Critical Race Theory in Mountain View Whisman School District:
I’ve been poking into the creep of Critical Race Theory topics into the MVWSD since November 2021 because no one else was doing that.
I have zoomily met with the Director of Equity (Megan Henderson) to discuss some of her work and with the District Superintendent (Dr. Ayinde Rudolph) for more information.
The Director of Equity has produced seven powerpoint presentations that she has given to classified staff, principals, the Board of Trustees, and to teachers as professional development activities. I have pdf copies.
Each teacher, principal, and library tech has been given a book: Start Here Start Now by Liz Kleinrock (360 copies, $8607.78). No copy was made available for the public to see. The county & MV libraries have copies due to my requests. I have copies.
The Kleinrock book instructs teachers how to modify their teaching materials to focus through an “Anti-racist antibias lens”. The book introduces social justice, hate speech, systemic racism, white supremacy, marginalized vs privileged groups, authentic vs inauthentic sources, narratives over data analysis, support rather than testing of hypotheses. These are all features of Critical Race Theory; which is not a theory (Evolution and Dark Matter would be theories = well-supported and helpfully explanatory), is not critical thought, and is all about race. CRT is also a movement.
The Director of Equity uses implicit association tests (popular in CRT) in her presentations.
Since the District has not formally adopted into curriculum anything called Critical Race Theory, but has only permitted and encouraged teachers to insert its concepts into classroom curricula, the District says it does not teach CRT.
I have copies of the Equity presentations, comments on them, and a review of the Start Here Start Now book available.
The Director of Equity picks a topic from Facing History, ADL, or the SPLC’s Learning for Justice site for the monthly topic to be delivered to classes at each school by the librarians. No oversight by Director of Curriculum/Instruction/Assessment (Swati Dagar). Topics often introduce sex.
I am hoping that Mountain View residents, parents or not, might be interested in becoming informed. If you know people who might be interested, please pass this on to them. Anyone who emails me will receive as much of the material listed here as he or she requests.