Since the debate about 鈥渃ritical race theory鈥� began raging, Education Week has kept laser-focused on one question: How will this affect K-12 teaching and learning?
We have documented state laws, districts鈥� policy changes, the firing of a Tennessee teacher, public perceptions and misperceptions of CRT, and how teachers are trying to interpret vaguely worded policies banning CRT, versions of which have been passed in more than a quarter of the states. Now we are beginning to examine what this debate means for curriculum鈥攖he very substance of everyday lessons.
Curriculum is local: Districts choose textbooks, while teachers create lesson plans for daily instruction. But these are shaped by the broad expectations that states revise every decade or so, called standards. Our latest project, based on interviews and document reviews, shows that the CRT debate has run headlong into efforts to rewrite social studies or history standards in three states that were updating them in 2021: Louisiana, New Mexico, and South Dakota.
The package shows how this debate was shaped by the state鈥檚 political and geographic makeup, how it convened standards committees and collected public feedback. But across the states, several themes stood out.
The project is a detailed, long read. Here are some immediate takeaways.
CRT has become a powerful weapon. The term critical race theory has been weaponized against standards that deal with a variety of topics鈥攐ften about race and inequality, but also about other topics. (Some expectations in the younger grades around understanding diverse communities, for example, were called a 鈥渂ack door鈥� to CRT.)
Core disagreements linger. There is still tremendous disagreement about how much relative emphasis should be given to slavery, Reconstruction, and the removal and slaughter of Native Americans. All three issues were focal points in public comments in the states.
Political interference鈥攂oth active and passive鈥攊s occurring. In South Dakota, standards (mainly on Native American history) were removed by state officials after the working groups submitted a draft of the standards. In Louisiana, fear that the standards wouldn鈥檛 receive approval led the writers themselves to recast or delete some standards. In New Mexico, dozens of lawmakers repudiated an as-yet incomplete draft.
鈥淎ction civics鈥� has become a b锚te noire in the social studies. The notion of having students learn how to use civic channels to address local problems鈥攁n approach sometimes called action civics鈥攊s increasingly being attacked as leftist by conservative critics.
Disagreements about diversity continue. There is a significant lack of agreement, as well as some confusion, about what it truly means to 鈥渄iversify鈥� the teaching of history. In particular, this focuses on whether and to what extent state standards should explicitly reference LGBTQ people, sexuality, specific ethnicities, or other ways people construct their identities. Much higher education scholarship on these topics has not yet filtered down to K-12 education鈥攁nd the public is deeply divided about whether it should.
The level of debate often comes down to specific word choices. Among the words and phrases in the draft standards that have been deleted鈥攐r called into question by commentators: 鈥減erspectives,鈥� 鈥渃ritique,鈥� 鈥渄iverse,鈥� 鈥渆quitable,鈥� 鈥渆quity,鈥� 鈥渋dentity,鈥� 鈥渃ritical consciousness,鈥� 鈥渟ocial justice.鈥�
