there are things I could do to support them.
Mark,
From the first time I heard “data driven decision making” in the late 90s I challenged what we were doing. I taught Spanish so I did not have to monitor or give the tests until later in my career and I refused. Fortunately for me the adminimals had a guidance counselor do their work of organizing the tests and she was sympathetic to my “strong” views and saw to it that I didn’t have to administer the tests and did not tell the administration.
Before that though, I got written up numerous times (with no help from the MONEA to speak of) for challenging that data driven crap and was eventually hounded out by an evil principal, I don’t use that word lightly, but when she attempted to have an assistant principal file sexual harassment charges against me I knew it was time to go as I had seen her run off three very recent teachers of the year. The AP refused as she knew it wasn’t true-we had come into the district together, taught Spanish, worked together for 12 years. She knew what went down and it had nothing absolutely to do with sexual harassment. I was Dept Chair, left that school and took an $20K reduction in salary to teach in another district. Even there, I was hounded because I didn’t go along to get along. Even had the principal call in students to try to dig up dirt about what I taught-he never found anything because I wasn’t that stupid to not teach the curriculum, which I wrote to begin with.
Probably what bothers me the most and why I have a burr in my saddle is that everyone that I talked with privately, whether a teacher or adminimal, agreed with what I was saying about the standards and testing malpractice regime but they implemented the malpractices anyway. For me that is inexcusable. And more than a few made sure to not be seen with me at school/district meetings, heaven forbid that they might be associated with my thinking but they’d tell me in private that they agreed.
All of that takes it’s toll, mostly mentally, but I wonder how much of my current physical issues stem from the stress of all those years. It’s not easy, although fun in a certain sick way, to challenge those in authority, to show them they are full of shit, while at the same time they make sure to let you know who has the power. It wasn’t me!
But hey, I survived long enough to get to retirement, hastened by health issues! The best part? The students and many parents understood what I was doing and they appreciated it.
“…everyone that I talked with privately, whether a teacher or adminimal, agreed with what I was saying about the standards and testing malpractice regime but they implemented the malpractices anyway. For me that is inexcusable.”
Admirable, Duane, admirable. What percentage of your fellow teachers were NEA members?
Dwayne, a teacher who refused to administer state-mandated standardized tests would be summarily fired. Are you saying that they should be willing to do that in order to make a point?
Oh, honey, Just thought I’d mention. I’m going to go in and get myself fired today. OK. See you later.
Sorry. Duane, not Dwayne
Duane, I was very lucky in the first portion of my career to have taught in a school with a guy who sounds very similar to you. He was a huge help to me, in and outside the classroom. He’d been running headfirst into the “walls” at our school for years before I showed up that first day. I’ve seen the physical cost of that integrity and passion pile up on him over the years. But, you know, people are who they are. Thank God, in my case.
I kind of feel the same way about many of the educators on this blog, now that I’m on the other side of my career.
Duane, I don’t have to “prove” anything. The BATS strive to build a sense of community among teachers. The FB page inform about ill-conceived teaching practices and bad-faith edu-reform actors.
Duane, in my book you are a hero. You took public school GAGA head-on. I am sorry the long struggle led to physical stress/ illness. But know this: that was the good fight!
I knew mid-college I was not cut out for public school teaching. I was put off by even the academic backbiting I observed in a med-sized university where clearly admin politics & whimsical authoritarians held sway [despite ‘academic freedom.’] I figured it would be even worse in public K12, when state politics would run admin politics, & academic freedom was not even in play. I was already a for-lang major who disdained the antique pedagogy of the day & had my own ideas. Refused to take any courses on the ed-school campus with their lousy rep, because for c—- sakes my family was paying for an Ivy League ed. Took only the for-lang pedagogy courses I trusted within my school [they were good]. My major advisor [who had also been my Fr teacher in jrhi, then hisch, before she became a prof at our local uni], shocked at realizing I’d get no practice-teaching, set me up with a yr of teaching adult ed back at the local hisch. (That helped!)
I landed on my feet at a private academy where I could pick my own curriculum/ matls, & had wonderful supv/ mentor… after raising kids, became a free-lance Fr & Sp enrichment to PK/K—something w/no precedents, but shaped a course with online help from Brit teachers doing something similar, plus help from W Coast TPR/ TPRS teachers…
Bottom line: everything I did was the easy way that worked for my opinionated druthers—never got pushback, and didn’t make much $$; the 2nd career in Pre/K could never have been done except as a supplement to my husband’s breadwinner income. Anyone like you who steps out there into the public fray and calls their own shots per what they know is right… well, you’re better than I, Gunga Din.
BATS stands for the Badass Teachers Association, a national group with about 68K members online. There are also state groups like NYBATs which has over 4.5K members online. There are vibrant FB pages for teachers who want to learn about and discuss the attacks on public education.
Best as I can tell, the English Department Chair was stripped of tenure when he was “transferred” out of his chair position. There is a GoFundMe set up to support his legal defense but he has said he would donate any proceeds to an anti-censorship charity.
Could it be that the plague, the lockdowns and mask mandates have made people unhinged and susceptible to crackpot notions and ideas propagated from the right wing (Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, etc.)? Mass hysteria?
And/or, it’s the Koch network flexing its muscle. Koch-endorsed candidates have a high likelihood of being elected (savvy, well-funded marketing).
At the Center for Media and Democracy,
“How ALEC (Koch network) is inspiring lawmakers to file anti-CRT bills”.
/Joel Herman
Nah they moved to Commack precisely because of its racial composition.
The County is 8% Black a small portion of Commack is actually in My district, which is in the Town of Huntington vs Smithtown . The HHH district is far more diverse with 12% of students being Black 43% minority, mostly Asian /Black.
A fact that has been pointed out to me many times. What the bigots failed to mention is the White students including my kids did not melt from the exposure.
The District perpetually enters finalists into the National Science competitions . As well as being in the top 5% of state schools. With an Ivy league acceptance rate far higher than Commack . .
Of course the metric that counts is the composite wealth of the zip codes in the district. Me being in one of the few quarter acre zones. .
ah Joel I didn’t realize you live there! See my comment above. You can correct/ update me on latest culture there.
I want to say “yes” to that — but not just any old people. Many of those living in the Eastern half of LI were reactionary to start with (going back generations), & their numbers were plumped for decades by 1st & 2nd gen wkg/mid-class whites fleeing blacks & perceived incursion of lowered property-values/ crime that purportedly [& sometimes really] comes with. Living ever since in an echo-chamber/ bubble that perpetuates the attitudes. (Not to mention for-real Latinx drug-gang crime more recently.) My observation is that people on LI are particularly susceptible to this sort of fear-mongering: they live on an island whose possibilities of moving east to escape whatever they fear has a certain limit.
The GOP drive to win-
J. D. Vance is running for Portman’s seat in Ohio. Vance reviewed national Republican data showing that the pro-Biden counties had fertility rates lower than counties that went for Trump. Vance floated the idea that people with children should be given extra votes based on the number of kids they have.
Leonard Leo, Gov. Dewine, Amy Comey Barret, etc. will be pleased with the idea.
Religio-fascists will be pleased with the idea.
/ Joel Herman
You do make my day. Perhaps being that Republicans love personal responsibility taxes should increase on those who have more than 2 children .
After all; to paraphrase Rick Santelli . ” Why should you pay for your lazy irresponsible neighbor who could not wear a condom or use the pill. “
If the conservative religious believers knew what the Koch network really thinks about them, they might stop assisting them.
The state Catholic Conferences act as though they think, long-term, taxpayers are going to fund their schools. They’ll see what an attack from Koch looks like once they’ve served their purpose and are no longer beneficial. Koch will then tea party religion’s tax dollars.
I’d really like to know the revenue sources of the state Catholic Conferences.
No wonder Tucker Carlson just disparaged Democrats like AOC and Buttigieg for not having kids. I knew there was an ulterior motive…
I don’t know if this was just a very loud minority or this is the prevailing view in this part of Long Island”
How do we even know where these people were from or even if they were there out of concern for their kids and not just because they were getting paid to make a stink?
After all, billionaires and astroturf groups are paying to stack “friendly” school boards around the country. What is to say they are not hiring fake protestors to accomplish similar goals?
Stopping by schoolboards on a trolly Evening” (with apologies to Robert Frost)
Whose trolls these are
I think I know
His house is in Medina though
He will not see me lurking here
To watch his trolls control the show
His comment whores would think it queer
To troll without a dollar near
Between the shimmer and the sheen
The propaganda’s thick round here
His trolls are worst we’ve ever seen
And rude and crude and really mean
They only ever act like creep
The biggest creep that’s ever been
The trolls are ugly, dark and deep
And they have promi$e$ to keep
And boards to troll before they sleep
And boards to troll before they sleep
This is one of your best! Now, how about bringing “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” up to date?
Mark:
It was a dumb Trump parroter,
And he stoppeth, sadly, me,
“By thy Trump flag, foul one,” said I,
“Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?”
I’d planned to get some take-out,
A Covid mask I wore.
The Trumpeteer, he smelled of beer,
And quite the oath he swore.
“Take off your mask, you Communist!
You libtard, snowflake fool!
Your mask just makes it hard to breathe.
You’re China’s b—ch, their tool!”
He ripped the mask from off my face
And threw it on the ground,
And then he spit full in my face
And clucked and crowed and clowned.
I thought of kicking his a— right there
But common sense prevailed.
My friend had caught it all on tape.
And we sent his a— to jail.
Mark, I responded to your call for the “Mariner,” but alas, it is in moderation.
Let’s see if this triggers moderation–
It is an aging fascist and he stopith one of three / “By thy orange face and orange hair, now wherefor stopst though me?” / “There was a STEAL cried he!” Eftsoons he babbled on…
Call for poet-ticks
A call for verse
And meter sticks
The rhyming curse
Of poet ticks*
Stay tuned for ” The Crime of the WordPress Moderator”
Smithtown of which Commack is a part of is definitely Trump Country on Long Island . I can’t exactly tell how the several school districts in the town align with the Election Districts but every ED in the town went for Trump. Some voted for Trump with 51% of the vote others as high as 60% .
Still, that’s 40-49% of voters who did NOT vote for Trump…a pretty substantial minority. Must make for some interesting interactions in the town.
Mark not quite that simple . I am not familiar enough with the Election Districts in Smithtown to tell where those less Trumpian EDs are located relative to the Commack School dist.
There are 4 districts in the Town . Some more Red than others.
However the organizing force behind this BS on Long Island are the Police Benevolent associations from NYC to Nassau and Suffolk.
Notice I did not call them Unions.
It would be too easy to identify outsiders, plus the astroturf groups need real parents in the district to file FOIA requests or for standing if they try any lawsuits.
When the BAT teachers saw this video, they said one after one it was identical to what Los parents in their district were doing.
For anyone interested, this podcast by FoxNews hosts explains to listeners exactly what want them to do and say to follow this template. It’s pretty much word for word what the folks in the Commack video said:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-jake-jacobs-i-warned-everyone-and-now-its-happening/id1569199125?i=1000529884436
This is so sad, and it also demonstrates that one side doesn’t have to offer any evidence – they can just scream loud.
It is a huge failure of the media that they don’t force the anti-CRT folks to give specific examples. I remember a certain poster here who kept trying to foment hate against educators supposedly teaching “anti-white” curriculum by posting links to anti-CRT folks. Those links (which this person posted multiple times here) would be a twitter feed from a nasty anti-CRT person who would link to a video of a hapless educator that the anti-CRT person inaccurately characterized as being outrageously anti-white in his twitter feed.
It was obvious to anyone who bothered to listen to the entirety of the videos posted on that twitter feed that the videos – and the educators in them – did not even come close to being wildly dangerous, offensive and anti-white like they were mischaracterized as being. But the intention was to deceive, since most people are not going to bother to watch the entirety of the videos posted, and if they did, many would be so busy looking for anything that was possibly “anti-white” that they missed what the content was about.
When I called out that poster who kept disseminating that piece of dishonest propaganda, that person denied that it was posted in order to foment outrage and claimed it was just to educate, which I found to be one of the most disingenuous things I had heard. If you can’t defend a piece of propaganda but just disseminate it and imply it has informative content about the anti-CRT issue, then the intention is to deceive, not to inform.
But there are too many disingenuous anti-CRT folks out there, who have convinced a few loud parents that they should be outraged — simply outraged! – that their children might be learning CRT, which they can’t even define, and they insist that their children are being taught that they are bad for being white. It is so outrageous. But as evidenced by the supposedly “reasonable” poster here who intentionally amplified the false anti-CRT narratives instead of wanting a reasonable discussion, the people fomenting this don’t actually care about anything but protecting their own privilege by deceiving white folks into believing they are being horribly victimized and discriminated against. It is shameful.
The saddest part is that the parents are not being deceived. They are willing participants. We have to stop making excuses for people. Those that will stand by and let this happen are just as complicit as those that were at the meeting . Brought their by the NYC /PBA /SBA .
I’d like to know where the Evangelical Christian leadership and other traditional Republican-supporting Christian denominations stand on CRT? Of course, they could have worked to stamp this horseshXX out months ago; their cowardice is backfiring.
“This is so sad, and it also demonstrates that one side doesn’t have to offer any evidence – they can just scream loud.” – FYI That describes the NYC anti-G&T crowd, too.
Beth,
FYI that also describes the NYC pro-G&T crowd.
It surprises me when people believe that 4 year olds can be tested for so-called “giftedness” that identifies them as so superior to other students that they must be isolated in their own schools from K-8th grade, and possibly through 12th grade. And I wonder if those people would agree to “evidence” — forcing every child in a g&t program to be retested every 6 months, along with all the other students in the system, with all students who get higher scores displacing the current g&t students.
I’m sorry the gifts of your special needs child have not been identified to your liking, but there’s no need to take it out on G&T kids. Demonizing other people’s kids by referring to them as gifted in quotations is hate. Would you like your child spoken about in that way? Obviously not, so why would you talk about other people’s kids in that way?
Both my children scored in the 99% as 4 year olds and have thrived in G&T. I know their classmates well and they are all smart, too, It’s only bitter, jealous, ignorant outsiders like you who think otherwise. Who says these kids are superior? They are having their needs met in a G&T program. You are the one getting all emotional like the Commack CRT crowd, calling them superior and suggesting that G&T families are uppity. The G&T program comprises less than 2% of total NYC student population. How is this segregation? Maybe you should use all that PhD downtime to see a therapist, because you really need it.
Beth,
Your hateful reply, and the assumptions you are making about me and my child, speaks volumes. I have an opinion. You decided, with no evidence whatsoever, that I must have that opinion for personal reasons. Could you be projecting much?
Most 4 year olds who are placed into g&t programs at age 4 are not all that different than the academically strong 4 year olds who are in good neighborhood elementary schools. In fact, sometimes they end up in the very same middle and high schools.
I think that many truly gifted 4 year olds aren’t identified by that exam and many students who are no different than the academically strong students in gen eds are. Trying to sort that group at age 4 — and giving supposedly less gifted siblings priority over more gifted students! — isn’t about serving the most gifted students.
They don’t sort kids at age 4. The G&T K population is a fraction of 1% of the total NYC public school population. The G&T test could be taken at age 4, 5, 6, or 7. Stop misrepresenting the G&T program a la Nikole Hannah-Jones.
If anything, the issue is artificial scarcity of seats as has been brought up here before. Just because kids end up at some of the same high schools or there exist really smart kids in GenEd classrooms does not mean the G&T program is invalid. It only proves that expansion in the lower grades would be appropriate.
I would never show up to a meeting to advocate for taking away services from your child. I expect the same courtesy in return.
Beth,
I am curious about what the “services” your child gets in his elementary school g&t program. Not having ungifted 4 year olds in class with you is not a “service”. Accelerated math is not a “service”.
A gifted child may or may not be identified by a single test taken at age 4, but there is a huge difference between being very smart — as many students at specialized high schools like Bronx Science and Stuyvesant are — and the kind of gifted that needs “services”. I have known some truly gifted students – in gen eds – and they were learning calculus for fun in elementary school on their own. The truly gifted kids I know learn a lot more on their own than what is taught in NYC g&t classes, but maybe you are talking about a program in another state.
Beth– “À la Nikole Hannah-Jones » ? What is the connection to G&T testing/ placement? This undermines whatever argument you have—makes it sound like it’s something about racism or reverse-racism [?].
But you have not stated your argument. I’m not in NYC schdistr & don’t know the position of the “anti-G&T crowd,” and do not know about them simply screaming their position without evidence. Is it that NYC schdistr does not offer gifted kids equivalent special classes as those classified as SpEd? Or perhaps the ‘anti G&T crowd’ resents any budget being spent on them?
I can understand your position, I think. Once a district buys into overcrowded “mainstream” classes—I think of them as conformist assembly-lines—it follows they will have to set up “pit stops” (like those in a car race, where you pull in for repairs before rejoining the race). SpEd—presumably G&T also—are “pit stops.”
I had a kid who was both very high IQ and ?? [slow at writing/ reading/ testing despite lightning ability to perform same on a computer, plus ability to articulate understanding of advanced concepts succinctly]. It was diagnosed in primary grades as LD/ ADD– corrected yrs later as a 40-pt differential between IQ & ‘processing speed’—which was further elucidated post-hisch when it turned out he was bipolar. The bizarre thing to me was that the schsys couldn’t get that he grasped those advanced concepts, and let him move on. A simple oral exam would have proved it. The kid was actually a born teacher: he could explain in short order [at 13yo] to has non-math Mom what quadratic equations were & how to do them & how to use them [he just couldn’t write one out to its conclusion]… so public school for him was basically learning how to jump through bureaucratic hoops, via SpEd classes. My son is one example among many illustrating that pubsch focuses only on the mainstream; everyone who’s a round peg in a square hole will have to hope for “special” ed of some sort.
IMHO that’s mostly about class size. In a small class, everyone gets “special” ed. Based on my own ‘50’s rural experience: from 1st thro 6th grade I attended tiny schools– one teacher per two to three grades– where, due to our peculiar community [just outside a major university], the spectrum of students included professors’ kids to school-bus-driver’s kids to somebody’s cousins just moved N from Appalachia. In a small class, your gifted child moves at their own pace, is encouraged to try advanced projects, and also may ;earn from teaching [i.e., running math or reading circles].
“It is a huge failure of the media that they don’t force the anti-CRT folks to give specific examples.”
Check out Susan Schwartz’s link to New Yorker article at the top of the comments. It’s brief, but it gives some insight into the mainstream liberal take on CRT, exemplified early on by Harvard’s on-again off-again relationship with their first tenured AA professor Derrick Bell. Para 5 of the article nutshells pretty well the MS liberal POV on CRT.
All that was 25-35 yrs ago, but [liberal] MSM media today seems not to have changed in their view of CRT, which goes to neither taking reactionary anti-CRT folks seriously by pinning them down, nor taking CRT on head-on. From what I’ve read, they’re still sticking head in sand with “no one’s teaching CRT in K12,” which is hardly investigative journalism & convinces no one.
How do you explain anything to people whose self esteem is dependent on having a higher status than a minority, regardless of their own economic status. I did not need Wilkerson to tell me that both Dylan and LBJ said it near 5 decades ago.
Thus in my arguments with the Trumpanzees I constantly hear “American Values ” . Seriously ?
bethree5,
Yes, Susan Schwartz linked to a very good article. You are right that paragraph 5 is worth re-reading.
“Harvard administrators at the time possessed what they considered, and what students considered, a liberal view on race. Vorenberg and the students “shared a desire to work towards justice and diversity,” Crenshaw and another member of the Black Law Students Association, Donald Christopher Tyler, recalled in the Crimson. The fact that administrators could condemn race-based discrimination while also dismissing the study of race-based power exemplified the blinkered insights of the liberal doctrine.”
I have one quibble with this. What I see is not “the blinkered insights of the liberal doctrine” but “the blinkered insights of older liberals”. I think that is an important distinction because many young people who meet the definition of “liberal” aren’t blinkered. The article even pointed out that many white students understood what older administrators did not.
I had a lot more of those “blinkered insights of the liberal doctrine” until I finally started listening – without bias – to the very good points my own kid was making. My first knee jerk reaction was to try to refute them because I too had that belief that “if we just carry on with the mainstream civil-rights project, we will get to racial justice.” But once I started listening with an open mind, I realized how “blinkered” my beliefs actually were.
I know the idea of being “woke” is so often demeaned and belittled. But when you are an older person like me, growing up believing in all the liberal ideology, it is very hard to hear new perspectives that challenge the ideas you always assumed were right. It can take a long time before you can listen without being defensive. But once you actually do start listening, you start to wake up! And once you wake up, it’s pretty hard to keep arguing the side you were arguing when you realize that you don’t have much to defend it anymore. There was a quote in the New Yorker article, where the law school administrator is chiding the students: “In terms of hiring, would they not prefer an “excellent white professor” over a “mediocre Black one”? When you wake up to how false that choice is, you can never go back to sleep.
So, I think it is less about “liberalism” and more about how hard it is for older folks to put away their long held biases and listen. Many do – especially the owner of this blog! And most “old liberals” like myself will eventually get there, too, even if not right away. The generation of “old liberals” who adored Hubert Humphrey probably felt the same way in 1968.
Good comment, nycpsp, & kudos to you for opening your ears, it’s not easy. My project is to try to understand the ‘deplorables.’ I can’t bear listening to their politicians, or even reading ed de-formers, as Chiara does. But my conservative- rural-w/lib-collegetown-center upbringing makes me interested—especially as my parents were a weird combo of wkg-class Dad raised in KKK-era IN + Ivy League intellectual Mom. [& grandparents were a similar odd couple]. I get most of my ‘deplorable’ input from daily JQPublic callers-in to CSPAN’s “Wash Jnl” show. A couple of yrs ago [during Trump era] it hit me that both sides sounded exactly the same, just trumpeting opposite content. Still trying to figure it out…
I was a flaming lib from the get-go– realized when sibs & I were going thro Mom’s stuff after her passing, & came across a letter I’d written her [sheesh!] For me it was always about govtl politics; the race stuff I seemed to get by osmosis just from being raised by odd sorts who related to others w/o assumptions. Also I was frozen out by a few once-close black friends [from both K12 & college] during national [& our uni] racial troubles in late ‘60’s. I knew them well & trusted their intelligence/ experience, so that stuck out: it caused me to re-imagine life experiences & then-current thought-trends that would have caused it.
So, re: my millennial kids: I am afraid I made them cynical by my constant mouthing off at newscasts throughout their upbringing, [from age-inappropriate time on, sorry kids…] offering my ‘I told you this would happen,’ w/my viewpoint on legislation since Reagan. Race-wise they have close compadres of black et al races, but that is probly mostly about being musicians. Politically: tho I found them cynical as early as mid-teens, they are capable at least of enough outrage to participate in BLM protests.
Thanks, bethree5, it’s interesting to hear your experiences!
How is this different than the Salem witch trials, (June 1692–May 1693)?
This time the witch trials are coming out of Traitor Trump’s land that’s populated by deranged lunatics. Any mob is dangerous. just like the mob that attacked OUR elected Congress on January 6, even when they are made up of mindless MAGA minions.
Ah, Commack, the gateway to Suffolk County’s White Grievance/White Flight Resettlement Zone. You know the little white kids in the Bill Moyers documentary who assaulted and insulted the Black children who dared to walk or ride a bike where they weren’t supposed to? Commack and points east are where they ended up.
Naturally, it is home to more than its fair share of white NYC cops, firemen, sanitation workers, civil servants, and, yes, teachers.
Commack in action: https://twitter.com/KevinVesey/status/1261001977598808065?s=20
Bingo; my activist friends call it Smithtown Ali-bama !
The Last Poets said it: “This Is Madness.”
Interestingly enough I received this information from the group UnKoch My campus with a report on this subject, with the following conclusion: “….As the Critical Race Theory panic reaches a fever pitch in the right wing media ecosystem, It is more important than ever to expose the influence of dark money on public discourse. Despite numerous claims that this movement is “parent lead,” and despite whatever actual rage their work has been able to incite based on disinformation, anti-CRT rhetoric is an astroturfed tool for furthering the priorities of Charles Koch and his wealthy friends. Beyond the initial reporting originating with right wing activists affiliated with the Koch network, think tanks have been using their media connections, influence, and money to produce the talking points that are heard in millions of homes daily. The anti-CRT programme has led to increased polarization, new political censorship of public school education, and it represents a concerted effort to roll back any institutional changes made in response to the movement for Black lives….”
You can read the full report here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5400da69e4b0cb1fd47c9077/t/60f97f1ef6b38207f741e44f/1626963747702/Koch+Funded+Moral+Panic+2021%281%29.pdf
Yup. The problem with CRT– and Critical Theory in general– is that it is so vague & all-encompassing that anyone can read into it whatever they want to. So your local [national pot-stirrer] Astroturf ‘parent group’ does exactly that– just like those who cherry-pick Biblical quotations to support their agenda…
Reblogged this on What's Gneiss for Education and commented:
Some parents can be bat-schist crazy…read on!
Isn’t that how the pandemic is supposed to have started, from bat schist?
Or was it mandolins?
Maybe it was all started with playing charangos.
I wasn’t thinking of that connection when I wrote it, but I won’t forget it anymore.
Thanks for the info!
there is no difference between these people and the KKK.
Catholic Vote really likes Ryan Girdusky (a fawning interview at the site). Girdusky founded a PAC to fund school board candidates who oppose CRT. In 2014, Girdusky interviewed Pat Buchanan (posted at the Buchanan site). We should all read Buchanan’s plan for the GOP’s success. Girdusky learned what to do.
Ignorance breeds racism. And as a former Long Islander, I can tell you that there is lots of ignorance in and around Commack. Commack schools are 79% white, 1% Black and 9% Hispanic or Latino according to their NYS report card https://data.nysed.gov/enrollment.php?year=2019&instid=800000037281
Their assessment results are dismal ( even though I am against this barometer) but it does tell the story that the adults in this area must have similar problems.
80% white says it all.
What does it say? Lay it out there for us.
Actually their assessment results are excellent.Being right next door I was expecting the performance in Commack not to be on par with HHH. The only area they lagged was Ivy League acceptance . Probably more to do with legacy and wealth.
As someone pointed out there are a high percentage of NYC and Long Island Cops ,Fireman ,Sanitation, Teachers ,other Public Workers and Union construction workers. Very similar to the dynamics in Staten Island. Higher income working class Blue and White Collar workers, many empowered to have that lifestyle by the Union movement . With absolutely no solidarity with other workers or Union members.
Isabel Wilkerson opens “Cast” with a description of a picture of a Nazi rally. Noting that of the 10s of thousands in attendance. Only 1 person could be seen not giving the Nazi Salute. It had nothing to do with their education.
You would be right to say the parents have problems but their income played a significant role in the futures of their children.
Sorry, buy 40-60% proficient in grades 3,4 &5 is not excellent.
rratto
Well they must have had tremendous progress by the time they got to HS. Because numerous sites list them in the top 5% of Schools .
in the State. As I am not sure of the metrics and am suspicious of claims of 98% proficient in anything . I can leave it at what the author stated.
“The Commack public schools have strong academic outcomes. 95% of their graduates go to college.”
And nobody would love to say that Trumpanzees have defective offspring more than I. Well almost nobody !
“98% proficient” at walking would be believable.
And “95% of their graduates go to college” might just mean 95% go to college to take a campus tour.
Raw Story recently (7-24-2021) summarized Salon’s research into Project Blitz. Salon found the papers that detail the three tiers of activities (tools and strategies) planned by Christian nationalists. Two relate to public schools.
“…the right’s latest culture war offensive- the racist backlash flying under the banner of ‘critical race theory’…”
Those familiar with charter schools in D.C. may know of Jack Murphy. If not, WAMU wrote about him and Think Progress reproduced his comments about women in an article it posted.
Murphy is a Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow (2021). A few years prior, Christopher Rufo was inducted as a Lincoln Fellow. The New Yorker credits Rufo with the CRT controversy.
Other recent Lincoln Fellows include Charlie Kirk, James O’Keefe, and Jack Posobiec.
Parents of Comack Public Schools: “We are racist idiots.”
The duty of teachers in the Commack Public School System: teach the kids truths that will reveal that their parents are racist idiots.
I’m going to push back on ad hominem attacks just so the Commack parents don’t screenshot this to say they are being unfairly attacked. I believe they are misguided and have made inaccurate and even paranoid statements but the whole point of setting the record straight is to hopefully calm tensions as the facts become known to the larger community.
I would also say from watching the video, the word racist is being used too freely in both directions. The whole point of CRT as I read it is to point out how discrimination is so deeply embedded and normalized in our institutions (including laws and enforcement) that individuals born into this status quo do not see it and are not necessarily consciously choosing to discriminate.
If you take the time to watch the video you see many of the angry parents claiming reverse discrimination because so many equity policies “see” color, and they are quick to quote MLK’s dream speech where he hopes his children will be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
Of course this ignores many of Dr. King’s other statements and for good reason – they prefer color-blind policies because it allows them to ignore disparate outcomes.
Are they racist? They definitely haven’t gone in depth to read up on MLK or CRT but they are only parroting what they see in their media bubbles like loyal culture warriors.
Republicans going back to the Southern Strategy of the 1960s have confessed their plans to appeal to suburban voters by using racially coded terms that tiptoe around overt racism.
This is exactly what the current CRT attack is, the latest version of familiar debates with angry, vocal resistance to the “way things are going”. Someone above posted that Nassau County went from heavy red to a toss-up in 2020 and emotions are raw as Republicans lost ground, they are told their children are being indoctrinated.
I’m not telling anyone what they can and can’t say, but I believe the job of teachers is to patiently and neutrally unpack the truth and facts in class and outside of class to model civil, research based discourse, even in the face of anger and misinformation.
I understand where you are coming from, Mr. Jacobs. However, social sanction, negative and positive, is a POWERFUL mechanism for social change. When I was a kid, racist jokes were common. Now, people don’t tell them. Why? Because of powerful negative social sanction. These folks need to understand that what they are saying is NOT acceptable? Where is their fury about people being lied to about systemic racism and and economic injustice in the United States? About the fact that in one of the richest, most powerful countries in the history of the world, a quarter of children live in poverty?
racially coded terms that tiptoe around overt racism
You said it. I didn’t. That’s EXACTLY what this looks and sounds like.
Saying something is not acceptable gets your point across fine, but ad hominem attacks give them an excuse to say “not acceptable” themselves – and if you were trying to persuade them, may drive them in the other direction. Believe it or not, Nassau County just approved a bill that gives cops the ability to sue anyone for calling them names or threatening them.
CRT as used by these people is a completely meaningless term. It stands for their generalized grievance at it’s not longer being OK for them to be overtly racist is public.
And, no, Ginny, people weren’t teaching CRT in K-12 schools. CRT is an obscure academic framework cooked up by some law professors that almost no one had heard of before the right-wing decided to make it the object of their 2-minutes hates.
But, yes, I can see that the parents of Commack PS are quite upset that sometimes the peers of their little white supremacist kids shun them for being little white supremacists.
Boo hoo. Too bad. So sad.
Social sanction is a powerful force for change.
Actually, I must say, my students in the past have been a little on the nonplussed side with Persepolis. Other novels have been easier sells. But all Anne Frank literature is always huge. How can anyone hide her in the attic? Her story isn’t even at all hurtful to anyone. It’s nothing but inspiring. I do not understand these times. Do not understand.
Commack Parents: “We’re with the Nazis.”
I know, but how is that?
What causes people to be Nazis? Insecurity? Blaming others for their own failures and incompetence via Freudian reaction formation? These seem likely to me. And then, not being very bright, someone like Trump comes along, and he says to them, it’s OK. It’s OK to feel what you are feeling. They are taking your jobs. They are getting promoted because they are black or brown. You really are better than them. You are exceptional.
It’s so bizarre. They want to ban Anne Frank. Why? Because it shows Nazis in a bad light?
Sick. Twisted.
Because they don’t want to discuss the subject of anti-semitism in the classroom. I’m guessing they skate through the holocaust at top-speed to please this particular parent-group…
This is how it happens again–because we forget to remember with our kids.
The Diary of Banne Frank
The Diary of Ban
To put her in the can
The Diary of Frank
To put her in the tank
You do not do, you do not do
Anymore, black shoe
This is beyond disgusting and horrifying. It is a plea by parents to avoid accepting the truth about our history. I pray that these kids learn the truth and go against their parents’ prejudices as they grow into adults.
Do you know why the Diary of Anne Frank was removed in Commack?
I know they were concerned about the adult themes in Persepolis, so it may have been Anne’s coming of age thoughts….
CRT is when I last checked a law school level subject, not high school. We should teach our kids an honest history of the US including slavery and bigotry, along with anti-semitism, racism in general (including Asian). It’s part of history and civics, but not a subject on its own.