Burning Down The House 🏫

My home town high school fired its first Black principal amid the CRT panic last year. Tonight, two right wing board members are proposing a set of "Classical Social and Emotional Learning" policies. They have to do with how history is taught. I've pulled out a few examples.

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— steven monacelli (@stevanzetti) April 25, 2022

This is a complex area of the law, but Texas School boards do not set curriculum, and their policies cannot conflict with state or federal law. (Steve identifies himself as a "disgraced Texas-based far-left writer," and his location as "The City of Hate, Texas."  I could guess further, but I'm satisfied he's talking about a Texas school board.)

According to the Texas Education Agency, this is what school boards are expected to do:

Texas school districts and charters are overseen by school boards. The boards of independent school districts are elected by the citizens of their communities, while the boards of charter schools are appointed.

In each instance, the school board oversees the management of the district or charter school and ensures that the superintendent implements and monitors district operations.  The board and the superintendent work together as a team to bring about the best education possible for the boys and girls they serve.

To make sure they carry their job out appropriately, school trustees are required to receive training in the laws and rules of the state education system.

TASB (Tas-bee), the Texas Association of School Boards, broadly outlines the duties of the Board this way:

What is the role of a school board member?

School trustees work together to:

Ensure that a shared vision and goals are adopted for the district. 

Ensure that systems and processes are in place to accomplish the district’s vision and goals.

Ensure progress and accountability to goals by allocating resources and support and establishing ongoing feedback and progress measures.

Advocate on behalf of all students to enable them to be successful.

Work effectively as a collaborative team member with fellow board members and the district superintendent.

Here is rough but concrete example of what school boards can do:

Adopt goals and priorities and monitor success

The school board sets the course for the district’s schools by adopting goals and priorities to keep the district moving in a positive direction. The board has a vision statement to guide it when setting goals. An example of a vision statement is:

Our students:

• Choose to be productive members of society who are fully equipped to continue their preparation for the future

• Are confident and self-assured. They have a positive vision of the future and goals to achieve their vision

• Are well rounded academically, physically, and spiritually

• Are proud of their school and community and appreciate learning as a life-long endeavor

• Are creative problem solvers who make sound decisions

• Value and accept diversity

• Feel safe at school

Our learning environment provides:

• An evolving and innovative curriculum that meets the diverse needs of all students and equips them to be positive and contributing members of society

• A highly qualified, dedicated, and caring staff recognized as the best

• Homes, classrooms, and campuses working together in harmony to support a safe and nurturing educational experience

• Modern technology and training that maximizes learning for all

• Proactive and effective communication between staff, students, and their guardians that ensures student success

• The optimal staffing and facilities to meet the needs of all students

Our district and community:

• Work as a team providing resources necessary to achieve a world-class education

• Recognize the district as the heart of learning, caring, and support for all the community

• Acknowledge education as a privilege and proudly accepts responsibility for the learning process 

To that end, the board reviews regular reports from the administration on district operations and progress toward goals.

Adopt policies and review for effectiveness

A key responsibility of the board is to adopt local policies that guide how the district operates. Local school boards govern by adopting policies that must be consistent with and within the scope allowed by federal and state laws and regulations. Important decisions are made based on district policies. District policy also provides a record of the decisions the board has made.

I don't mean to give you a legal opinion on what's reported in these tweets. I just want to point out it's quite dubious the school board, if it tries to pass and implement these "policies," can actually do so.  That "vision statement," for example, is vague and amorphous and full of glittering generalities.  That's also about as explicit and directive as the Board can be.  Its job is to see that such generalizations are at least generally being followed.  If they aren't, if students are failing at record rates and the center cannot hold, all the Board can do about it is fire the Superintendent and hope the new one they hire will fix the mess.

A third policy seeking to ban "pornography" is written in a way they would ban all media from schools that includes information about human sexuality and STDs.

3/

— steven monacelli (@stevanzetti) April 25, 2022

There's an obvious 1st Amendment problem right there, with any definition of "pornography."  The one proposed  probably doesn't even conform to Texas law, which means it’s void ab initio.  Although, yeah, the first hurdle is finding a plaintiff willing to go to court on this.  Teachers?  Don't be ridiculous.  No employee of the district will, either.  Neither do they want to enforce it, however, because while the board can fire the superintendent, they can't fire employees at will, or without district action first (a teacher caught in an offense that marks their removal is investigated by the administration first.  The Board doesn't act as a French Revolution kangaroo court.)  

The board members who are pushing this policy ran on anti-CRT platforms and at least one was endorsed by the far right True Texas Project which has been pushing trans-panic messaging with increasing frequency.

They're now wrapping these issues together into a single policy.

5/

— steven monacelli (@stevanzetti) April 25, 2022

Texas law also won't allow them to withhold pay without due process of law. I imagine Federal law has similar provisions. I can also guarantee this district has an office that does nothing but handle applications for, and administration of, federal grants. These policies will move the granting agencies to deny all grant applications, and maybe even cancel the ones outstanding.

District employees who implement these policies will themselves be parties to lawsuits, along with the district (and why would they put themselves in that position?).  The legal costs of these policies will rise exponentially, not to mention, as I say, all the federal money that will quickly dry up or be clawed back (or both).  This is a very, very bad thing; but mostly it will be bad for the students.  Teachers will flee this district just to avoid being caught in the cross-fire.  Administrators will quit (or take retirement) rather than uphold these illegal and unworkable policies.  

And if you think the schools can run without administrators, fuck around and find out.  Grants alone take a staff of people to handle:  application, administration, accountability, distribution.  Standardized tests have to be received by people, distributed by people, collected by people, and returned to the state for grading by people.  School budgets (something else the Board is responsible for overseeing) don't write themselves, and tax rates aren't set by portents and signs and wonders. Parents call schools to talk to administrators who might no longer be there (principals are people, too), and will begin (at least) to wonder what's wrong with their child's school when nobody is in the office to answer the phone.

In the aftermath of COVID when many people haven't returned to their jobs and quitting is seen as a rational response to insanity (rather than grin and bear it because what's the alternative?), teachers are already leaving classrooms.  This district is about to drive itself straight to hell, IMHO.  The backlash won't come from lawsuits and ACLU defenses of the 1st Amendment.  It will come from people fleeing the burning house because, post-COVID, that's now seen as a rational response to irrationality.

I forgot to mention there is a final authority in all this, and that's the State of Texas.  Again, per the Texas Education Agency:

Should the management of a district or charter fail to carry out its duty, the commissioner of education has the authority to impose a sanction by installing a monitor, conservator or board of managers. At any given time, only about a dozen of the more than 1,200 school districts and charters receive this type of school governance intervention.

I've seen the TEA do this once to a school district in the area.  They actually forced it to merge with another school district in order to save the schools for the children.  TEA threatened to take over Houston ISD (largest in the state), which threat was enough to get them to straighten out (that quarrel was among board members elected from single-member districts across the geographically vast ISD).  If the school district referred to in these tweets passes these policies and the apocalypse occurs (the revelation of how foolish they are, IOW), the TEA would very likely take over, fire the school board, and bring the district back into alignment with state law regarding how school districts are run.

And rule no. 1 is:  TEA sets the curriculum in the classrooms; not the school boards. 

It is noted, in comments, and quite rightly, that the goal here is to abolish schools. Texas tried that, giving public money to private schools. It was such a disaster it was repealed within 2 years, and no one has seriously raised it again. Rural areas, where most of the GOP voters live, support their public schools because they don’t have an abundance of alternatives. All this noise about CRT and pornography is being made in the suburban districts. But “school choice” is not going to be a live option any time soon. Most of this now is simply people angry and looking for something to take it out on.