Cultural literacy or cultural destruction? A case study of Mystic Valley Regional Charter School
Investigation
On September 27th 2021, the Mystic Valley Regional Charter School (MVRCS), located in Malden, Massachusetts, filed a lawsuit in Suffolk County Superior Court against the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), and Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education. It alleged that DESE’s new evaluation criteria—specifically the “culturally responsive teaching” requirement—amounts to an “unlawful censoring of [MVRCS’s] educational mission and repudiation of its charter.”
In an October 19th meeting with BESE, representatives from MVRCS presented their case, hoping to be granted a waiver from the new culturally responsive teaching requirement. (The Commissioner, Jeffrey C. Riley, previously had sent a memo denying MVRCS’s request for a waiver because, he said, the new teaching requirement did not conflict with MVRCS’ charter.) At the heart of the issue, the MVRCS representatives explained, is not a disagreement over the goal of fostering a welcoming educational environment for students of all cultural backgrounds. Rather, it is that MVRCS’s educational philosophy requires an approach to this goal that is fundamentally at odds with DESE’s new educational criteria.
MVRCS is unorthodox by the standards of most American schools. For its K-8 science, history, and geography classes, MVRCS utilizes the Core Knowledge Curriculum developed by the education scholar E.D. Hirsch Jr., who argues that all American children must be taught the same content-specific knowledge in order for them to develop the “cultural literacy” required to become civically responsible citizens. MVRCS’s mission statement explains that a central part of an MVRCS education is the incorporation of “the fundamental ideals of our American culture, which are embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.” It is by instilling in students these foundational American virtues that MVRCS believes it can most effectively promote a welcoming educational environment and immunize students against prejudicial beliefs.
But DESE’s culturally responsive teaching standards, like many such initiatives throughout the country, represent more than an ostensibly uncontroversial campaign against racism and other forms of prejudice.
DESE defines “cultural proficiency” (as well as “cultural responsiveness,” “culturally sustaining,” and other similar terms) according to the work of Gloria Ladson-Billings. Ladson-Billings, who in the mid-1990s was one of the first scholars to argue for the use of Critical Race Theory in schools, associates three categories of student outcomes with this type of teaching: academic achievement, cultural competence, and socio-political awareness. The language used to define academic achievement and cultural competence is not particularly concerning, at least on the surface. Socio-political awareness, however, mandates that “educators understand the social, economic, and political factors that influence their and students’ experiences, and view education as a pathway to liberation from systems of oppression.”
Despite the position taken by Commissioner Riley’s October memo, DESE’s culturally responsive teaching pedagogy fundamentally conflicts with MVRCS’s pedagogy, as outlined in its charter. MVRCS does not, under any reasonable interpretation of its philosophy, encourage teachers to view “education as a pathway to liberation from systems of oppression.” Indeed, MVRCS’ choice to root its education in the principles laid out in America’s founding documents reflects an implicit rejection of the idea that America consists of “systems of oppression.” Instead, MVRCS believes that oppression, where it does exist in America, is best opposed through a closer adherence to America’s founding ideals. By contrast, DESE directs educators and students to work to liberate themselves from systems of oppression that, in this view, are upheld by these same ideals.
The DESE website provides educators with a graphic depicting the “Cultural Responsiveness Continuum.” It contains seven stages ranging from “Cultural Destructiveness,” which is defined by “eliminating aspects of other’s culture(s),” to “Culturally Sustaining,” defined by a school “seeking to foster and explicitly support students’ diverse backgrounds, identities, strengths, and challenges.”
According to this DESE graphic, it appears that MVRCS would be considered “culturally destructive” by design. As MVRCS’s attorney explained in his presentation at the October 19th school board meeting, “Mystic Valley’s adherence to commonality is actually a ‘best practice,’ that has established a climate that has allowed students of all backgrounds to thrive and achieve excellent academic outcomes.” E.D. Hirsch Jr. himself wrote that while multicultural education can be valuable, it should not be mistaken for what must always be the primary focus of education: the acculturation of children into the society they grow up in. Because the overarching goal of an MVRCS education is to prepare students to be successful, responsible adults in our shared American culture, MVRCS’s “adherence to commonality” would, by definition, be construed to “eliminate” cultural differences between students.
Also on its website, in response to the question “why is culturally responsive teaching and leading important?”, DESE clarifies that “[i]t is important to note that, while relationship building is necessary for cultural responsiveness, the ultimate goal is increasing student achievement” (emphasis added). MVRCS, by every metric, boasts superior student achievement levels than the Massachusetts state average, thus meeting DESE’s stated achievement goals for its students. But DESE seems more concerned with promoting culturally responsive pedagogy than with actual student outcomes.
For example, Holyoke High School is one of four schools that DESE says “are leading efforts in Massachusetts to establish culturally responsive schools and classrooms.” Yet Holyoke High School’s academic achievement level is far below the state average. While MVRCS is ranked the 11th best public high school in Massachusetts by US News, Holyoke falls somewhere between 303-348. Of course, MVRCS is a charter school, so it is not surprising that it outperforms ordinary public schools like Holyoke. But it is nevertheless notable that DESE holds up Holyoke—which is, by the numbers, one of the worst-performing high schools in Massachusetts—as a paragon of culturally responsive teaching done correctly, while one of the state’s best high schools, MVRCS, is having to fight for its very existence because its pedagogical approach conflicts with culturally responsive teaching.
In the October 19th meeting, DESE representatives defended themselves in part by saying that schools are never required to meet every aspect of the performance criteria, so MVRCS has no reason to request a waiver from those aspects that might conflict with its charter. But DESE’s website states clearly that “Culturally responsive teaching is synonymous with great teaching. A teacher’s practice cannot be strong, effective, or rigorous unless it is culturally responsive...All students need and deserve culturally responsive teaching.” At the very least, this language suggests that schools such as MVRCS are weak, ineffective, and irresponsible, robbing students of the education they are entitled to—so it’s little wonder that MVRCS has taken legal action.
Towards the end of the meeting, one of the school board members pointed out that, in addition to “the procedural question of consistency between criteria and charter,” the larger question in this case is how the agency decides to define “cultural responsiveness.” Indeed, it is only because of DESE’s ideologically loaded definition that this conflict with MVRCS arose in the first place.
But there is a more fundamental question, one that has profound implications for America: What type of educational philosophy can a school be based on in our country today? Should schools like MVRCS be allowed to define themselves on the belief that America’s founding ideals represent an incomplete but significant break from the intolerance and violence that characterized most of human history? Or must all schools now commit to educating students toward “liberation from systems of oppression,” thereby accepting the ideological view that racism and oppression are intrinsic to the American system of liberal democracy?
The October 19th BESE meeting concluded with the board members voting unanimously to deny MVRCS’s request for a waiver. The court has yet to rule on MVRCS’s claims.
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Where was I when the constitution was overturned ?
I am just relieved I don't have kids in the school system now...it's such a minefield and the CRT indoctrination is abhorrent.