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This Bay Area school district spent $250,000 on Woke Kindergarten program. Test scores fell even further

This Bay Area school district spent $250,000 on Woke Kindergarten. Test scores fell even further

San Francisco Chronicle

A Hayward elementary school struggling to boost low test scores and dismal student attendance is spending $250,000 in federal money for an organization called Woke Kindergarten to train teachers to confront white supremacy, disrupt racism and oppression and remove those barriers to learning.

The Woke Kindergarten sessions train teachers on concepts and curriculum that’s available to use in classrooms with any of Glassbrook Elementary’s 474 students. The sessions are funded through a federal program meant to help the country’s lowest-performing schools boost student achievement. 

But two years into the three-year contract with Woke Kindergarten, a for-profit company, student achievement at Glassbrook has fallen, prompting some teachers to question whether the money was well-spent given the needs of the students, who are predominantly low-income. Two-thirds of the students are English learners and more than 80% are Hispanic/Latino. 

English and math scores hit new lows last spring, with less than 4% of students proficient in math and just under 12% at grade level in English — a decline of about 4 percentage points in each category.

Efforts to reach the organization were not successful, with an automated response saying the founder, who also provides the training, was recovering from surgery.

District officials defended the program this past week, saying that Woke Kindergarten did what it was hired to do. The district pointed to improvements in attendance and suspension rates, and that the school was no longer on the state watch list, only to learn from the Chronicle that the school was not only still on the list but also had dropped to a lower level.

The decision to bring in Woke Kindergarten, rather than a more traditional literacy or math improvement program, aligns with the belief by some parents and educators that the current education system isn’t working for many disadvantaged children. 

The solution, these advocates say, is for educators to confront legacies of racism and bias in schools, and to talk about historic white supremacy, so that students feel safe and supported. As such anti-racism programs have spread, several more conservative state legislatures have moved to restrict or ban them. 

At the same time, some education experts say struggling schools need research-based literacy and math interventions that ensure all students have the basic skills to succeed. Examples of success include San Francisco’s John Muir Elementary, which has piloted a math intervention program that has led to a more than 50% proficiency rate, up from 15% prior to adopting the coaching and student-led coursework.

Woke Kindergarten, aimed at elementary-age students, is founded on the relatively new concept of abolitionist education, which advocates for abolition, or “a kind of starting over,” said Zeus Leonardo, UC Berkeley education professor. The idea is that certain things can’t be reformed, tweaked or shifted, because they are inherently problematic or oppressive. It’s not about indoctrinating or imposing politics, “but making politics part of the framework of teaching,” Leonardo said. 

But some Glassbrook teachers have questioned the decision to bring in the program, saying Woke Kindergarten is wrongly rooted in progressive politics and activism with anti-police, anti-capitalism and anti-Israel messages mixed in with the goal of making schools safe, joyful and supportive for all children.

This tension is reflective of the nation’s ongoing culture wars, where the right and the left battle to influence what happens in classrooms. 

The Woke Kindergarten curriculum shared with schools includes “wonderings,” which pose questions for students, including, “If the United States defunded the Israeli military, how could this money be used to rebuild Palestine?”

In addition, the “woke word of the day,” including “strike,” “ceasefire” and “protest,” offers students a “language of the resistance … to introduce children to liberatory vocabulary in a way that they can easily digest, understand and most importantly, use in their critiques of the system.”

Teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley said he supports discussing racism in the classroom, but found the Woke Kindergarten training confusing and rigid. He said he was told a primary objective was to “disrupt whiteness” in the school — and that the sessions were “not a place to express white guilt.” He said he questioned a trainer who used the phrasing “so-called United States,” as well as lessons available on the organization’s web site offering “Lil’ Comrade Convos,” or positing a world without police, money or landlords.

Craven-Neeley, who is white and a self-described “gay moderate,” said he wasn’t trying to be difficult when he asked for clarification about disrupting whiteness. “What does that mean?” he said, adding that such questions got him at least temporarily banned from future training sessions. “I just want to know, what does that mean for a third-grade classroom?”

Another Glassbrook teacher said Woke Kindergarten offered one perspective on issues and that there was no tolerance for questions. “It slowly became very apparent if you were a dissenting voice that it’s not what they wanted to hear,” said the teacher, who requested anonymity for fear of pushback at the school. 

The teacher did not find the training helpful or productive. “Our reading scores are low,” they said. “That could have gotten us a reading interventionist.”

Hayward Superintendent Jason Reimann said the decision to hire Woke Kindergarten, which was approved by the school board, was made by the school community, including parents and teachers, as part of a federal improvement plan to boost student achievement by improving attendance.

The school community, including parents, teachers and staff, identified a provider to help them do that, Reimann said. He noted a subsequent improvement in student attendance, with 44% of students considered chronically absent last year, down from 61% the year prior. A similar improvement  was seen districtwide.

Glassbrook has been on the state’s Comprehensive School Improvement list since 2020, slightly improving in 2022 and then being reassigned to the lowest-performing level this school year.

Reimann said the district didn’t hire Woke Kindergarten for its politics, but rather its work in restorative practices, helping eliminate suspensions and removals from classrooms while luring more students back into seats.

“We are in favor 100% of abolishing systems of oppression where they hold our students back,” he said. “What I do believe is we should pick providers based on their work and how effective they are.”

The superintendent said Woke Kindergarten wasn’t hired to improve literacy and math scores, but that “helping students feel safe and whole is part and parcel of academic achievement.” He added, “I get that it’s more money than we would have liked to have spent.”

Woke Kindergarten was founded by former teacher Akiea “Ki” Gross, who identifies as they/them and describes themselves as “an abolitionist early educator, cultural organizer and creator currently innovating ways to resist, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy, Woke Kindergarten.”

They established the for-profit company in 2020 in Maryland, although the Woke Kindergarten website says it is “primarily community sustained” and relies “primarily on donations.”

Education policy experts said that while the name of Gross’ organization and the words “abolitionist education” were provocative, many parents, teachers and others are feeling politically empowered after pandemic battles over masking and when to reopen schools.

“It doesn’t feel necessarily new, but more common right now is that some schools and some leaders are being intentionally provocative,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute, a nonpartisan policy think tank. It feels, he said, like people are “leaning into these culture battles in schools,” whether on the left or right, although he said he couldn’t speak specifically about Woke Kindergarten.

And to a degree, these battles — whether over book bans, LGBTQ issues or the war in Gaza — are expected given schools are largely under local control, meaning they reflect their communities, said Joseph Kahne, professor of education policy at UC Riverside.

“How loud particular groups have become on the left and right and how organized and commercialized these agendas have become, that seems new,” said Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley education professor. 

Julie Marsh, a professor of education policy at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, cautioned that it can be “problematic when teaching strays too far into the political ideology realm. It’s just a big distraction from some of the bigger purposes of education and what we should be focusing on.”

Craven-Neeley, the Glassbrook teacher, said he had experienced the pull of the nation’s culture wars from both sides of the political spectrum. As a veteran teacher in Modesto, he sued the school district after it prevented him from talking about his husband, or talking about LGBTQ history, including gay rights icon Harvey Milk. He said he settled out of court.

Woke Kindergarten “had a lot of good things. I think race should be addressed. Children should be aware if they are being discriminated against,” he said. “But as a teacher of Hayward Unified, I shouldn’t have to get on the bandwagon of defunding police or insulting our country.”

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“You may have been told that you need glasses, but that’s actually a lie.” So says Samantha Lotus, a self-described “holistic master coach” and Canadian online wellness influencer, who says she can teach you to see clearly again for only $11. Lotus is offering her tens of thousands of social media followers the chance to throw away their glasses and heal the “spiritual, emotional, mental and physical reasons” behind their bad eyesight, according to an Instagram post. Lotus says she teaches “holistic multidimensional healing” methods and has already healed her own eyesight, so that she no longer needs glasses, according to her social media. In a post on Friday, Lotus claimed she had 338 people signed up to take her online masterclass. But there’s a catch: “If you’re closed minded and want to stay a victim, this is NOT FOR YOU,” she writes.

The Rise and Fall of the Chief Diversity Officer

“Everything is a battle.” Diversity executives hit the exits as company priorities shift.

WSJ

Two years ago chief diversity officers were some of the hottest hires into executive ranks. Now, they increasingly feel left out in the cold.

Companies including Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have recently said that high-profile diversity, equity and inclusion executives will be leaving their jobs. Thousands of diversity-focused workers have been laid off since last year, and some companies are scaling back racial justice commitments.

Diversity, equity and inclusion—or DEI—jobs were put in the crosshairs after many companies started re-examining their executive ranks during the tech sector’s shake out last fall. Some chief diversity officers say their work is facing additional scrutiny since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions and companies brace for potential legal challenges. DEI work has also become a political target.

“There’s a combination of grief, being very tired, and being, in some cases, overwhelmed,” says Miriam Warren, chief diversity officer for Yelp, of the challenges facing executives in the field.

In interviews, current and former chief diversity officers said company executives at times didn’t want to change hiring or promotion processes, despite initially telling CDOs they were hired to improve the talent pipeline. The quick about-face shows company enthusiasm for diversity initiatives hasn’t always proved durable, leaving some diversity officers now questioning their career path. 

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in police custody in May 2020, companies scrambled to hire chief diversity officers, changing the face of the C-suite. In 2018, less than half the companies in the S&P 500 employed someone in the role, and by 2022 three out four companies had created a position, according to a study from Russell Reynolds, an executive search firm. 

Once mostly tasked with HR matters, today’s diversity leaders are expected to weigh in on new product development, marketing efforts and current events that have an impact on how workers and consumers are feeling. Warren and other CDOs said the expanded remit is playing out in a politically divided environment where corporate diversity efforts are the subject of frequent social-media firestorms. 

Falling demand

New analysis from employment data provider Live Data Technologies shows that chief diversity officers have been more vulnerable to layoffs than their human resources counterparts, experiencing 40% higher turnover. Their job searches are also taking longer. 

“I got to 300 applications and then I stopped tracking,” says Stephanie Lubin, who was laid off from her role as diversity head at Drizly, an online alcohol marketplace, in May following the company’s acquisition by Uber. In one case, Lubin says she went through 16 rounds of interviews for a role she didn’t get, and says she is now planning to pivot out of DEI work.

The number of CDO searches is down 75% in the past year, says Jason Hanold, chief executive of Hanold Associates Executive Search, which works with Fortune 100 companies to recruit HR and DEI executives, among other roles. Demand is the lowest he has seen in his 30 years of recruiting.

At the same time, he says, more executives are feeling skittish about taking on diversity roles.

“They’re telling us, the only way I want to go into another role with DEI is if it includes something else,” he says of the requests for broader titles that offer more responsibilities and resources. He estimates that 60% of diversity roles he is currently filling combine the title with another position, such as chief human resources officer, up from about 10% five years ago.

During the pandemic, some companies moved people into diversity leadership if they were an ethnic minority, says Dani Monroe, even when they weren’t qualified. Monroe served as CDO for Mass General Brigham, a Boston-based hospital system and one of the largest employers in the state, until 2021 and convenes a yearly gathering of more than 100 CDOs.

“These were knee-jerk reactions,” she says of the hurried CDO hires, adding that some of those elevations didn’t create much impact, leaving both sides feeling disillusioned.

On-the-job obstruction 

American workers are split on the importance of a diverse workforce, surveys find. 

Diversity chiefs also encounter obstruction from top executives, says Melinda Starbird, a human resources and diversity executive who has worked at AT&T, Starbucks and OfferUp, an online marketplace. Leaders sometimes associate diversity efforts with mandates, such as the equal-employment rules that apply to federal contractors. Those requirements for compliance can create executive resistance that bleeds over into other cultural or policy shifts, such as adding Juneteenth as a company holiday, she says. 

“Even if you report to the CEO, it’s still a battle and it’s a smaller budget,” says Starbird, who was laid off from OfferUp in November during a broader restructuring. 

Many diversity executives feel a lack of buy-in from their colleagues. In a survey of 138 diversity executives conducted this spring by World 50 Group, a networking organization for corporate leaders, 82% said they had sufficient influence to do their job, down 6 percentage points from 2022. Asked if they felt supported by middle managers, 41% said yes, an 8-percentage-point drop.

Since the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in June, companies are anticipating spillover legal action could have an impact on them. Those that are still hiring CDOs want people who can help the board navigate the political and legal landscape of diversity work and figure out how to take defensive moves to shield them from litigation, says Tina Shah Paikeday, global leader of Russell Reynolds’s diversity, equity and inclusion practice. 

“They recognize it would be smart to get ahead of that.”

People are more resistant to company-backed efforts to advance diversity when they are worried about their own jobs, whether because of impending layoffs or disruptions from AI, says David Kenny, chief executive of Nielsen, the media-ratings company. 

Kenny was both CEO and CDO for a time, taking on the diversity role to emphasize how important it was to the future of the business. Even as CEO, it could be a tough sell. Efforts to restructure compensation to make it more equitable created a backlash.

“A lot of it is, ‘I’m losing my slice of the pie,’ ” he says.

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