ANDRE PERRY: If you don’t want critical race theory to exist, stop being racist - The Hechinger Report

COLUMN: If you don’t want critical race theory to exist, stop being racist

COLUMN: If you don’t want critical race theory to exist, stop being racist

Conservatives campaigning against critical race theory are making it even more popular

Conservative legislators across the country are passing laws to ban books and courses that espouse critical race theory — scholarship born in the 1970s that examines the role that racism plays in our daily lives. For instance, the Idaho House of Representatives passed a higher ed bill based on some lawmakers’ beliefs that critical race theory and similar work “exacerbate and inflame divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or other criteria in ways contrary to the unity of the nation and the well-being of the state of Idaho and its citizens.”

You’d think that after the white supremacists defiled the halls of the Capitol on January 6, policymakers would be compelled to uproot clear and present sources of racial division. After four years of Trump falsely equating white supremacists with activists fighting for racial justice, you’d also think policymakers would see critical race theory as a way to make sense of systemic racism in the U.S. But, alas, racists find a way to use what should be teachable moments as a twisted opportunity to perpetuate their worldview.

A culture built upon a false racial hierarchy can only be maintained through lies, force and duplicity — all of which are on full display in the asinine attempts to ban critical race theory. Those who are threatened by any systemic analysis of racism and its underpinnings reveal exactly where they stand on white supremacy. 

The reasons this country is literally divided are clear to any reasonable person: slavery, Jim Crow segregation, housing and education discrimination, a biased criminal justice system and feckless conservative CONTINUE READING: COLUMN: If you don’t want critical race theory to exist, stop being racist

ANDRE M. PERRY: Standardized tests aren’t the problem, it’s how we use them - Brookings

Standardized tests aren’t the problem, it’s how we use them

Standardized tests aren’t the problem, it’s how we use them

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is refusing to back down on a federal requirement that states must administer standardized tests this year, although a letter to state leaders from the Department of Education last month said that states will have flexibility on how to apply results. States concerned about the safety of administering a test during a pandemic may implement shortened versions of assessments.

This relief from the hammer of accountability, if not from the tests themselves, has gotten a mixed reception from anti-testing advocates, school leaders, and teachers who are still trying to ready schools for face-to-face learning. They’re right: Greater accountability and standardized testing won’t give students the technology they need, give teachers the necessary PPE to stay safe, or give families the income to better house and feed themselves during the pandemic so that kids can focus on learning. And if there was ever a time to see how misguided our accountability systems are in relation to addressing root causes of achievement disparities, it’s now.

On its face, relieving students, teachers, and families from the grip of test-based accountability makes sense. We know student achievement, particularly in low-income schools and districts, will dip due to circumstances related to the pandemic and social distancing. We know the source of the decline.

And we currently use standardized tests well beyond what they were designed to do, which is to measure a few areas of academic achievement. Achievement tests were not designed for the purposes of promoting or grading students, evaluating teachers, or evaluating schools. In fact, connecting these social functions to achievement test data corrupts what the tests are measuring. In statistics, this is called Campbell’s Law. When a CONTINUE READING: Standardized tests aren’t the problem, it’s how we use them

ANDRE PERRY: The next education secretary must know about much more than education

The next education secretary must know about much more than education

The next education secretary must know about much more than education

Our schools are in crisis. We need Biden to tell us who our new secretary of education will be ASAP

In the days after President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, you didn’t have to be inside the beltway to hear whispers of names being floated for cabinet positions — rumors that were later confirmed as fact: Janet Yellen, former chair of the Federal Reserve Board (Department of the Treasury); Vivek Murthy, former Surgeon General under President Barak Obama (named to serve in the same role); Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Politics (Office of Management and Budget); and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who served as the top diplomat in Africa during the Obama Administration (Ambassador to the United Nations).

But alas, we’re still waiting on the name of Biden’s education secretary, the person who will help lead our schools out of one of the biggest crises in the history of American education.

Because of President Donald Trump’s clownish denial of the election results, Biden got a later start than his predecessors at naming his nominees for the top spots in his nascent administration, and there are many more departmental roles Biden must begin to fill. However, if there is anything that the entire country can agree on it is that our schools are in the middle of an epic disaster. Uneven access to broadband, resource disparities between upper- and lower-income districts and differences in family resources across racial lines, foreshadow widening achievement gaps. Also, parents are tired of playing the roles of substitute teacher, lunch lady and security guard (all at the same time). They desperately need to hear when and how all students might return to schools safely.

The country needs an education secretary who understands the systemic nature of our current problems, across sectors.

We need leadership on this issue — yesterday. CONTINUE READING: The next education secretary must know about much more than education

ANDRE PERRY: Black students: Don’t let white efforts at miseducation deny your legacy

Black students: Don’t let white efforts at miseducation deny your legacy

 Dear Black students: Don’t let white efforts at miseducation deny your legacy

‘The upholders of white supremacy have always tried to control us by obstructing our path to the schoolhouse through law, propaganda and duplicity. They are doing it again.’

Dear Black students,

The last seven months have presented you with a whirlwind of challenges that undoubtedly disrupted your schooling: The coronavirus pandemic, police killings of unarmed Black people, uprisings for racial justice, Western wildfires and a contentious presidential election in which efforts to disenfranchise voters in Black-majority cities have been bold and deliberate. You have to make sense of misinformation campaigns by politicians who think saying “fake news” will make their lies go away.

With all the distractions and attacks, it may sometimes be difficult to recall our legacy. For generations, we have fought for freedom and freedom’s antecedent, a quality education. Always, the upholders of white supremacy have tried to control us by obstructing our path to the schoolhouse through law, propaganda and duplicity. Now, they are doing it again.

Quoting his owner in his book, Life of an American Slave, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote, “[I]f you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave.” Douglass knew that an undereducated populace will be controlled. What we witnessed during this election was evidence that miseducation doesn’t just allow the continued control of Black people. The 57 percent of white people who cast their ballot for Donald Trump — who has yet to accept the truth and concede the election — represents a white achievement gap that marks a generation unfit for the workforce, college and democracy.

Even if half of America chooses ignorance, we should not. CONTINUE READING: Black students: Don’t let white efforts at miseducation deny your legacy

White voters, Donald Trump and the white achievement gap

White voters, Donald Trump and the white achievement gap

Donald Trump and the white achievement gap

White Trump voters either put aside what they learned in school to vote for the president — or they never learned it at all

There is a learning gap that is threatening economic and social productivity in the U.S. that must be addressed. The untreated white achievement gap continues to tear our country apart.

Voting can be considered a test of sorts for assessing our knowledge and comprehension of the world around us. Voting data gives us insight into how people put into practice the information, facts and teaching they’ve received.

Exit polls conducted by the research firm Edison Research show that President Donald Trump received 57 percent of the total number of ballots cast by white voters. They voted for a man who has denigrated established science, supported racist conspiracies and spewed the racist assertion that four U.S. congresswomen of color “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” He struggled throughout his term to renounce white supremacist groups. And as the election returns came in last week, he spun a web of lies about how the American democratic process works.

By their votes, the vast majority of Black and Brown citizens showed themselves to be proficient judges of character and political leadership. This achievement is saving the country.

Millions of people, most of them white, either put aside what they learned in school to vote for the president — or they never learned it at all. Racism is illogical, and the irrationality it produces leads to policies and actions that are dangerously wrong for individuals and the country as a whole. While we so often wring our hands about the lagging educational achievement of Black, Latino and Native students, this election reminds us CONTINUE READING: White voters, Donald Trump and the white achievement gap

Andre M. Perry: Win or lose, Trump was the mirror America needed

Win or lose, Trump was the mirror America needed

Win or lose, Trump was the mirror America needed

A day after Election Day 2020, the presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is still too close to call. As states continue to count ballots, the potential for recounts and 

litigation to affect the final outcome remains. Viable routes to victory remain for both candidates, even in the midst of several colossal failures that should have resulted in a trouncing of the incumbent Trump.

At various points during the campaign, both Trump and Biden referred to this election as a fight for the “soul” of America. If that is the case, Trump’s better-than-expected performance should hold a mirror up for Americans to see what that soul truly looks like.

After downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic that has taken more than 200,000 American lives, Trump still has rock solid support, even after contracting the illness himself. In the past four years, he has openly fawned vicious dictators such as Russian president Vladimir Putin, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un. He inappropriately deployed the military on American citizens during a moment of social unrest. He has failed to denounce white supremacy, separated immigrant parents from their children, consistently deployed racist rhetoric, and banned residents of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. None of this seems to have eroded his base, even voters of color—exit polls show that Trump support from Black and Latino or Hispanic voters is up from 2016.

Meanwhile, California’s raging wildfires highlight Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. His lack of transparency and demonization of the press can only be considered acceptable under an authoritarian regime. He regularly flaunts undemocratic values, and his narcissism seemingly knows no bounds. He has converted press briefings into a stage for his personal political reality CONTINUE READING: Win or lose, Trump was the mirror America needed