Progressives Against Transparency
The ACLU joins Democratic politicians in opposition to making school curricula available to parents.
Zaid Jilani
January 26, 2022
Education
Politics and law
The Social Order
In at least a dozen states, Republican lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to make instruction in public schools more transparent. Pennsylvania’s bill, for example, would require public schools to post their curricula online. Democrats have largely opposed these bills, viewing them as the latest conservative salvo against critical race theory–inspired pedagogy. In vetoing the Pennsylvania legislation, Democratic governor Tom Wolf warned that the “legislation is a thinly veiled attempt to restrict truthful instruction and censor content reflecting various cultures, identities, and experiences.”
Taken literally, Wolf’s statement is false. Requiring schools to be transparent about what they’re teaching does not inherently restrict instruction or censor content. But Wolf, like many progressives, is obviously concerned that if citizens knew what is being taught in schools, then they might demand a change in curriculum.
As debates over school curricula have raged for the past year, progressives have openly expressed anti-democratic views about how the education system should operate. Nikole Hannah-Jones, progenitor of the New York Times’s 1619 Project, made her view clear during an NBC appearance. “I don’t really understand this idea that parents should decide what’s being taught,” she said. “I’m not a professional educator. I don’t have a degree in social studies or science. We send our children to school because we want them to be taught by people who have expertise in the subject area.” Meantime, Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe arguably cost himself a second term in the governor’s mansion by admitting that he didn’t “think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
So it shouldn’t be particularly surprising that the Democrats are resisting public school transparency. What’s more surprising is that the American Civil Liberties Union decided to join them in taking this position. The ACLU wrote on Twitter that the curriculum transparency bills are “are just thinly veiled attempts at chilling teachers and students from learning and talking about race and gender in schools.”
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