Conservative group forces Pa. education officials to drop cultural awareness curriculum

A conservative Catholic legal group has forced Pennsylvania Department of Education to drop a statewide curriculum mandate aimed at raising awareness about cultural biases, prejudices and stereotypes.

The agency on Friday issued new guidelines for how schools should teach culturally relevant issues after the Thomas More Society, a conservative Catholic legal group, challenged the two-year-old former policy.

In an email to PennLive, department officials did not address the lawsuit, but said that the new Common Ground Framework is intended to help educators create an inclusive learning environment for all K-12 students.

Erin James, the department press secretary, said K-12 teachers will be empowered “with the skills they need to help all students achieve academic success and reach their full potential — no matter their background.”

“(Pennsylvania Department of Education) is proud to offer this resource as an improvement on previously issued guidance, with an expanded focus on digital literacy, mental health, and trauma – real issues that impact those in all spaces of learning within every Pennsylvania community,” she said.

The new guidance was rolled out just days after the department agreed to a court settlement with the Thomas More Society, which filed a lawsuit in court seeking to revoke the old mandate, known as Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education Program Framework Guidelines — or CR-SE.

The department on Wednesday agreed to lift the mandate.

The Thomas More Society had argued that the policy “sought to mandate that educators affirm and impose on their students highly ideological beliefs about contentious social and political issues.”

In a written statement, Thomas Breth, a special counsel to the legal group, said the agreement had secured an important victory for Pennsylvania parents, students, and teachers.

“Our agreement is a triumph against the Department’s blatantly ideological and illegal attempt to inject ‘woke’ activism into school curricula across Pennsylvania, which demanded educators affirm their belief in these ideological tenets and then impose the same upon their students,” he said.

The guidelines, which were established in 2022, addressed biases in education, micro-aggressions, stereotypes, prejudices; and critical thinking on economic, political, and social power structures.

Kristina Moon, a senior attorney with the Education Law Center in Philadelphia, called the agreement a blow for students, parents, and teachers.

“Every child deserves to feel seen and valued, welcomed and affirmed in their classroom,” she said. “And every parent has the right to feel included as a partner in their child’s education.

She said the curriculum provided tool to help teachers creete school envinments in their schools to achieve those goals

“An approach that fails to acknowledge and appreciate the lived experiences of racism or sexism or anti-immigrant bias or others that our communities and students unfortunately still experience only results in educators failing to see the whole student and failing to connect with students,” Moon said. “And that can lead to unintended bias, discrimination and students being disengaged with school. It’s not effective and it can cause real harm.”

Pennsylvania education code still requires schools to include culturally relevant and sustaining education in the professional and ethics training for new teachers and continued development for all teachers.

The new guidance addresses “learners from varying socio-economic backgrounds and those with different abilities and is an effort to create an inclusive learning environment for all students.” It also provides guidance to help educators handle issues related to mental wellness, trauma-informed approaches to instruction, engagement with technological and virtual strategies.

The new guidance is also designed to help educators “better understand and relate to students experiencing homelessness and food insecurity, military-connected students and their families, students who have experienced trauma, students with disabilities or special needs, children of migratory seasonal farm workers, and more.”

The department noted that the Common Ground Framework is an optional tool for Pennsylvania schools that allows districts to comply with the regulatory requirements of state code.

Attorneys for the Thomas More Society filed suit in April 2023 on behalf of three public school districts in western Pennsylvania and a group of parents and students. They argued that the guidelines violated the First Amendment and were issued in violation of state regulatory law.

The Thomas More Society is a Chicago-based national not-for-profit law firm that provides pro bono services in cases largely involving family, reproductive rights and education.