They Aren’t Telling The Truth About Illinois’ Pending ‘Culturally Responsive Teaching Standards’ – Wirepoints

By: Mark Glennon*

Distortion and dishonesty are endemic in Illinois government, but rarely as blatant as what is being said to defend CRTLS — the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards now pending for Illinois K-12 schools.

A list of some of the major the falsehoods is below, but first some background.

An uproar has ignited over CRTLS, which is a rule proposed for K-12 education by the Illinois State Board of Education, ISBE. We earlier explained how the standards would tell teachers what they must think, believe and teach – in broad political terms — and they would disqualify teachers who don’t conform. Our most recent articles are linked here and here.

CRTLS is about forcing onto classrooms critical race theory, as it is called, which generally holds that racism is systemic, all whites are implicitly biased, systems of oppression abound and America is predominantly a story of minority oppression. And since most every issue today is being seen through that lens, we and others have said that the standards would force teachers to accept and teach a broad political viewpoint far to the left of mainstream, imposing a political litmus test on teachers.

The pending rule has now sparked criticism in national media. Clarence Page wrote in a nationally syndicated column questioning the rule, saying that racial division “is more than a feel-good issue” and the remedies cannot become so complicated that they become an unnecessary burden on good teachers and principals. And Washington Post columnist George Will called the standards what we believe they are – indoctrination. “Imposing uniformity of thought is the board of education’s agenda,” he wrote.

ISBE and others are defending CRTLS with claims that range from absurdity to gross distortion. Here are some of those claims, along with our comments:

•   “The standards do not impact teachers licensure or evaluation.” That’s according to the response ISBE sent us for publication after asking us to correct our earlier articles (which we refused).

How could ISBE make such a claim? The rule itself says precisely the opposite. It starts by saying “standards that shall apply to the issuance of all Illinois professional educator licenses endorsed in teaching, school support personnel, and administrative fields a teaching field. The standards set forth in this Part shall apply both to candidates for licensure and to the programs that prepare them.” Has ISBE not read its own rule? Do they assume the public will accept a claim exactly opposite from the truth?

•   The standards are not about curricula, said ISBE in a recent press release defending the standards. “The standards are for teachers not students, and nothing in them is about what the conversation in the classroom has to be.” That’s according to ISBE’s Jennifer Kirmes, who appeared on WTTW this week along with my colleague, Ted Dabrowski. And Kirmes said “absolutely” when the moderator claimed the standards were about “the learning for the teachers and how they teach versus what is actually being taught in the classrooms.”

But look at ISBE’s own piece from earlier about the standards. It says, “Future educators will incorporate these standards into their teaching.”  That’s the entire goal of the rule and nothing could be more obvious.

Skim through it. The word “curriculum” appears 12 times under headings about what teachers will do under the rule. That would be accomplished chiefly through teacher training and continuing education, but the rule mandates what and how they will be trained to teach, as well as what teachers must think, and it also applies to licensure. Teachers with a different viewpoint would never make it to a classroom and if they do they will be pushed to change, so curriculum will change accordingly.

•   The CRTLS rule change is not a mandate for current teachers, but would provide optional professional development for teachers. That claim is being made frequently. For example, it was in an op-ed by Illinois’ two teachers’ unions, the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers. ISBE makes that claim directly, and ISBE’s Jennifer Kirmes also spoke only about training for future teachers in that WTTW interview.

But the Illinois Register entry for when the rule was first proposed says expressly that the network that developed the rule “was charged by ISBE to develop standards that will be used to drive educator preparation and in-service educator professional development.”

Moreover, since the rule applies to all administrators, it would cover those who review performance by existing teachers. There’s nothing in the rule that exempts continuing education for existing teachers so there’s no reason to assume an exemption.

Nor is there anything in the rule suggesting that any of it is optional. Again, skim through it to see all the language about what teachers will do.

Most importantly, the entire claim that any of this is optional is rendered senseless in light of a 2017 state law that imposed an unfunded mandate on all school districts to provide implicit bias training, which is essentially the same concept that’s addressed by the rule. We wrote about it here. Passed with little notice, it says, “Each school board shall require in-service training for school personnel to include training to develop cultural competency, including understanding and reducing implicit racial bias.”

So, any claim that the rule merely provides new “options” for existing teachers to broaden their understanding of the topic is moot. It’s mandatory.

•   This is about understanding students from different cultures – about being culturally responsive. That’s the central claim universally made about the standards. That’s the impression intended by the word “responsive.” It’s about the flow from the student to the teacher.

There would be no opposition if that were true. Look again at the rule yourself. You will see it’s heavily directed to what teachers will do – irrespective of their cultural empathy. It’s about push to student by teacher, not pull by teacher from student.

For example, the culturally responsive teacher will, using the rule’s own language, identify and articulate the purposeful ways in which marginalized communities are represented in curriculum; ensure teacher and students co-create content to include a counternarrative to dominant culture; consider a broader modality of student assessments such as including community assessments, social justice work, action research projects, and recognition beyond academia; assess how their biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.); and embrace and encourage inclusive viewpoints and perspectives that leverage asset thinking toward traditionally marginalized populations.

ISBE recently softened some of the language in the rule after hearing the opposition. For example, it changed “progressive” to “inclusive” and “activism” to “advocacy.”

We think that’s a transparent and cosmetic step that only proves the true intention they are trying to hide, which is to impose political dogma on teachers and classrooms. One would have to be entirely naïve to read even the current version and think otherwise.

The final obstacle to the rule becoming effective is a Tuesday vote by JCAR, the Illinois General Assembly’s joint committee on administrative rules.

The rule was drafted by unelected administrative officials, but can only be killed by JCAR with a two-thirds vote of JCAR’s 12 members. That undemocratic process on something so important is a story unto itself.

The biggest tragedy, if the rule becomes effective, is that the actual result will be the same as we’ve seen everywhere from critical race theory and identity politics in general: more hostility and strife. Traditional goals of color blindness and the melting pot, which are expressly rejected by critical race theory, have given way to obsession over immutable differences.

CRTLS would bring that obsession to school children from kindergarten through high school.

If that happens, blame its supporters for the distortions and falsehoods they have spread.

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.