Parental and conservative activists nationwide say “social emotional learning” is priming students to learn critical race theory while sidelining parents from caring for their children’s mental health.
Now facing scrutiny, retailers of the method insist it only serves to help students manage their emotions and learn empathy.
A defining moment in the push against social emotional learning, or SEL, occurred at a September school board meeting in Southlake, Texas, at which a local mother called on the Carroll Independent School District to ban SEL, saying it amounted to “advertising suicide.”
The harsh charge represents the activist accusation that SEL is a Trojan horse for liberal ideas, including critical race theory and gay and transgender advocacy.
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While advocates of SEL deny the charge, it is difficult to find a common and clear explanation of what SEL does and does not include. A search for a definition among several organizations that provide SEL materials and promote it yielded a number of broad definitions.
The Committee for Children, for example, defines SEL as “the process of developing the self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills that are vital for school, work, and life success.”
Other groups such as Positive Action and the Chicago-based Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning offer similar definitions that emphasize learning empathy, controlling emotions, and making “responsible and caring decisions.”
In a statement provided to the Washington Examiner, the Committee for Children further expanded its definition, saying, “SEL helps all of us listen to one another, bridge differences across cultures, and take meaningful steps to improve our communities.”
The focus on empathy and mental health was what drew the ire of Southlake parents, who said the mental health of their children should be the sole responsibility of parents, not an ever-increasing number of school counselors, the Daily Mail reported.
Asra Nomani, the vice president of Parents Defending Education, criticized companies like the Committee for Children and CASEL for using “‘social and emotional learning’ and ‘equity’ initiatives to build ‘psychometric’ and ‘mental health’ profiles on K-12 students.”
SEL contains no obvious connection to critical race theory, which promotes the idea that American culture and institutions are systemically racist and continue to oppress racial minorities, especially black people.
But conservative activists have said SEL is operating as a cover for ideas such as critical race theory and liberal sexual ethics.
“They use social and emotional learning as a Trojan horse to bring critical race theory and LGBTQ+ curriculum to the classroom,” Nomani said.
A research paper published by the San Francisco-based WestEd, an education nonprofit organization, tied social and emotional learning to critical race theory, saying that “individuals who have developed strong academic and social-emotional skills” are better equipped to “make their own decisions” about what they “perceive” through the lens of critical race theory.
But Boston-based Panorama Education, which provides resources and programs for SE, flatly denied that critical race theory is tied to its work on the company’s frequently asked questions webpage.
What Panorama Education does tout are the tangible results it says schools have seen, including higher graduation rates and student grades.
“As the pandemic continues to take a toll on the mental health of the nation’s young people, our work has led to wellness checks on students who asked for a caring, trusted adult to check in on them,” a spokesperson for Panorama Education said in a statement. “Improving student performance and mental health is the centerpiece of social-emotional learning and why we’re so passionate about what we do.”
The company came under fire last month after it was revealed that it was co-founded by Xan Tanner, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s son-in-law. The disclosure came shortly after Garland issued a memo establishing an FBI-Justice Department task force to investigate threats against school board members at the behest of the National School Boards Association, which had called for parents protesting critical race theory in public schools to be investigated as domestic terrorists.
In an Oct. 8 letter to Garland, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said it was concerning that there was an “alleged connection between your family members and controversial curricula that will directly benefit from this memorandum and the chilling of speech.”
While most of it is not obviously controversial, what is contained in an SEL lesson varies substantially. Panorama Education lists several dozen topics that are covered by its program. The topics are separated into three categories: “Student Skills and Competencies,” “Student Supports, Environment, and Well-Being,” and “Teacher Well-Being and Adult SEL.” The vast majority have to do with psychological issues, such as managing emotions and having social awareness.
The student supports and the teacher well-being categories both contain several topics focused on “cultural awareness and action” that deal with “how often students learn about, discuss, and confront issues of race, ethnicity, and culture in school.”
The teacher category includes a topic labeled “Professional Learning About Equity.” The description says that topic covers “perceptions of the quantity and quality of equity-focused professional learning opportunities available to faculty and staff.”
Parents Defending Education has compiled a database of what it says is a vast network of consultancy companies, including Panorama Education, that have secured millions of dollars in contracts with school districts nationwide.
Many of the companies listed in the database have ties to billionaire philanthropic organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and are generally known to be proponents of ideas closely tied to critical race theory. Others, such as Panorama Education, provide SEL materials.
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Panorama Education boasts that its SEL program was ranked as the “number one supplier of social-emotional learning (SEL) measurement tools” in a 2020 report by Tyton Partners, an investment consulting firm, which Panorama Education said is “supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”
