CRT figure featured on 60 Minutes
Gloria Ladson-Billings, a known leader of Critical Race Theory in early childhood education, was part of a 60 Minutes report in March
In March, the long-running program 60 Minutes did a story on two Black female teen students at St. Mary’s Academy in Louisiana who solved a “2,000-year-old Pythagorean Theorem problem.”
It was an amazing accomplishment without question.
Pamela Rogers, St. Mary's president and interim principal, said during the 60 Minutes episode that “We believe all students can succeed, all students can learn. It does not matter the environment that you live in.”
Rogers, expanding on her comments about there being “naysayers” that Black students could solve the problem, said, “They were saying, "Oh, they could not have done it. African Americans don't have the brains to do it." Of course, we sheltered our girls from that. But we absolutely did not expect it to come in the volume that it came.”
The episode then cuts to Gloria Ladson-Billings and 60 Minutes describes her in the episode as having studied “how best to teach African American students.”
Nowhere in the 60 Minutes interview is it mentioned that Ladson-Billings is well-known for her backing of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and “teacher engagement” in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in K-12 schools with an emphasis on early elementary grades.
60 Minutes instead ran with describing the short segment of Ladson-Billings comments as how “encouraging teacher can change a life,” and as an “academic has studied how to best teach Black students.”
The part of the segment featuring Ladson-Billings happens just after the 9:41 mark:
Ladson-Billings is a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin and served as president of the National Academy of Education (NAEd) from 2017 until 2021.
In the announcement of her past presidency, NAEd also acknowledged her as being “Known for her groundbreaking work in the fields of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Critical Race Theory.”
More To The Story
Ladson-Billings is a core figure in the CRT teacher training conducted by Wake County Public Schools' Office of Equity Affairs staffers Christina Spears and Teresa Bunner. Spears is no long with that office and is the current president of the North Carolina Association of Educators affiliate in Wake County.
That training was leaked to me in spring 2021 and I wrote a multi-part series on it for North State Journal.
SERIES: Critical Race Theory-themed training in Wake County public schools
Critical Race Theory themed training in Wake County Public Schools: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
Critical Race Theory-themed training in Wake County public schools: Anti-Racist Education
Critical Race Theory-themed training in Wake County Public Schools: Antibias Education
In the article on Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) Spears brings up Ladson-Billings’ work on the topic as part the “anti-bias” training she and Bunner were giving to Wake County teachers. Bunner goes on to talk about Dr. Django Paris. Paris, a student of Ladson-Billings who expanded her work in CSP, arguing in a 2014 paper that there should be separate teaching pedagogies for “students of color.”
Ladson-Billings' name also came up when WCPSS approved accepting grant funds from a CRT training organization called "WeAre," which stands for "Working to Extend Anti-Racist Education."
WeAre also offers student grants for children in grades six through 11. The grants for grade 6-8 are for students “seeking to apply anti-racism efforts in their classrooms and school communities,” and the grade 9-11 grants can be “used for an initiative, student group or policy that will create an environment of anti-racism.” The applications ask students questions that include identifying their race and preferred pronouns.
UNC Charlotte’s description of CPP107 says “Culturally sustaining teaching practices are essential if teachers want to be relevant in today’s classroom. Culturally relevant teaching (CRT) is a practice grounded in a level of cultural competence that allows teachers to effectively educate through a skill-based knowledge that supports teaching in a multicultural setting.”
CPP107’s description also cites “Dr. Gloria Landson-Bilings” [SIC] as “the pioneer of culturally relevant teaching.”
WeAre is registered as a 501(c)3 nonprofit with expenses that surpassed its income in 2023 by around $113,000. Revenue for WeAre between 2022 and 2023 dropped almost 60% with contributions going from $410,366 to $167,147.
WeAre is founded and run by Ronda Taylor Bullock, who is the only board member to be paid every year since WeAre's founding; 2019 ($15,173), 2020 ($40,999), 2021 ($104,590), 2022 ($105,631), 2023 ($100,186).
Her husband, Daniel Kelvin Bullock is also on the staff of WeAre as “Truth Teller (Deputy Director). Unmentioned in his WeAre bio is that he is the executive director of the Durham Public Schools Office of Equity Affairs.
In 2021, WeAre held a town hall attended by various Democrat elected officials in the Durham area. The town hall’s main purpose was to defend CRT and its use in K-12 classrooms. During the town hall, Bullock said critics of CRT were “gaslighting” the public and that CRT was being made a “scapegoat for issues.”
“There is a lot of gaslighting, a lot of fearmongering around CRT and the pushback against it in schools and communities,” Bullock said. “I want to say that many people doesn’t [SIC] even know what it is and even the politicians who are using it, they don’t actually know what it is either.”
Bullock also stated that opposition to CRT is the start of a “white supremacy movement” and that “we want to organize against it.” She then claimed there is “a lot of money and support from “Republican bases against truth-telling.”
During the town hall, Bullock also promoted an upcoming conference titled, “Let’s Talk Racism,” and said the theme would be “Seeing Critical Race Theory in our schools from theory to praxis.” Praxis means the use of CRT “in practice” in K-12 classrooms.
Related Reading on WeAre:
