As a result of legal action brought by several western Pennsylvania school districts, the state Department of Education (PDE) in November rescinded its Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education Program Framework Guidelines (CR-SE). These guidelines included nine controversial competencies with multiple standards that were required to be incorporated into teacher professional development programs. 

While the guidelines were entitled “culturally relevant,” they were, in truth, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) tenets. For example, competency nine focuses on how teachers should think and encourages activism in public schools: “Educate oneself about microaggressions and their impact on diverse learners, educators, and families, and actively disrupt the practice by naming and challenging its use.”

The districts filed suit because they did not want to comply with the guidelines. Laurel School District superintendent, Leonard Rich, explained, “I sought to have the requirements rescinded because I believe in education not indoctrination.”

Lawsuits have the potential to overturn poor and often illegal government policies and mandates. Unfortunately though, in many cases, institutions are slow to make changes, and in some instances, they never do. Hence, once the government enacts a poor policy, even when it is repealed by the courts, the damage is already done and may continue for years to come.

While the school districts that filed the lawsuit will not follow the rescinded guidelines — which are now just modified recommendations — many districts, particularly in southeastern Pennsylvania, will continue to incorporate the questionable standards into their professional development program.

According to the mediated settlement agreement, “the Department hereby rescinds the previously issued Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education (‘CR-SE’) Program Framework Guidelines. School entities …  have no legal obligation to implement or comply with the (CR-SE) Program Framework Guidelines.”

The agreement further states, “the Department encourages, but does not require school entities to incorporate the attached Common Ground Framework Program Guidelines into their continuing professional development plans.”

The revised guidelines include suggested training topics, and it is significant to note that they are now just recommendations and not requirements, and the revisions eliminated much of the controversial language contained in the original document.

The standards required teachers to:

• Identify literature and professional learning opportunities for themselves to understand more about the manifestations of racism and other biases at institutional and structural levels that can result in disadvantaging some groups of learners, educators, educational leaders, and families while privileging others.
• Disrupt harmful institutional practices, policies, and norms by advocating and engaging in efforts to rewrite policies, change practices, and raise awareness.
• Challenge their own beliefs, attitudes, assumptions, and behaviors regarding the knowledge and backgrounds of dominant and nondominant social groups, thinking critically about the nuances of culture, identity, and other social markers, and how they manifest themselves in curricula and other educational materials.
• Believe and acknowledge that microaggressions are real and take steps to educate themselves about the subtle and obvious ways in which they are used to harm and invalidate the existence of others.

Following the settlement, I emailed requests for comment to the majority of school districts in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties, asking if they were aware of the changes and if they intended to make any modifications to their professional development plans. Only seven of the districts returned my request, and all indicated that they were aware of the revisions as a result of the agreement but are not currently making any changes to their professional development plan. Some said they would be re-evaluating the new guidelines at a later date to determine if changes were warranted.

Spring-Ford School District in Montgomery County said, “following Dr. Mumin’s announcement on November 15th, our Leadership Team will be taking time to further investigate the impact the newly adopted Common Ground Framework has on our professional development plans.”

Central Bucks School District in Bucks County, said, “like all educational materials offered for consideration by PDE, we will review the resource in question as we develop our professional development calendar and offerings for next year.”

Downingtown and West Chester Area School Districts located in Chester County both said that their professional development plans are in alignment with the new recommendations and do not anticipate making any changes.

One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit was Laurel School District located in Lawrence County, approximately 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Superintendent Leonard Rich said, “the CR-SE represented group think and compelled speech. I am a fan of neither. I believe it is our role in education to help the students inquire, explore, deduce, reason, and develop their own thoughts, ideas, and opinions. These should be independent of our own … We will educate. We will not indoctrinate.”

Laurel School District never complied with the initial guidelines and subsequently filed the lawsuit against PDE. Their approach to the government overreach mandating what many consider to be racist training was significantly different from the districts that responded in southeastern Pennsylvania.

It’s a tale of politically different school districts: more conservative school districts pushing back on the poor policies, while more liberal districts appear to not only embrace the standards, but even continue to use them despite not being required to do so. And while I realize that this may be an oversimplification describing liberal and conservative school districts, the anecdotal evidence seems to support the assertion. 

This is the danger in government overreach. Even if mandated policies are illegal or unethical and are eventually overturned, the harm has already been done — unless institutions, like Laurel School District, refuse to comply. 

It was the same with school closures and masking — more conservative districts fully re-opened schools earlier without masks, while liberal districts kept schools closed longer and required masks even after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the Secretary of Health could not impose a mask mandate.

While I understand that school districts — and more likely, their solicitors — feel compelled to follow PDE guidelines, at some point school boards and superintendents need to evaluate these misguided and often illegal policies, rather than blindly following along. Today, we are witnessing the severe consequences of extended school closures and forced masking. If districts refused to comply with PDE guidelines three years ago, the situation might not be so dire.

PDE and our state government need to stop enacting virtue-signaling, politically motivated policies that have no foundation in improving academic outcomes for our children. Once these policies are enacted, it is almost impossible to reverse course as the damage is already done and school districts tend to leave things the way they are. And that is likely what the state is counting on — implement policies that they know will be overturned, but they also know that most districts will stay with the course. For the state, it is a win. For our children and our public education system, it is a loss — a really big one.

Sadly, it appears that many of our districts did not learn any lessons from the lockdowns almost four years ago. 

Beth Ann Rosica resides in West Chester, has a Ph.D. in Education, and has dedicated her career to advocating on behalf of at-risk children and families. She covers education issues for Broad + Liberty. Contact her at barosica@broadandliberty.com.