Unschooled

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

After Republican Glenn Youngkin’s surprise gubernatorial victory in Virginia last week, political analysts attributed the win—at least in part—to white suburban women voters returning to the Republican Party. While some of this movement might have been due to the absence of Donald Trump on the ballot, many experts feel that Youngkin’s messaging about the evils of teaching of Critical Race Theory in Virginia public schools was a major factor in his win.

Critical Race Theory is—in fact—not taught in public schools, neither in Virginia nor anywhere else. It is an obscure academic school of thought focusing on the inability of the American legal system to address inequities and systemic racism. Recently, however, the term has been co-opted, twisted, pulled, and redefined by Republican strategists to mean any sort of history curriculum, diversity training, or ethnic studies that addresses systemic racism in our society. It has become a dog whistle signifying Black activism, and (for some white Americans), Black Lives Matter—which has in turn become a secondary dog whistle summoning up white visions of Black rioting, chaos, and revolution. 

According to The Washington County Insider, parents in Wisconsin’s West Bend School District have demanded that districts remove CRT (which—remember—does not exist as public school curriculum) and Social Emotional Learning, an actual existing curriculum, citing concerns that equity training favors certain students over others, and that, according to one parent, “… is divisive, bias, radically left Marxism designed to further alienate our beautiful children from each other.” 

In fact, SEL is designed to “promote social justice,” and “make explicit issues such as power, privilege, prejudice, discrimination and social justice,” prompting one parent to ask, “Why do you think it’s ok to continue teaching something parents don’t want?”

Aside from the puzzling question of why parents wouldn’t want their children to understand and implement social justice, equity, this statement begs the question of how much say should parents have in what schools teach their children. Not much, according to the law. Charter schools and even homeschooled children are required to follow state curriculum standards. According to The Washington Post, “case law and common law have long supported the idea that children should be taught to think for themselves.” Yet states like Florida and Indiana, which has recently introduced a Parental Bill of Rights, maintain that parents should be able to sue schools that teach curriculum they don’t agree with. 

This sort of narrow-mindedness is hardly new. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Beloved—along with dozens of other literary works—have at one time or another been banned from school libraries because of opposition labelling them as subversive or perverted. Sex education in public schools was, and in some areas still is, discouraged by elements of the community. The teaching of American history, specifically our nation’s complicity in and responsibility for slavery and Native American genocide, has come under fire.  And today, the controversy surrounding CRT has, like masking and vaccines, been politicized by the political right.

Republicans focusing their attacks on public schools is hardly surprising. In the last administration, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sought to expand charter school vouchers, a program that siphons money from public schools in order to support privatized corporate schools, some of which are private religious-based institutions. The result of this has been the erosion of resources flowing into public school districts.

In 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker implemented Act 10, which severely restricted public-school funding and eliminated collective bargaining for public employees, including teachers. Ten years later, school districts across the state are suffering a chronic teacher shortage and many districts have been unable to update their buildings, textbooks, and staff. 

And now, in the wake of the pandemic, public schools in Wisconsin and elsewhere are under renewed attacks. As a result of right-wing fanatical opposition to Covid 19 vaccines, school board members across the country have been subjected to recall elections, and, in some e cases, have been physically threatened. 

In Wisconsin’s affluent Mequon-Thiensville school district angry constituents attempted to recall four school members because of their support of mask mandates. None of them lost their seats, but incidents of threats and violence at school board meetings by anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers across the country have been on the rise. Hecklers and protestors have caused meetings to be adjourned or delayed while some school board members have resigned due to fear of harm to themselves or their families. 

Public schools were created to produce a population of responsible citizens prepared to enter the workplace, willing to work for the common good, and ready to fulfill their part of the social contract. Public schools were designed to create equal opportunities for all its citizens by providing them with a free education. And to be good citizens, our young people should not simply parrot the beliefs of their parents (or the political ideologies of their parents), but to be able to make up their own minds. Our children need the critical thinking skills necessary for them to examine the world, decide their best course, and to navigate that course. 

Public schools are designed to create well-rounded thinkers through academics, physical education, and the arts. Sadly, our arts programs are declining while academics seem to be focused more on increasing standardized test scores than on enhancing critical thinking skills. 

Creating a following which distrusts and disparages public education and belittles scientific thought has been a Republican goal for decades. Apparently, they don’t want free-thinking and creative citizens. 

They’d rather have people who would vote for them.