Parents Rights, CRT, & Banned Books: Reflections on the Current Misinformation Campaign in Education

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is traveling around Texas promoting his parental bill of rights. The thing is, the Texas Education Code already has a Chapter labeled "Parental Rights and Responsibilities" which states that "[u]nless otherwise provided by law, a board of trustees, administrator, educator, or other person may not limit parental rights." So why is he pushing for rights that parents basically already have? Because he's running for reelection of course and he's apparently hoping to use parents' anger as fuel for his campaign. Meanwhile, there are HUGE issues currently facing public education right now, and the last 2 years of the pandemic have only made them worse. Here are my reflections on the current misinformation campaign going on in public education right now.

The Misinformation Campaigns

There has been a lot of misinformation lately going around lately and has been considered as "ubiquitous" by some. In politics, Donald Trump is still claiming that he won the 2020 election, despite the fact that the GOP has only won 3 of the last 10 popular votes for president (2004, 1988, and 1984), none of which included him. In healthcare, people are falsely claiming drinking urine is an antidote for Covid-19. In public education, there have been a number of misinformation campaigns. Among the top three, I've seen is the idea that parents are lacking rights with regards to their children's education, Critical Race Theory is being taught at the K-12 level, and there are books in the school libraries that are "inappropriate."

- Parents Rights

As noted above, parents already have the right to access everything involving their child. So why this sudden push to get parents rights they already have? My guess is that it had a lot to do with the 2021 election, which I discussed in a previous post. In particular, during the Virginia gubernatorial election, a great deal was brought up over education, especially parents' roles in what students were being taught. This culminated in a debate, where former Governor Terry McAuliffe said "I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach." His Republican opponent re-framed this statement to say that he didn't think parents had a role in their children's education and used it to hammer his way to become Virginia's current governor. Since then, it appears that conservatives across the country have been trying to use this idea of parents' rights to get themselves elected/re-elected, and as a result we see people like Abbott push his Parental Bill of Rights.

- Critical Race Theory

I also discussed in my previous post how things like Critical Race Theory (CRT) were weaponized by a number of politicians during the 2021 elections. There have even been several states that have passed legislation to address race in classrooms to prevent children from learning it, but the problem is it isn't taught at the k-12 level. In reality, it's a doctorate-level subject taught at some law schools and graduate programs. I have a law degree and taught at the law school level, but have never taken the course myself because it wasn't offered while I was in law school. The problem is that everything involving race has been mislabeled as CRT.

- Banned Books

I recently saw someone mention how the Nazis didn't start with genocide in the 1940s, but banned/burned books that were considered unpatriotic in the 1930s. Today, we see a big push to ban books deemed "inappropriate." Meanwhile, most of the same children have access to the internet where they can find the most violent and sexually inappropriate material available on demand. State Representative Matt Krause compiled a list of 850 books he noted that would make students feel "uneasy," and have led to a number of school districts pulling books from the shelf that were on Krause's List. It should also be noted that the books on his list largely deal with sexuality, race, and U.S. history.

Real Issues in Education Right Now

While politicians are making up issues that either don't exist in our educational landscape or are such little concern that it wouldn't make most educators top 20 issues going on in their schools right now, there are a plethora of actual issues that do. Among them is a pandemic that has lingered on for nearly 2 years and led to things like health concerns, critical staff shortages, and existing learning disparities in the schools.

- Health Concerns

The pandemic has changed the way we all do life over the last couple of years, but very few areas have had as many challenges presented to them as those in the education space. They had to go completely virtual almost at the drop of a dime at the beginning of the pandemic. Then they had to navigate hybrid learning environments, where some students were in class and others remained at home. Now, while most students have returned to the classrooms, they've had to deal with various waves of Covid, including the extremely contagious Delta and Omicron variants. This has been further complicated by a variety of policies for mask mandates in school districts and sick time available to them to take off if they test positive. Seeing that one-third of teachers are considered higher risk of severe illness based on their age, there is a serious risk to their health, especially if they decide not to get vaccinated.

- Staff Shortages

One of the biggest immediate consequences of the pandemic have been the critical staffing shortages. In some schools, up to 30% of the staff have been out sick. Additionally, there has been a substantial number of teacher resignations, which has strained the remaining teachers even more. All of this has caused major problems in keeping in-person instruction in place. I've heard personal stories of superintendents standing in as substitute teachers to address some of these shortages in their districts.

- Students With Severe Learning Loses

It was no secret that there were a variety of disparities before the pandemic began. However, the pandemic seems to have exacerbated these disparities. For K-12, have averaged being 5 months behind in math and 4 months behind in reading. These losses have been even worse for historically disadvantaged students, from minority and low-income communities, which average a loss of 6 and 7 months respectively.

Whoever Is Interested in Helping Education Should Address the Actual Needs

Education used to be a bipartisan issue, but it appears that many from the far-right seeking election and re-election would prefer that it become a wedge issue. Seeing that there are major issues going on in education right now at the same time many are creating misinformation campaigns, I'd say its beyond time that folks on the left not only call out the countless number of misinformers on the right but also call for those seeking actual solutions to very real problems going on in education right now. Rallying behind the Biden agenda on infrastructure, voting, and his Build Back Better Plan are all worthwhile endeavors. However, I would suggest that addressing the needs of our education system is critical for both its major current needs and the future of our nation. Education is typically more of a state and local issue, so it will need to be gubernatorial, state, and local officials who will need to rally the cause on this issue. That being said, I'd suggest people like Beto O'Rourke consider addressing the issues that touch people's children like education, as opposed to quirky messaging on the issues that took place as a result of his failures during the last winter storm.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while it's clear that there are a number of people producing misinformation campaigns hoping to get parents riled up enough to vote for their election/re-election, major actual problems exist in our education system. While I wish that education was something that could continue to garner bipartisan support, many from the far-right have trampled that dream. As such, it will be up to those on the left side of the aisle to seek to actually address the issues of our children, who hold the keys to all of our future.