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Parents Sue PA School Districts Over New Woke, 'Anti-Racist' Guidelines
Townhall.com ^ | 30 July A.D. 2023 | Sarah Arnold

Posted on 07/30/2023 4:29:44 PM PDT by lightman

Parents, three school districts, teachers, and administrators are suing the Pennsylvania Department of Education over its new "woke" guidelines.

The parties filing the lawsuit argue that the new guidelines unconstitutionally force educators to teach socio-political beliefs unrelated to the state-approved academic standards.

Teachers will now have to "interrogate their biases and recognize inequality in schools and school systems," including "institutional racism," in the classroom.

Deputy secretary for the department's Office, Tanya Garcia, said the new standards would address the changing demographics of students who attend Pennsylvania's public schools.

State officials asked the CEO of the Philadelphia-based Center for Black Educator Development—Sharif El-Mekki—to help write the new standards. In a 69-page document, the group quotes fugitive cop killer Asatta Shakur, who was convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973. The group bills Shakur — who escaped prison and was granted asylum by the Castro regime in 1979 — as a "civil rights activist." The document also talks about managing "the teacher-to-activist pipeline" so that teachers can encourage students to fight for "social justice."

"Many of the new teachers who come out of Pennsylvania's educator prep programs say that they are not prepared to teach anyone, but particularly not prepared to teach students from culturally diverse backgrounds," he said.

Additionally, the standards will include multilingual students who live in poverty or have "varying sexual orientations and gender identities" as potentially marginalized.

Thomas Breth, special counsel for the Thomas More Society and attorney for the plaintiffs, said, "This is the government saying, you will believe this, you will state that you believe this, or there will be consequences. I'm against that whether it's conservative, liberal, progressive, non-progressive."

The state Department of Education announced the new "culturally relevant" teacher training programs that will train educators in "anti-racist" ideology last year.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: New Jersey; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: antiracistideology; arth; asattashakur; copkiller; dei; education; indoctrination; lawsuit; pennsylvania

1 posted on 07/30/2023 4:29:44 PM PDT by lightman
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To: lightman

These ‘Anti-resists’ are the biggest racists of all.


2 posted on 07/30/2023 4:34:08 PM PDT by rottndog (What comes after America?)
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To: rottndog

*Anti-racists


3 posted on 07/30/2023 4:34:37 PM PDT by rottndog (What comes after America?)
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To: metmom

arth ping


4 posted on 07/30/2023 4:43:19 PM PDT by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
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To: lightman

What kind of of racism do you find in a school where the student body is 95% Black? That is what hear you find in the West Philadelphia schools.


5 posted on 07/30/2023 4:57:59 PM PDT by Eva
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To: fatima; Fresh Wind; st.eqed; xsmommy; House Atreides; Nowhere Man; PaulZe; brityank; Physicist; ...

Pennsylvania Ping!

Please ping me with articles of interest.

FReepmail me to be added to the list.

6 posted on 07/30/2023 5:06:32 PM PDT by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
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To: lightman
Many of the new teachers who come out of Pennsylvania's educator prep programs say that they are not prepared to teach anyone, but particularly not prepared to teach students from culturally diverse backgrounds...the standards will include multilingual students who live in poverty or have "varying sexual orientations and gender identities" as potentially marginalized.

They are STUDENTS! Their "diverse" backgrounds, socioeconomic status, sexual identity, etc have ZERO BEARING on how you teach students. It is the ultimate racism to think you need to teach kids differently based on these factors. Imagine if you need a separate pedagogy for kids from 15 different countries, ten different backgrounds, multiple sexual orientations, marginalized kids....do the factorial analysis and you'll find you need several thousand different approaches that you can choose from to serve 25 or 30 students.

My sister was a match teacher in nearby Maryland for over 40 years and she consistently got the best results in the district because she ignored all this crap. She was demanding and set high standards. If you excelled, you got high grades. If you didn't try, didn't turn run your work, or were just plain stupid you got low grades. The kids complained all the time, but my sister often heard from kids she taught 10 or 20 years earlier and they all thanked her for being tough but fair. They always said that they tried harder in her class than any other.

It's not rocket science.

7 posted on 07/30/2023 5:13:43 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (We are proles, they are nobility.)
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To: lightman; 6amgelsmama; 100American; AAABEST; aberaussie; AbolishCSEU; AccountantMom; Aggie Mama; ...

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the other articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself)

The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.

8 posted on 07/30/2023 8:07:04 PM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Four years of college and huge student loans and they are not prepared to teach anyone. What were they doing? Frat parties?

In the immortal words of Dean Wormer “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.”


9 posted on 07/31/2023 7:51:12 AM PDT by NTHockey (My rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners. And to the NSA trolls, FU)
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To: All

Disney World district abolishes diversity, equity initiatives
BY MIKE SCHNEIDER, apnews.com
Updated 4:58 PM EDT, August 1, 2023

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Diversity, equity and inclusion programs were abolished Tuesday from Walt Disney World’s governing district, now controlled by appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis, in an echo of the Florida governor’s agenda which has championed curtailing such programs in higher education and elsewhere.

The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District said in a statement that its diversity, equity and inclusion committee would be eliminated, as would any job duties connected to it. Also axed were initiatives left over from when the district was controlled by Disney supporters, which awarded contracts based on goals of achieving racial or gender parity.

Glenton Gilzean, the district’s new administrator who is African American and a former head of the Central Florida Urban League, called such initiatives “illegal and simply un-American.” Gilzean has been a fellow or member at two conservative institutions, the James Madison Institute and the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network, as well as a DeSantis appointee to the Florida Commission on Ethics.

“Our district will no longer participate in any attempt to divide us by race or advance the notion that we are not created equal,” Gilzean said in a statement. “As the former head of the Central Florida Urban League, a civil rights organization, I can say definitively that our community thrives only when we work together despite our differences.”


10 posted on 08/02/2023 2:58:01 PM PDT by Liz (More tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered ones. St Teresa of Avila)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

“It is the ultimate racism to think you need to teach kids differently based on these factors.”

Absolutely. Teach to bring students up, not down. This exemplifies the incompetent culture of the left that brings society down.


11 posted on 08/10/2023 4:49:45 AM PDT by apoliticalone (We need real justice not fictitious SOCIAL JUSTICE & DEI that is politics & propaganda, not justice.)
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