An Open Letter to Harvard Graduate School of Education

Pasted below is a powerful letter by teachers to Harvard's Graduate School of Education (reposted with permission). As they point out, the assaults on teachers and public education now are intense, and must be countered with reminders like this one. The writers' contact information is at the end of the letter, but why not contact Harvard or, even better, your own College of Education with a similar demand.
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ADMINISTRATION & FACULTY OF THE HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

JANUARY 4, 2010

THREE CLASSROOM TEACHERS ASK YOU TO SPEAK OUT

The Harvard Graduate School of Education pursues the goal of training leaders in the field, and will soon offer a new degree in educational leadership. The school’s website mission statement reads as follows:

*Mission*

To prepare leaders in education and to generate knowledge to improve student opportunity, achievement, and success.

*Overview*

Education touches every aspect of human activity. At the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), we believe studying and improving the enterprise of education are central to the health and future of society. Since its founding in 1920, the Ed School has been training leaders to transform education in the United States and around the globe. Today, our faculty, students, and alumni are studying and solving the most critical challenges facing education: student assessment, the achievement gap, urban education, and teacher shortages, to name just a few. Our work is shaping how people teach, learn, and lead in schools and colleges as well as in after-school programs, high-tech companies, and international organizations. The HGSE community is pushing the frontiers of education, and the effects of our entrepreneurship are improving the world.

*

As veteran public school teachers, we are disappointed that the HGSE has not shown the leadership it professes by speaking out against the unprecedented attack on public education. To be sure, there have been courageous voices on your faculty who have defended public schools and the endangered idea of educating the whole child. We know that a thoughtful faculty does not think with one mind, and that there will always be differences about what constitutes the most effective pedagogies or curricula. But we have not heard the HGSE as an institution speak out on issues fundamental to the educational well-being of children and their schools.

These issues include:

• The over-testing of students, beginning as early as 3rd grade, and the misuse of single, imperfect high- stakes standardized assessment instruments like MCAS;

• The expansion of charters through funding formulas that divert resources from those urban and rural public schools charged with educating our most challenged children;

• The stripping away of art, music, critical thinking, creativity, experiential learning, trips, and play periods—of joy itself–from schools so that they might become more effective test preparation centers;

• The use of state curriculum frameworks–and soon, possibly, national standards–to narrow and standardize our schools, an effort that only encourages increasing numbers of affluent middle class parents to seek out for their children the same private schools that so many “reformers” have already chosen for theirs;

• The cynical insistence that all schools be equal in a society whose social and economic policies make us increasingly unequal;

• Merit pay proposals that deny and undermine the essentially collaborative nature of teaching;

• And finally, the sustained media vilification of hard-working, dedicated public school teachers.

These depressing developments have intensified over the past fifteen years. They violate the first principles of humane and progressive education, as we understand them.

We are proud to have served as teachers in the commonwealth where public education began a century before the country itself was founded and where Horace Mann reinvented it a century and a half ago. We have many wonderful public schools in Massachusetts that can serve as models for all schools. No child in our state deserves any less. Certainly all deserve more than a parched vision of standardization and incessant testing. A global economy demands more than multiple-choice thinking. Most importantly, human beings require more.

HGSE administration and faculty, we need you to speak out in defense of our public system of education and against abuses that have been allowed to pass silently as reforms. We need you to remind our leaders, administrators, parents and students–all of us–what it means to be educated.

As young teachers, we were inspired by the words of John Holt, Herbert Kohl, Joseph Featherstone, A.S. Neill, and Paulo Freire. Later, we would read the works of Deborah Meier, Diane Ravitch, Ted Sizer, and Jonathan Kozol. These were powerful voices to encounter. Now we need to hear your voice.

The time for *Veritas* is now.

Thank you.

Larry Aaronson, Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, 37 years (retired)
Teacher of the Year (Class of 2007)
Recipient, Key to the City of Cambridge for “Outstanding Service” (Mayor)
Recipient, Special Cambridge City Council Citation
Mentor, Student teachers from the HGSE, 1985-2005

Ann O’Halloran, Boston & Newton Public Schools, 30 years (retired)
Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year, 2007 (DOE)
Finalist, National History Teacher of Year, 2007
Honorable Mention, Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year, 2006 (DOE)
Friend of Education, 2009 (Newton Teachers Association)

Bill Schechter, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, 35 years (retired)
METCO Recognition Awards, 2001-2005 (L-S METCO Program)
“Outstanding Educator” Award, 2002 (Cornell University)
Faculty Recognition Award (Class of 1992)
Finalist, Lucretia Mott Award, 1986 (DOE)
Horace Mann Grant, 1984 (DOE)

larindge@aol.com
ohalloran.ann@verizon.net
schech@rcn.com

Majority of Illinois Colleges and Universities Flunk LGBTQ Equity

Chicago - The Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (the Alliance) just released Visibility Matters, the first statewide report card on LGBTQ presence in higher education and teacher preparation in Illinois. This landmark report examines the inclusion of sexual orientation (SO) and gender identity (GI) in university policies related to anti-discrimination and in student codes of conduct, and for SO and GI specifically in teacher education programs. Seventy-two percent, or forty-one out the state’s fifty-seven teacher education preparation programs, received a failing grade of F.

“Our taskforce is composed of researchers and scholars from Illinois universities,” states Associate Professor Erica Meiners, Professor of Education and Women’s Studies at Northeastern Illinois University and member of the Pre-Professional Project of the Alliance that authored the report. “We evaluated these programs based on the web because prospective teacher education students research potential programs via the internet and want to know how programs include and address LGBTQ communities.”

The report will be sent to university and college presidents across the state, and to the heads of teacher preparation programs.

“This project,” states Therese Quinn, Associate Professor of Education at the School of the Art Institute and member of the Pre-Professional Project, “aims to educate universities and colleges across Illinois that LGBTQ visibility and policies matter. We welcome amendments to this report. We are not interested in failing grades as an end-point; instead, this report shows where institutions can improve.”

The report offers a number of recommendations to improve grades, to strengthen policies and to increase LGBTQ visibility. Stacey Horn, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the sole institution to receive an A, acknowledges that, “We expect teacher education programs to address all components of diversity – race, gender, ethnicity – and that sexual orientation and gender identity are also important aspects of the diversity picture.”

The full report, Visibility Matters: Higher Education and Teacher Preparation in Illinois: A Web-based Assessment of LGBTQ Presence, is available online here.

Social Justice, Sexual Orientation, and Teacher Education: Organizing AERA to Stand Up to NCATE

Ever wonder what it would be like to organize against two of the most powerful educational organizations in the U.S? Read on!

In September 2006 Erica Meiners and I sent a letter with over 300 signatures from colleagues across the U.S. and Canada to the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), requesting that sexual orientation and social justice be kept and strengthened, and gender identity be added, to NCATE’s accreditation standards. This letter was a response to an open call by NCATE for feedback on proposed changes to the standards posted on its website, revisions that erased the phrase “social justice” and facilitated the de facto elimination of sexual orientation through the addition of various phrases and qualifiers.

Through listserv circulations, several SIGs and Committees within AERA expressed interest in signing onto the letter, but, in an email dated Sept. 27, 2006, the President of AERA, Dr. Eva Baker, asked us to not include these groups as signatories because it would be “inappropriate” for “entities such as committees, divisions, and special interest groups” to attempt to speak as “subparts of AERA.” We were asked to submit a request to Dr. Baker, for discussion by the executive board. We did this, sending the letter to Baker and the Social Justice Director, Dr. George Wimberly, requesting that the organization take a stand opposing NCATE’s proposed revisions.

We received no acknowledgement of our feedback from NCATE and Dr. Wimberly’s only response was an e-mail informing us that the organization was “aware” of the issue.

There was no response from AERA, either, until the January/February 2007 issue of Educational Researcher, which featured a column by Baker and a statement titled "Key Policy Documents on Position Taking and Policymaking and Social Justice." The column revealed that AERA’s board had voted unanimously against opposing NCATE’s deletions of social justice and sexual orientation. The statement laid out a “position-taking” rationale: AERA failed to offer feedback to NCATE regarding sexual orientation and gender identity because these issues lacked "compelling significance," “legitimacy,” and "adequate research." We think that most teacher educators are aware of the importance of addressing sexual and gender identities in school, but include here a sampling of the research we cited in our letter:

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 percent 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):
--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.

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).

If the hostile schools, physical and emotional danger, and poorly prepared teachers and administrators experienced by LGBT students and documented in this research fail to offer a “compelling” and “powerful moral reason” for AERA to offer feedback to NCATE to retain and strengthen sexual orientation and include gender identity in the professional standards, what would?

Furthermore, Baker’s column stated that it is "inappropriate, except in the rarest of circumstances, for AERA to comment on the procedures of processes of any other non-profit or private-sector organization." This response is disingenuous: While NCATE is a private organization, it directly shapes public policy. Since the 1990s, NCATE has replaced the accreditation functions that used to be the province of state departments of education. Quite bluntly, NCATE functions as a sub-contractor for state departments of education. Also, NCATE solicited open feedback on its proposed “standards” changes. So, how would AERA’s feedback on these revisions be “inappropriate”? How could it be “inappropriate” to comment on the decisions of a quasi-public organization—NCATE—that shapes the work-life of the majority of its members and all children attending public schools?

In response to Baker's column and the revelation of the "down" vote, we wrote an open letter to Dr. Baker, which we also sent to Educational Researcher, inquiring about the process and expressing our dissatisfaction with the contents of her column. Silence. Next, we issued a Call to Action: A RED Campaign for Social Justice and Queer Lives (noted in previous posts), to take place at the 2007 Annual Meeting in Chicago. We asked all meeting participants to wear red throughout the conference as a sign of anger at AERA's decision to remain silent on LGBTQ issues and of our passion for justice. This generated a response from the organization: a mass email send out by the current, former and future presidents of AERA, announcing the organization’s commitment to diversity and a panel discussion to air what it described as "both sides" of the NCATE issue at a business meeting on the last day of the conference.

We asked Bill Ayers represent the goals of the RED Campaign at the meeting: the inclusion of social justice, sexual orientation, and gender identity in NCATE’s standards. He spoke first, reminding the roomful of attendees, many wearing red, of the context of NCATE's deletions: endless war, scapegoating, increasing poverty, weakened rights. He called on AERA to push beyond bureaucratic constraints to act: "Whatever procedures are in place," he said, "we expect leaders to lead."

After Ayers, the designated AERA representative, Adrienne Dixson, elected not to speak. That left the podium to NCATE's representative, Donna Gollnick, who stated that social justice had been removed because it was a "lightning rod" and potential trigger for lawsuits. She denied the removal of sexual orientation, but agreed with us, after the meeting, that revisions directing readers to use census categories might make it seem that way. She closed her talk by inviting feedback from AERA and its members. Many in the room added their strong statements to the public record, including the president of Div. B, David Flinders, who described his vote for inaction as a mistake that he would do everything he could to correct. Baker refused to state that AERA would act. Incoming President Tate said that he “always thought AERA was a research organization,” a position we heard many times from organization functionaries. Then, echoing a strand of related excuses offered by AERA for why it could not act—we didn’t follow correct procedures; our request wasn’t submitted properly; the organization had no process to address these kinds of issues—he committed himself to work on organizational procedures and transparency during his yearlong presidency.

Nearly three months have passed, and the primary issue--AERA members' wish to speak back, organizationally, against NCATE's removals of social justice and sexual orientation from its Professional Standards--remains unaddressed by AERA's "leadership." We hoped that statements from the meeting—Ayers, AERA’s, and NCATE’s—would be published, perhaps in Educational Researcher, but there are no minutes, according to Felice Levine, and AERA’s journals only print research. We think it is important to note and discuss these events, decisions, and positions, and thus offer this record. Still, archives and testimonies are not enough.

Unlike our AERA colleagues who urged us toward policy, not protest, we think the time for action is now. In the spirit of pushing back against all who want to keep queer lives invisible and tone down social justice agendas because they are too threatening, we contend that the “professional standard” for all educators should be to speak against injustice, exclusion, and silencing, wherever they occur. Please ask Arthur Wise (art@ncate.org) and the new president of AERA, William Tate (wtate@wustl.edu), to respond to the letter signed by over 300 educators. Tell them that you support the inclusion of social justice, sexual orientation, and gender identity in NCATE's standards. Speaking and acting for social justice; it’s what education and real leadership is all about.

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

Who Would Jesus Tattle On?

After our visit to Wheaton College for the big Illinois teacher education conference (see below for story and picture), Erica and I were "censured" by the school. What follows is their letter to us, followed by our response. Inspired by Starhawk's wonderful SF novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing, we've invited the teacher educators of Wheaton to join us "at the table." We hope they will.
--
November 21, 2006

Dear Dr. Quinn,

It was quite distressing to learn that several weeks ago during the IACTE meeting held on our campus, fliers vilifying the Wheaton College Teacher Education Program were distributed with your contact information at the bottom. The title of this flyer, Accredit Love Not Condemnation, and its contents allege that our teacher preparation program and its candidates condemn individuals who choose to practice homosexual behavior. That information is both inflammatory, patently inaccurate, and appears to be based on a cursory reading of our Community Covenant and an ignoring of our Conceptual Framework. It seems that if the author of this flyer had a significant concern regarding our teacher preparation program, the appropriate action would have been to speak with us directly. The surreptitious distribution of the flyer was an unprofessional act that reflects poorly on the author of this flyer, you as signatory, your institution, and IACTE.

First, the Community Covenant is a statement of beliefs and behaviors to which participants in this voluntary community agree to adhere. As a Christian community, we do have moral standards that are entailed by our commitment to the historic Christian faith. Some of these are broadly shared (e.g., viewing theft, murder, and rape as immoral), while others, such as our stance on sexual morality, are not as widely shared. Our stance on sexual morality is to affirm “chastity among the unmarried and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman,” and to recognize that scripture condemns “sexual immorality, such as the use of pornography, premarital sex, adultery, homosexual behavior and all other sexual relations outside the bounds of marriage between a man and a woman.” Individuals who choose to become a part of this community are expected to comply with this covenant. Those who do not agree with its tenets should have the integrity and fortitude to choose to affiliate themselves with another of the many fine universities and colleges available to them.

Second, the Community Covenant in no way condemns any individuals. Condemnation is a decision that only God can make, and any human being who is so presumptuous as to condemn another individual is not practicing true Christian humility. Our Community Covenant, among its other affirmations, calls on members of the Wheaton Community to manifest “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and supremely, love,” to “seek righteousness, mercy, and justice, particularly for the helpless and oppressed,” to “uphold the God-given worth of human beings,” and to “be people of integrity whose word can be fully trusted.” The Wheaton College Teacher Education Program, in its Conceptual Framework, clearly states, “that candidates learn to work effectively with all children and their families regardless of race, creed, religion, national origin, sexual preference (emphasis added), disabling condition, or capabilities.” Our commitment to the inherent worth of every individual is emphasized throughout our programs; and for the author of this flyer and you, as signatory, to imply otherwise, is a blatant misrepresentation of our principles.

Interestingly, the author of the flyer seems to hold precisely the biased behavior of which we are accused. By asserting that Christians who hold traditional Christian views should not be certified and that religious institutions that hold moral views should not be accredited, the author has shown a clear bias against traditional Christians and/or other religious organizations that hold views different than that of the author. By extension, the flyer then seems to imply that anyone who holds a belief different from that of a child he/she is teaching is not qualified to teach that child. For example, should only Muslim teachers be allowed to teach Muslim children; only atheistic teachers to teach atheistic children; only Christian teachers to teach Christian children; only GLBT teachers to teach GLBT children? Such a system would be both discriminatory and ridiculous.

We gladly affirm that “teachers need to be well prepared to teach all students.” We affirm with sadness that GLBT students and adults have been and are at time subject to reprehensible treatment. We affirm that all teachers, including our candidates, should respect GLBT students and GLBT family members. Our Christian belief that all individuals are created in the image and likeness of God requires no less. We also affirm that in our country, individuals, including Christians, have the right to hold and express religious views freely. We understand fully and support the fact that the public school classroom is not a forum for religious proselytization or religious instruction. The public school classroom should be a place of learning, safe for all individuals, and affirming of the worth of each and every child. That is how we prepare our teacher candidates.

In accordance with Biblical principles, we are first contacting you without notice to your respective superiors. We at Wheaton College would be more than willing to discuss this issue with your further. However, the clandestine distribution of inaccurate information is an act that cannot be ignored. We believe that you, as signatory, owe Wheaton College, IACTE, and your institution a written apology for this reckless behavior. We anxiously await your response.

On behalf of the Education Department and Wheaton College,

Andrew R. Brulle, Ed.D. Jillian N. Lederhouse, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair Associate Professor and Chair-Select
--
December 21, 2006

Dear Drs. Brulle and Lederhouse:

We received your letter, dated November 21, 2006, and while we appreciate your communication, we disagree with your interpretations. Here, we respond to the points outlined in your letter and invite you and your students to an event where we propose to continue this dialogue.

For us, and the queer youth, teachers, parents, colleagues and allies we work alongside, the Accredit Love Not Condemnation action at the Illinois Association for Colleges with Teacher Education (IACTE) was a great success. We distributed love-centered flyers and pink teacher-power buttons. These, along with our positive queer presence, countered Wheaton College’s gay-excluding policies. As importantly, we raised questions about the appropriateness of Wheaton as a meeting place for the professional organization of teacher educators in Illinois, and the importance of sexual orientation and gender identity as key aspects of diversity. We believe that IACTE should not legitimize with its presence any institution that dehumanizes and devalues lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people.

Wheaton’s “Community Covenant,” which is part of the application for admission to the college, equates “theft, murder, and rape” with “homosexual behavior.” As lesbians, educators and as citizens, we find this an insulting and dangerous comparison, and the kind of assertion that lays the ground for violence against LGBTQ people. In addition, for queer youth, families and educators, the distinction you attempt to make between identities and acts is false and cruel. Sexuality is not divisible from other aspects of our lives as workers, parents, and students; no person should have to agree to forgo loving relationships in order to be safe from hateful characterizations.

It is hard for us to understand why you think the Accredit Love Not Condemnation project shows a “clear bias against traditional Christians.” It is inspired by and grounded in the traditions of critique and resistance exemplified by many Christians at the forefront of the profession of education including Margaret Haley, organizer of the first American teacher’s union in Chicago; Myles Horton, co-founder of the Highlander Folk School who played an integral role in the labor and civil rights movements; and Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Outside this field, Christians have been central to worldwide movements against oppression. The list is nearly endless, but includes Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Addams, Desmond Tutu, James Baldwin, Óscar A. Romero, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bayard Rustin, Cornel West, and Mel White. We claim their engaged faith traditions as our guides.

We disagree with your letter’s claim that our distribution of the Accredit Love flyers was “surreptitious.” In addition to writing our email addresses on the flyers, as your letter notes, we walked from table to table during the meeting breakfast, passing out and explaining the flyers; wore t-shirts with the same slogan; introduced ourselves to the conference and individuals; and passed out business cards. However, secrecy is a strategic tactic that is respectable and sometimes necessary—the Underground Railroad is a clear example of this—and one that should be familiar and acceptable to Wheaton, which highlights a rich history at the forefront of the abolitionist movement on its website. But, we didn’t choose secrecy for this campaign; we chose visibility to counter the shame and silencing that institutions like yours seem to prefer for queers.

We also reject your characterization of our distribution of the Accredit Love flyer as “unprofessional.” Sexual and gender minority youth are unremittingly subject to violence and hostility in public schools, and we believe it is our professional obligation to raise this issue and seek solutions with our colleagues in teacher education, despite the desire of some to suppress that dialogue. It is the responsibility of the profession of teacher education to affirm and advocate for all students, parents and teachers, including those who are queer. Advocacy requires that problems are made visible. And that is what we have attempted to do.

We regret that you found the Accredit Love Not Condemnation flyers and pledge “quite distressing.” However, imagine how we felt to discover that our profession held a meeting on a campus where every person has sworn that the expressed sexualities of LGBTQ people, including youth and teachers, are the moral equivalent of “rape and murder”? Distressed is the mildest way to describe our reactions: pain, fear, anger are more accurate. Public meetings should not be held at institutions that degrade and exclude entire classes of people.

Finally, we appreciate and accept your invitation to talk further and propose co-hosting a discussion about this topic—Tensions Between Private Beliefs and the Public Good in Teacher Education—in a public venue, with fellow teacher educators and students of education and members of LGBTQ communities. We’ve secured a site [on the campus of a public university] and a tentative date and time. We suggest that we work out other details together—who to invite, how to organize the dialogue, food or not—if you choose to participate. If not, we plan to hold the discussion anyway, and hope you will announce the event to your students and staff. In particular, we would like to invite your LGBTQ students, staff and faculty to attend.

Sincerely,

Erica Meiners Therese Quinn

Accredit Love Not Condemnation

My colleague, Erica Meiners, and I attended the Illinois Association for Colleges for Teacher Education on Friday the 13th of October. The conference was held at Wheaton College (apropos the date?), and its conveners opened the event with a prayer (it was a public event, so why the coercive calls to Jesus?--a moment of silence would have been more respectful of the diverse attendees' views). We hoped that many of the folks attending would accept a hot pink button (fist in apple--power to the teachers!), and that even more would sign the Accredit Love Not Condemnation Pledge (we are asking that only teacher education programs that promote love and respect for lesbian and gay students, families, and community members, be accredited; see previous post for more about the pledge and to read about teacher education programs that endorse condemnation, rather than love). The buttons were more popular than the pledge, though. We collected three of these (thanks, friends). The best part of the conference--meeting our fellow queer educators (yes, Wheaton--there were many of us "condemned" ones on your campus that day). Worst? That's a toss-up--maybe that so many people wouldn't make eye contact with me (making it so damn hard to cruise...oh!...that's what they were afraid of!); maybe that there's a building named after Billy ("this [Jewish] stranglehold has got to be broken") Graham; maybe that we saw a car in the parking lot with "disabled person" plates and a bumper sticker proclaiming "No Civil Rights Without Citizenship"; maybe that a sister passed her signed pledge to Erica in the women's bathroom (but again, thank you); maybe that Sharon Robinson, the President (and CEO--odd?) of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, and a featured speaker, wouldn't say that sexual orientation should be an aspect of diversity that is addressed in all teacher education programs. With love, of course, not condemnation! Well, we plan to attend the spring meeting of the group in greater numbers and with more and better props (but please...not at Wheaton). Care to join us?

The Alchemy of Wheaton College

It turns freshmen into bigots.

Bigot:
A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary.

A few young people might enter college with their “faith and views” fully formed, but it’s probably safe to say most do not—they come to school with some history and plenty of room to learn. College is for that.

Higher education invites us to stretch, to experience new things and to look at familiar things in new ways. We get a chance to expand and grow.

But Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, is different. It, like a number of other private religious colleges, requires students to demonstrate, even before they enter the school, that they are bigots. Wheaton does this by requiring applicants to sign a “Community Covenant” in agreement with a statement that condemns “homosexual behavior.” They may be trying to sidestep the implication that they are condemning any actual people (love the sinner, hate the sin!), but that’s crap—we are our sexualities, just as we are our genders and our ethnicities. We are more than those, of course; we can never be reduced to just those qualities, but we are also fully ALL those qualities.

Download an application to read the condemning statement yourself at:

http://www.wheaton.edu/admissions/UndGrad/applying/forms.php4#cas

It’s a shame that any college demands professions of bigotry from young people. A “dirty shame,” John Waters might say. It’s awful that a college requires students to prove their prejudice as a prerequisite to admission. Alchemists aimed to produce gold from base metal. Higher education should, too. But Wheaton engages in reverse alchemy—it produces condemnation, not kindness.

Most citizens could just ignore this situation, if Wheaton weren’t also in the business of producing teachers for our public schools. That’s right, the teachers Wheaton graduates—who have sworn that they condemn lesbian, gay, and bisexual children and families—can teach in public schools. Wheaton’s teacher education programs are accredited—legitimated—by the Illinois State Board of Education, which says teachers should be able to “help all students learn.” But how can teachers educate those they condemn?

If you read my last post you know that the population of gay students is large—as one example, in 2003, 6.3 % of high school students attending Chicago Public Schools identified their sexual orientation as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Schools are uncomfortable, even dangerous, for these students—64.3% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students in 2005 reported feeling unsafe in their school because of their sexual orientation. And many teachers are part of the problem—40.5% of LGBT students in 2005 reported that teachers never intervened when hearing homophobic remarks. Schools are hard on LGBT young people. Colleges like Wheaton make the situation worse.

Wheaton is responsible for the suffering of LGBT youth in schools, and so is the Illinois State Board of Education, which accredits the College’s teacher education programs and certifies Wheaton’s teacher candidates, indicating that they are fit to teach in public schools. But they are not. Teachers who condemn their own students, or their students’ families, on the basis of sexual identity do not belong in public education.

The Illinois State Board of Education should stop accrediting the teacher education programs of colleges that require students to be bigots, and should stop certifying teachers who have agreed to condemn people they will inevitably teach. This isn’t a small problem; in Illinois alone there are several such schools. Greenville College is another example. Download its application and read the “Lifestyle Statement” which condemns homosexuals and dancing at:

http://www.greenville.edu/admissions/application/application.shtml

It’s a grim “lifestyle” outlined here, steeped in fear and privation. Yet, Greenville is accredited and its teachers are certified by the State. But these teachers are not fit for public schools. Wheaton and Greenville’s graduates can teach in private schools—they don’t need certification for that. Our public schools deserve teachers who pledge and demonstrate love and respect for all youth.

To that end, I’m offering every teacher educator and teacher candidate at Wheaton and Greenville (and any similar colleges, including Olivet Nazarene and Judson—you know who you are) a chance, here and now, to retract your vows of condemnation and offer a positive pledge of respect and responsibility, thereby “fitting” yourself for public school teaching. In fact, I invite everyone to take this pledge:

Teachers need to be well prepared to teach all students. Teacher education programs should support candidates by preparing them with the information and experiences they will need to teach and work with LGBT youth and family members. All teachers are responsible for gaining the education they need to teach and advocate for the well-being of LGBT students. All teachers should respect LGBT students, LGBT family members, and the identities and histories of LGBT people in classrooms and elsewhere. I pledge to do so myself. This retracts any earlier statements to the contrary. Sincerely,_____________

Email the signed retraction to the Chair of your Department or Program (at Wheaton, it’s Andrew Brulle at andrew.brulle@wheaton.edu; at Greenville it’s Edwin Blue at edblue@greenville.edu) and cc: it to me at tquinn@saic.edu.