This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
Listen to this warning by renowned University of Houston historian, Dr. Gerald Horne, speaks on the demise of public media. He responds to Chris Hedges who wrote the following:
The news media has found it difficult to compete with big tech, soaking up advertising dollars previously available to them. I can only imagine how this is impacting Journalism Departments in our colleges and universities nationwide.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is another threat that Dr. Horne maintains threatens jobs for reporters, lawyers, and computer code writers. In short, traditional media, including CNN and NPR, are at enormous risk. Traditional media also often align with neocons and neoliberals, for example, their its lack of support, if not actual collusion, against labor. Dr. Horne expresses that the mainstream press is clearly often about the "massaging of our consciousness" rather than reporting the actual news, citing news on Ukraine and Gaza. A lot to unpack here.
My connection to this in the current moment is a lack of attention in the press to the harmfulness of school and district takeovers by Education Management Organizations (EMOs) like Superintendent Mike Moses' The New Education System (NES)" in Houston, Texas. Takeovers are happening in and to various other Texas school districts amounting to a de-democratization of public education. There are some reports, but not enough in my view. Not quite hearing sufficient outcry other than a few select voices. Our communities are therefore at risk without local news, boots on the ground, and ethical reporting.
The lack of a free and honest press is abundantly consequential.
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.
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.
What we do for our children is what primarily comes to me in this reading of how it must feel to get back into the Uvalde classroom.
Best wishes and blessings in abundance for Nicole Ogburn and the other courageous and heroic teachers of Uvalde—as well as to all teachers everywhere suffering from violence-related trauma.
We just got back from Uvalde, my friends. My husband, Emilio and I, took a quick, weekend trip to pay our respects. What happened in Uvalde felt painful, deeply personal, and much too close to home.
My emotions run the gamut between petrifying sadness at the tragic loss of so many children and their teachers, and gut-churning outrage at our Republican leadership that do not want to see the truth before their very eyes that—but for their greed, love of money, power, and guns—expressed in harmful policies and priorities—this tragedy could have been avoided.
This, atop the fact that according to this May 25, 2022 NPR piece on school violence titled, "10 years since the horrific tragedy in Sandy Hook Elementary," gun laws haven't changed despite what clearly is a current, well-documented epidemic of gun violence in our country. To learn how to take action, there ARE resources, including the following:
There is so much gun violence in America that President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris had to split up to cover the horrific, recent shooting in Buffalo, New York—that took the lives of 10 people in the Black community—so that he and Jill could make it to Uvalde.
Children walk hand in hand in a street near the scene of a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. on May 15. Matt Rourke/AP
Emilio and I indeed found it comforting to be sitting close to them both in yesterday's Sunday mass at Uvalde's Sacred Heart Cathedral where I got the chance to thank them for coming. "Your welcome," he responded quietly.
I appreciated that Archbishop Gustavo GarcÃa-Siller officiated in English, intermixed with Spanish, with the Bidens in attendance, receiving, along with the rest, his words of solace and reassurance. This apparent decision to not have Biden speak assured that the service would be centered on a community's healing rather than politics. Although he did speak to the families afterwards in a private session, I imagine that as a Catholic himself, he likely preferred to be consoled rather than to console as he often does.
A wonderful gesture by the archbishop was his calling all of the children attending mass to the front of the church where he expressed words of support and comfort to them all in a soft-spoken, loving voice. At least one small child near us sobbed throughout inconsolably with his mother having to pull him out of the service earlier than the rest. It's all so heart breaking.
For all of us who have children, grandchildren, or who work closely with children, all of this must surely have special resonance. In our case, we have a grandson who is the same age as many of these children at Robb Elementary. He knows about what happened and said to us on Saturday that "It's sad," adding that "this shouldn't happen to children." We work closely with this age group and their families at our Saturday school, Academia Cuauhtli. We are planning a healing ceremony for the children and families that we work with that is scheduled for Sunday morning June 5, 2022.
Our intentions are to listen to what our children and youth have to say about all of this since we know it's affecting them, perhaps making them fearful of attending school. Such thoughts are sure to lurk in many teachers' minds, as well, such that we all need to do what we can to embrace them while simultaneously advocating for meaningful gun reform legislation at this crucial point in our history as a country.
To be sure, the trauma that Uvalde is experiencing right now is reverberating across the country with children and teachers, respectively, fearing schools as potentially dangerous places to attend and work.
To be of help, here is an extensive list of verified fundraisers where you can donate to help cover not only funeral, but also counseling, costs. Here is an excellent May 25th NPR piece on other ways to help, including support for volunteer legal services and blood donations.
This is for the long haul, my friends.
These survivors will need every penny to become not so much "whole," since that's impossible for survivors, but at least "more whole" with effective counseling and therapy.
In the meantime, let's all hug our children and their teachers even as we contemplate how a world without guns is actually a much safer world than one with them. Collectively, let's commit to changing not just gun laws, but also our hideous culture of gun violence.
