One Republican state lawmaker says suing Pennsylvania over its culturally-relevant education standards wins some control for concerned parents, but state education officials say the lawsuit doesn’t actually impact classroom curriculum.
Last week, three Western Pennsylvania districts and the Department of Education settled a lawsuit concerning the state’s Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education (CR-SE) framework. The department notified districts Friday that it has offered a new, optional framework in its place: Common Ground.
“What schools are required to do hasn't changed relative to the Common Ground framework,” said Dr. Carrie Rowe, deputy secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of Education. “It's simply the latitude that schools have in determining how they will comply. That has been clarified.”
Prior to the lawsuit, the Pennsylvania Department of Education had required schools to incorporate lessons about biases and institutional racism into their teacher training programs and professional development since the start of the 2023-2024 school year. Districts could integrate the standards into their training programs however they saw fit, as long as they met the full list of “competencies” required by the state.
The Ed Department says the guidance also applied when teaching students who speak other languages, and to others who may travel often with a military family or live on a working farm.
The same set of standards went into effect for teacher preparation programs at colleges and universities this fall.
“They're not intended to be divisive,” said Donna-Marie Cole-Malott, co-executive director of the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium. “They're really intended to support all of our learners so that they can thrive.”
Cole-Malott, also a professor of education at East Stroudsburg University, was part of the team that helped to draft the state’s culturally-relevant education framework. She said the competencies were born out of an initiative to diversify Pennsylvania’s teacher workforce, as well as address classroom culture.
During the 2022-2023 school year, students of color made up 38.1% of Pennsylvania’s total student enrollment, compared to 6.6% of teachers
But State Rep. Stephenie Scialabba (R-Cranberry Township) said local education leaders in her district worried that incorporating culturally-relevant education standards would “lend itself to ideological exploitation regardless of the ideology” and that not incorporating the standards would result in lost funding from the state Department of Education should they fail to comply.
Rowe, of the Education Department, told WESA that funding wasn’t tied to the guidance.
“There was no school that we were targeting for not receiving funds,” Rowe said. “It's our intention always to work with schools to find ways for them to show their compliance.”
Scialabba, who works for a Butler County law firm, filed the lawsuit on behalf of three western Pennsylvania school districts: Mars in Butler County, Laurel in Lawrence County and Penncrest in Crawford County. Scialabba also sits on the House education committee.
The districts were also represented by the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, which provides free legal services to conservative litigants looking to advance anti-abortion policies and issues of parental control in education. Scialabba said her firm has also worked with the group to challenge local mask mandates.
As a result of the settlement, the Department of Education has released new guidance to replace and update the culturally-relevant and sustaining education mandate. The Common Ground framework is designed to help educators better understand and relate to students from a variety of backgrounds, including those experiencing homelessness, students who have experienced trauma and students with disabilities.
As detailed in the settlement, the agency will encourage but not require schools to incorporate these lessons into their teacher training. Scialabba called that a win for parents who aren’t happy with the status quo in schools, pointing to the Republican “red wave” that swept this month’s elections.
“Conservatives are the party of parents, and I am hopeful that [Gov. Josh Shapiro] will see that the tide has really changed and that we are not in the minority in terms of parental involvement and rights,” she said.
Scialabba believes the settlement is a launchpad for a conservative “Parental Bill of Rights,” which would give parents much more control over content their kids consume in clubs or organizations, as well as with a counselor or in the library. Efforts to pass such legislation in Pennsylvania in the past have failed.
Democratic Allegheny County Sen. Lindsey Williams, meanwhile, said she considers the lawsuit akin to book bans and other controversies surrounding public education. Williams is minority chair of the Senate education committee.
“It's part of the voucher fight. It's all interwoven together,” Williams said.
The Ed Department said a “rephrasing” of guidelines only affects educators, not curriculum presented to students.
“I think that the plaintiffs are overstating the impact,” Williams said, “but the threat remains to our most vulnerable students.”
Cole-Malott said the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium is ready to support the state in its rollout of the Common Ground framework, though she said her organization is still reviewing the implications of this change in guidance.
At the higher education level, University of Pittsburgh professor Michelle Sobolak says teacher training programs like hers are starting to implement the Common Ground framework, though that won’t substantively change much. Sobolak, who is the director of teacher and professional education at Pitt’s School of Education, noted many teacher preparation programs already emphasize the standards outlined by the state before the lawsuit.
Teacher preparation programs at Pennsylvania colleges and universities will continue to be required to incorporate the standards into their courses.
“This is the core of what a good educator would want to do,” she said. “Know their students well, honor their students and the families and communities that they work with, and leverage all the knowledge and skills that students bring to school systems for the benefit of their learning.”
