Speaking from the Edge: A Response to a School District CRT Ban

• In Event: Sophisticated Racial Tools: Expanding the Explanatory Power of Critical Race Praxis

Abstract

Objectives & Research Questions
Since 2020, right wing politicians have used Critical Race Theory (CRT) to spark fear and chaos in local PK-12 school districts. In 2021 and 2022, at least 563 measures were proposed nationwide to restrict teaching about race, with nearly half passing (Alexander, Baldwin Clark, Reinhard, & Zatz, 2023). Although 60% of the CRT bans occurred in Red States, 40% were not, with several districts in blue California passing anti-CRT legislation. This study examines the response from a College of Education (COE) to CRT ban and “other similar frameworks” from a partner district. The following questions guide this study:1) What can a COE committed to preparing anti-racist educators do to ensure that their teacher candidates are placed in schools aligned with their vision and mission? 2) How is this action received by partner districts, faculty, and university leadership?

Theory
Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) introduced Critical Race Theory as a framework to analyze racial inequalities within the education system in the United States. Educational researchers have continued to develop this theoretical framework (Delgado Bernal, 2002; Taylor, Gilborn, & Ladson-Billings, 2009; Stovall, 2006) to identify and expand on central tenets, such as the permanence of racism, challenging color-evasiveness, whiteness as property and a commitment to social justice. The teacher preparation programs in this study use CRT frameworks to prepare PK-12 teacher candidates to continue racial justice work in their school settings, including advocating for school funding and against segregation, as well as deconstructing racist ideologies in their curriculum, instruction and assessment.

Methods/Sources
To counter the right-wing narratives dominating media (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002), this case study seeks to analyze the testimonios of three COE faculty on their experiences with anti-CRT partner districts, college faculty, and university leadership (Delgado Bernal, Burciaga, & Flores Camaron, 2012). Drawing on the experiences of Women of Color in the college—one associate professor, one department chair, and the college dean, data were collected in Spring 2023 and coded using descriptive analysis (Saldana, 2013) to identify common themes.

Findings
Answering Ladson-Billings (2009) call for CRT researchers to risk “speaking from the edge,” the COE leadership announced in Fall 2022 that it would pause teacher candidate placement in the partner district that banned CRT. Preliminary findings suggest that although there was support from community partnerships, faculty, and university leadership like Academic Senate, there was also resistance to pulling from the partner district. COE Leadership and supporters of the withdrawal from the district experienced both micro- and macroaggressions at all levels, which centered white comfort and invisibilized the harm to teacher candidates and faculty of color.

Significance
This groundbreaking study is significant in that the attacks on CRT in PK-12 setting will continue to grow and a response is necessary from teacher preparation programs that are committed to racial justice. This research examines university faculty reflections to provide insight on how teacher preparation programs nationwide might remedy CRT bans in their local community.

Author

• Carolina Valdez, California State University - Fullerton