District Pays A Penalty For Insulting Its Teachers

Should teachers be treated this way in order to keep their jobs?  Short answer:  no.  Perhaps the school board in question needs this slap:

Just weeks after Oklahoma's governor called for a special audit of Tulsa Public Schools (TPS), the State Board of Education voted to downgrade the district's accreditation status for violating a law that restricts teachings on race and gender.

In a 4-2 vote on Thursday, the board based its decision to downgrade to "accreditation with warning" in response to a complaint stating a mandatory training session for teachers violated state law 1775.

A teacher filed the complaint with the state after she claimed training videos she was required to watch "...specifically shame white people for past offenses in history, and state that all are implicitly racially biased by nature"...

 

TPS issued a blistering response to the state board's decision and said the schools "are teaching our children an accurate -- and at times painful, difficult, and uncomfortable -- history about our shared human experience," according to the statement.

 

Oklahoma's HB 1775, which does not include the term "critical race theory," is intended to stop discrimination, according to the bill. If any educator teaches that "an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex" or that "an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously," they could be suspended or have their license removed, according to the law. 

 

According to the Oklahoman, the training session the teacher complained about was "provided by a third-party vendor and took place in August 2021, before the administrative rules had taken effect. Those rules advise a school district be labeled 'accredited with deficiency' at minimum if it is found in violation of HB 1775."

If the training occurred before the law went into effect, the BoE's action is inappropriate.  Otherwise, the district has to follow rules just like the rest of us.

I've addressed implicit bias many times, just type "implicit bias" into the search box at the top or bottom of this page to read those earlier posts.  The test used is not very reliable.