"Social Justice" Disposition Off The Table--For Now

Under pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education--and no thanks at all to the ACLU--the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education has dropped its recommendation that potential teachers be evaluated based on their commitment to "social justice", a left-wing collection of beliefs.

“NCATE is an enormously influential body,” noted Lukianoff. “Its influence has led many schools of education to adopt ‘social justice’ criteria. FIRE urges these schools to re-evaluate their practices and ensure that neither ‘social justice’ nor any other disposition is used as a political litmus test for teachers. Well-intentioned or not, there is no way an education school can evaluate a student’s commitment to ‘social justice’ without evaluating his or her politics,” he concluded. (boldface mine--Darren)

This is good. We must remain vigilant to guard against a recurrence, a recurrence we know will happen.

NCATE maintains a set of official standards on the basis of which it decides
whether or not to accredit an education program. The standards require that candidates in an education program “demonstrate the content, pedagogical, and professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to help all students learn.” NCATE’s standards state that dispositions “are guided by beliefs and attitudes related to values such as caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice.” The standards also require students and faculty in an education program to demonstrate a commitment to “diversity.”

“‘Social justice’ and ‘diversity’ are vague and politically loaded terms that
mean different things to different people,” Lukianoff stated. “NCATE’s
suggestion that it is appropriate to judge prospective teachers based on their commitment to these nebulous ideals is an invitation to discriminate against teacher candidates with dissenting views.”

Do you really think that the lefties will let this die? Me either.