Greg Sargent on the latest assault on public school teachers:
Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia gubernatorial election persuaded Republicans that there’s political gold in attacking teachers for supposedly indoctrinating the nation’s children about race. So in GOP-controlled state legislatures, efforts to place new restrictions on teachers are accelerating.
But behind these efforts lie specific trends that could prove particularly toxic. The risk: They may make teachers believe they are on such thin ice that they end up whitewashing the U.S. past rather than dare to communicate hard truths about it.
That’s the key takeaway from a new report from PEN America on the latest batch of restrictions moving forward in GOP legislatures. The report shows that these efforts are expanding and getting more pedagogically pernicious in their goals.
The report’s top-line finding: Dozens of proposals have already been introduced this month to limit how our nation’s racial past and present are taught. That’s striking enough, but what’s underneath these efforts also matters.
There are three important features of these efforts, the report finds. The first is sloppy drafting: Many leave terminology vaguely defined, such as the idea that certain “concepts” are in some vague sense off limits. The second: Many explicitly target teachers’ speech and require direct punishment of speech that’s deemed a violation.
The third: Many come with a “private right of action,” allowing parents and citizens to seek to levy their own punishments against teachers, such as suing them in court. Put all this together, and the aim seems to go beyond the traditional exercise of state authority to set curriculums.
Instead, this seems to treat teachers as subversive internal threats who must be zealously rooted out at any deviation from orthodoxy. The vague drafting of prohibited concepts, combined with threats of action and/or punishment, seem structured to make educators feel constantly at risk, chilling the range of discussion.
“This is about putting the fear of God into teachers and administrators,” Jeffrey Sachs, the political scientist who authored the new report, told me. “Teachers are going to avoid discussing certain topics altogether — topics related to race, sex and American history that as a society we might want to discuss.”
And then there’s this from the media’s favorite so-called moderate Republican:
A level of statewide chaos unprecedented in recent memory is looming for Virginia schools, as a new Republican governor prepares to enforce a mask-optional mandate on Monday that many superintendents and parents have vowed to fight, or to uphold, with all the ammunition they can muster.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is just more than a week into his governorship, issued an executive order on his first day in office delegating to parents the decision on whether children wear masks at school. The order, which contravenes federal health guidance and masking requirements maintained by the vast majority of Virginia school districts throughout the coronavirus pandemic, is in keeping with Youngkin’s campaign promise to give parents greater control over all aspects of their children’s education.
The order is supposed to take effect Monday for all of Virginia’s roughly 130 school districts and more than 1.5 million public and private schoolchildren. But it has already plunged Youngkin into a bitter war with significant swaths of the public school system: Within days of the order’s announcement, superintendents in the suburbs just outside D.C. and in Youngkin’s new home, Richmond, promised to keep requiring masks. In response, Virginia’s lieutenant governor said Youngkin could pull funding from disobedient districts. A group of parents also sued to reverse the order, and Youngkin filed to dismiss their suit.
Schools have been a battle ground in the culture wars for decades. This is not new and I’m shocked that so many people of a certain age seem to have amnesia about that fact. (I don’t blame young people — nobody told them) This is one of their favorite strategies and they do it ALL THE TIME.
COVID and the made-up CRT controversy have added to a sense of urgency and I think they see their chance to advance their agenda. But don’t kid yourself, their overarching goal is to privatize public schools so they can indoctrinate kids their own way without interference. It’s always been their goal.
Teachers are public employees, they are unionized and they are predominately female and racially diverse. What could be a bigger enemy to the right than that? This kind of pressure is designed to chase good teachers out of the field and further degrade the institutions. They are already laboring with low pay, little respect and micromanaging the classroom. This assault from parents and politicians over closures and masking is likely to be the last straw for many. These are educated people. They can find other jobs in this market. And nothing will make the right wing happier.