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Beware the Insidious Attack on Your Local School Board

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2021 //
27

I recently learned of a rightwing website collecting complaints about school boards, presumably to encourage dissension and hostility at school board meetings.

The School Board Watchlist (SBWL) is America’s only national grassroots initiative dedicated to protecting our children by exposing radical and false ideologies endorsed by school boards and pushed in the classroom. SBWL finds and exposes school board leadership that supports anti-American, radical, hateful, immoral, and racist teachings in their districts, such as Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, sexual/gender ideology, and more. SBWL also provides information on how parents and students can get involved in their local school board and put an end to the racialization of the classroom.

This group wants vigilantes to report their school board if students learn about sexism, racism, and other realities of our past and present. This is McCarthyism revisited.

On the “About Us” page, the group identifies itself as a project of the radical rightwing Turning Points USA. SourceWatch reports on the funders and ideology of Turning Points USA.

Evidently, these people don’t understand that state standards authorize the teaching that they find reprehensible.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Evil, Fake, Propaganda, Racism

The Rightwing, Fear-Mongering Drive to Capture Local School Boards

By dianeravitch
September 8, 2021 //
20

New post on Network for Public Education.

Peter Montgomery: The Right-Wing Political Machine Is Out to Take Over School Boards by Fanning Fears of Critical Race Theory

Peter Montgomery, writing at Right Wing Watch, lays out some of the behind-the-scenes work going on among some right wing groups.

The right-wing campaign to stifle teaching and discussion about racism in U.S. history and institutions is fearmongering about critical race theory to mobilize right-wing activists and conservative voters to take over local school boards.

The Leadership Institute, which has trained generations of right-wing activists, is promoting a 20-hour online course to train conservatives how to run for their local school boards in order to “stop the teaching of Critical Race Theory before it destroys the fabric of our nation.” Critical race theory is an academic analytical framework for exploring the existence and impact of systemic racism. Over the past year, the term has been aggressively deployed as a right-wing culture-war weapon that is being used to smear educators and social justice activists. Campaigns against efforts to examine racism in school settings are often combined with attacks on other initiatives to promote inclusion, such as anti-discrimination policies based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Right Wing Watch previously reported that Intercessors for America and the Center for Renewing America, the latter run by former Trump administration official Russ Vought, are distributing a toolkit that encourages conservatives to “reclaim” their schools by taking over local school boards through campaigns focused on opposition to critical race theory. The Leadership Institute, with its new course, appears to be following their lead.

An email promoting an online presentation about the Leadership Institute’s new training sessions, which begin on Aug. 9, declares that “conservatives are preparing a school board takeover and you can get involved.” The presentation was made by the Leadership Institute’s director of international trainings Ron Nehring, a protégé of anti-tax activist Grover Norquist who ran as a Republican candidate for Lt. Gov. of California in 2014 and served as a spokesman for Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“The left has spent many years and vast funding to stack local school boards,” the Leadership Institute’s website claims. “America’s children suffer the effects of this liberal domination every day.” The group adds, “Patriotic Americans must take back the schools.”

Read the full article here.

You can view the post at this link : https://networkforpubliceducation.org/blog-content/peter-montgomery-the-right-wing-political-machine-is-out-to-take-over-school-boards-by-fanning-fears-of-critical-race-theory/

Categories Academic Freedom, Fake, Race, Racism

Jesse Hagopian: Teach Truth

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2021 //
27

Jesse Hagopian is a high school teacher in Seattle and a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement. This column appeared on Valerie Strauss’ blog, The Answer Sheet, at the Washington Post. .

I must be honest. I haven’t been this scared about beginning the school year since I was a kindergartner clutching my mom’s hand on the first day of school.


As a teacher in the Seattle Public Schools, I know I’m not alone in my distress as the first day of school approaches. It’s not just the usual butterflies I still get (even after 20 years of teaching) before school starts in anticipation of meeting a whole new group of youths and knowing I will need to figure out how to meet the needs of a very diverse group of learners.

This year’s back-to-school anxiety is generated from two pandemics: the delta variant of the coronavirus and bills banning teaching about structural racism from Republican Party politicians.

Covid has many educators fearing for their lives and the lives of the families whose children they teach. And the bills banning teaching about structural racism have educators fearful for their jobs and their ability to be true to their students about the history of this country.

Beginning in the spring of 2021, a rash of GOP-sponsored bills proliferated in state legislatures around the country with the stated goal of banning any teaching that “the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist.”

According to Merriam-Webster, “fundamental” means “serving as an original or generating source.” Given the genocide of Native American people and the enslavement of African people in the land that became the United States before its founding, you literally can’t teach about U.S. history without talking about systemic racism.

Already in eight states in the United States of America — Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, New Hampshire, Arizona and South Carolina — it is illegal to teach the truth to children.

To date, some 28 states have introduced legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about structural racism and other forms of oppression. The state education boards in Florida, Georgia, Utah and Oklahoma have introduced guidelines banning an honest account of the role of racism in society.

The 1619 Project, and two of the organizations with which I organize — the Zinn Education Project and Black Lives Matter at School — have become some of the primary targets of this right-wing attack.

In addition, individual teachers have come under vicious attacks for daring to teach the truth. Matthew Hawn, a teacher in Tennessee, was fired from his job for assigning a Ta-Nehisi Coates essay and a poem by Kyla Jenee Lacey about White privilege. A teacher named Amy Donofrio was fired for having a Black Lives Matter flag in her classroom. At least four administrators in Southlake, Tex., left amid hostile conditions created from a backlash to diversity and inclusion efforts that they were helping to lead.

Even in states without the bills that ban teaching about structural racism — such as Washington — educators are facing a backlash for teaching the truth about American history and current events.
A teacher in the Tri-Cities area had physical threats made against her for signing the Zinn Education Project’s pledge to “Teach the truth — regardless of the law.” (The last part is no longer part of the pledge.) Seattle school board candidate Dan Harder ran a campaign opposing critical race theory in schools. The Chehalis School District passed a resolution that explicitly states students will not be taught that people are “guilty or innocent” based on their race — a straw man argument that suggests educators who teach about racism are trying to shame White people, rather than help youths understand the way multiracial movements can challenge structural racism.

In the face of these attacks, the Zinn Education Project and Black Lives Matter at School have launched the #TeachTruth campaign in an effort to push back against these racist bills.
A central component of the #TeachTruth campaign is an online pledge to teach the truth — regardless of bills trying to outlaw honest history — that has already garnered more than 7,200 signatures.

The African American Policy Forum has joined with Black Lives Matter at School and the Zinn Education Project; all three groups are planning rallies and mobilizations for this weekend. Additionally, Black Lives Matter at School is organizing a national day of action in schools on Oct. 14 — George Floyd’s birthday — and is calling on educators to teach lessons that day about structural racism and oppression.

As part of this weekend’s action, educators and organizers in Seattle are planning a rally at Yesler Terrace — the first racially integrated public housing project in the United States. Many of my students over the years have lived in Yesler Terrace, and it has housed generations of low-income Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC), refugees and people with disabilities. But city policy has undermined the Yesler Terrace project, as organizers of the Seattle rally pointed out in their news release:

Yesler Terrace used to consist of 561 homes for low-income residences. The new development at Yesler Terrace only consists of about 300 apartments that are owned by the Housing Authority and have rent set at 30 percent of the household income. The rest of the apartments are privately owned and rented at market rates. There is less low-income housing in Yesler Terrace now.

Policies that have reduced the number of public housing units available in BIPOC communities — after generations of bank redlining restrictions — reveal the way that structural racism works and why it is so important for students to be racially literate.

Yet when teachers help students understand the way structural racism operates, right-wing politicians howl that they are politicizing the classroom. The reality is, however, that students are already talking about these issues and demanding that educators address them.

Students are asking us about why their schools and neighborhoods are so segregated, why there are so many cases of police brutality, why it is so hard to vote, or why more people of color are dying of covid. Educators can either deceive students about the powerful role of structural racism in answering these questions, or they can help students better understand the world they live in so that they can change it.

For me and many educators around the country, there’s no choice. We are teaching honest history because it’s our duty.

I certainly have apprehensions about the school year starting during a pandemic and knowing that the kind of teaching I do can make me a target.

But I also know what side of history I’m on. As the great educator Septima Clark, called the “Queen Mother” of the civil rights movement, once said: “I believe unconditionally in the ability of people to respond when they are told the truth. We need to be taught to study rather than believe, to inquire rather than to affirm.”

Categories Health, Race, Racism

States and Districts Impose Bans on “Critical Race Theory”: Why They Should Not

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2021 //
39

State legislatures and even school districts are banning ”critical race theory,” typically based on misinformation about what it is and what it isn’t. The laws and bans are sweeping, and many teachers assume they are prohibiting
discussions of racism, slavery, the KKK, or anything that might make white students feel uncomfortable. Where such views become law, the accurate teaching of American and world history becomes impossible. There have been many shameful episodes in history, and students deserve to learn about them honestly, not sugar-coated.

The National Education Policy Center posted an interview with Professor Adrienne Dixson, a scholar of CRT, who explained what CRT is and what it isn’t. Here is a small part.

Q: In just a few sentences, what is critical race theory?

A: CRT is a theoretical framework that originated in legal scholarship in the late 1980s. The founding CRT scholars were dissatisfied with anti-discrimination laws and the legal scholarship that informed it because they felt it didn’t adequately address the role of race and racism and relied too heavily on incremental change. CRT was introduced to education in the 1990s to address similar dissatisfaction with research in education that scholars believed did not fully account for race and racism. Moreover, scholars felt that multicultural education had become co-opted and no longer had the potential to adequately address inequities in education writ large.

Q: There are a lot of misconceptions out there about CRT. In a few sentences, please tell us what critical race theory IS NOT.

A: It is not about training people to “be” anti-racist. It is not a static or pre-packaged cur-riculum that is sold to K-12 schools or even universities. It is not focused on making White people feel guilty. It is not Black, Asian, Latinx or Indigenous Supremacy. It is not Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.

Q: What does critical race theory add to our thinking?

A: Critical Race Theory helps us think more carefully about how our policies and practices create barriers that prevent equitable participation and success in the educational enterprise

Education Week posted a story by Stephen Sawchuk about seven local school boards that have passed resolutions to ban CRT. There is quite a lot of confusion about what it is, and districts are taking actions that have a chilling effect on discussions of racism, inclusion, and diversity, as well as honest teaching of history.

Sawchuk writes:

This year’s tumultous debates over whether American racism exists, who perpetuates it, and how it should be taught in K-12 classroom settings has saturated the nation’s thousands of school districts. 

About 26 states now have taken steps to curb various aspects of how teachers discuss with students America’s racist past and how districts fight systemic racism. Many take effect this fall, and some of them contain penalties for teachers and administrators, including the loss of their license or fines. 

But as some of the fiercest critics of race-related teaching acknowledge, the most important level of governance over what is taught, which materials are selected, and what training is provided is at the school district level…

Communities are defining “critical race theory” in different ways, drawing on everything from scholarly sources, to popular bestsellers on race, to talking points from conservative pundits and critics.


Jinnie Spiegler of the Anti-Defamation League writes in Education Week about the importance of teaching anti-bias education and the history of systemic oppression.

She writes:

As of August 12, 26 states have introduced bills or taken steps to restrict or limit the teaching of racism, sexism, bias, and the contributions of specific racial or ethnic groups to U.S. history. Twelve states have enacted bans, either through legislation or other avenues. Amid the pandemic, these laws add a consequential layer of intimidation, fear, and disrespect for educators. It’s a hard time to be a teacher right now.

Critical race theory is an academic framework that seeks to understand and examine how the law and policies perpetuate racial disparities in society (e.g., health care, education, legal, criminal justice, housing, voting, etc.). We know that CRT is notwidely taught in K-12 schools, nor is CRT a curriculum or teaching methodology. However, the purpose of these laws—beyond politics and inciting energy for upcoming elections—is an attempt to restrict or prevent teachers from teaching about racism, sexism, equity, and other forms of systemic oppression.

These laws can potentially prevent teachers from reading a children’s book about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, reflecting on Black Lives Matter and what to do about police violence, understanding current day hate symbols like noose incidents and their historical context of racial terror, and much more.

Why We Need to Teach About Systemic Racism and Other Oppression

These restrictions are concerning precisely because they contradict one of the most important goals of education—to teach young people how to think critically and foster a more just and equitable society so that all people can learn, live, and thrive. To do that, students need to understand what bias and injustice are, how they manifest in society—particularly in systemic ways through our institutions—the historical roots of bias and oppression, and how those injustices have been historically and continue to be challenged and disrupted.

The laws and resolutions now being passed by states and districts will have a chilling effect on what teachers think they are allowed to teach. Given the vagueness of these laws, many students will be deprived of honest history.

Categories Bias, Bigotry, Race, Racism

Texas: School Cancels Award-Winning Elective in Government to Avoid Conflict with New “Critical Race Theory” Law

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2021 //
24

The McKinney, Texas, school district canceled its successful Youth and Government elective course. Officials feared that the program might violate the state’s new law forbidding the teaching of critical race theory.

In Texas, as in other states that have passed such legislation, the result is predictable: it has a chilling effect on freedom to discuss controversial issues, especially anything related to racism, as it allegedly might make white students feel guilty because of their race.

The Texas Tribune reports:

McKinney school officials long took pride in their students’ participation in the nationwide Youth and Government program, calling the district a “perennial standout”.

Every year, students researched current issues, proposed and debated their own public policy, and competed in a mock legislature and elections process for statewide offices. Since the program’s arrival to McKinney in 2005 as a club, seven of the district’s middle school students have been elected governor — the program’s top honor — at the statewide conference in Austin. In 2017, the district added an elective option: Seventh and eighth graders in two of the district’s middle schools could now receive course credit for participating in the program.

But in June, the district canceled the elective option in response to a social studies law passed during this year’s regular legislative session. In an email to middle school administrators obtained by The Texas Tribune, a social studies curriculum coordinator wrote that “in light of” the new law’s ban on political activism and policy advocacy, “we will no longer be allowed [to] offer Youth & Government as an elective course for credit.” As the law puts restrictions on courses, not on extracurricular activities, the original club remains available.

The teacher who led the program resigned two months ago.

Categories Education Reform, Race, Racism, Texas

Courtney Martin: Lessons in Choosing a School and the Stealth Racism of White Liberals

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2021 //
38

The writer Anand Giridharadas writes a blog called The.Ink. In a recent post, he interviewed author Courtney Martin about her decision to send her child to the neighborhood public school, which was majority black and brown. Anand wrote a book that is very relevant to readers of this blog: Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.
In it, he argues that the global elite engage in great acts of philanthropy that do little to help the great masses of people but preserves the status quo in which they are the winners.

This is Anand’s introduction to his interview with Martin about her new book:

A few years ago, like millions of parents, Courtney Martin had to decide where to send her child to school. Because she is an acute and thoughtful journalist and social chronicler, she understood what a complicated and fraught and historically loaded decision that was. And so, in addition to making the decision, she set out on a journey to understand the dilemma she was facing — being torn between sending her daughter to the same places all the other white kids were going and sending her daughter to the local, majority-Black-and-brown public school.

It was around this time that, in one of the signal essays of the era, Nikole Hannah-Jones grappled with her own version of this dilemma as a Black woman highly accomplished in journalism, with the options and resources to choose among many places.

Courtney approaches the dilemma from the very different standpoint of a white woman in Oakland, California, trying to understand the deep and enduring segregation in places that, on the surface, seem progressive and woke.

I caught up with Courtney for her first interview anywhere about the much-anticipated new book that grew out of this searching: “Learning in Public: Lessons for a Racially Divided America from My Daughter’s School.” You’ll find that below.

Read the entire interview. This is an excerpt:

“The racism on the left is obscured and full of guilt and shame”: a conversation with Courtney Martin

THE INK: Tell us the story of how you decided what school to send your daughter to.

COURTNEY: When I would take walks around our gentrifying neighborhood in Oakland with my first daughter strapped in snug in the carrier on my chest, I would always walk by our local elementary school. The kids seemed joyful and the grounds seemed beautiful, but I noticed that there were almost no white kids in the playground (which seemed strange given all the white families I’d seen living here). When my baby grew up, and was old enough to go to transitionary kindergarten, I sort of put my journalist hat on and started researching where all the white kids are. That led me on a journey of thousand moral miles. 

Ultimately, I learned that despite all the hype about Brown v. Board and Ruby Bridges, our schools hit the peak of integration in the 1980s, and it’s only been downhill from there, largely because of white parents like me who either disinvest from public schools entirely by sending our kids to private schools, or navigate to make sure our kids go to the whitest, most highly resourced public schools in our district. I also learned that integration is the only thing we know that actually works to break the cycle of poverty for Black and brown kids, and that white kids who go to integrated schools do fine. It felt hard, in some ways, to choose a school that most of our friends weren’t choosing, and one with a 1-out-of-10 rating on GreatSchools.org to boot, but the research I did (thank you, Nikole Hannah-Jones and Rucker C. Johnson!) helped us get over that initial fear. And thank goodness it did, because we all love our kid’s school so much.

THE INK: In your introduction, you say that “this book is very much about racializing white people” and that you “attempt to write with a ‘white double-consciousness.’” What does that mean?

COURTNEY: There are so many incredible books about educational inequity and the failed promise of integration, but they tend to be academic. I wanted to write a book that would serve as a gateway drug of sorts to all those great books — a fast-moving, personal story that would draw people in and then hit them with a bunch of new knowledge about race and education, and leave them with some good self-searching to do. My audience is white and/or privileged parents, though I did a lot of work to make sure the book felt useful and true to BIPOC folks in my own community, but also in the educational space writ large. 

In any case, I wrote about myself and my family in a deeply vulnerable way, trying to force myself to see the water I swam in and describe it for other white people. Part of what keeps white supremacy in place is that whiteness is treated as a default, as neutral, instead of a distinct culture with its own language, norms, and problems. In a sense, I was trying to center whiteness, so we can get better at decentering white people. 

THE INK: You write about Dr. Janet Helms’ “framework for white racial development” that she developed in the 1990s. You quote her as saying: “In the first stage, you are basically oblivious, interacting with very few people of color, and when you do, you do your best to pretend as if nothing is different about them.” A lot of white Americans are still very much in this stage, at best — the colorblind stage. But I would imagine that a lot of your fellow white parents in places like Oakland think they’re different from that, further along the journey. Are they, in fact?

COURTNEY: Exactly. I think Americans who live in largely white neighborhoods and mostly interact with white people — of which there are A LOT — are probably still hanging out in this stage. But most of the white people I know who have chosen to live in hip cities like Oakland, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, etc., pride themselves on wanting to live in multi-racial community. And yet I think many of us, in fact, only have this as an aspiration, not a lived experience. When we actually look around the table at our dinner parties, or check out our kids’ soccer teams, we are confronted with the reality that we live in multi-racial cities, but many of us also lead very segregated lives, particularly socioeconomically. 

Categories Education Reform, Oakland, Race, Racism, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Kentucky: Brave Teacher-Legislator Condemns Vague CRT Proposed Law

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2021 //
4

At the peak of the Teacher Revolt in 2018, educator Tina Bojanowski ran for a seat in the Kentucky legislature and won. She was re-elected in 2020. She is a teacher in the public schools of Jefferson County (Louisville).

In this video, she explains to her fellow legislators that their efforts to ban “critical race theory” are nonsensical. There are real problems to be addressed, like youth suicide, gun violence, and COVID.

She surveyed her colleagues and found that they were confused about what they were allowed to teach to comply with the law’s requirement that they must avoid any mention of racial superiority or anything that would make students uncomfortable. One teacher asked how she could teach about World War 2 without mentioning Hitler’s claims of Aryan superiority. Another said that history includes many actions that might make students uncomfortable.

Her brief statement illustrates the value of having working educators in the state legislature and the folly of state legislatures passing laws mandating what teachers are not allowed to teach.

Categories Accountability, Kentucky, Racism, Teachers

Traverse City: The Success of Common Sense and Decency

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2021 //
28

Nancy Ackerman Will, a teacher in Traverse City, Michigan, updated my post today about the angry protestors at a recent board meeting, who accused school leaders of allowing critical race theory to “seep in” to the schools.

She posted this good-news comment:

I am an elementary music teacher for Traverse City Area Public Schools. I appreciate your article, but you should know that three days ago the TCAPS Board approved a revised Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging resolution with much stronger language to support our students. This time the meeting room was packed with people in support of the resolution, wearing red shirts in solidarity. Parents, grandparents, members of the faith community and students spoke in support of strengthening and passing the resolution.

I am pleased to say this was the end result. https://www.record-eagle.com/news/tcaps-board-passes-equity-resolution-7-0/article_64121fba-ee47-11eb-83b8-036d823f2f6c.html

Video of the 3 hours of public comment at the meeting and then two hours of the Board members crafting a final document can be viewed here: https://livestream.com/tcapslive/board/videos/224040779

Categories Accountability, Michigan, Parents, Racism

Traverse City, Michigan, Divided Over Racism and Critical Race Theory

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2021 //
27

The national frenzy over “critical race theory” (CRT) has been generated by a small number of conservatives in search of a hot-button issue that would outrage their base. They found that issue in CRT, which has caused conservative white parents to claim that their children are being indoctrinated by discussions of racism in school. Numerous Republican-led states have passed laws that ban teaching of CRT or anything that would cause students to feel guilt or discomfort. Such laws tend to outlaw any discussions of racism or slavery, past or present.

In Traverse City, Michigan, which is 90% white, debates about CRT have enflamed the community and spurred conservative white parents to oppose any effort to teach and learn about racism. The furor began when a black 16-year-old high school student learned from a friend that she had been “sold” in a slave auction in a private Snapshot group. This story by Hannah Natanson was published by the Washington Post.

The Snapchat group, titled “slave trade,” also saw a student share the messages “all blacks should die” and “let’s start another holocaust,” according to screenshots obtained by The Washington Post. It spurred the fast-tracking of a school equity resolution that condemned racism and vowed Traverse City Area Public Schools would better educate its overwhelmingly White student body and teaching staff on how to live in a diverse country.

But what happened over the next two months revealed how a town grappling with an undeniable incident of racism can serve as fertile ground for the ongoing national war over whether racism is embedded in American society.

Events in Traverse City would demonstrate how quickly efforts to address historic disparities or present-day racial harassment in schools can become fodder for a campaign against critical race theory, fueled by White parents’ growing conviction that their children are being taught to feel ashamed of their Whiteness — and their country.

The equity resolution was unprecedented in Traverse City, an idyllic lakeside vacation spot with a population of 16,000 that is more than 90 percent White and politically split between red and blue. The two-page document, inspired by nationwide protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death last year, suggested more training for teachers and adding overlooked viewpoints to the school system’s libraries and curriculum.

Although at first it drew vocal support — especially from families and children of color — it has since inspired equally vehement opposition, led by mostly White, conservative parents who contend that the resolution amounts to critical race theory in disguise. The theory, known as CRT, is a decades-old academic framework that holds racism is systemic in America, but which has become a catchall phrase conservatives wield to oppose equity work in schools.

In interviews, children of color in Traverse City reported enduring years of harassment in the classroom and on the playing field. Black, Native American and LGBTQ students said casual racism, sexism and homophobia form part of daily life. Some White children said they have witnessed this, too.

Conservative white parents say that teaching about racism is racist. They say, “Nobody here is racist.” Students who are not white disagree.

The local school board wanted to approve an Equity resolution affirming that “the school system condemned “racism, racial violence, hate speech, bigotry, discrimination and harassment.” It called for holding more “comprehensive” training for teachers, adding historically marginalized authors to school libraries and reviewing the district’s “curriculum and instruction [to] address gaps . . . from a social equity and diversity lens.”

But some outspoken white parents disagreed.

The real answer, these parents say, is for the district to focus on enforcing the strong anti-bullying policy it already has. And officials should sit down with the students who participated in the group chat and teach them the golden rule: to love thy neighbor as thyself.
“That’s how I was raised,” said Lori White, a 41-year-old mother of two who has lived in the area her entire life. “I’ve never seen any sort of discrimination. People in Traverse City are just kind.”

They say their hometown, although imperfect, is not a racist place, and they are not racist people. They say the Snapchat group chat is an isolated incident that is being weaponized by activists to paint an entire community as prejudiced, which they think is unfair. They say the school system is buckling to political pressure by pursuing initiatives like the equity resolution that inject race into every setting — when all that will do is spur more division.

As the debate heated up, the number of parents opposed to CRT in their schools increased, and the school board watered down the Equity Resolution, making it inoffensive.

More than 200 people then crowded into two rooms to listen to 55 people speak during a public comment session. The vast majority of speakers decried the equity resolution as critical race theory, according to public video of the meeting and the Record-Eagle.
By that time, school board members — wary of the building backlash — had already reworked the document. The second version lacks the line about applying a “social equity and diversity lens” to the curriculum. It also no longer suggests the district will add “marginalized” authors to their libraries, nor that Traverse City schools will give students more opportunities to learn about “diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging issues.”

Officials furthermore deleted the terms “racism” and “racial violence” from a list of things the school district condemns. Also deleted is a passage that stated “racism and hate have no place in our schools or in our society.”

The school board decided that acknowledging racism would spur divisiveness. Better to ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist.

The debate in Traverse City will make it impossible to discuss racism and other forms of prejudice.

Categories Michigan, NCLB, Racism

Bob Moses: A Tribute to a Brilliant Civil Rights Activist and Educator, and His Message to Us

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2021 //
10

Bob Moses died on July 25 at the age of 86. He was noted for his intellect and courage. He was a leader of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), leading a voter registration drive in Mississippi at a time when violence against Black civil rights activists were at risk of being murdered, and no jury would convict their killers. In 1964, he led the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which tried unsuccessfully to replace the all-white Democratic delegation to the Democratic National Convention. In 1982, he founded the Algebra Project, to teach algebra to underprepared Black youth. He received multiple honors for his work. He graduated from the elite Stuyvesant High School in New York City, Hamilton College (where he majored in philosophy and French), and earned a master’s degree at Harvard in philosophy.

One of his friends and admirers forwarded the following story:

It might be of interest that Bob’s first stop on his way South from the Bronx was the SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] office on east 19th street He said it was his first stop and affirmation of friendship and sncc sds solidarity


He was always a friend


He spoke at a University of Michigan commencement ceremony
He said “people don’t like long speeches and that are hard to remember. Mine will be short.

I want everyone here to accept as a common mission to guarantee quality public education to everyone in America as a matter of right guaranteed by the federal constitution” then he paused and then said “So you remember I will repeat: I want everyone here to accept as a common mission to guarantee quality public education to everyone in America as a matter of right guaranteed by the federal constitution.” Then he sat down.

It was stunning. The University president expecting a long something didn’t know what to say… having previously mis-introduced him as. author of “Racial Equations”

I found the address memorable and it might be well in memory of our friend to rededicate ourselves to the common mission to guarantee quality public education to everyone in America as a matter of right guaranteed by the federal constitution. Bob Moses, Presente!

Categories Civil Rights, Courage, Democracy, Education Reform, Racism
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