Teachers unions embrace racial essentialism to distract from their real crisis: Collapsing test scores

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/...Qlw?li=BBnbfcL


Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has embraced racial essentialism, pledging that her organization is preparing litigation and a legal defense fund to fight state bills barring taxpayer dollars from being used to teach critical race theory.
© Provided by Washington Examiner At the same time, she asserts that CRT isn't actually being taught in K-12 schools — so why is she defending it?

"#CriticalRaceTheory is not taught in K-12 schools," wrote Weingarten on Twitter. "The right’s culture warriors are labeling any discussion of race, racism or discrimination as such to try to make it toxic. They’re bullying teachers to try and keep them from teaching the truth."
In some sort of Schrodinger's contortion of reality, the president of the nation's top teachers union would have us believe that critical race theory is both nonexistent in our public schools and so essential to K-12 curriculums that one of the largest public sector unions in the country has dedicated an entire legal fund to protect its right to teach it. It's a sort of "have your cake and eat it too" mentality, not just because Weingarten and her ilk are so deluded that they think the CRT is a political winner but rather because it distracts from the even more existential crises threatening the entire contemporary public school scam.
The school shutdowns illustrated the worst excesses of the nation's teachers unions but not their greatest failures. To be sure, parents will never buy into the coronavirus canard again as an excuse to shut down the schools. Still, the economic ramifications — more than half of mothers with school-aged children were out of work in April 2020, with their employment still down by 6.4% by January 2021 — and the educational loss of more than a year will continue to be felt for years after the pandemic is over. But the permanent problem caused by the unions was exposed: that is, the abominable quality of your children's education, not just as it pertains to woke posturing and bad history but basic reading, mathematics, and science.
In 2017, the United States spent more dollars per student than any nation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development other than Luxembourg, Austria, and Norway and 37% more than the entire OECD average. Yet, according to the 2017 international PISA exam, American 15-year-olds performed not even 1% better than the OECD average in science and in reading. In math, our students performed 4% worse. Overall, we rank 30th out of the 35 OECD countries in math and 19th in science. Students in the United Kingdom, Estonia, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Slovenia, just to name a few, handily bested ours in all three subjects.
And that was before unions like the AFT sent kids home for a year to "learn" from an iPad. With numbers like these, it makes sense why Weingarten would lean into the CRT debate. Teaching 1619 revisionism is obviously evil as a principle, but if these teachers can't even get our kids to beat Russia (!) in math, do we honestly expect they'll be much better at brainwashing them with woke nonsense?
None of this is to downplay the importance of beating the CRT agenda in state legislatures. The public schools must be beholden to the taxpayers funding them, and fighting anti-American propaganda should be a slam dunk for all parents. But equally important is all the warped ways schools have learned to use "anti-racism" as a mechanism to degrade the quality of teaching basic math and science.
Consider the national push to eliminate standardized testing and gifted programs in the name of "racial equity." On some level, yes, Weingarten and her crew must genuinely look into gifted classrooms and cringe with disgust if they see too many Asian and white students for their liking. But on a much less ideological level, if you're the sort of union that took a virus that doesn't even use children as a significant vector of transmission and used it as an excuse to force taxpayers to pay for a yearlong vacation, why wouldn't you use "anti-racism" as an excuse to teach easier curricula? Train parents to expect all of their children's classmates to score poorly on exams, et voila! You can just claim you've finally achieved racial equity! As with Soviets starving in the gulags, the unions could make students of all races score equally if they commit to intellectually stunted curricula.
"Oh, Tiana, six prep schools in Park Slope banning testing doesn't mean anything!" you may say.
But don't take my word for it — that is exactly what Weingarten herself wants to do.
A real anti-racist would point out that believing that non-Asian and nonwhite students are incapable of thriving in gifted and advanced programs is actually a vilely racist assumption and that the real focus ought to be on securing better teachers and better curricula for the least privileged students. But that would require work.
CRT is a losing issue for the Left, but it's ever so slightly less catastrophic than parents realizing that an entire generation cannot perform the basic reading, writing, and arithmetic required to survive adult life. For now, it's a distraction that only one as incompetent as Weingarten could consider a relief.
Tags: Opinion, Beltway Confidential, Critical Race Theory, Randi Weingarten, Education, Teachers, Racism
Original Author: Tiana Lowe
Original Location: Teachers unions embrace racial essentialism to distract from their real crisis: Collapsing test scores


typical fascist DPST's - first "No - crt does not exist
Second'We spend millions to teach crt"

as is pointed out - TU's crt issue is a deflection of incompetence in teaching basic reading, writing, and arithmetic required to survive adult life.

Classic Doublespeak and Groupthink by the fascist DPST's!

Teachers lets see the want 60,000 a year to work 10 months , because other people with same education made more , Hmm but the others work year around 60 hours a week with maybe 2 weeks off Yea okay
Groupthink is public education is outa control

Here in Texas the teachers are basically told what to teach and how to teach it. They have some leeway. But the CRT books and curriculum in general isn't going to "sneak" its way down without being noticed.

Much of this must have snuck into teachers daily workplan with the school at home lessons and computer work.

Like BLM riots, this whole poison has its basis in the coronavirus lockdowns.

Quarantine is over if you want it.

Teachers lets see the want 60,000 a year to work 10 months , because other people with same education made more , Hmm but the others work year around 60 hours a week with maybe 2 weeks off Yea okay
Groupthink is public education is outa control Originally Posted by rexdutchman

The teachers and teachers unions are out of control. The last year has been COVID panic despite at my kid's school district few, if any, school kids or teacher's dying from the disease. I literally have heard of ZERO deaths in the large, multiracial district. If they force my teen to wear a mask again, he's opting for at home learning.

Let's try teaching the kids math and how to read and write.

Teachers need to be held more accountable.
Under worked and overpaid for basically a "part time" job.

Yes more accountable ( unions will never let that happen)
I think teachers love "Theory's because no correct answers all just a half baked idea at best No science no math etc

RD - don't forget the Teacher's unions label 'History' as racist.

About 1972 the DoE was started , and education has gone downhill so question why do we tax payers throw money into this sinking ship ,,,,,,,,,
Teachers unions are a perfect example of good idea gone very wrong over time

About 1972 the DoE was started , and education has gone downhill so question why do we tax payers throw money into this sinking ship ,,,,,,,,,
Teachers unions are a perfect example of good idea gone very wrong over time Originally Posted by rexdutchman

no, jimmy carter started it. this is between 1978 - 1982.

Good Lord! You guys are ignorant!

"Although the Department is a relative newcomer among Cabinet-level agencies, its origins goes back to 1867, when President Andrew Johnson signed legislation creating the first Department of Education."

https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/focus/what.html

An actual scientific theory is based on hard math and science. A hypothesis is basically an idea someone has. Hypotheses aren't bad, but they are not necessarily based on evidence. Typically, they are based on a small amount of evidence and an idea. One should generate as many hypotheses as they can. It's not a bad thing to have an idea that lacks evidence. Some ideas can't be tested or there isn't data available to test them. It doesn't necessarily mean they're stupid.

I don't know wtf critical race theory is, but it sounds really stupid.

SM - you refer to the scientific method - a bit inaccurately - but your point of CRT is valid.
It is simply racism unfounded in any science.

Put forth by fascist DPST radicals intent on indoctrinating all children in schools to their radical marixst POV.

CRT is just hannah-Jones 1619 project and perverted history nonsense.


7 Steps of the Scientific Method

• Step 7- Communicate. Present/share your results. Replicate.
• Step 1- Question. The "thing" that you want to know. The question you want to answer.
• Step 2-Research. Conduct research. ...
• Step 3-Hypothesis.
• Step 4-Experiment.
• Step 5-Observations.
• Step 6-Results/Conclusion.

A theory is a carefully thought-out explanation for observations of the natural world that has been constructed using the scientific method, and which brings together many facts and hypotheses. ... A scientist makes an observation of a natural phenomenon.Mar 10, 2017


What Do We Mean by “Theory” in Science? | Field Museum



In scientific reasoning, a hypothesis is an assumption made before any research has been completed for the sake of testing. A theory on the other hand is a principle set to explain phenomena already supported by data. Theories will pull together experimental results to provide full explanations such as "The Big Bang Theory." Outside of scientific reasoning, "theory" and "hypothesis" are often used interchangeably, and "theory' can unfortunately be interpreted to mean "less sound" or "lightly speculated."

If anything, critical race theory sounds like something a social science or criminal justice student might study in graduate school out of curiosity.

Why is it necessary for all people to be forced to take this course?
Is this bullshit going to replace math, science and engineering courses?
Why should people be learning this shit?

Something like 20% of US high school graduates are functionally illiterate.
Seems like they need more reading classes rather than additional coursework about advanced theories on race.

Still waiting to hear about these laws that were "specifically" written to disenfranchise and discriminate "solely" against Black people. This whole notion that some laws were written to "target" poor people and since or so they say, there are more poor Blacks than Whites, there is a desperate impact on Black people therefore the law was written to hurt Black people even though it hurts poor Whites, Brown, Red and Yellow people who are poor. Yeah, makes perfect sense in a CRT tutorial I guess.

Are there really more poor Blacks than Whites in America? Depends on whether you are talking about percentage or raw numbers. Here are the facts.

African American Poverty Rate: 18.8% (8.1 million people)

Percentage of African Americans who fell below the poverty line in 2019


Hispanic Poverty Rate: 15.7% (9.5 million people)

Percentage of Hispanics who fell below the poverty line in 2019


White Poverty Rate: 7.3% (14.2 million people)

Percentage of non-Hispanic whites who fell below the poverty line in 2019


So there are almost twice as many poor Whites as Blacks. So no law that impacts poor people, hurts more Blacks than Whites. Any law witten that does not specifically spell out Black, White or Brown, applies to all people.


This idea that a voting law that applies to all people especially in a time of mail in ballots, hurts one color of people over another, is ridiculous. Now if it can be proven that in a place where no mail in ballots are allowed and voting stations are specifically held back in an area predominately of color, then you may have a case. Anybody got a case where this is true in the 2020 election or where it is now true in any state that has changed it's voting laws because if this place exists, I would like to know about it and I would agree that a change would need to be made to be fair but like I said, if you can mail in your ballot, you are registered and have supplied your written name for verification, you have nothing to complain about unless you can prove that the people counting the vote are tossing certain ballots and we've seen how well that worked out.


But I'll ask again, can anybody point to a law that specially disenfranchises Black people by name? Because that would be an example of systemic racism. I'm just asking to be proven wrong. I'd like to know if I'm wrong or am I just trying to be hoodwinked by people who can't actually make their case.


I've asked and I'm waiting for an answer.