Boards petition to pause update

The San Jon and Logan school boards, wary of the influence of critical race theory and other concerns, each voted on the same night to petition the state’s education department to “pause” or slow a planned update of social studies standards.

San Jon superintendent Janet Gladu during the board’s Oct. 11 meeting voiced misgivings about the New Mexico Public Education Department’s planned update of social studies standards by the start of the 2022-2023 school year.

Gladu said those standards hadn’t changed since 2009 and that an update was overdue.

However, she noted previous updates of academic standards came with two years of training.

She said staff are “stressed” because of extra workloads and obstacles presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, and such an update comes with too short of a time frame — especially when the proposed new standards are 129 pages, versus the current 26 pages.

“We are stressed,” Gladu said of her teachers. “We can’t find teachers now. If they do this ...”

Gladu said she wants her students to be critical thinkers, and that the proposal “takes a lot of that out.”

Board member Pam Slater agreed: “We’re not teaching kids how to think. We’re teaching them what to think.”

Gladu said critical race theory — which espouses that race is a social construct and that racism is embedded in legal systems and policies — is not explicitly mentioned in the social studies update, but it’s “heavily implied.”

She questioned the wisdom of critical race theory being part of a curriculum, noting it is graduate-level coursework.

Gladu said superintendents are “heavily divided” about the proposed social studies standards, mostly along rural versus urban lines.

Board members were supportive of Gladu’s proposed petition.

“Don’t go rushing to (the update) just because it’s there,” Dale Bone said.

The same night, Logan superintendent Dennis Roch also advocated a slowdown in implementing the standards.

Citing an analysis by the libertarian Rio Grande Foundation, Roch said the update contains phrases such as “systemic inequality” and “unequal power relations among identity groups.”

“This is classic critical race theory theology,” he said.

Roch also said the update surmises what would would be an equitable economic system in the United States, from which he concluded that the U.S. is inequitable.

“It’s very much treating our social studies standards as a way to look critically at the current system of government, systems of economics that run our country,” he said.

Roch said a draft of the new standards was published Sept. 28, and the PED allowed 45 days to hear feedback on it, versus the usual 30 days. A public hearing on the draft is planned for Nov. 13.

Roch said teachers and administrators, still dealing with the effects of the pandemic, lack the time to study the PED’s draft.

“Given these other challenges, maybe we shouldn’t rush this,” he said.

The petition the Logan board approved advocates for an extension of time to consider and debate the draft until July 1, 2022.

Roch said the state’s current education secretary, Kurt Steinhaus, said he would welcome the feedback.

One Logan school board member indicated critical race theory makes the new social studies standards more amorphous.

“With critical race theory in there, it’s all very fluid,” Tom Humble said. “It’s like trying to teach with Jell-O.”