Interesting coffee-chat yesterday with a former colleague yesterday. She told me of a public school district where the board had banned "critical race theory" (CRT) which immediately lead to a 50% drop in teacher applicants to the district. I don't know how accurate this is, or even where it apparently occurred, however four things stood out.
Firstly, we have the inevitable problem of definitions, True CRT is a college thing which does not appear at school level. The term is of course a short-hand for something else and while each of those discussions is probably worthwhile, they should be clearly delineated and individually examined. I believe CRT-critics deliberately do not define the term so that they can also direct concern about "x" to attack "y" and "z". A clear and unambiguous definition would bring light to any such dark motives and quite likely, end them.
I remember a few years ago interviewing a teacher who was leaving her public school district. She had been couducting then-fashionable "action research" into high-school senior responses to real-life scenarios and had used an incident of an attack on an elderly person outside a supermarket. She gave the exact same scenario to three different classes, however with one class the victim was an older white woman, another an older white man and the third an older black person (I don't remember the gender). She said the student responses were generally homogeneous (concern, outrage, empathy), however the Principal give her an official reprimand because he had received two parent complaints. Two parents from the "black" group had complained about her political bias in presenting only one case of violence with a black victim and not showing balance by also presenting another with a white victim. Yet, the two scenarios where she had presented only the one white victim were deemed acceptable. Clearly the issue was not one of balance.
Banning something which does not occur and/or has not existed is neither here nor there. Vague, undefined and reactionary bans are problematic and show a board which does not know its business and which should not be in business.
Secondly, a school or a district which is known for its commitment to music or to football will attract teachers (and families) who want that focus and lose those who do not. At some point, this leads to a Stepford Wives situation and a loss of differing experiences, viewpoints, initiatives. In the old days, a variety of inputs was known as diversity of thought and such diversity was seen as a good thing. Board decisins unavoidably lead to a loss of some teachers and a gain of others, leading in turn to a degree of sameness. The effect of decisions in terms of variety of experiences and of thought, or diversity, should be a factor and where this is not explicitly considered, we have again an out-of-its-depth Board.
Thirdly, while I have only experiential data and not empirical evidence, when unpopular or poorly-considered decisions are made at the top, those teachers and administrators who vote with their feet are nore often than not the innovative, the more effective and the more ambitious. Thus, those who remain are more often the mediocre, the less engaged and the less transferable. So as well as the risk in the previous paragraph, the district may well now have a similarity of average or below.
Fourthly of course is the message of Board interference in operational matters. When Boards insert themselves into the classroom, effective administrators and teachers leave. Those who suffer are not on the Board, they are the students. I have seen research (sorry, no sources) who suggest students can recover from one year of poor or interrupted instruction, but not two. Board decisions tend to affect multiple years, so while one decision may not on its own break the camel, several such decisions can and likely will. The CRT decision above may indicate this Board's general approach and that is unlikely to be positive.
My response to the reported CRT decision, whether true or not, is unconnected to that decision per se. The role of a Board is to make long-term strategic decisions, and those involve policy. However I do reject bad decisions and I strongly suspect that in this case, this is what we have.
**Please leave your questions and comments below.**
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