This blog on Texas education contains posts on accountability, testing, K-12 education, postsecondary educational attainment, dropouts, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, environmental issues, Ethnic Studies at state and national levels. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin.
Thinking about manufactured crises. In a July, 2018 piece appearing in Dame Magazine, journalist Allison Hantschel writes of how so much of the outrage we see in America is not just fomented, but purchased and thusly, contrived to make you think you or your country is under attack. She does well to call out the press itself by being wittingly or unwittingly party to this outrage. She cites a specific example of manufactured rage that you can read for yourself here the the Palm Beach Post titled, "Libs of TikTok creator backed by Babylon Bee CEO of Juno Beach."
This CEO sponsors a social-media agitator to defame LGBTQ people as pedophiles. The added step of sharing LGBTQ individual's posts for purposes of targeting them, is exactly how this quickly turns to violence. Hence, this is pre-meditated violence and regular media play into this by treating dishonest people like these as "news." And then members of the press wonder where this animus against gays and others started?!
It's all so disturbing and our youth, in particular, need to be literate about such things and to not get overtaken by these paid-for, truly hostile and vicious manufactured messages of hate that result not just in civil violence, but state violence via campaigns and the filing and passage of defamatory anti-trans laws.
If we as a polity are silent about such things, incipient authoritarianism finds fertile ground. This is anathema to democracy and democratic principles, my friends.
Last month was one of the most frightening in recent memory for the LGBTQIA+ community. Pride events across the country were canceled out of safety concerns, with violent anti-LGBTQIA groups disrupting and menacing previously safe havens like libraries, bookstores, and bars.
GOP-led legislatures across the country have passed nearly 80 anti-trans laws, from banning gender-affirming medical care to defunding libraries that carry books about sexual and gender identity. In Arizona, teachers have to use the pronouns correlating with a student’s assigned sex at birth regardless of how they identify. In Alabama, trans students are forbidden from competing in sports. In Indiana and Florida, teachers may not speak about “human sexuality,” even to refer to a same-sex spouse in day-to-day conversation.
That drumbeat is echoed on social media as a parade of outrages, minor situations or events knitted together—like a trans influencer drinking a beer, a store displaying a rainbow shirt, or a teacher reading a story about diversity—to give people the false idea that their way of life is under attack.
The influencer, the store, the teacher—they’re not forcing anyone to do anything. People can scroll on by, walk past, shrug. They can go back to their jobs, their hobbies, their concerts, their churches, their board games and bike rides and sports leagues, without being affected by the teacher or the store or the influencer ever again.
But posted, memed, re-recorded and TikToked, dishonest right-wing media figures turn these things into calls to arms—they claim that these people are out to corrupt and recruit our children, knowing full well that it isn’t true. Protest the influencer! Ban the teacher’s book! Smash the store windows and burn the rainbow shirt!
These bad actors, funded through Republican think-tanks and donor organizations by billionaires who see anti-gay hate as a way to sway votes, are being well compensated to produce anger. It’s their major product:
And this:
They’re being paid to make you think there’s a war and you have to enlist immediately, lest some amorphous idea of “your way of life” or “your children’s future” or “America as we know it” dies without your action. To make you feel like violence is the best and only answer to these “groomers” and “monsters,” whom they characterize as subhuman.
These are like lessons taken from the oldest fascist playbook on Earth, but they’re playing louder now, on social media, with the sources of these attacks on marginalized people harder to trace for the average person. Following a widely shared online misconception back to its origins isn’t something most consumers have time to do, so cautioning people to be careful about sourcing their information has limited impact, and those pushing these rage-bait stories know that.
They know that between work and kids and hobbies and obligations most people don’t have time for a more than cursory glance at something that looks official. For example, The Daily Wire certainly sounds like a real news source! You’d have to read more than just one story that someone you know shared in passing to understand that it’s a GOP-donor-backed bigot page dedicated to quarter-truth conspiracies about books turning your kids gay and trans, and liberals hating on the flag.
So it’s all the more critical now that professional reporters, editors, and producers dedicate themselves to providing context to their audiences. Real news outlets’ reach on social media far exceeds that of even the most popular activists, and they’re uniquely positioned to educate people as to why they’re being asked to become outraged now, and who might benefit from that outrage.
This is actually a moment when the press might do work that opens eyes and rouses minds to a deeper understanding of the modern world. Tragically, most corporate media seem satisfied to cover this campaign of terror as a tit-for-tat checkers game between the usual two “opposing sides.”
Teachers reading kids a story or singing a song “trade barbs” or “clash” with unhinged screamers accusing their classrooms of harboring pedophiles. Activists helping AIDS patients are depicted as the equal opposite of an anti-abortion group using those same activists as an excuse to sign up new supporters and gather emails for coming political campaigns.
The national press is failing at this moment as hard as they ever have in the past. The New York Times, America’s preeminent traditional news source, spent the past year interviewing prominently dishonest anti-trans activists pushed at them by God knows who and then had the audacity to ask how an anti-trans GOP campaign “happened.”
With each new attack on marginalized people, editors and producers have an obligation to outline the right-wing media pipeline that takes a random social video, launders it through a popular Twitter feed, incites some low-level conservative columnist to make it the topic of the week, which launches it onto the toxic fake news channel, Fox and thus into the dentist’s offices and airport lounges of the world.
How did some individual’s TikTok become so urgent that if we don’t discuss it we risk the downfall of the country? Who keeps asking every minor celebrity to provide some cringeworthy quote about “woke ideology” for the entire right-wing media to amplify and dunk on?
When a group of screamers show up on a bus with pre-printed signs at the municipal meeting, even the busiest local stringer can ask who t told them to be there and provided them with their signs. Journalists can extrapolate bus costs, FOIA protest permits, and query participants about the poisoned game of telephone that led them to a place where they’d accuse school boards of sex crimes.
Describing the origins of these flash mobs of rage will do more to serve audiences than merely repeating the lies told by propagandists, even to debunk them. People don’t just need to know that something they’ve shared isn’t true.
They need to know who had an interest in showing it to them in the first place. Who wanted them to be mad about it, and who’s getting something out of that anger.
Without that understanding, people seeing anti-gay riots on TV or reading a hateful meme online might imagine these campaigns of bigotry are homegrown and normal, examples of the prevailing sentiment of the day. They’ll see the created, coordinated response of a political party on the wrong side of history as the attitude of their friends and neighbors, and far too many people will give in to societal pressure to go along with it, or at least keep silent.
So sad to learn of friend and journalist Maria Martin's passing. Formerly with National Public Radio, she founded the acclaimed English-language radio programLatino USA. She dedicated her life to uplifting the voice of the marginal through not just journalism, but through the training of journalists, internationally. Maria, may you rest in power.
For nearly half a century, Martin brought the voices of Latin Americans and Latinos in this country to public radio. She reported on politics, violence and resilience of indigenous communities in Central America. Most recently, she filed reports from Guatemala.
Martin was born in Mexico City and grew up in California. She got her start at KBBF in Santa Rosa, Calif., the first Latino-owned community radio station in the U.S. Later, she was an editor on NPR's national show Latin File, before becoming the network's first and only Latin American affairs editor on the national desk.
She left NPR in 1993 to create the English-language radio program Latino USA. Thirty years later, Martin told host Maria Hinojosa her vision for the show was "to reflect the diversity of the Latino community in all of its beauty, and in all of its pain."
Martin also trained generations of journalists in Guatemala, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Kyrgyzstan and the U.S. She founded a nonprofit called the GraciasVida Center for Media to improve public radio coverage of Central America.
My heart sings. This is a great day in Texas history.
Hats off to Baylor University! Cheers to Associate Professor of English Dr. Coretta Pittman, and Associate Dean for Humanities and Social Sciences Dr. Kimberly Kellison, for their leadership, together with all the other faculty in bringing this interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies minor to fruition under the conceptual framing of a "caring" curriculum and community.
As I've dedicated much of my career to caring, Ethnic Studies, and community, this hits all my buttons.
Instead of running away from this through anti-diversity initiatives, this is EXACTLY the direction that all of our K-12 schools, colleges, universities, state, and nation need to go in.
My own work has been centered in caring and Ethnic Studies. I pleases me enormously to see this taking root at Baylor Baptist University. Not that more doesn't need to be done as this is only a beginning, but geez, what a beautiful, welcoming statement to the students at the school and symbolically, to the state and nation.
The irony of this anti-diversity moment may end up being that the private schools like Baylor, Trinity University, St. Mary's, Our Lady of the Lake, and so on, become sanctuaries for Ethnic Studies. Not that we don't have Ethnic Studies in our colleges and Research 1 universities like UT and A & M, but rather that we have been positioned in a defensive posture due to Senate Bill 17 that eliminates state funding for diversity positions and initiatives.
Baylor is standing in the gap and taking our state in not just a great direction, but one that aligns with the inexorable shift toward a multiracial/multiethnic democracy, as long as we can hold onto it.
Baylor’s new ethnic studies minor aims to foster a sense of belonging and inclusion BY KEVIN TANKERSLEY OCTOBER 22, 2023 | Baylor University
In an increasingly diverse and interconnected society, knowledge of experiences across ethnicities and cultures is key to addressing some of the world’s greatest challenges. The College of Arts & Sciences is creating a minor in ethnic studies that brings together courses from across disciplines to help students develop a deeper understanding of the human experience and enhance their degree program.
The impetus to bring an ethnic studies program to Baylor began a few years ago when Dr. Coretta Pittman, associate professor of English, and Dr. Kimberly Kellison, associate dean for humanities and social sciences in the College of Arts & Sciences, began discussing topics related to diversity experiences on campus.
“A few years ago, George Floyd’s murder activated our students, like many across the country, to share their own experiences of racism,” said Pittman. “I read those social media posts, and I encouraged my colleagues to read them. We started talking about how we can help these students feel more comfortable in the classroom and on campus. How can we understand and impact the success of students as they graduate? How can what we learn together at Baylor impact academia more broadly and our society for the better?”
Kellison began to pursue the idea of creating an ethnic studies minor with Dr. Lee Nordt, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences.
“We recognize the role of the humanities in cultivating skills related to critical thinking, ethical judgement and interpersonal communication. The new ethnic studies program will contribute toward this pursuit,” Kellison said. “Since the minor will be available to students across the University, it’s an opportunity for the College to lead out in this work across disciplines.”
Developing the Curriculum
To develop a curriculum, Kellison encouraged Pittman to bring together a group of faculty who were already teaching classes that might fit into the minor.
Pittman enlisted the help of an interdisciplinary group of faculty, which included: Dr. Ryan Sharp (English); Dr. Jerry Park (sociology); Dr. Scott Varda (communication); Dr. Moises Park (Spanish); Dr. Ron Johnson (history); Dr. Mia Moody-Ramirez (journalism, public relations and new media); Dr. Victor Hinojosa, who teaches political science in the Honors Program; Dr. Jonathan Tran (religion and Great Texts); and Dr. Paul Martens (religion), director of interdisciplinary programs in the College of Arts & Sciences.
“With this group, we could push each other to think and to disagree and still be friends at the end,” Pittman said. “One of the things we want to do is remind folks that this is not about benevolence. The academic work we do around ethnic studies is real scholarship that is important to the academy.”
Finding classes that would fall under the umbrella of ethnic studies was one of the challenges. With the help of Dr. Christina Chan-Park, associate librarian and STEM coordinator in the University Libraries, a robust group of courses was identified and evaluated by the ethnic studies minor working group.
“Once we found the courses, I would email professors to ask them about the curriculum and if they would be willing to add the course to the minor,” Pittman said. “Faculty were eager to participate.”
One of the course offerings in the new minor will be Scott Varda’s Rhetorics of Race.
“I cover the cultural, economic and historical construction of race and ethnicity as made real through rhetoric,” Varda said. “We will discuss everything from literature to newspapers, movies, television and social media.”
In the English department, Ryan Sharp used a College of Arts & Sciences Teaching Innovation Award in the summer of 2022 to develop the minor’s foundational course that he piloted in 2021. He also frequently teaches the English department’s African American literature course, which also will count toward the minor.
Benefits
Pittman, who now serves as the associate dean for diversity and belonging in the College of Arts & Sciences, said offering the ethnic studies minor will provide Baylor students with multiple benefits.
“Our students — white, Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, Indiginous — are interested in a deeper understanding of identity,” she said. “So, the question was — how can we pull together scholars and teachers who do research and work around issues related to race and ethnicity, and then invite students into those conversations?”
Sharp said that the ethnic studies minor will help Baylor meet the call put forth through Illuminate, particularly in fostering transformational learning and leaders.
“The minor is part of how we hope to integrate academic excellence and Christian commitment within a caring community as laid out in the University’s mission,” he said. “As such, the minor is important to our efforts toward these goals as well as to Baylor’s ongoing development of inclusivity and belonging on campus and within our curriculums. These are constituent parts of building a caring community.”
This Nov. 28th Rolling Stone piece by Tessa Stuart made me think of this quote out of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Doesn't this resonate for the moment we're all experiencing right now? I know it does for me.
GenZ youth are a clear force in state and national politics. Born sometime around 1996-2012, they are between the ages of 10 and 27. Many of these are our students in our classes in high school or college. They're the younger ones in our graduate, especially master's, programs.
They're unlike any previous generation. They are, for example, the most generationally diverse age-generational cohort in U.S. history (e.g., as compared to Boomers, Gen X, or Millennials). The generation following them, "Gen Alpha," will be even more diverse. Key quote:
“Young people are the reason why Biden won in 2020 and Democrats up and down the ballot won in 2022 and 2023,” says Abhi Rahman, national communications director for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “If Gen Z continues to vote, we’re on the cusp of the most progressive era in our country’s history. Republicans know this as well, and that’s why they’re doing everything they can to stop young people from voting, including the fight for restrictions that we’re seeing play out in states like Wisconsin today.”
Yes, they are progressive and within GenZ, this attribute applies more strongly to females than males (Twenge, 2023). I can't help but think about reproduction rights and resistance to macho, misogynist culture playing into this. GenZ youth are also "digital natives." At least in developed countries, they only know this digital, online world that we have created for them—for better and for worse.
To their credit, Gen Z has normalized greater openness on mental health and illness. That's also a good thing so that folks don't suffer from stigma or fail to get the mental health services and supports they need.
The pandemic, curiously, gave not only a bump to Boomers and Gen X-ers with expanded computer skills like Zoom conference calls, but GenZ did, too, albeit from a different, more skillful starting point.
We also got pronouns from GenZ. The right, and some on the left, decry this, but it's probably because this generation, more than any other one prior, has simply shown more of themselves and who they are by virtue of social media. I've been studying this for awhile. I find it all so fascinating. Pronouns are not at all about political correctness, but about inclusion in being one's full self and that's a great thing.
What works for GenZ is the one-on-one. They pay attention to people they know and trust and who are authentic with them. So they take in information not just differently, but, I think, with a modicum of healthy skepticism. Tik Tok, specifically, I hear, is also huge for information sharing within this generation and for younger millennials—and for strategizing their next moves, too. Incidentally, older Millennials prefer Instagram and Facebook. I got this specific information from a friend who works at the UT library.
My message to GenZ and younger Millennials is the following:
First, you are genuinely feared. This Rolling Stone article attests to this.
Second, no matter what, do not let the GOP or anybody or anything try and keep you from voting. Your vote is precious, now more than ever. If all of you vote, you WILL get the outcomes you seek and you WILL position the planet for its most progressive era in human history.
Third, yes, we need world peace and I'm with you on prioritizing the environment.
Fourth, your best resistance to oppression is to resist anyone or anything that seeks to take away your right to an abundant, fulfilling life—even as you always seek justice so that all may share in this abundance.
Fifth, get grounded in community and build ethical relationships that nurture your sense of self and that speak to the value you add just by being exactly who you are.
Finally, always be ethical and responsible in your uses of power, considering always a role that caring adults, family members and elders play, or can play, in your life as mentors, advisers, and role models. Your thriving depends on your being in community. It's great for your health!
Much love and cariño to all of you in these worst and best of times.
Peace/paz,
-Angela Valenzuela
References
Twenge, J. M. (2023). Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future. Simon and Schuster.
Instead, they're seeing increased turnout and lawsuits challenging new restrictions
Instead, they're seeing increased turnout and lawsuits challenging new restrictions
LAST WEEK IN Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could invalidate the state’s comically, ludicrously, preposterously gerrymandered maps. If the court strikes those maps down, it will likely mean the end of the GOP’s decadeslong domination of the statehouse — and it will be because of what happened in Dane County in April.
Almost a quarter million voters turned out in Dane, home of University of Wisconsin, for a spring special election — several thousand more voters than turned out in Milwaukee, a county with almost double Dane’s population. A staggering 82 percent of Dane voters cast ballots to elevate liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz to the state Supreme Court. Protasiewicz — whose vote could decide the gerrymandering case — ended up winning by 11 points.
Coming on the heels of the 2022 midterms — when Wisconsin led the nation in youth turnout in the country — the GOP judicial candidate’s April humiliation stunned the party. Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker put it plainly: “Young people are the issue.”
“We’ve got to turn it around if we’re going to win again,” Walker, now the president of a conservative youth organization called Young America’s Foundation, told Fox News. The power that young voters wield was not exactly a revelation to Walker; as governor 12 years earlier, he signed a law making it harder to use a student ID to vote, prompting universities in Wisconsin to offer IDs that met the state’s new standards for free.
Student engagement has only soared in Wisconsin in the years since, but that hasn’t stopped the GOP from pulling pages from the same playbook. Across the country this year, targeted efforts to disenfranchise student voters have ramped up as election after election proved just how critical the bloc is to guarantee Democratic victories. With encouragement from influential GOP operatives, those efforts — which met with middling success in ‘23 — are poised to escalate in 2024. And they speak to a growing fear with which Republican officials and strategists regard young voters.
In Wisconsin, the GOP-controlled legislature has seized every opportunity to try and block students from voting. “We’ve seen really strong student engagement in our last couple of elections,” Morgan Hess, executive director of the Wisconsin Assembly Democrats, tells Rolling Stone. “And suddenly, we’re seeing new legislation that would prohibit student’s ability to vote.”
Hess points to GOP efforts over the past several years to make it harder to register, eliminate drop boxes, shorten early voting, increase residency requirements, and reduce polling locations — mostly in Madison and Milwaukee. “These are very targeted operations that serve to further entrench the power that they already have,” says Hess.
Months after their April routing, party functionaries at the Wisconsin GOP’s convention mulled a resolution demanding college students to vote absentee in their hometowns; one supporter of the resolution declared students had “hijacked” his city. The resolution failed to advance after another official raised the possibility that attacking students’ right to vote could backfire — an argument that seems prophetic in retrospect, as a growing number of polls show Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, outpolling Joe Biden with young voters.
Nevertheless, Republicans in state legislatures across the country this year have proposed laws targeting the student vote. In New Hampshire, House Republicans introduced a bill that would have prohibited any college students who pay out-of-state tuition from voting, and require the state’s colleges to provide the secretary of state with a list of eligible voters. Lawmakers “want the elections to be the reflection of those who reside in New Hampshire towns and who ultimately bear the consequences of the election results,” said Republican Rep. Sandra Panek, who introduced the measure in committee. (The bill was eventually killed.)
The same month, a GOP lawmaker in Texas introduced a bill that would ban polling places at colleges and universities. (That bill has not advanced out of committee.) In Virginia, there was a failed effort to repeal a law that allows anyone 16 or older to register to vote if they will be 18 by the next major election. And, according to the Voting Rights Lab, legislation seeking to change the rules around student IDs was introduced or enacted in at least 15 states this year.
It’s all part of a concerted strategy advanced by GOP operatives like Cleta Mitchell — one of the central figures behind Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. At a summit a few weeks after Wisconsin’s April special election, Mitchell told Republican donors that the party must do more to limit campus voting in swing states like Wisconsin “for any candidate other than a leftist to have a chance to WIN in 2024.”
Students and their advocates are pushing back against these efforts. In Wisconsin, leaflets distributed on campus ahead of April’s special election included information educating voters about the state’s ID requirements. In Idaho — the state that saw the largest increase in voter registrations from 18- and 19-year-olds ahead the 2022 midterms — a law set to go into effect Jan. 1, which bans the use of student IDs to register to vote or cast a ballot, is being challenged in lawsuits by the organization Babe Vote, the League of Women Voters and March for Our Lives Idaho. The groups claim that the law violates constitutional protections against age discrimination in voting.
“Young people are the reason why Biden won in 2020 and Democrats up and down the ballot won in 2022 and 2023,” says Abhi Rahman, national communications director for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “If Gen Z continues to vote, we’re on the cusp of the most progressive era in our country’s history. Republicans know this as well, and that’s why they’re doing everything they can to stop young people from voting, including the fight for restrictions that we’re seeing play out in states like Wisconsin today.”
This published business tool by The Aspen Institute maps on fairly well in educational contexts. It doesn't capture, of course, all the grief, anger, and trauma as a real cost that we're witnessing right now in the Houston Independent School District after having gotten taken over by the Texas Education Agency. It is nevertheless helpful since folks across the political spectrum do tend to pay attention to money and finances.
This Cost of Turnover Tool is a simple, “back of the envelope” calculator to help you estimate
how much it costs your business to replace staff. The goal is to reasonably indicate the financial
impact of turnover on your company. Some turnover costs – what we’ve called the direct cost
of turnover – can typically be calculated using data collected as part of regular firm operations. Other
turnover impacts like lower employee morale or poorer customer service – what we’ve called the
indirect cost of turnover – are more difficult to quantify, but equally important to consider when
assessing the financial impact that turnover may have on your business.
Different industries experience turnover in different ways. For example, while a manufacturing firm may
engage a staffing agency to hire temporary workers, a retailer is more likely to rely on a fleet of hourly
workers who can quickly fill shifts. But a retail business may have longer lines and higher shrink when
turnover spikes. This tool allows you to pick the expenses relevant to your organization, and calculate
annual cost of turnover by estimating a few costs and using simple calculations. This information can
help you make the case for investing in upskilling and other strategies to improve retention.
This tool was developed jointly by UpSkill America and Reimagine Retail. To learn more about our work,
visit as.pn/upskill and as.pn/reimagineretail.
Getting Started
To use the tool, you will need to collect some data on the costs of separation associated with losing a
worker and of recruiting and onboarding a new employee to work productively. To help collect this
information, you should answer the following questions before you start.
- What position or occupation do you want to calculate costs for?
- Who do you need to collect information from?
- Who in your organization has information about separation, hiring, and onboarding
procedures and costs?
- Who is the manager who can provide information about the effects of vacancy and
procedures for onboarding new workers for this position?
Direct Cost of Turnover
A. Estimate separation costs for 1 worker
- Separation pay
- Time of HR and other staff to process separation, including participating in exit interview
B. Estimate daily vacancy costs for 1 worker
- Typical daily overtime wages for employee(s) that fill in to cover vacant shift
- Typical daily staffing agency cost for a temporary worker that exceeds the typical daily wage
- Estimated lost sales from no-shows
C. Estimate typical number of days to replace a worker
D. CALCULATE: Total vacancy costs for 1 worker
- Multiply daily vacancy costs (B) by days to replace a worker (C)
E. Estimate recruitment/screening costs for 1 worker
- Prorated cost of advertising the position
- Prorated share of fees paid to recruiting services
- Costs of screening and interviewing the typical number of applicants. For example:
- Time spent reviewing applications and scheduling and conducting interviews
- Cost of pre-employment testing; staff time to administer
- Cost of drug screen or other background checks; include staff time to coordinate
I came across this earlier piece and read it in tandem with this one in Vox titled, "Conservatives’ war on emotions in the classroom." While it's not always a good thing to give outrageous ideas any oxygen, both pieces point to how this remains an issue in various legislatures throughout the country while clarifying how SEL has turned into a "boogeyman." The reason seems to be that it, like CRT, is mis-represented as an identity-based curriculum that is not actually taught as such in schools. Moreover, identity-based curricula, it is presumed, equates to "indoctrination." This is an off-putting word that works primarily to put folks on the defensive.
Even if these were somehow "identity-based," it's mystifying how that's a horrible thing. We all have multiple identities. I'm not just a Mexican American, Chicana, or Indigenous, I am also a woman, a mother, grandmother, university professor, policy advocate, scholar, a loving wife, daughter, preacher's kid, military brat, and a member of the human race who dreams of an Earth-conscious, loving world of unity consciousness where our differences are honored and where all, beginning with children, are treated with dignity and respect.
Why not make all of this and more part of the curriculum? That's where it's at anyway, where the action is. It may be technically "soft," but clearly among the hardest work imaginable considering the seemingly interminable violence, war-mongering, and wars that threaten our very existence as human beings on this planet.
SEL is but a step in this direction as stated:
"You can't have those [SEL] conversations without talking about identity ... Social-emotional learning is so that people can get along better. We also have to talk about why people don't get along," Simmons says.
The story below about a school member who faces parents' concerns over SEL in actual conversations, resonates as a way to steer them in positive directions. This actually proves the point that directly addressing emotions in conflictive situations is a kind of skill and practice that helps build trust and that more of us need to have. SEL puts us on just such a path of being more intelligent with our lives and emotions.
It's hard to pinpoint when exactly the questions started coming in. Angelyn Nichols, an administrator for Virginia Beach City Public Schools, thinks it was sometime in early 2021.
What she does know is that no one really expected them in the first place, and no one expected them to keep coming – week after week, and now, year after year.
That's because the questions involved a decades-old teaching concept many educators thought was settled, uncontroversial territory: the idea that, in order to learn, students need to know how to manage themselves and get along with others.
"Principals were being asked, 'Can you talk to me about how you use social-emotional learning in your school? Are there connections to critical race theory?" says Nichols, who coordinates professional learning for the district. "Families were asking at a PTA meeting. Parents were asking their child's classroom teacher."
But one of the most visible places these concerns emerged was at the school board meetings.
"Our school board meetings have been tense and they've gotten heated," says Natalie Allen, the district's chief communications and community engagement officer. "We saw multiple terms being linked to critical race theory. Social-emotional learning just seems like the latest."
Virginia Beach is not an anomaly.
Although its core concepts have been around nearly as long as public education itself, social-emotional learning is emerging as the latest lightning rod in the battles over what gets taught in schools nationwide.
Across the country, parents and community members have protested angrily at school board meetings, administrators have distanced themselves from the term and legislators have introduced bills trying to ban it. In the last two years, NPR found evidence of disputes specifically concerning social-emotional learning in at least 25 states. What is social-emotional learning?
Essentially, social-emotional learning teaches students how to manage their emotions, how to make good decisions, how to collaborate and how to understand themselves and others better.
It's more common in younger grades: All 50 states have standards related to SEL in preschool, and more than half have standards in K-12.
It has existed under different names across the decades: character education, 21st century skills, noncognitive skills. In the adult world, they're often called soft skills.
"It was just part of what a good teacher does," says Aaliyah Samuel, president and CEO of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL.
Samuel says social-emotional learning can be broken down into five areas: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.
"Let's say a student is working on a really difficult algebra problem and they get so frustrated because they can't remember what the next step is," says Samuel. "They have to be self-aware enough to say, 'You know what? I'm feeling frustrated. How do I handle this?' "
A student solving a hard math problem, for example, might use all these skills to recognize and deal with their frustration and ask another student or a teacher for help. Think of any situation that happens in a school, and social-emotional skills probably come into play.
"All academics also have a social-emotional component," says Lisa Xagas, an assistant superintendent for student services in Naperville, Ill. "It's impossible to tease them apart because you can't have academics if you don't have social-emotional learning."
Research shows this type of approach pays off. In 2011, researchers looked at more than 200 SEL programs across the country and saw improvements in behavior and academic achievement. A 2015 study found students deemed more socially competent in kindergarten were more likely to graduate from high school on time, complete a college degree and get a stable job in young adulthood. From an economic point of view, another 2015 study found SEL programs yield $11 for every $1 spent on them, by reducing crime, increasing earnings and contributing to better health. Conservatives began connecting social-emotional learning to CRT
All of which is why the educators in Virginia Beach were puzzled when those questions started coming in.
"Everything related to social-emotional learning that we are putting out there is research-based and it's in demand," says Allen, who handles community engagement at the district. "Very often there's been a narrative created that's not accurate."
In the last year, in states across the country, parents and community members have increasingly been fighting the teaching of social-emotional learning in schools – largely because social-emotional learning has become linked with another flashpoint in public education: critical race theory, or CRT.
Critical race theory, a decades-old legal framework, is the concept that racism goes far beyond the individual: It is systemic and deeply entrenched in our laws, policies and institutions. Nearly 900 school districts experienced anti-CRT protests between September of 2020 and August of last year, according to a report released this year from the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"We've seen a real freak-out on the right about the so-called teaching of critical race theory in schools. And usually the terms of that freak-out are white children are being taught to hate themselves and all children are being taught to hate America," says Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, an associate professor of history at the New School in New York City and the author of Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture.
But critical race theory itself is not something that is explicitly taught in K-12 schools.
"The defense of most educators has been: 'I don't even know what critical race theory is. I've never heard of it until you, the conservative at the school board, brought it to my attention,' " says Andrew Hartman, a professor and historian of educational trends at Illinois State University. "But of course, all educators now know what social-emotional learning is. It's something much more tangible. It's a curriculum that is officially being implemented in schools all across the country."
A few years ago, conservatives began to connect the two concepts. A 2021 article in the Washington Examiner said conservative activists were calling social-emotional learning a "Trojan horse" for both critical race theory and transgender advocacy. In April of this year, a conservative group referred to it as a "new variant of the "CRT-virus."
"It will be concealed as a number of different things," another article published on the right-wing website The Federalist says. "Most common is something including 'social justice,' 'equity and diversity,' 'multicultural education,' or 'social-emotional learning,' which is the most deceptive because it doesn't sound like it involves race at all!"
An "IndoctriNation Map" on the website of the conservative group Parents Defending Education tracked "incidents" in schools related to gender ideology, ethnic studies and social-emotional learning. The conservative Center for Renewing America includes social-emotional learning in its glossary of "CRT-related terms." How the SEL-CRT narrative is impacting schools
In some places, these attacks have had real consequences. In Georgia, an administrator tasked with leading a district's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts was forced to resign before she even started, with one protester referring to social-emotional learning as "synonymous" with critical race theory.
In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill last year trying to limit how educators talk about race and racism in the classroom. One of those lawmakers, Rep. Chuck Wichgers, added an addendum of terms he thought were associated with CRT, including social-emotional learning.
And when the Florida Department of Education issued specifications for this year's social studies textbooks, it indicated: "Critical Race Theory, Social Justice, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Social and Emotional Learning, and any other unsolicited theories that may lead to student indoctrination are prohibited."
Rick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, says some of the angry debates about social-emotional learning are a direct reaction to the stories about SEL that conservatives are seeing on social media, Fox News and elsewhere.
"I think a lot of people wind up wedged into these debates about something like SEL, not because they necessarily have paid a lot of attention and have decided that, 'Gosh, you know, in good faith, we really disagree,' " Hess says. "It's more a gut level reaction to the other team and to be with your guys, than it is to really parse like, 'What are we arguing about here? And is there a more constructive way to solve this?' "
For some parents, the outrage is rooted in mistrust – particularly of organizations that provide SEL resources and recommendations to school districts.
Hess says many parents feel "this is a case of big, deep-pocketed, liberal, coastal foundations coming in, led by people who went to elite colleges who aren't from their communities, pushing ideological agendas that they find problematic and then calling them racists and idiots when they push back."
"If there's anything more likely to turn skepticism into full blown rebellion, it's hard to think of what it might be," he added. SEL has always had an identity component
Hess says many conservatives ultimately feel social-emotional learning spends too much time talking about identity.
But Hartman, the Illinois State University historian, says there actually is an important identity component to teaching students how to get along with others.
"It's pretty impossible to do social and emotional learning without larger social issues coming into play. It's not just about individuals. It's about how an individual is situated in a society," Hartman says. "If you're going to be a healthy, emotional individual, you're going to have to understand your own identity relative to society."
CASEL is quick to emphasize that social-emotional learning is not tied to any political viewpoints. But the organization acknowledges that questions of identity and culture might come up, for example, in conversations about social awareness, one of the organization's key SEL competencies.
"Social awareness is about developing a better understanding of people around you so that you understand different perspectives and build healthy relationships," Samuel, the CEO, says. "For students, this might mean learning about different cultures, reading about different people's experiences and perspectives, or studying historical figures and their strengths."
Some SEL advocates want those conversations to be more explicit about systemic racism.
Dena Simmons, the founder of LiberatED, an organization which aims to center racial social justice in social and emotional learning, says being able to talk about social-emotional learning without talking about identity is an example of white privilege.
"You can't have those conversations without talking about identity ... Social-emotional learning is so that people can get along better. We also have to talk about why people don't get along," Simmons says. "If we don't apply an anti-racist, abolitionist, anti-oppressive, anti-bias lens to social-emotional learning, it can very easily turn into white supremacy with a hug."
Some prominent SEL programs do talk about racial justice and racism. The website for Second Step, for instance, has a section dedicated to Anti-Racism and Anti-Bias Resources. When educators don't acknowledge that identity component, it can make things worse, Mehlman Petrzela at the New School says.
"I know it's really hard to have these nuanced conversations, especially when often some of these attacks are scary, and they're bad faith, and they're distracting from teaching kids," she says. "But I do think it's really incumbent upon people to paint the full picture of what's going on here. Because without that, I don't really think we can move forward." The fear that teachers are indoctrinating children is not new
The actual term "social-emotional learning" has existed since at least the 1990s. In 1997, researchers at CASEL published a book titled Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators. But social-emotional learning, in a broader sense, has existed for much longer.
"One of the great ironies of the backlash around teaching morality or values in American education through social-emotional learning today is that American schools have always been about teaching values and character," says Mehlman Petrzela. "And for much of American history, that focus has been on pretty conservative values, quite honestly."
In the mid-1800s, small books called McGuffey readers sought to instill morals in young readers. Around the same time, Horace Mann, an education reformer and proponent of public education, saw schools as the "great equalizer" in society.
"This is where you impart in children not only academic learning, but the sort of beauty of the American experiment that one can transcend," Mehlman Petrzela says. "You work hard. You are industrious. You don't lie. You are a good member of your community. Those are values."
In the early 20th century, John Dewey advocated for the idea that schools should educate the "whole" child. By the 1950s, there was "life adjustment" education, which focused on social order and patriotism as a response to growing fears of communism. Coronet Instructional Films were shown in schools, with titles like "marriage is a partnership" and "mind your manners."
Volume 90%
Credit: Coronet Instructional Films
Then the 1960s happened. Some teachers began to address topics like social justice and racial equality – and, much like we're seeing today, those teachers faced a backlash.
The fear that teachers are trying to brainwash or indoctrinate children has been around for a while. Today, it's present not just in the disputes over SEL and CRT, but also in the current debates around sex education, transgender rights and banned books, says Mehlman Petrzela.
"I sometimes cannot believe how much what we are experiencing right now feels so similar to what we have gone through in other moments, particularly in the 1960s and 70s," she says. "The rhetoric is the same." How one school district is finding common ground with parents
But in places like Virginia Beach, educators weren't there 50 years ago. They're in schools now, stuck in the middle of a political fight that feels new, at a time when many students are struggling and need more support managing their emotions, not less.
Angelyn Nichols, the district's lead for social-emotional learning, says 2020 put a heightened scrutiny on public education – one that's been rapidly evolving. First, it was about COVID policies. Then, after the police murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests against racism, the conversation shifted to critical race theory. Now, it has spread to any topic deemed to be related to critical race theory.
That's when Aaron Spence, superintendent of Virginia Beach City Public Schools, wrote an op-ed for The Virginian Pilot.
"Conflating good and longstanding work — such as our work around social and emotional learning — with things that simply aren't happening in our schools, debating who is more invested in our children, and undermining the credibility of public education with accusations of indoctrination is disappointing at best and debilitating at worst," he wrote.
Spence asked community members to look for common ground. For Nichols, that's been easier to find outside of the school board meetings, in one-on-one conversations with parents.
"We can sit down together and say, 'Can you share with me what part of this is a concern for you? Which skill here do you feel is a threat, feels like indoctrination, or is of a concern for you?' " she says. "I've never exited one of those conversations where both parties didn't say, 'I actually think this is really important.' "
She feels good about the progress they've made so far this year. In September, the school board passed a resolution that, in part, supports the continued teaching of social-emotional learning in schools.
