Sanjana Samudrala

2 April 2024

Glassbrook Elementary, a school in Hayward, California, recently terminated its contract with the Woke Kindergarten program. 

Glassbrook Elementary had been struggling with low attendance and low test scores. According to a report from the 2022-2023 school year, only 11.63% of students met or exceeded the standard for English Language Arts and only 3.82% of students met or exceeded the standard for Mathematics [1].

In 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Glassbrook Elementary was designated as a CSI school—-a Comprehensive School Improvement school. Schools that are classified as CSI schools are “facing significant challenges in academic achievement, student growth, and other areas” [2]. Since California provides funding for CSI schools to help them improve, the district hired Woke Kindergarten using this funding to support the academic, social, and emotional needs of their students, by focusing on justice, healing, and academic thematic units [3]. In a statement explaining Hayward District’s decision to switch to Woke Kindergarten on February 16th, 2024, superintendent Jason Reimann stated that the district’s intended goal with the program was “to boost student achievement by improving attendance” [5].

The Woke Kindergarten program consisted of teacher training sessions to integrate abolitionist teaching into the curriculum. Abolitionist teaching can be defined as “teaching with the goal of intersectional social justice for equitable classrooms that love and affirm Black and Brown children” [4]. Many parents in the district, as well as other educators, felt that the education system didn’t represent or work for their children, who are disadvantaged by their socioeconomic status. This led to the district’s decision to invest in the Woke Kindergarten’s program as opposed to a more traditional academic program [5]. 

However, some teachers in Glassbrook Elementary expressed their concern over the Woke Kindergarten curriculum, believing that it is too much of a push for progressive policies [5]. The public’s response to this program led to a mischaracterization of the program and the discovery of the founder of Woke Kindergarten’s polarizing social media posts, both of which distracted the district and students, causing Hayward District to terminate its contract with Woke Kindergarten [3]. 

The Woke Kindergarten program received a massive amount of backlash due to the public’s interpretation. While neither the school, nor Woke Kindergarten, specified what information was specifically being circulated throughout the teacher training sessions, news and media outlets asserted that the main objective of the program is to disrupt whiteness. However, there is no substantial or documented evidence that the program aimed to do so, aside from anecdotes from teachers who had qualms with the progressive politics expressed by Woke Kindergarten. The district was also criticized for implementing the program since students’ test scores had decreased during the period of the contract with Woke Kindergarten; the public blamed the Woke Kindergarten program for the falling test scores. Despite the test scores under this program, chronic absenteeism had decreased immensely by about 16 percentage points, which is a crucial factor to improving academic performance [3].

Criticism of the program has been about the program teaching students how to hate white people, when it aims to disrupt whiteness. Woke Kindergarten’s core tenet is supporting educators in implementing abolitionist teachings which empowers students [10]. Disrupting whiteness, especially in terms of the education system, focuses on dismantling racism within education by improving racial literacy among teachers, as well as addressing more institutional issues like the type of textbooks schools use to teach history [8][9]. Disrupting whiteness is related to an academic framework known as critiquing whiteness, which “reveals ways in which whites benefit from a variety of institutional and social arrangements that often appear [to them] to have nothing to do with race” [6].

Often ignored, another critique of the program is its focus on young children; the program is for elementary students, many of whom don’t even know or understand what whiteness means as a concept, let alone as a social construct. Students that age just need to experience diversity within the curriculum, so it becomes normalized, so they become more aware and more able to understand complex topics. In one study that taught students using a textbook that integrated diversity, students reported that the textbook helped create a classroom environment where “diversity was respected and viewed as critical to learning” [11]. Normalizing diversity within the elementary curriculum could also include having more substantive lessons about different holidays and festivals from other ethnic cultures and religions. Including history from Asia, Africa, and Latin America in little increments—the way the curriculum does for American and European history—-helps to broaden the perspective of elementary students without overwhelming them. Directing funds towards a program like Woke Kindergarten that teaches young students such complex topics seems useless when they don’t understand many of the nuances to them.

This raises the question of should theory, like critical race theory, be taught to students in secondary school. It’s hard to give a clear cut answer to this because of the various factors at play. For example, if we view critical race theory as more of a topic of discussion that requires interpretation, it might have some serious setbacks. Secondary education is important to the development of students because the material you learn is meant to teach you how to think and learn. It helps students practice learning through problem-solving and learning how to understand, retain, and interpret information—valuable skills that help students succeed in college when they learn advanced material that is tailored to their future careers. So, if theory is being used as a framework to help understand more difficult and technical concepts—such as teaching students economic theory to help them better conceptualize supply and demand—then theory may be productive in curriculum. One study showed that when a group of experienced secondary school teachers used theory with economics, students demonstrated a better understanding of the topic [7]. This raises the question: what age are students in secondary school able to interpret theory and use it as a framework when the education system doesn’t emphasize learning how to think?

This issue is heavily related to legislation and the people controlling what is taught to students. Education policy, especially when it comes to implementing programs, centers around a set idea of what students need to think, rather than how to help them think so they can better learn and interpret. Instead, education policy should seek to improve the system so students want to learn. Districts can implement tutoring programs scaled to the community’s needs to create a more learning enhancive experience; a study on volunteer tutoring programs showed that students who work with these volunteers are more likely to have a positive effect on their academic achievement, including “higher scores on assessments related to letters and words, oral fluency, and writing as compared to their peers who are not tutored” [13]. Additionally, districts can advocate raising the base salary for teachers, as well as offering more nuanced training so that they can establish better relationships with students from different backgrounds. As studies show, even a “1 percent rise in the salary of a starting teacher boosts the average aptitude of students entering teacher education courses” [14]. Education policy should also aim to make learning easier for students by removing other barriers in school. For example, schools should implement free breakfast and lunch, so students—especially those from low-income families—never have to go to school hungry and can focus on learning. A 2019 study on universal free meals showed that “increases in school lunch participation improve academic performance for both poor and non-poor students” [12]. 

Education is not a one-size-fits-all experience, and programs need to be tailored towards the individual community needs. We have heard of no attempts from the district to understand and communicate with students at Glassbrook Elementary—the district has just been getting feedback from parents. Education policy needs to be tailored to the students’ needs and districts must start taking feedback from students more seriously, even if they’re in elementary school.

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Image via Pexels Free Photos.

Works Cited

[1] “English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments.” 2022–23 Smarter Balanced ELA and Mathematics Test Results at a Glance – CAASPP Reporting (CA Dept of Education). Accessed March 9, 2024. https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2023&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstGrade=13&lstSchoolType=A&lstCounty=01&lstDistrict=61192-000&lstSchool=6000988&lstFocus=a.  

[2] “School Improvement and Accountability.” Department of Education. Accessed March 9, 2024. https://www.education.pa.gov/K-12/ESSA/Pages/Accountability.aspx#:~:text=Comprehensive%20Support%20and%20Improvement%20. 

[3] “Superintendent Remarks Regarding Woke Kindergarten.” Hayward Unified School District, February 16, 2024. https://www.husd.us/post-details/~board/all-news/post/superintendent-remarks-regarding-woke-kindergarten. 

[4] Love, Bettina L. We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2019. 

[5] Tucker, Jill. “This Bay Area School District Spent $250,000 on Woke Kindergarten Program. Test Scores Fell Even Further.” San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 2024. http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/woke-kindergarten-glassbrook-hayward-18635504.php. 

[6] Bush, Melanie EL. “Race, ethnicity and whiteness.” In Sage race relations abstracts, vol. 29, no. 3-4, pp. 5-48. 2004.

[7] Pang, Mf., Marton, F. Learning Theory as Teaching Resource: Enhancing Students’ Understanding of Economic Concepts. Instr Sci 33, 159–191 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-005-2811-0 

[8] “Disrupting Whiteness in the Classroom.” Harvard Graduate School of Education. Accessed March 9, 2024. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/edcast/21/03/disrupting-whiteness-classroom. 

[9] Picower, Bree. Reading, writing, and racism: Disrupting whiteness in teacher education and in the classroom. Beacon Press, 2021. 

[10] “Woke Kindergarten.” Woke Kindergarten. Accessed March 9, 2024. https://www.wokekindergarten.org/. 

[11] Lynn, Maria. “Teaching through diversity.” College Teaching 46, no. 4 (1998): 123-127.

[12] Schwartz, Amy Ellen, and Michah W. Rothbart. “Let them eat lunch: The impact of universal free meals on student performance.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 39, no. 2 (2020): 376-410. 

[13] Ritter, Gary W., Joshua H. Barnett, George S. Denny, and Ginger R. Albin. “The effectiveness of volunteer tutoring programs for elementary and middle school students: A meta-analysis.” Review of Educational Research 79, no. 1 (2009): 3-38.

[14] Leigh, Andrew. “Teacher pay and teacher aptitude.” Economics of education review 31, no. 3 (2012): 41-53.