Removals, Returns, Resignations, and the Queer Connections Between Them

In April 2007, education activists protested against the removal of social justice and sexual orientation from professional standards created by the National Association for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and used to guide the accreditation of teacher education programs. This protest took place at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association and the story was covered in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and in an article published in Rethinking Schools.

In May 2007, NCATE added this phrase to the standards:

Candidates are helped to understand the potential impact of discrimination based on race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and language on students and their learning.

On September 4, 2007, the President of NCATE, Art Wise, announced his resignation from the organization.

I think we—all who spoke out—should take credit for the return of sexual orientation and the exit of Art Wise. The work’s not over, but these are both moves in the right direction.

RED Campaign for Social Justice and Queer Lives at AERA 2007

People in red, and seeing red, made up the majority of attendees at AERA’s Social Justice Awards, Presidential Address and Open Business Meetings this year. People got creative and insistent with the color—crimson handbags, scarlet scarves, flame red wigs and lips, lots of red t’s and coats, ruby patent leather shoes, a red umbrella, a red paper-clip as lapel pin, even this red “rooster” mask.

Then there were all the seemingly-likely folks who chose not to wear red. What was that about?

AERA hired extra security and dimmed the lights for the Presidential event. Executive Director Felice Levine actually patrolled the aisles. Looking for trouble? The room was a sea of red; the whole conference was a red zone. I guess that was just too alarming. Still, it was a paranoid response to what was essentially a position backed up by a fashion event and a letter campaign.

The “Open” meeting was called by AERA leadership (at our suggestion, after they first suggested a private sit-down). There were three presentations listed on the agenda. After interminable committee reports, Bill Ayers was to go first, then Adrienne Dixson, the chair of AERA's Scholars and Advocates for Gender and Equity (SAGE), then an NCATE rep named Donna Gollnick. Bill gave a good speech exhorting us to not get distracted by procedural details, or what is "impossible," or litanies of mistakes made, but rather, to keep our attention on the moment we are living in and how the move by NCATE to exclude social justice and sexual orientation from the Professional Standards that shape teacher education is not accidental or isolated. The right is fighting for education, because education is powerful.

Mistakes were made, he said. It was a mistake for AERA's leadership to condone NCATE's excisions. But, he pointed out, we could all still do the right thing; AERA’s leadership could, too. He reminded the room that NCATE's deletions aren't just language games--they affect lives. Then five people stood, one at a time, and read youth testimony from the report, Hatred in the Hallways. Bill closed his speech by asking AERA to call on NCATE to return social justice and sexual orientation, and add gender identity, to the standards, and invited everyone in the room in support of that position to stand. There was a roar of applause and a wave of movement as people jumped to their feet (all except for a tiny number of AERA bureaucrats, who fidgeted, but stayed glued into their front-row seats).

Then it was Dixson's turn. There was a buzz at the front of the room; AERA officials conferred. President Eva Baker took the mic and said that she and Felice Levine were supposed to have prepared a statement for Dixson to read, but they hadn't, so Dixson wasn't going to speak. Wise choice—standing in support of AERA’s unanimous vote against asking NCATE to include social justice, sexual orientation and gender identity in the standards (especially after Bill’s powerful speech) would have looked like (and been) a defense of injustice.

Then Donna Gollnick talked. Yes, she said, NCATE had taken out social justice: It had become "a lightening rod" and a trigger for lawsuits. She suggested that the new “fairness” disposition was a good replacement. NCATE wouldn’t reinstate social justice, she said, though she invited us to offer recommendations about what should be part of the standards. Donna denied that they'd removed sexual orientation, but when we asked her about this after the meeting she agreed that an addition about using census categories could make it seem that way. Indeed.

Bill pointed out that NCATE's deletions and evasions are also a lightening rod, and reveal who calls the shots for NCATE—it cares more about some kinds of pressure that other kinds.

During Q&A, one after another, people stood and asked AERA to make a public statement in support of NCATE including social justice, sexual orientation and gender identity. Chair of Division B: Curriculum, David Flinders stood, on crutches, and said he had made a mistake when he voted with the rest of the Executive Board to refrain from making a statement to NCATE. He would now, he said, do "everything in my power" to remedy this bad decision.

Next, Eva Baker, the out-going president, took the mic and rambled for a while. She said she couldn't make a public statement on behalf of AERA, but really, she is so in support personally. She looked like she was close to tears.

Then Bill Tate, in-coming president, spoke. He seemed to be playing the role of tough daddy. We had to understand that we hadn't followed the right procedures, he said. He was now clear that the real problem is lack of procedures and transparency. He would make it his mission to work on those things. But “some people" act like organizations should change, instead of doing their homework and finding out what those organizations' missions are. He always considered AERA a "research organization." The implication being that “this”--the RED Campaign, lobbying AERA to lobby NCATE, protesting insults to humanity--isn't research. Then he said he was supposed to talk about next year in NY but he wouldn't now, and the meeting was officially over.

But before the room cleared we were shown a handwritten statement calling on NCATE to put back social justice and sexual orientation. It was signed by a majority of the Executive Council. So what now, AERA and NCATE?

The Chronicle of Higher Education covered the Campaign and events at AERA. Read the story, by David Glenn, "Academics Protest Education-Research Group's Silence on 'Social Justice'" online at this address:

http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/04/2007041603n.htm

Offer some suggestions about what should be included in the Standards; write to Donna Gollnick at donna@ncate.org.

Radical Education Work at Jane Addam’s “Hull of a House” Museum

Last night’s forum, Anti-Gay Pledges and Teacher Education: A Dialogue About the Tensions Between Private Beliefs and the Public Good, was beautiful to behold. About 25 people participated in the event, which took place at the Jane Addams (pictured here with her life partner, Mary Rozet Smith) Hull House Museum on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago, but no “official” Wheaton reps showed up. They sent a letter that arrived four days before the forum, to say they wouldn’t be there since they hadn’t helped plan the forum. But that is exactly what they were invited to do, two months earlier; they just didn’t ever contact us. Too bad for them, though, because we aimed to “speak with the expectation that we would be heard, and listen with the possibility that we could change” and the chat was wide-ranging and lively.

A queer teacher who grew up in Wheaton (or, as she said they affectionately call it there, “the 9th circle of hell”) talked about the distance of Wheaton College faculty and administrators from the lives of the school’s students and grads; a Chicago public school teacher described how changes in employment structures and the ongoing weakening of the Chicago Teacher’s Union contract have made queer teachers even more vulnerable; an administrator reminded us that we have to press the state and professional organizations to change, because they shape what happens in our public schools—if they ignore sexual orientation and gender identity, you can bet most schools will, too. After hearing why people came to the forum and what they wanted to talk about, we broke into small groups and talked about these and other questions:

Private Practices, Public Educators
What are the consequences when a private agency (NCATE) sets standards for public education?

Should private colleges with discriminatory “covenants” be supported (accredited) by the state to produce teachers for public schools?

Why are non-normative sexual and gender identities considered “private” and not worth public protections?

The Profession
What is the responsibility of the education profession--teachers, teacher educators, professional organizations, administrators—to challenge discriminatory practices, even when these are embedded in private institutions?

If “multiculturalism” can’t be or at least, isn’t consistently used to include sexual and gender identity in schools, what frameworks can be?

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?
How is resistance to challenging and changing these policies connected to other movements for justice and equity for all, including LGBTQ, people?

What are the consequences of the distinction Wheaton makes between “acts” and “beliefs”—“love the sinner, hate the sin”?

Youth, Schools, Teachers
How do discriminatory policies—like Wheaton’s— contribute to the dehumanization of LGBTQ bodies in schools?

What effect could knowing their teachers believe they are condemned have on LGBT youth—would this knowledge be damaging emotionally, academically, or in other ways?

The forum ended with plans—we are only just starting this project, so join us. You can hear the large-group parts of our discussion online:

http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_AMP_Segment.aspx?segmentID=10199

I mourn Matthew Shepard’s actual death, caused by the unimpeachably civil ‘we hate the sin, not the sinner’ hypocrisy of the religious right, much more than I mourn the lost chance to be civil with someone who does not consider me fully a citizen, nor fully human.

Tony Kushner, 1998

Social Justice is Always In

Why is a teacher education accrediting organization trying to push it out?

In June 2006 the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) backed away from “social justice.” The organization sets the standards for teacher education programs nationwide. Social justice had been included as an example in the Program Standards glossary definition of “Disposition” (as in, what kind of dispositions should a teacher have?). But this must have ruffled some feathers—Arthur Wise, NCATE President, wrote in his obfuscating “Statement from NCATE on Professional Dispositions,” posted June 16 on the NCATE website (http://www.ncate.org/public/0616_MessageAWise.asp?ch=150) “Critics incorrectly alleged that NCATE has a ‘social justice’ requirement. It does not.”

But it should. All teachers, indeed all citizens, should be disposed towards justice.

The rest of Wise’s statement blah blahs around the heart of the issue—NCATE has revised its definition of “Dispositions” (now called “Professional Dispositions”) and removed the offending phrase. Social justice—fairness, equity, access—is out. You won’t hear this directly from Wise, though; you can only find it out by burrowing into the website until you locate a link to download the proposed revisions, where you read the new, presumably less threatening definition, which doesn’t offer any specifics at all. What kind of teachers do we need today? This “leadership” organization doesn’t offer any ideas.

Something else is missing from the main text of the newly revised Professional Standards—any mention of sexual orientation. As with social justice, “sexual orientation” had been, and still will be present in the Glossary, this time as part of the definition of “Diversity.” But the proposed revisions now direct readers to look at the rubrics for each standard to see which types of diversity to consider when planning or assessing teacher education programs. Turn to Standard Four: Diversity, and there are listed many important groups to which students and families are linked, including: English language learners, gender, ethnic and racial, students with exceptionalities, and more. Absent? Sexual orientation. Also absent, as it always has been from any part of NCATE’s Standards is gender identity.

On September 29, 2006 a letter signed by 193 individuals working in the field of teacher education was sent to NCATE. It called on the organization to establish social justice, sexual orientation, and gender identity within the main text of Standard Four: Diversity. If you agree, send a note saying so to Art@ncate.org.

The letter, as sent to NCATE, is pasted below (minus the 16 pages of signatures). To sign on, send me your name, title, and affiliation at tquinn@saic.edu:

September 29, 2006

Dear Arthur Wise, National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE):

We call for the language “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to be included in the main text of Standard Four: Diversity in the Professional Standards for the Accreditation of Schools, Colleges, and Departments of Education, 2006. As NCATE already acknowledges, teachers must be prepared for diversity in education, in their students, in their students’ parents and families, among their teaching colleagues, as well as in class materials and discussions. Sexual orientation is a key part of diversity, as understood by our institutions and communities and as represented in the NCATE definition of diversity . But the absence of sexual orientation and gender identity in the body of the standards, where other aspects of diversity are listed, sends the message that the needs and identities of LGBT students, families, and teachers are not important.

The following statistics indicate that addressing sexual orientation (a person’s emotional, romantic, and sexual attraction) and gender identity (a person’s sense of being male or female, feminine or masculine) in our schools is urgent :

The population of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth is large.
In a 2003 survey conducted by the Chicago Public Schools and the Center for Disease Control (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) 6.3 % of high school students attending Chicago Public Schools identified their sexual orientation as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

Schools are unsafe for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth.
According to the 2005 School Climate Report conducted by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN):
--75.4% of LGBT students reported hearing remarks such as "faggot" or "dyke" frequently or often.
--89.2% reported hearing the expressions, “that’s so gay” or “you’re so gay” often or frequently at school, and 67.1% reported that hearing “gay” or “queer” used in a derogatory manner caused them to feel bothered or distressed.
--64.3% reported feeling unsafe in their school because of their sexual orientation.
--45.5% reported being verbally harassed and 26.1% had experienced physical harassment in school because of their gender expression.
--40.5% reported that teachers never intervened when hearing homophobic remarks.
--18.6% reported hearing homophobic remarks from faculty or school staff frequently or often.

Negative school climates affect LGBT youths’ well-being and academic success.
According to the 2001 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey, LGBT students are more likely than the general student population to:
--attempt suicide (32.7% vs. 8.7%),
--skip school because they feel unsafe (17.7% vs. 7.8%).

Teachers are ill-equipped to confront issues that contribute to anti-LGBT hostility.
--81.7% of LGBT students reported that they had never learned about LGBT people, history, or events in any of their school classes (2005, School Climate Report, GLSEN).
--In a study of pre-service teachers, 57% indicated that they needed more training or education to work effectively with LGBT youth and 65% reported that they needed more specific education to address homosexuality in their teaching (Koch, 2000).
--In a study of high school health teachers, two-thirds indicated that they had inadequate education about LGBT issues (Telljohann, Price, Poureslami, Easton, 1995).

Hostile schools and poorly informed, prejudiced educators clearly harm LGBT youth, but all students are hurt by homophobia and heterosexism in schools, including those with LGBT family members and those identified by others as acting outside traditional gender norms. Teachers must be able to create learning environments in which all children can be successful. All teachers must learn to:

--Create safe learning spaces
--Address anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in the classroom and school
--Communicate with all parents, including LGBT parents
--Teach students to respect the rights of others and coexist in a diverse world

Sexual orientation has never been part of the main text of NCATE’s Professional Standards, but its inclusion in the glossary has encouraged educators to use NCATE’s definition of diversity when planning how best to create and assess educational programs for teacher candidates. The proposed revisions direct readers to look at each standard for the elements of “diversity” to consider when creating and assessing teacher education programs. But sexual orientation is not included in any of the rubrics for any of the standards. This decreases the possibility that teacher education programs will include sexual orientation. Gender identity is similarly absent. Sexual orientation and gender identity should be stated explicitly in the main text of the Standard Four: Diversity, along with other categories like race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Absence sends a message of non-importance.

Social justice, when used as a guiding principle, encourages recognition and inclusion; it seeks the presence of all community members. NCATE discredited its commitment to “help all students learn,” when it removed social justice from the glossary of the Professional Standards. The elimination of social justice makes it even easier to marginalize sexual orientation and gender identity. And the elimination of the words “social justice”prompts the question: Who will be excluded next?

Luckily, examples of organizations that have taken ethical positions abound. Ontario’s teacher accrediting organization vows that its members will “model respect for…social justice.” The accrediting bodies of other professions, including the National Association of Social Workers, the American Psychological Association, and the American Bar Association, have explicit commitments to social justice and queer rights in their accrediting requirements. NCATE should, also.

Educators of conscience call on NCATE to establish and prioritize sexual orientation, gender identity and social justice within our Standards.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned