Dr. Mary Byrne replies to MO DESE CRT/1619 survey

an academIC expert responds

”The design of the two survey questions, whether intentionally or unintentionally, will mislead legislators to the conclusion that CRT is not used …”

Dr. Mary Byrne

On July 27, 2021, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Chief Officer of Governmental Affairs released to the Joint Committee on Education the responses of Missouri school districts to a two-question survey. The questions were, “Question: Does your LEA’s board-approved curriculum include lessons about CRT?” and “Does your LEA’s board-approved curriculum include The New York Times 1619 Project?”

According to DESE’s Chief Communications Officer Mallory McGowin in her July 29 response to a parent query, 

“The survey asking local education agencies (LEAs) to indicate if they were teaching CRT or using the 1619 Project in any board-approved curriculum was administered by DESE at the request of Missouri Senator Karla Eslinger. DESE did not conduct this survey for our agency’s purposes, but rather to help gather baseline data for legislators inquiring about CRT in schools. Questions were developed based on the request submitted by the senator.” 

Eslinger is a former Missouri school superintendent and a former assistant commissioner of education for DESE. She likely maintains favorable relationships within DESE’s leadership. McGowin did not disclose who wrote the questions or what other questions had been considered, though she had been asked by a parent inquiring about the survey. Knowing who wrote the questions and whether other questions were considered is important in light of the inaccurate conclusions legislators may draw from the reported responses to these two questions.

First, there’s a problem with the way Question 1 is phrased. It asks whether the “board approved” curriculum “includes lessons ABOUT critical race theory.” One does not have to teach ABOUT Critical Race Theory in K-12 classrooms to inform decisions about content selection and activities that teach the principles of critical race theory through the lens of a race-first worldview. The question does not inquire as to the nature of the board-approved curriculum (for example, social reconstruction) or as to whether the selection criteria of teachers preparing instructional materials and activities may be aligned to CRT. Neither the survey report, nor the e-mail from DESE’s Chief of Governmental Relations Michal Harris announcing the release of the survey results to the Joint Committee  on Education members, identified the employment position of the persons who completed the responses to the survey questions. If it was superintendents or officers of diversity, equity, and inclusion, there may be a huge conflict of interest in completing the survey, and therefore, a huge number of invalid responses.  

Identification of the employment position of the person completing the survey within school leadership may explain patterns of responses in the results, especially why schools would respond to one question, but not both. It might also explain why the results do not match externally available data. For example, a communication of the National Association of Arts Education described an art assignment in Lebonan, MO schools aligning to Critical Race Theory.  Yet, Lebanon responded NO to the first survey question about whether its curriculum included lessons about CRT.

Evidence of misreporting is also available from the twitter account of the Springfield Officer for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Dr. Yvania Garcia-Pusateri, For example, her July 1 tweet (shown below, but now deleted from her twitter feed) endorses a BrainPOP exercise teaching Black Lives Matter in the classroom. In fact, she has tweeted many comments encouraging teachers to use materials aligned to the CRT world view; yet, Springfield is registered as a NO to the first survey question.

DESE reported that survey responses were collected between July 12-23. The Columbia School District voted to accept a grant from the Pulitzer Center for four people in the district to assess The 1619 Project on Monday, July 12 — at the beginning of the survey window; yet, Columbia is not listed as a district “teaching” the 1619 Project. Michelle Baumstark, district spokesperson, said that the district has not adopted The 1619 Project. Baumstark said, “The partnership with the Pulitzer Center could have the district’s four participants create sample lessons and other materials based on the resources from The 1619 Project.” She emphasized,, however, “There’s no implementation here.” The implication is that the “supplemental” activity of writing lessons plans for the 1619 project for pay, circumvents actual adoption of the 1619 Project into the Columbia school district curriculum, and therefore, the negative response to the survey question is justified.

The discussion of nuance in truth-telling provides a segue to discussing the problems with Question 2. In this question, DESE limited the respondents answer to the 1619 Project and failed to ask about other CRT aligned teaching materials and guides used by Missouri teachers such as downloadable materials on the website of the Zinn Education Project, Anti-Racist Math, etc. We do know that about 1,500 Missouri teachers are registered with the Zinn Education Project to download their lesson plans as per the ZEP’s Impact map; yet, teacher use of easy-to-access, free materials that have questionable objectivity and credibility when evaluated against the professional standards of the American Historical Association will never be exposed by Question 2.

The design of the two survey questions, whether intentionally or unintentionally, will mislead legislators to the conclusion that CRT is not used to inform the decisions of administrators and teachers shaping the worldview of students in public school classrooms. From the perspective of parents and others familiar with the destructive race-based messaging of CRT, the reality of CRT aligned instruction in the schools is not in question, the motive of DESE for covering up that reality with the design, distribution, and reporting of this survey should be.

Dr. Mary Byrne, Ed.D.
Springfield, MO