Opponents of culturally responsive teaching hit setback
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[June 22, 2021]
By Zeta Cross
(The Center Square) – In February, the
Illinois Board of Education adopted the Culturally Responsive Teaching
and Leading Standards to direct teachers to assess how their biases may
affect their teaching practices.
The new guidelines will not be implemented until 2025. However, on May
27, both the Senate and House chambers passed Senate Bill 814 – a
teacher mentoring bill that includes language that requires new teacher
training to align with the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading
Standards.
That means that the new standards will be used in the mentoring of new
teachers as soon as this summer, Right to Life and Pro-Family lobbyist
Ralph Rivera said.
Rivera said Right to Life Action and the Pro-Family Alliance have no
problems with 90 percent of SB 814. What his members oppose is the
requirement that the content of the new mentoring programs must align
with the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards.
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“Under the standards, new teachers would learn from the mentor that they
have to ‘embrace, encourage and affirm’ viewpoints of students. But they
do not explain what those are,” Rivera said. “They could be things that
a teacher would object to.”
For example, if a student has a pro-abortion position, a teacher with a
pro-life religious belief cannot be expected to “embrace and affirm” the
student’s pro-abortion position, Rivera argued.
Rivera said the standards are unconstitutional. He said the only remedy
is for teachers to seek redress from the courts.
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The new standards were developed by the Diverse and Learner Ready
Teacher Network, a group that works to recruit and support minority
teachers in ten states, including Illinois.
The Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards direct teachers
to examine the personal biases and perceptions that affect their
teaching practices. The idea behind the standards is to train new
teachers to make their instruction more inclusive and relevant to
students of different cultural backgrounds, sexual identities and gender
identities.
Rivera said that the language of the standards is vague and worrisome
for conservatives.
Republican lawmakers and religious conservatives have opposed the
adoption of the standards since they were introduced.
“Now that SB 814 has passed, new teachers and mentors will have to abide
by the rule, and we are concerned that they can’t do that,” Rivera said.
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