Critical race theory bill is solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, Fort Worth supt. says
Ale Checka had a thousand problems on her mind Tuesday during the school day. Her seventh-grade students were taking standardized tests, there were only three weeks left in the school year and her campus was in the middle of moving buildings.
And then there was the Fort Worth school district budget, which had been drafted but not finalized. She planned to speak at the school board meeting at 5:30 p.m. about her concerns about class sizes and staffing within the budget proposal.
After the school day ended, Checka ran some errands before heading to the meeting, where her colleague was already waiting. When she walked into the room, Checka noticed a group of about two dozen people sitting in the audience. Many held signs that said, “Stop racism. Stop hate. Stop critical race theory.”
Public comment started, and members of the group started to speak. Checka felt increasingly taken aback as each speaker took to the podium. The group, made up of white, Black and Hispanic men and women, was speaking out against the Fort Worth ISD administration over a Texas bill that’s been coined the “critical race theory bill.” The group was in favor of the bill, which Superintendent Kent Scribner publicly opposed in a joint letter.
Amanda Coleman, a mother of three children, was the first speaker.
“CRT is an ideology based in Marxism,” Coleman, who said she pulled her children out of Fort Worth schools and placed them in charter schools, said at the podium. “It pits groups of people against each other and focuses on our differences rather than what we have in common.”
Many of the speakers from the group seemed angry, Checka said. She did not understand where the vitriol was coming from. When it was her turn to speak, she put aside her notes on the school budget.
“I don’t know what y’all think we’re doing in classrooms right now,” she said to the room. “But we’re totally focused right now on your students.”
Checka told the Star-Telegram the debate around critical race theory and social issues in schools is “divorced from reality.” Some speakers seemed to believe the district employs critical race theory as an ideology on which to base its subjects. She, and other teachers, are overwhelmed with prepping students for standardized tests, teaching both remote and in-person classes and, in some cases, helping students with basic needs like food and social services, she said.
“Every teacher is completely, down to the bone exhausted,” she said. “Students have had parents pass away. Teachers lost power and electricity during the storm two months ago. We are not having an alternate curriculum. We are not having a secret agenda, we are not out to indoctrinate anyone. We have enough to do trying to help our students as much as possible.”
Debate over bill
About 15 speakers on Tuesday night, many parents or activists in the Fort Worth area, condemned FWISD for teaching what they deemed critical race theory. Several said they supported the bill that Scribner wrote against.
The bill, which appeared on Saturday to be heading to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature, House Bill 3979, aims to limit what teachers can and cannot discuss in terms of current events, history and race. The current version of the bill states that a teacher cannot teach the concept that a person, based on their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive. Teachers also cannot be compelled to discuss a particular current event or currently controversial issue, and those who do so must do their best to “explore that topic from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective,” the bill says.
On May 12, Scribner and Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa co-wrote a letter to the legislature in opposition to the bill and on behalf of the Texas Urban Council of Superintendents. The bill would suppress meaningful classroom conversations, the letter says, as well as minimize the role of racial relations in American history and create an inferior curriculum that harms students and teachers.
“(Critical race theory) does not frame one race as superior or inferior to another,” the letter Scribner co-wrote said. “It is simply the acknowledgment that race is a fundamental factor shaping American history. To explain American history without that lens is impossible.”
Speakers on Tuesday night disagreed.
Erik Richerson said at Tuesday’s meeting that, as a successful Black businessman, he objects to the district’s use of critical race theory. He said the Fort Worth district should focus on getting kids’ grades up, and Fort Worth needs to “bring God back into our schools and stand for our flag.”
A former FWISD student, Carlos Turcios, said the district should not teach students that America is a racist country and instead should focus on building entrepreneurship skills and mentorship programs.
Traci Jenkins said that the concepts of microaggressions, implicit bias and anti-racism “themselves are racist at their very core.” She compared CRT to Nazism and Marxism.
“Please stand up and help our kids get a proper education and stop the endeavor to indoctrinate rather than educate,” she said.
What is critical race theory?
Critical race theory is a school of thought originating in the ‘70s and ‘80s that analyzes how racism impacts the U.S. and its various systems. The theory is just one school of thought that contributes to the understanding of race and its significance worldwide, said Max Krochmal, an associate professor of history at TCU. Krochmal is also the founding chair of the Department of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies at TCU and serves on Fort Worth school district’s Racial Equity Committee.
But critical race theory has become an umbrella term, Krochmal said, that is applied to anything concerning race that is critical of systemic racism.
At FWISD, critical race theory has been used at an administrative level to analyze how the district can help Black, Latino and other students of color overcome racial inequality. For example, Scribner visited various Fort Worth neighborhoods on Thursday to discuss the creation of Wi-Fi towers in areas that don’t have reliable broadband access. Those neighborhoods are made up primarily of Black or Latino families. It isn’t a coincidence, Scribner said, that those are the communities in the greatest need.
“We have to double down and invest in (those communities) at a level higher than we have historically done,” he said.
The district also created curriculum that was historically accurate and culturally responsive, Krochmal said. Krochmal was one of the academic scholars who helped weave Latino studies into the general social studies curriculum. The goal of this curriculum is to teach history in a broader, more accurate and multi-faceted way.
“Like students being made to feel guilty because of their race? That’s not the curriculum,” he said. “Nowhere in FWISD curriculum would you see lessons built around that.”
There is no class in the Fort Worth school district that requires critical race theory, Scribner said. But teaching students about the history of the United States or social issues naturally involves conversations about race, and teachers need to have the ability to teach well-rounded historical education, he said.
“This conversation, as I said in the letter, seems like a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist,” Scribner said.
Checka said teachers do not want to avoid the ugliness in the country’s past. She and others teach about race as it’s relevant to their subject, and make sure to do so in an age-appropriate way, she said.
“Even if it’s difficult or uncomfortable, sometimes that’s how we move forward,” she said.
Teaching race in schools
The bill also limits how teachers can discuss current events. According to the latest version of the bill, teachers who choose to discuss current events must do so “without giving deference to any one perspective.”
The bill could create a chilling effect on teachers and students, making them afraid to address any current events, Scribner said.
The House bill itself does not define what critical race theory means legally, which Scribner and other superintendents said in the letter is dangerous because it makes the law too broad and vague.
Supporters of the bill, such as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, say critical race theory creates a divisive culture that teaches that people are racist or oppressive by virtue of their race or sex, he said in a statement May 22.
“House Bill 3979 makes certain that critical race philosophies, including the 1619 founding myth, are removed from our school curriculums statewide,” Patrick said in the statement. “When parents send their children to school, they want their students to learn critical thinking without being indoctrinated with misinformation charging that America and our Constitution are rooted in racism.”
In terms of current events, Checka said it is impossible to not talk about social issues in the classroom. The students ask her questions about the world around them, and she does her best to foster meaningful conversation. Especially in her high school, where the majority of students are Black or Latino, conversations about race are already happening among the students, she said.
The Fort Worth school district is majority Hispanic. Out of about 82,000 students, 63% are Hispanic, 21% are Black and 11% are white.
“It just boggles my mind that people are not considering what a high school like that might look like, might sound like, the conversations that students might have amongst themselves,” Checka said. “Of course kids bring up race. Kids live in the same society that everyone else does.”
The debate around critical race theory in schools has become a national talking point due to proposed laws in various states. But many local school districts have faced the issue for years in the form of debate surrounding diversity plans. Some districts, including Aledo, Carroll, Arlington and Fort Worth, developed plans to address racism within the district.
In Southlake, the Carroll school board considered adopting a Cultural Competence Action in August 2020 to address diversity and racism in the district. The result was a heated debate and a divided community between those who see the plan as leftist indoctrination and those who see a problem of systemic racism in their town.
This story was originally published May 28, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
