As soon as Glenn Youngkin was elected, the CRT menace apparently just disappeared.
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) November 16, 2021
Talk about getting results. It’s like it was never even there. https://t.co/jDbx71mtCv
The matter is already ebbing in the Texas schools you’ve heard about. One of the school districts (Katy) who got in the news early, has pulled a few titles that have to be requested specifically if a student wants to read them. That will last until probably the end of the school year, when they will be quietly returned to the shelves. How many students are actually reading these books is unknown, but my guess is more will be curious about these titles now. I mean, I don't like it, but same as it ever was. Nobody's threatened a book-burning yet, anyway. Nobody’s pulling books off by the shelves or making death threats to librarians.At a meeting this week, the State Board of Education is expected to discuss how climate change and sexuality are taught to Texas middle school students. https://t.co/NApTuEnadu
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) November 16, 2021
Krause has denied his letter and list were official, which means he won’t force the issue. Most schools are ignoring him anyway, including some of the largest districts. Whether TEA will actually do anything is doubtful. The commissioners are elected, they probably don’t want to take this on. They have authority over textbooks, not library books. They'll make noises and hope it goes away. Abbott just hopes they take the heat so he doesn't have to.
The primaries are in March. If this doesn’t end by then I’ll be surprised. Beto would have a field day with this, which means Abbott will drop it once he wins the primary. If he does. It will be very interesting if he doesn’t. But Abbott can't win against Beto in the general if he says he's going to clear the library shelves of every book somebody finds offensive. He can't afford to energize that many otherwise apathetic Texas voters.
Sadly the Republicans in New Hampshire have decided this is the path to electoral dominance. The NH State Department of Education has put up a website for people to report teachers for violating the controversial topic bill that was passed last session (it is much broader than CRT). I found out that the head of the Dept. of Education homeschooled all his children and is basically opposed to public education, our own Betsy DeVos. Someone has also offered a bounty for anyone that reports teachers. It's incredibly ugly.
ReplyDeleteIf that wasn't enough, the state passed a school voucher act, claiming it would cover 167 low income families (qualification is up to 300% of the poverty line, for a family of 4 in NH that is $70K, so not exactly targeted at the poorest). The vouchers can be used for any private school or for homeschooling. The state then certified 1,600 to receive grants, an $8M cost that is 5,000% over the budgeted amount. No one will say where the money is coming from (the only guess it will have to come out of the education budget that was intended for public schools). They are going to certify even more next quarter.
Then this week the legislative committee on education with no debate passed a last minute amendment to the education bill. Vouchers for everyone, no income limit. Even more insidious, they will be funded by the towns. Take the local school budget, subtract the special education costs, divide by the number of students and that is what every family can get for every child. It will destroy the public school systems. To keep the local school budgets just even will require large property tax hikes. They won't pass and the the local school budgets will be cut. With the schools getting worse, those that can (with the incentive of their own payment) will pull their kids and the the local school budgets will shrink even faster. We will be pulling money from local schools to subsidize wealthy families sending their kids to private schools. It takes about 2 minutes of thought to realize that every out of state that has a summer place or ski place and already sends their kids to private school will claim residency and take the money and run. It's a complete disaster. Talking to my work colleagues, everyone thinks it's completely nuts, but actually has some chance of passing. CRT has become the lever and they are going to put everything on it to break the public schools. The cynical part of me thinks this is the reason Sununu turned down running for the senate. He is popular and has a good chance of reelection. By controlling the state Dept. of Ed. for another term he can get this so far down the road there is no way back for a generation. Can I get my son through the next 5 and a half years? I guess we will see.