The Playbook - How to Respond to CRT Questions
How GHAPS Employees are Trained to Respond To Questions About CRT From Parents
GHAPS employees are trained on how to respond when asked whether they are implementing Critical Race Theory lessons or teaching through the lens of CRT. There is a playbook that gives them a script on how to respond. The playbook was written and presented by the Diversity, Inclusion and Equity committee.
This slide already begins to obfuscate the truth. It has been documented in previous articles, that claiming “we do not teach CRT” is misleading. They teach through the lens of CRT. They also use the tenets of CRT, or lay the groundwork, much like college level math classes are not taught at GHAPS, but the groundwork is laid through teaching addition, subtraction, and multiplication, beginning in elementary schools.
Also, there’s this from Superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Nikolai Vitti: “In a subsequent academic committee meeting Monday afternoon, Vitti reiterated that the district embraces the basic tenets of CRT as part of its 2020 anti-racism resolution to reexamine district-wide policies and curriculum and encourage students and teachers to critically analyze dominant historical narratives and question institutions of power.”
“This is not up for debate”. What attack? Parents asking questions is an attack? When we can show evidence (as we have), the school will just ignore us because it’s “not up for debate”?
This is where it gets interesting. In emails from curriculum director Mary Jane Evink, you can see her repeat these phrases nearly verbatim. Here, Mary Jane Evink was asked to define Critical Race Theory and Critical Literacy, so we could have constructive conversations working off of the same definitions of terms.
Key takeaway in her response, is her claiming she has not studied CRT and doesn’t know what it is. More on this later. Continuing with the playbook:
“We teach to state standards”. This was posted in a previous article on here, but this link is to the “Standards for the Preparation of Teachers of English Language Arts”, on page 29 of the 32 page document, under “Readings, References and Resources”, standard ELA.2, culturally responsive practices in English Language Arts, the fourth reference is a scholarly article titled “Where do we go from here? Toward a critical race English Education”. Whether it’s Detroit or Grand Haven, Critical Race Theory is embedded in our children’s education. So when they say they are teaching to the state standards, just know the state standards are working towards a critical race theory education. There have been other articles here documenting the use of Critical Literacy, which comes out of the Critical Theory umbrella, of which Critical Race Theory comes from as well.
To be fair, this slide looks to be completely appropriate. I appreciate this being included in the playbook for younger students. At the same time, remember, teachers like Molly McGinnis, who teaches fourth grade at Griffin Elementary, signed the Zinn Project Pledge to Teach CRT, regardless of the laws put in place against it. Her comment when signing it? “I became an educator because of education’s ability to make a positive change for marginalized groups. I refuse to jeopardize the safety of my minority students for the comfort of white supremacists.”
On the surface, this response seems reasonable, except through all the evidence, they are teaching CRT or through the lens of CRT, which makes this a misleading statement to the older students. It allows them to teach the tenets of CRT while not making it clear that’s what they’re teaching. Yet, even so, sometimes the truth slips out, such as when local pastor Jared Cramer attended a school board meeting and spoke with a high school student afterward. Here is a quote from his article, linked here: “A high school student followed me out and thanked me for speaking up. He said he had been learning about CRT in school and nothing that people were claiming was true, it wasn’t representative of what kids are being taught. I thanked him for his encouragement.” Another aspect to the playbook which is alluded to in the email correspondence above with Mary Jane Evink, is the either inability or unwillingness to definitively define their definition of CRT, so they can always claim there’s a misunderstanding of what it is. This is why I always try to define terms, and ask the school to define terms, so we can work off of the same definitions.
After Cramer’s article, here is Mary Jane Evink’s response:
Here in August of 2021, Mary Jane Evink makes the following claims: Reverend Cramer used the term CRT erroneously (perhaps if she would define it)… She claims to not know what it is either. She then goes into an explanation of “what she found”.
Here’s a short, to the point, use of the playbook in August of 2021. By November of 2021, Mary Jane Evink went from not knowing what CRT is, to a panelist on a state wide town hall on Critical Race Theory.
(Click where is says “watch on Vimeo” and the video will come up.) Link to the article on here about this town hall can be clicked on here.
At what point does the proof become too much to deny? At what point will GHAPS officials start to be honest with parents? At what point do we stop funding them?