Education department agrees to rescind mandatory ‘woke’ curriculum standards

As part of a lawsuit settlement with a conservative law firm, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has agreed to rescind a number of mandatory “woke” curriculum standards.

Issued in November of 2022, the “Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education Program Framework Guidelines” (CR-SE) contained a plethora of gobbledygook about “microaggressions,” “biases, stereotypes, and prejudices,” and other “woke” left-wing concepts.

PA schools were mandated to adopt the guidelines or lose funding.

Five months after the guidelines were issued, the conservative Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit “on behalf of three public school districts and a group of parents and students, arguing that the guidelines violated the First Amendment and were issued in violation of state regulatory law.”

“Pennsylvania’s CR-SE guidelines sought to mandate that educators affirm and impose on their students highly ideological beliefs about contentious social and political issues,” according to the Society.

A year later, the PDE has finally agreed to rescind the guidelines as per a settlement with the Society.

“We are incredibly pleased with this settlement agreement, which forces the Pennsylvania Department of Education to rescind the state’s ‘Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education’ guidelines—securing an important victory for Pennsylvania parents, students, and teachers,” Thomas More Society Special Counsel Thomas Breth said in a statement.

“Our agreement is a triumph against the Department’s blatantly ideological and illegal attempt to inject ‘woke’ activism into school curricula across Pennsylvania, which demanded educators affirm their belief in these ideological tenets and then impose the same upon their students,” he added.

Peter Breen, the Society’s executive vice president and head of litigation, also released a statement.

“Educational standards should help students learn how to think, not what they must believe,” he said. “This victory against Pennsylvania’s ‘woke’ curriculum mandate restores that opportunity for Pennsylvania families and teachers. Pennsylvania’s CR-SE curriculum guidelines commanded to students what they must believe and unconstitutionally compelled teachers to pledge loyalty to an ideological program.”

State Rep. Stephenie Scialabba, one of the plaintiffs in the case, was pleased as well.

“This is a major victory for teachers, students, and parents in our great Commonwealth,” she said in a statement. “It is a relief to know school entities no longer need to fear loss of funding over these standards. ”

“Today’s result is a win for the First Amendment and reaffirms the conservative commitment to providing students with a quality, no-nonsense, factual education that is free of ideology. I am overjoyed to see this result,” she added.

Supporters of CR-SE were meanwhile not happy.

Kristina Moon, a senior attorney with the Education Law Center in Philadelphia, told The Patriot-News that the settlement was a blow for students, parents, and teachers.

“An approach that fails to acknowledge and appreciate the lived experiences of racism or sexism or anti-immigrant bias or others that our communities and students unfortunately still experience only results in educators failing to see the whole student and failing to connect with students,” he claimed. “And that can lead to unintended bias, discrimination, and students being disengaged with school. It’s not effective and it can cause real harm.”

Moving forward, the PDE has already issued new guidelines under their “Common Ground Framework” (CGF) though schools reportedly aren’t mandated to comply with them.

“The new guidance addresses ‘learners from varying socio-economic backgrounds and those with different abilities and is an effort to create an inclusive learning environment for all students,'” according to The Patriot-News. “It also provides guidance to help educators handle issues related to mental wellness, trauma-informed approaches to instruction, and engagement with technological and virtual strategies.”

The new guidelines are reportedly also designed to help educators “better understand and relate to students experiencing homelessness and food insecurity, military-connected students and their families, students who have experienced trauma, students with disabilities or special needs, children of migratory seasonal farm workers, and more.”

In a statement to Fox News, PDE Press Secretary Erin James touted the new guidelines.

“PDE is proud to offer this resource as an improvement on previously issued guidance, with an expanded focus on digital literacy, mental health, and trauma – real issues that impact those in all spaces of learning within every Pennsylvania community,” she said.

Vivek Saxena

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