CRT Tenets
Leadership must actively dismantle systems that uphold racial inequities.
What is COMMITMENT TO SOCIAL JUSTICE?
It is embedded in everyday policies and practices—not just individual acts.
What is RACISM IS ORDINARY?
________enhance or diminish the agency of racial groups and legitimate the unequal distribution of resources.
What is RACIALIZED ORGANIZATIONS?
During a staff meeting, a Black teacher suggests a new literacy strategy that has been effective in her classroom. The principal quickly moves on to another agenda item without acknowledgment. Later, a white teacher proposes a similar idea, and the principal enthusiastically endorses it.
What is IGNORED BRILLIANCE?
School leaders must elevate the voices and experiences of those historically marginalized.
What is COUNTER-STORYTELLING?
This is an example of a CRT Tenet: A Black transgender student with an IEP is denied bathroom access during testing and misses accommodations.
What is INTERSECTIONALITY?
A school environment intentionally designed so minoritized youth experience safety, belonging, rigor, and cultural affirmation.
What is INCLUSIVE SPACE?
In a 6th-grade math class, a teacher assumes English Learners won’t be able to handle word problems and skips them altogether, focusing only on computation drills. Students are disengaged and stop raising their hands.
What is DEFICIT ASSUMPTIONS?
School leaders must understand how multiple, overlapping forms of oppression, such as racism, sexism, and classism, can contribute to create experiences of discrimination for the multiple identities of students.
What is INTERSECTIONALITY?
This is an an example of a CRT Tenet: A district adopts an ethnic studies elective only after a grant is offered and AP pass rates rise in pilot schools.
What is INTEREST CONVERGENCE?
Policies/routines that marginalize or surveil students (gatekeeping placements, punitive discipline, language-access failures).
What is EXCLUSIONARY PRACTICES?
At recess, a group of boys is roughhousing. Only the Latino students are disciplined and sent to the office, while their white peers are told to “settle down” and allowed to continue playing. A teacher standing nearby says nothing.
What is SILENCE IN DISCIPLINE?
School eaders examine how racial categories have been used to advantage some and disadvantage others.
What is RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT?
While Brown v. Board ended school segregation, critics argue it failed to legally enshrine this core CRT tenet, focusing on psychological harm instead of exposing racial categories as artificial legal inventions.
What is RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT?
Leaders visibly practice inclusive, culturally responsive behaviors in decisions and routines and structured, sustained relationships exist that build access and capacity for students and adults.
What is MODELING and MENTORING?
A high school student of color raises concerns at a student council meeting about how few students of color are in AP courses. The faculty advisor interrupts, saying: “That’s not what this meeting is about — let’s stay on topic.”
What is STUDENT VOICE SHUT DOWN?
Equity efforts are often supported only when they benefit those in power.
What is INTEREST CONVERGENCE?
School leaders utilize this CRT tenet to challenge dominant institutional narratives by intentionally elevating the lived experiences and testimonies of historically marginalized students and families.
What is COUNTER STORYTELLING?
Confront and change harmful norms/policies, even when unpopular and teach and protect students’ right to voice, choice, and complaint processes.
What is COURAGE and FOSTERING ADVOCACY?
A trustee seeks to pause an LGBTQ+ and Ethnic Studies ELA unit. Leaders must uphold AB 1078 while addressing community concerns. Which SLP Framework pillars does this scenario align with?
What is CHAMPIONING JUSTICE and NAVIGATING & PROPELLING CHANGE?