Post by ck4829 on Feb 16, 2022 18:11:32 GMT
In the space of a few short months, we’ve gone from a panic about teachers communicating critical race theory in K–12 schools (without even fully identifying what that idea means or whether it’s actually being taught in schools), to a proposal for a full-on surveillance regime to monitor such teachers, to a slate of new laws about punishing and even recovering money damages from them. If you blinked, you missed it. A year ago, we were fighting about how race, gender, and history were discussed in the classroom. Today, in states across the country, teachers are being threatened with tip lines, video cameras, and personal monetary liability and damages. From bitching to snitching in under a year.
Welcome, then, to the new normal: close parental supervision of educators to ensure loyalty and obedience. A New Hampshire bill was introduced this winter to regulate, by its own title, “teacher loyalty.” The text of the bill provides that “no teacher shall advocate any doctrine or theory promoting a negative account or representation of the founding and history of the United States of America in New Hampshire public schools which does not include the worldwide context of now outdated and discouraged practices.” It continues: “Such prohibition includes but is not limited to teaching that the United States was founded on racism.” Texas state Rep. Matt Krause famously produced a list in October of the 850 books he said “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signaled support for a bill advancing in the Florida Legislature that would restrict classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity that is not “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.” The bill defines neither of those two terms.
All this in addition to books being pulled out of school curricula.
And apart, again, from the book burning.
A Texas-style “bounty” bill recently proposed in Oklahoma would allow parents to directly sue teachers whenever a public school “promotes positions in opposition to closely held religious beliefs of the student.” A PEN America report documents how many new proposals would give parents such a right of action. In Iowa, a newly proposed bill would allow parents to watch live footage of their children in public school classrooms. Its proponent, Republican state Rep. Norlin Mommsen, justified the Orwellian surveillance with the argument that “similar to a body camera on a policeman, a camera takes away the ‘he said, she said’ or ‘he said, he said,’ type argument and lets them know ‘hey, we are doing a good job.’ It takes that argument away.” An Indiana bill now being debated in the state Senate prevents teaching “that any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin or political affiliation.” Schools must allow parents to enroll their kids in “alternative education” if they feel content in the classroom is inappropriate.
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent tracked this subtle move from bans on subject matter to snitch lines and the possible recovery of money damages. A new GOP proposal in West Virginia would establish a tip line to report teachers caught teaching “critical race theory”; it’s of course modeled on Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s tip line so that parents can report any teachers or school administrators who might be teaching “divisive” subjects like “critical race theory.” The tip lines are part of a long history, Sargent notes. Calls “for maximal parental choice and control in schools have been used by the right for decades as a smoke screen to sow fears and doubts about public education at its ideological foundations.”
All of this has less to do, as my colleague Lili Loofbourow pointed out, with “book bans” per se, or even the moral panic over the teaching of “critical race theory” (which is a term that means precisely whatever one wants it to mean at this juncture). It has more to do with the creeping encroachment of surveillance and snitching, and the attendant self-help that follows as solutions to perceived government failings. And of course, it also has everything to do with the GOP’s interest in slowly strangling public education. Having hounded good people out of local public health and local elections jobs, it’s now time to terrorize the teachers, principals, and school officials into living in constant fear of reprisal, including personal liability and sanctions. Most of these bills are so poorly crafted that an educator won’t know she’s run afoul of them until a parent complains. And no teacher can possibly know what subjectively causes any one student or parent to feel “uncomfortable.” Best to just let the kids color.
slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/whats-really-at-stake-in-the-war-on-teachers.html
Welcome, then, to the new normal: close parental supervision of educators to ensure loyalty and obedience. A New Hampshire bill was introduced this winter to regulate, by its own title, “teacher loyalty.” The text of the bill provides that “no teacher shall advocate any doctrine or theory promoting a negative account or representation of the founding and history of the United States of America in New Hampshire public schools which does not include the worldwide context of now outdated and discouraged practices.” It continues: “Such prohibition includes but is not limited to teaching that the United States was founded on racism.” Texas state Rep. Matt Krause famously produced a list in October of the 850 books he said “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signaled support for a bill advancing in the Florida Legislature that would restrict classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity that is not “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate.” The bill defines neither of those two terms.
All this in addition to books being pulled out of school curricula.
And apart, again, from the book burning.
A Texas-style “bounty” bill recently proposed in Oklahoma would allow parents to directly sue teachers whenever a public school “promotes positions in opposition to closely held religious beliefs of the student.” A PEN America report documents how many new proposals would give parents such a right of action. In Iowa, a newly proposed bill would allow parents to watch live footage of their children in public school classrooms. Its proponent, Republican state Rep. Norlin Mommsen, justified the Orwellian surveillance with the argument that “similar to a body camera on a policeman, a camera takes away the ‘he said, she said’ or ‘he said, he said,’ type argument and lets them know ‘hey, we are doing a good job.’ It takes that argument away.” An Indiana bill now being debated in the state Senate prevents teaching “that any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin or political affiliation.” Schools must allow parents to enroll their kids in “alternative education” if they feel content in the classroom is inappropriate.
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent tracked this subtle move from bans on subject matter to snitch lines and the possible recovery of money damages. A new GOP proposal in West Virginia would establish a tip line to report teachers caught teaching “critical race theory”; it’s of course modeled on Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s tip line so that parents can report any teachers or school administrators who might be teaching “divisive” subjects like “critical race theory.” The tip lines are part of a long history, Sargent notes. Calls “for maximal parental choice and control in schools have been used by the right for decades as a smoke screen to sow fears and doubts about public education at its ideological foundations.”
All of this has less to do, as my colleague Lili Loofbourow pointed out, with “book bans” per se, or even the moral panic over the teaching of “critical race theory” (which is a term that means precisely whatever one wants it to mean at this juncture). It has more to do with the creeping encroachment of surveillance and snitching, and the attendant self-help that follows as solutions to perceived government failings. And of course, it also has everything to do with the GOP’s interest in slowly strangling public education. Having hounded good people out of local public health and local elections jobs, it’s now time to terrorize the teachers, principals, and school officials into living in constant fear of reprisal, including personal liability and sanctions. Most of these bills are so poorly crafted that an educator won’t know she’s run afoul of them until a parent complains. And no teacher can possibly know what subjectively causes any one student or parent to feel “uncomfortable.” Best to just let the kids color.
slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/whats-really-at-stake-in-the-war-on-teachers.html