A Pennsylvania father’s determined effort to find out what’s being taught to his children’s instructors.
WSJ.com by Nicole Ault and Megan Keller Sept. 2, 2022
Randi Weingarten left no room for doubt. “Critical race theory is not taught in elementary schools or high schools,” the American Federation of Teachers president said in a speech last year. Even if that’s true, a Pennsylvania father’s battle with a school district demonstrates that public-school teachers are being trained in the deeply divisive racial ideology—and defensive administrators are playing semantic games to allay parental concerns.
In 2018 the Tredyffrin-Easttown School District near Philadelphia signed a contract with Pacific Educational Group, a California-based consulting firm. According to the school district’s website, the partnership’s purpose was “to enhance the policies and practices around racial equity.” The district assured parents in an online update last summer that no “course, curriculum or program” in the district “teaches Critical Race Theory.”
Benjamin Auslander didn’t buy it. The parent of a high schooler in the district, he wanted to see the materials used to train teachers. Mr. Auslander, 54, made a formal document request but was denied. Officials told him the materials couldn’t be shared because they were protected by Pacific Educational Group’s copyright. His only option was to inspect them in person—no copies or photos allowed. “What are you trying to hide?” he asked school board members at a meeting in December.
Mr. Auslander accepted the district’s offer and in February went to inspect the documents in person. When he tried to record voice memos on his phone about what he was reading a district official called it a copyright violation. According to a subsequent complaint filed by Mr. Auslander in federal court, the official threatened him “with civil and criminal liability” if he kept recording. The official then ended the meeting.
In April, Mr. Auslander sued the district. His argument? The First Amendment protects his right to access information about officials’ public activities and issues of public debate without retaliation. Pacific Educational Group declined to defend its copyright claim, and in June the judge in the case vacated a confidentiality order on the training materials.
Our examination of those materials indicates that Tredyffrin-Easttown staff are being trained in critical race theory.
Documents emailed from 2019 to 2021 by Pacific Educational Group to district administrators in advance of various training seminars cite critical race theory explicitly. A rubric dated Feb. 4, 2020, encourages participants to “Deconstruct the Presence and role of Whiteness” in their lives. A March 17, 2020, presentation lists “aspects and assumptions of white culture” in the U.S. Some are negative, such as “win at all costs,” “wealth = worth,” “don’t show emotion,” and in reference to food, “bland is best.” Others are seemingly universal principles such as “cause-and-effect relationships,” “objective, rational, linear thinking,” and “plan for future.”
That presentation also spells out the “5 tenets of critical race theory” to “better understand the critical intersection of race and schooling.” One tenet is the “permanence of racism,” or the idea that “racism is endemic to all our institutions, systems and structures” in the U.S. Another is “whiteness as property.” The “critique of liberalism” tenet argues that “colorblindness,” “neutrality of the law” and the “myth of meritocracy” must be “deconstructed.”
These tenets aren’t presented as abstract notions for faculty to consider, but ideas they’re meant to apply. School staff’s ability to use “critical race theory . . . to inform racial equity leadership and analysis of school policies, practices and procedures” is considered a sign of the successful “internalization and application” of Pacific Educational Group’s framework. And a chart includes “Critical Race Theory” as a step toward “Equity/Anti-Racism School Transformation Action Planning.” A Feb. 3, 2021, seminar is even titled “Using Critical Race Theory to Transform Leadership and District.”
Brian Elias, an attorney representing the school district, told us via email that these materials “were for District leadership team training only.” He insisted that materials “were not designed to train for classroom teaching” but merely to help district leaders understand “what Critical Race Theory is.” He added that “none of the training designed for core classroom teachers included a discussion of critical race theory.”
Does that mean no Tredyffrin-Easttown teachers attended Pacific Educational Group training that discussed critical race theory? Mr. Elias refused to say.
Information on the district’s website seems to show that they did. A 2020 update on the district’s racial equity work declares that five to eight teachers from each “building” in the district would attend Site Equity Leadership Team, or E-Team, training. The material quoted above was marked to be included in E-Team training.
Perhaps districts like Tredyffrin-Easttown think they can shoo parents away by making a distinction between teacher training and curriculum. But what is the point of teacher training if not to inform teachers on how they should teach?
Teacher training is “where a lot of bad things actually happen,” says Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, a nonprofit advocacy group. She says the group’s tip line hears often from frustrated teachers forced to endure training in woke concepts. Records requests and whistleblowers have uncovered staff training, including in Loudoun County, Va., and Rhode Island, that push “antiracism” ideology.
Tredyffrin-Easttown is far from the only district contracting with teacher-training organizations like Pacific Educational Group. Lawmakers in some states are pushing—with little success—to require schools to post their classroom and teacher-training materials online. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a transparency bill in December. A former teacher and principal, Mr. Evers was Wisconsin’s elected superintendent of public instruction for a decade.
Mr. Auslander is still fighting in court to prove that the Tredyffrin-Easttown school district violated his rights by denying him access to the documents and allegedly threatening him with liability if he recorded what he saw. The district maintains that its actions were justified because of the copyright asserted by Pacific Educational Group at the time. If Mr. Auslander gets a favorable ruling, it may help protect Pennsylvania parents from similar stonewalling by educators. If Tredyffrin-Easttown continues to make a dubious distinction between teacher training and classroom instruction, more parents may start to wonder exactly what it is the district is trying to hide.