Across the country in at least a dozen states, Democrats are blocking bills that would require curriculum transparency in public schools. The teachers claim that giving parents access to their children’s learning materials online could lead to censorship and backlash against educators.
Parents are already entitled to request their child’s curriculum if they attend a public school, but there’s no requirement to post it online. Republicans in at least 12 states have introduced legislation that would require schools to post all teaching materials online, including what books, videos, and articles will be covered.
Teachers claim that parents who object to what their children are being taught might censor materials they don’t want their children to learn.
A Missouri bill sponsored by Republican state Rep. Doug Richey would do just that, but Democrats say curriculum transparency bills would only further embolden parents to censor certain materials and training, like those pertaining to critical race theory (CRT) – a framework that involves deconstructing aspects of society to discover systemic racism beneath the surface.
Richey’s bill, dubbed the Parents’ Bill of Rights, would also require schools to allow parents receive notifications whenever a teacher intends to teach a “divisive or controversial topic” that may conflict with a “parent’s belief that all persons, regardless of race, ethnicity, color, national origin, or ancestry, should be treated equally.”
“Parents have a fundamental right, responsibility and authority when it comes to their children,” Richey said to committee members Tuesday, FOX 2 reported.
The ACLU, which has championed transparency in government since its founding more than 100 years ago, has suddenly decided transparency ain’t such a good thing.
Emerson Sykes, staff attorney in the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, reiterated the ACLU’s position to Fox News Digital last week, saying the organization is “actively pursuing litigation to block” curriculum transparency bills.
“Government bodies should always strive for transparency, and the ACLU supports any good-faith effort to make public education as transparent as possible to parents and communities,” Sykes said. “But some of these so-called ‘curriculum transparency bills’ are thinly veiled attempts at chilling teachers and students from learning and talking about race and gender in schools. Their sponsors have said as much.
There is, in fact, a legitimate point to be made. In the rush to prevent CRT from being taught in schools and prevent the promotion of the idea of “gender fluidity” at the expense of science, valuable historical lessons may be given short shrift, and some teachers may feel pressured not to teach about some legitimate subjects for fear of being in violation of a law that’s been drawn too broadly.
Related: ACLU Opposing Transparency Laws That Would Expose Stealth CRT Instruction in Schools
What’s required in this situation is cooperation, not combat. If teachers want to teach using a political agenda as a template, they should go somewhere where that sort of teaching is tolerated. But most parents don’t want their children brainwashed by either the right or the left. They want the people teaching their children not to engage in propaganda for the sake of advancing a political party or candidate.
The simple fact is, the parents don’t trust many teachers or their unions or the school boards that approve the curriculum. Until that trust is somehow reestablished, addressing the issue intelligently won’t be possible.
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