Chris Tomlinson: Conservative billionaires seek to destroy Texas public schools with more scare tactics

Rightwing activists have found another three-letter acronym to generate rage against teachers, a routine tactic two conservative billionaires have used for years to gut Texas public education. The new bugaboo is Social and Emotional Learning or SEL for short. Unlike CRT or critical race theory, K-12 teachers have employed SEL since the 1990s to encourage children to develop self-esteem, manage emotions, and empathize with others. This new demagoguery is the latest in a decades-long effort to rally parents against public schools, and it’s driving thousands of teachers from the field. Our future workforce and economic prosperity depend on countering the propaganda, demanding better from the State Board of Education, and guaranteeing our teachers professional working conditions.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation thinks SEL promotes child suicide and warned in a recent email blast that SEL is used to teach CRT and other concepts prohibited under Texas state law, like the “1619 Project.” “I fear it is creating mental health problems in children,” TPPF Fellow Carol Swain wrote. “The question for Texas, like other states that have made efforts to remove critical-theory-based concepts from K-12 classrooms, is how to close and lock the door — to prevent social justice warriors and activist teachers from using SEL materials and their own values to evade the intent of ‘prohibited concepts’ legislation.” The State Board of Education is meeting in Austin to develop a new statewide social studies standard. The anti-CRT legislation is so vague, confusing and anti-intellectual that teachers are quitting rather than dealing with the madness, said board member Aicha Davis. “We talk about teachers leaving in droves, and this is one of the reasons we had a lot of teachers leaving,” Davis said. “Because it caused so much fear, teachers were afraid to teach because of this.” Even the anti-CRT law’s author, state Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), told the board he might amend the law next year because of the widespread confusion.