I've been in education for over 15 years and had never even heard the term CRT before it blew up as the latest conservative obsession. So outside of perhaps some universities it isn't something that anyone talked about, used, or taught.Falco Underhill wrote: ↑Tue Jun 21, 2022 12:10 amI didn't say it was.
I did describe Herbert Marcuse and CRT as neoMarxist, but Herbert Marcuse would be described as Neomarxist by any University, it's not a "conservative" label.
CRT I'm not so sure, but I'm not certainly not alone in that either.
However, issues related to race and systemic racism are a topic in education. Not in terms of curriculum, but in terms of educational administration. Here are two real-world examples I have encountered.
First, in Texas standardized testing is a very big thing at all grade levels and schools are rated A-F based solely on two metrics: standardized test scores and graduation rates. However the ratings are further broken down by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. So test scores and graduation rates are further subdivided into: Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, and poverty or low socioeconomic status (defined by school lunch status). If a school or school district wants to get an A or "Exemplary" rating they have to hit the top metrics not just for their overall population, but for each subgroup. If the white students have high test scores and graduation rates at a school but the Black or Hispanic students do not then the school will be poorly rated. Everything from real estate values to investment decisions by commercial real estate developers hinge on these school ratings. This system was imposed from top-down by the Republican legislature and Republican-run State Department of Education and most definitely not something local school districts came up with on their own.
I taught at a fairly highly rated school and school district and I can tell you that school administrators were laser-focused on test scores and graduation rates, especially for the more vulnerable subpopulations of Black, Hispanic, and poor kids who tended to do more poorly on both metrics. And so I wound up sitting in a lot of meetings dealing with topics like what are the systemic barriers to Black and Hispanic students improving their test scores and graduation rates. Why are they doing more poorly as a group and what can we do to reverse it? Language, poverty, inadvertent tracking, disciplinary procedures, all kinds of systemic issues were explored. Were these exercises "Marxist" or "Neomarxist" because they delved into the topic of systemic racism? Were they inappropriate in any way? You tell me.
Secondly, during my time teaching in Texas there was also a lot of discussion and examination of disparate disciplinary rates between White and Black students. Black students tended to be suspended at measurably higher rates for the same offenses as white students. They also tended to be arrested at higher rates than white students for the same offenses. Both of these two things have a direct effect on school performance. If you aren't in school you do more poorly. But they are also signs of inequity. If you are trying to fix these problems you have to ask WHY they are happening. And that means exploring whether there are systemic biases within the school and local police departments that work within the schools that result in inequitable treatment of Black and White students. Or if it was simply the individual biases of specific teachers and administrators who treated Black kids more harshly. This was a very real problem that I observed first-hand. And Black parents were most definitely aware of it. Every fall during teacher open house I would have Black professional parents visit my classroom, especially the moms. They would give me their business cards and plead with me to please please contact them first if there are any disciplinary issues with their kid and they they will deal with them. Because they feared having their kid get sucked into a downward disciplinary spiral that affects so many Black kids. In 9 years of teaching in Texas this is not a conversation I ever had once with a white parent. White parents just assumed (mostly correctly) that their kids would be treated fairly when it came to school discipline and it wasn't ever on their radar.
Is it "Marxist" to dive into these topics and try to figure out what is going on? You tell me.
