‘Death by 1,000 cuts:’ Critical race theory another weapon against public education.
Kentucky is lucky to have a public servant like Education Commissioner Jason Glass.
On Tuesday, he beamed in from his vacation to explain clearly and concisely to members of the Interim Education Committee what critical race theory is and what it is not — most of all, NOT being taught in Kentucky schools. He also explained the concept of equity — the idea that we help students who are at a disadvantage — although we’d hope that as education committee members, they already had some grasp on it. He suggested that instead of muzzling teachers with abstract language, legislators should pass a law requiring that dissenting viewpoints be taught on controversial topics. (That could bring its own confusion: “Jim Crow laws created legal segregation, disenfranchised and terrorized Black people across the South, but not everyone agrees they created a framework of systemic racism.” Um, ok).
Nonetheless, when the sponsor of the bill to ban critical race theory took the stage, it was as if Glass had never spoken.
Rep. Matt Lockett, R-Nicholasville, undeterred by either fact, logic, or evidence, ranted about Marxism, oppression, and oppressors. He made it perfectly clear that although telling K-12 schools or higher education professors what they can and can’t say will almost certainly end up in court, he’s in for the long haul.
And why wouldn’t he? Despite no evidence that CRT is being taught in Kentucky’s public schools, it’s a perfect storm of conspiracy, white grievance backlash, and righteous indignation — a version created by a conservative activist and ginned up by Facebook and Fox News. It will stifle discussion of our unsavory past, whitewash history, and most importantly, galvanize conservative voters in elections from school boards to Congress.
The even bigger problem is that this distraction keeps us looking at the shiny, angry object twirling in front of us while ignoring the deeper — dare I say systemic? — problems that prevail in our schools: Lack of funding, achievement gaps, high school and college graduation rates, which in turn affect economic development and overall prosperity.
As state Rep. Tina Bojanowski, a Louisville teacher, noted last Tuesday, “I can’t understand why this bill is a priority when we have 1 in 7 high schoolers and 1 in 5 middle schoolers who have considered suicide in the last 12 months, when Kentucky ranks the highest in the nation in child mistreatment, when guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens, and when all of the children in our state have had their learning disrupted for an entire year by a global pandemic.”
“Instead of using our energy to address these critical issues, educators are trying to figure out the implications of a bill that is so vague that it is difficult to understand what the ramifications are for our classrooms.”
This performative concern about public school is a laugh anyway. What CRT really provides is the continuing death by 1,000 cuts to public education. School choice, vouchers. Demonization of teachers and the unions that represent them. The unstated but ultimate goal is to take the billions used by states to educate our children and let the money flow into the free market.
“This is 100 percent an attempt to churn up angst against public education,” Bojanowski said in an interview. “However they can chip away at it, and further privatization.”
Nor is it new. William Ellis, the author of “A History of Education in Kentucky,” said these curricular debates hearken back to the fights over evolution and creationism in the 1970s and 80s. “There are always people who want to meddle with education.”
Richard Day, an education professor at Eastern Kentucky University, said the controversy reminded him of past fights over Common Core, a set of curriculum standards from 2010 set down by federal education groups. “That was attacked for some things that weren’t true,” he said. “This appears to be another shadow attack that claims things that aren’t true, but it’s such a volatile topic that people get distracted by it.
“This new vector is a continuing effort to minimize the value of public education.”
Of course, as a legislator, it’s easier to chant code words like “Marxism” than it is to sit down and do the hard work required to fix Kentucky’s tax system to properly fund public schools. So expect to hear a lot more about the danger of Critical Race Theory from people who don’t care if students learn about the Tulsa Massacre but care a lot about the mid-term elections. In this brilliant, yet tortured, experiment we call the United States, we move forward and we move back. And often, here in Kentucky, we end up in the same place.
This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 8:22 AM.
