Celia Rousseau Anderson

What are you? A CRT perspective on the experiences of mixed race persons in ‘post-racial’ America

In this article, the author employs Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the experiences of mixed race individuals in the United States. Drawing on historical and contemporary conditions involving persons of mixed race, the author considers how key ideas from CRT can be useful to frame an analysis of the experiences of multiracial persons in the US. To supplement the analysis, the author also includes fictionalized narratives in the tradition of CRT. In conclusion, the author considers how this examination of mixed race persons might inform K-12 education.

Down by the Riverside A CRT Perspective on Education Reform in Two River Cities

In this article, the authors utilize core ideas from Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the nature of education reform in two river cities. Similar to other cases of education reform in urban districts, the reforms in the two focal cities reflect at least four characteristics in common: (1) a form of portfolio management; (2) the growth of human-capital organizations; (2) the active involvement of philanthropic organizations; and (4) the role of politics. The authors consider these conditions in light of concepts from CRT and argue that this analysis provides insight into the burden of reform in urban schools.

Learning with ALEKS: the impact of students' attendance in a mathematics after-school program

We examined the effectiveness of using the Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS) system as a method of strategic intervention in after-school settings to improve the mathematical skills of struggling students. The study randomly assigned students into a classroom that either worked with the ALEKS system individually on computers or were taught by teachers in an interactive classroom. Results from year one revealed that students randomly assigned to the ALEKS condition significantly out performed students assigned to the teacher condition on a state assessment test (TCAP). However, this was only if the students received sufficient exposure to the program.

The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same: Race, Education, and Critical Race Theory After 20 Years: An Appraisal

Since the 1995 publication of Gloria Ladson-Billings and William F. Tate’s seminal article, “Toward a Critical Race Theory in Education,” considerable social and political change has taken place within the United States and abroad—the most significant sociopolitical occurrence being the 2008 presidential election and 2012 reelection of the first African American president of United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama. Obama’s election was enthusiastically embraced by many in the mainstream news media, conservative pundits, and racial liberals as the onset of a “postracial” epoch in which race no longer served as a determinant in shaping the individual and collective life chances for people of color. At the same time, the Obama presidency and the postracial narrative ironically seemed to havemagically transformed people of European ancestry (i.e., whites) into a minority population under siege, as illustrated by the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. Indeed, the eruptive visceral and evocative pleas by white people in America to “take their country back,” and white Britons’ decision to withdraw from the European Union (i.e., Brexit), are the latest iteration of white backlash to nonwhite political progress (Hughey, 2014). As sociologist Matthew W. Hughey (2014) reminds us, “[b]acklashes are not atomistic or static events... [They] serve as crucial mechanisms in the reproduction of racial inequality” (p. 721). In other words, white backlash to people of color’s advancement is “sewn together by the narrative that non-white success is purposefully engineered at the expense of white sacrifice” (Hughey, 2014, p. 217). As scholars of critical race theory (CRT), we understand this pattern of progress and regress as the normal and permanent process of racial history in the United States. Across the broad history of racial progress in the United States, a majority of white people have displayed a range of emotions from support, tacit approval, outright hostility, and obstructionist opposition.1 Those against advancing equality have employed tactics such as massive resistance and strategic delay to thwart the implementation of antidiscrimination laws. Furthermore, white people have not only supported recalcitrant policies that run counter to their social, political, and economic interests (Anderson, 1988; Bartley, 1999;Day, 2014;Donnor (2018/this issue; Finely, 2008; Robin, 2011; Span, 2009;Ward, 2011; Webb, 2005), but also the myth that they are under siege. Together their efforts have continued the political repression and socioeconomic marginalization of people of color frommeaningful material resources, such as a quality education. In short, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The contributing authors in this issue of thePeabody Journal of Education not only continue to address Ladson-Billings and Tate’s argument that race remains undertheorized in education, but also articulate how race and the legacy of institutionalized racism remain major determinants in shaping the education

Where are We? Critical Race Theory in Education 20 Years Later

ABSTRACT This article explores the territory that has been covered since the publication of Ladson-Billings and Tates 1995 article, “Toward a Critical Race Theory in Education.” We organize our review of the CRT literature is organized around what we are calling CRT “boundaries.” We identify six boundaries for CRT and education: 1) CRT in education argues that racial inequity in education is the logical outcome of a system of achievement presided on competition; 2) CRT in education examines the role of education policy and educational practices in the construction of racial inequity and the perpetuation of normative whiteness; 3) CRT in education rejects the dominant narrative about the inherent inferiority of people of color and the normative superiority of white people; 4) CRT in education rejects ahistoricism and examines the historical linkages between contemporary educational inequity and historical patterns of racial oppression; 5) CRT in education engages in intersectional analyses that recognize the ways that race is mediated by and interacts with other identity markers (i.e., gender, class, sexuality, linguistic background, and citizenship status); 6) CRT in education agitates and advocates for meaningful outcomes that redress racial inequity. CRT does not merely document disparities. We suggest that these core ideas provide a framework for analyzing the work that has been done in education in the past and a way to determine what might be left to do.

Using Learning Trajectories for Teacher Learning to Structure Professional Development

ABSTRACT As a result of the increased focus on data literacy and data science across the world, there has been a large demand for professional development in statistics. However, exactly how these professional development opportunities should be structured remains an open question. The purpose of this paper is to describe the first iteration of a design experiment involving Project-SET (www.project-set.com) professional development program. Project-SET provided professional development to enhance teachers’ understanding of statistics concepts. The project constructed two learning trajectories for teacher learning and subsequently used the learning trajectories to structure the professional development curriculum. The main goal of this paper is to illustrate how the utilization of the teacher-learning trajectories to structure the professional development allowed participating teachers to develop several aspects of Statistics Knowledge for Teaching (Groth, 2013).

Equity, Mathematics Reform and Policy: The Dilemma of ‘Opportunity to Learn’

Educational reformers have advocated for the use of discourse practices in mathematics classrooms in order to improve the quality of mathematics education. The research in this area suggests that when discourse practices are effectively implemented in classrooms among teachers with strong mathematics knowledge that student learning increases and achievement gaps are narrowed. However, this chapter considers how policy-level factors including academic tracking, teacher quality, and assessment policies may negatively influence students’ opportunity to learn related to mathematics discourse. We suggest that the existence of academic tracking may decrease the likelihood of students in low track classrooms from being introduced to mathematics discourse because of the low rigor often found in these settings. Teachers with weak mathematics knowledge and pedagogical skills may be less likely to possess the capacity to effectively implement mathematics discourse. In addition, the implementation of high stakes assessment policy in the United States via the No Child Left Behind Act may constrain the use of discourse practices in classrooms. This may occur when the format and content of a state assessment compels schools to use instructional strategies that do not promote the use of discourse practices related to mathematics. In the end, these policy-level factors may limit the use of discourse as a means to improve mathematics teaching and learning resulting in further stratification of mathematics knowledge in American classrooms.