UPDATE 8:36 p.m.: ADDS time, location of hearing; SB 15 cosponsored by Davenport, Seay; ADDS voter ID/registration information
by Dave Williams
Capitol Beat News Service
While Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly tangle over guns, noncitizen voting and Medicaid expansion, education could become the most highly-charged issue of the election-year session that began last month.
GOP Gov. Brian Kemp set the tone during his State of the State address, promising to wade into in an aspect of education Democrats and educators want the state to stay out of – what teachers can teach.
“I look forward to working with members of the General Assembly this legislative session to protect our students from divisive ideologies – like critical race theory – that pit kids against each other,” he told a joint session of the state House and Senate.
The Georgia State Board of Education adopted a resolution last June essentially endorsing Kemp’s position opposing the teaching of critical race theory, which emphasizes the existence of systemic racism in America. But the resolution doesn’t carry the weight of law.
Republican lawmakers are looking to codify the GOP’s stance against critical race theory into state law with four bills – two in the state House of Representatives and two in the Georgia Senate.
All four of the bills would apply to elementary and secondary schools across the state. While only one – Senate Bill 377 – specifically targets Georgia’s public colleges and universities and the state’s technical colleges, all four mention “state agencies,” a term that includes the University System of Georgia and the technical college system.
“We must stop divisive concepts from being taught in Georgia colleges and universities and seeping down into our K-12 schools – concepts that an overwhelming majority of Georgians outright reject,” said Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, chief sponsor of Senate Bill 377 and one of Kemp’s Senate floor leaders.
“We must ensure that no student is taught to feel guilty or ‘less than’ because of how they were born.”
Educators bristle at what they see as interference in their ability to teach.
Matthew Boedy, president of the Georgia Association of University Professors, called the bills “educational gag orders.”
Lisa Morgan, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, which represents elementary and secondary teachers, said Republicans are launching an “attack on public education” by injecting themselves into an aspect of education where they don’t belong.
“Educators are experts on curriculum and instruction,” she said. “Educators should be in charge of of curriculum and instruction, not elected officials.”
Besides the resentment educators feel toward politicians encroaching on teachers’ roles, dictating what can be taught in Georgia schools is also stifling to students, Morgan said.
“Children are curious,” she said. “When we have this legislation attempting to censor how we are teaching history … the teacher in many cases will not answer a question. What message is that giving the child? … Children should be allowed to ask difficult questions.”
“[Senate Bill 377] says certain concepts can be taught but only in an ‘objective’ way and without ‘endorsement,’ ” Boedy added. “To somehow divide education into divisive concepts that one can’t opine on and non-divisive ones that merit opinion is malpractice for an educator.”
One key aspect to the debate over critical race theory is whether it is even being taught in Georgia schools. Democrats say it is not and that Republicans are stirring up fear among GOP base voters to gin up support at the polls this fall.
But state Sen. Burt Jones, R-Jackson, who is running for lieutenant governor, sent a letter to the state Board of Education last month asserting that the Gwinnett County School District may have begun teaching critical race theory.
“The syllabus appears to have been since removed from the district’s website,” Jones wrote. “But the notion that the largest school district in our state would be surreptitiously injecting such divisive curriculum into our children’s classrooms – and then attempting to cover it up – is both egregious and completely unacceptable.”
Lawmakers will kick off the debate over critical race theory on Monday when the Senate Education and Youth Committee holds a hearing on Hatchett’s bill.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Editor’s Note
Robin Kemp
Executive Editor/CEO
The Clayton Crescent
Gwinnett County Schools says it does not teach critical race theory and that the syllabus to which Sen. Burt Jones refers in this story was part of a teacher’s non-classroom work: “GCPS does not teach CRT and the syllabus in question was never used in a class. Access to the file in question was restricted to avoid confusion after a reporter brought it to our attention that it was available through a Google search. The audit syllabus in question was created by one teacher, not the district, and was submitted as part of the College Board’s AP Audit Syllabus process in 2017. It has never been used as an actual class syllabus. In fact, while the teacher knew there was not a live link to this audit syllabus on the teacher’s page, the teacher did not realize that this particular file was toggled to ‘active’ in a web page folder, so it was searchable. To avoid any further confusion, the file for this syllabus—which has never been used for a course in a GCPS classroom—was switched to ‘inactive’ status, so that it was no longer accessible with a Google search.”
The Heritage Foundation published on its website boilerplate legislation to ban the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools. It also has a page on HB 888, where the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Brad Thomas, is quoted as saying, “I am very pleased to have partnered with Heritage Action’s team of policy specialists to develop this piece of legislation that will stop this divisive ideology from being embedded in our public school system, and I look forward to working on the passage of this bill this legislative session.”
In January, Clayton County School Board members Victoria Williams (District 4) and Sabrina Hill (District 7) signed a letter condemning HB 888 “as an attack on free speech, an insult to our teachers, and an effort to cancel public education as we know it….We recognize that there is no small amount of controversy regarding critical race theory (CRT), but it is important to note that CRT is not a part of the curriculum in our public schools. Despite this fact, this legislation is attempting to leverage the manufactured outrage around CRT to whitewash our history by placing legal constraints on what educators can say about racism past and present….Our schools should not be a political playground for bullies at the State Capitol.”
Clayton County School Superintendent Dr. Morcease Beasley tweeted:
We honestly tried to stay out of the CRT issue. However, now with proposed state legislation HB 888, it now has become an issue we all must address. Teachers, Students, and Parents are encouraged to take a look at the proposed legislation and weigh in. https://t.co/nhLYsYXsY7
— Dr. Morcease Beasley (@MorceaseBeasley) January 14, 2022
The Clayton Crescent has added links to texts of bills, original web documents, and organizations mentioned in Capitol Beat’s original story for your convenience. These links are not endorsements.
The Senate Education and Youth Committee is scheduled to meet at 3 p.m. in Room 307 0f the Coverdell Legislative Office Building (CLOB) for hearings on SB 15 , which would require the teaching of Black American history in Georgia high schools, and SB 377, which would prevent teaching about race in state colleges and universities. Senators Gail Davenport and Valencia Seay, who represent Clayton County, are cosponsors of SB 15.
Meeting times and locations are subject to change. You can watch the meeting via the Georgia Senate’s Vimeo livestream at https://bit.ly/3L4adam
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