"Their message: Education needs to be delivered in cooperation with young people. They have a right to advocate for their own welfare, feel safe in school and receive teaching, not just supervision."
Times Columnist Michelle Goldberg says that the CRT controversy is obscuring the ways that Virginia's public schools are part of a long political movement to undermine public schools that got a boost from the COVID pandemic.
Local politics – if it involves a wide spectrum of community opinion – can help override partisan polarization, create new coalitions, and empower citizens to make meaningful change.
"The history of education teaches us that violence surrounding democratic schooling is part of a recurring pattern and that we have a choice to passively accept or assertively confront violent impulses."
The 20th century pluralist strategy to resolve the "history wars" – including examples of heroes and leaders representing progressively more social groups – is no longer able to cover over fundamental conflicts over what America is and what students should learn about the nation.
"One might reasonably ask, 'By what right do schools punish students in the first place?' Unfortunately, Americans have never really been able to answer that question."
A century of discriminatory policies have "set the stage for underinvestment in public education and the wide variance in school facilities that serve White and non-White youths today."
Renaming Woodrow Wilson High after Edna Burke Jackson, who taught history as one of two Black faculty members in the years after desegregation, is an obvious choice.
Education historian Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz discusses the ways that public policy undermines teachers' authority and blames them for systemic problems with education, sponsored by Politics and Prose bookstores. Live at 6:00 PM Monday, August 31.
The NAACP is asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to “eradicate the vestiges of a shameful, racist educational system in Hanover County” by ordering the schools to be renamed.
The Milliken v. Bradley decision sanctioned a form of segregation that has allowed suburbs to escape being included in court-ordered desegregation and busing plans with nearby cities.
“I can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee,” said the principal of a high school in Boca Raton, Fla.
Perhaps, the theory was, just by existing, Gay-Straight Alliance groups could make gay kids feel less alone, and that itself could reduce suicide risk, which was common among gay teens at the time.
“The survivors are leaving us and along with their departures, we need to make sure that we live up to the mantra of ‘Never again,’” said Richard Schwartz, vice chairman of the N.C. Council on the Holocaust.
According to experts, teaching an accurate and thorough version of history is essential to breaking down stereotypes and misconceptions. Yet much of what students learn about black people’s distinct American story is hit-or-miss.
