Education Week - February 23, 2022 - 8

How Politics
Are Straining
Parent-School
Relationships
The push for more parental
involvement in schools has become
entangled with national disputes
By Andrew Ujifusa
When a government official tells
members of the public he values
their feedback about education, the
declaration usually doesn't make
huge headlines.
But when Virginia's Republican Gov.
Glenn Youngkin in recent weeks talked
up his new " tip line " for parents to report
concerns about schools related to
racial issues and COVID-19, it spotlighted
the tense national political climate
affecting schools and educators
on the ground.
The nation's K-12 schools aren't
strangers to culture wars and concerns
about oversight. But new disputes
about transparency in curriculum and
the role of the general public in what
schools do every day have been supercharged
by prominent politicians, the
pandemic, divisions about race, and
other factors.
Caught in the middle are those like
India Meissel, who has taught in Virginia
for more than three decades.
The department chair of social
studies at Lakeland High School in
Virginia's Suffolk City school district,
Meissel said the governor's tip line is
not only threatening, but raises a host
of questions: What if a student's parents
report her based on a poor grade
and not actual misconduct? What if
there's no investigation into her work,
but the mere fact that she was reported
is made public? Will she even be able
to find out if she's been reported to the
email address?
" The tip line ... does that frighten
people? Yes, " Meissel said.
And from an educational standpoint,
she wonders who will exert real
authority over what counts as a " divisive
concept " in classrooms, instead of
something that's challenging but worth
exploring.
Educators find themselves under
the microscope
The number of teachers who are
preoccupied with those uncertainties
could soon grow.
This year, Republicans in at least
10 states are considering requiring
schools to publish lists of all the books,
reading materials, and other activities
teachers use. Some proposals would
allow parents to review materials before
they are added to lessons or the
school library, or to opt their children
out of certain activities.
Such proposals build on last year's
explosion of political pushback against
the teaching of what their sponsors
have deemed " divisive concepts " that
prompted 14 states to enact bans or restrictions
on how schools address topics
like racism and sexism. And beyond
curriculum, one bill in Arizona would
allow the state to punish teachers who
withhold students' confidences-like a
disclosure that a student is gay-from
their parents.
At the same time, through approaches
like Youngkin's tip line,
elected officials are expressing greater
interest in hearing concerns directly
from the public about reading materials,
academic content, or teaching
practices that they find objectionable.
A bill in the South Carolina legislature
introduced by a GOP lawmaker
on Feb. 7, for example, would create
a similar reporting system focused on
allegations of schools teaching critical
race theory.
A pattern could be emerging:
Elected leaders push for schools to
share exhaustive details of their work,
while encouraging parents to share
detailed concerns or complaints about
educators. Those same elected leaders
may then seek more disclosures
from-and potentially new restrictions
on-schools.
Members of Congress have introduced
versions of a similar " Parents'
Bill of Rights " that would require detailed
disclosures about curriculum
and other matters; a Senate version
would even create a mandate for parent-teacher
conferences. These proposals
have gained virtually no traction
on Capitol Hill so far. However,
the 2022 midterm elections and the
increased public attention that schools
have generated during the pandemic
could continue fueling interest in the
topic nationwide.
Supporters of the new pushes for
transparency and parental involvement
say that after the turmoil of the
last two years in which many parents
saw local schools struggle, it's natural
for policymakers and the public to put
schools under a more powerful microscope.
If schools then prove more
responsive to the demands of taxpayers
and state leaders who fund the
system, they argue, it's a praiseworthy
outcome.
8 | EDUCATION WEEK | February 23, 2022 | www.edweek.org
ideas, " Youngkin's order states.
In the order, Youngkin also initiated
reviews of state and local school
policies to link things like professional
development to the new restrictions.
Much of that work will be led by Jillian
Balow, who Youngkin appointed to be
Virginia's superintendent of public instruction
and who previously held the
same job in Wyoming.
Like many governors, Youngkin
is finding that getting his priorities
through the state legislature-such as a
bill enacting a ban on teaching " inherently
divisive concepts " that lawmakers
voted down-is difficult.
And Meissel, the Virginia teacher,
Above: History teacher Wendy
Leighton holds a copy of They
Called Us Enemy, about the
internment of Japanese
Americans, while speaking
about marginalized groups
with her students at Monte
del Sol Charter School in Santa
Fe, N.M.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin,
a Republican, signs an
executive order establishing
K-12 lab schools in January
2022. In his opening days, the
new governor issued
executive orders methodically
ticking off his top campaign
promises that effectively
banned classroom mask
mandates, and aimed to
restrict how students are
taught about racism.
Yet critics see a nefarious sleight of
hand. They allege that far from fostering
true transparency, lawmakers
are really interested in intimidating
educators while ignoring the practical
headaches such rules would create.
Calls for things like " curriculum transparency "
are just a stalking horse,
critics say, for forbidding ideas some
dislike, eroding trust in public schools,
and placing teachers at the mercy of
ideologues.
And some who sympathize with the
idea of transparency still worry that
mandated, sweeping disclosures will
do little or nothing to actually improve
the relationship between parents and
schools.
What a 'tip line' actually looks like
Youngkin's tip line for parents-in
practice an official Virginia government
email address-went online soon
after he unveiled an executive order on
the first day of his term in January that
put education squarely at the top of his
priority list, just as his campaign did.
His order stressed that while students
must learn about everything from
slavery and segregation to America's
triumphs over the Nazis and the Soviet
Union, concepts like critical race
theory must be prohibited because,
in Youngkin's view, they tell students
what to think about each other and not
how to think for themselves.
" Virginia must renew its commitment
to teaching our children the value
of freedom of thought and diversity of
doesn't believe a horde of adults will
rush to use the governor's tip line. Most
parents, she stressed, will still bring
questions and concerns to a teacher or
a principal without trying to turn the
situation into a big political incident.
She recalled one situation in which a
fellow teacher, following a concern
raised by a child's parent, was asked by
an administrator to use news sources
other than CNN with students, a request
Meissel thought was reasonable
and fair.
But going over educators' heads to
officials like Youngkin and the media
to lodge complaints, she said, essentially
tells them they are unworthy of
being treated like other professionals
with expertise.
" In many instances, it degrades
teachers, let's face it, " said Meissel,
who is also the president of the Virginia
Council for the Social Studies.
Meissel also warned that building
consensus and trust in school communities
might be more difficult if elections
and culture wars tighten their grip
on schools and teachers' professional
decisions.
As an experienced and established
teacher, " I probably will get the benefit
of the doubt, " said Meissel. " Does that
mean I'm going to relax? No. "
A new chapter for an old playbook
Fights over curriculum and transparency
date back decades. One prominent
example is the American Legion's
opposition in the 1930s and 1940s to
textbooks authored by Harold Rugg,
Steve Helber/AP
Cedar Attanasio/AP
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Education Week - February 23, 2022

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