Op-Ed: Educators Need to Know They Aren't Students' Parents
This may be news to some educators, but they aren’t their students’ parents.
It shouldn’t be surprising. However, some teachers, administrators and board of education members continue to try to circumvent parents’ right to know what their children are being taught.
In a recent example, a parent of a child at Fairfax High School in Virginia asked to attend a U.S. Department of Justice program held at the school. The DOJ School-Student Problem Identification and Resolution of Issues Together program is available for state and local officials “to help resolve and prevent racial and ethnic conflict, violence and civil disorder.” The parent was denied.
In another incident, the Hempfield School District in Pennsylvania apologized after a teacher hosted an after-school drag queen performance without notifying parents that students were invited to it.
“We are appalled at what took place and in no way condone this type of activity in our schools. Neither the dress of the invited guests nor the performance was appropriate in our school setting,” the administration wrote in an apology letter. The teacher was placed on administrative leave.
Parents are no longer allowing their children to be educated without their involvement, and they are taking a stand where things are taught that they don’t agree with.
In a recent election in Texas, all 15 school board candidates endorsed by an anti-critical race theory PAC won their elections. The 1776 Project PAC tweeted after the election, “We are ridding America’s schools of radical, left-wing agendas one election at a time.” Another conservative PAC, Patriot Mobile Action, endorsed 11 candidates and 10 won their elections.
A clean sweep.
All fifteen of our endorsed candidates in Texas school board races won their elections on Saturday.
We are ridding America’s schools of radical, left-wing agendas one election at a time. pic.twitter.com/DaoZ0YM82O
— 1776 Project Pac (@1776ProjectPac) May 9, 2022
It should be obvious to educators that parents don’t want politics in the classroom. Parents expect educators to teach their children the skills they need to get a good job and do well after graduation.
That is exactly what they aren’t doing. A 2018 Business Insider report showed U.S. students ranked 38th in the world in math scores. But rather than teaching children how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, our schools are only worried about the number of “underserved” people mentioned in word problems.
Teachers need to focus on helping children move up in the rankings and stop worrying about dividing them by race and gender. That may align with the teacher’s beliefs or not. It doesn’t matter. It is not up to the teacher.
We have parents who are acting as parents, and they are being persecuted because of it. It wasn’t that long ago that teachers blamed the lack of parent participation for children failing. Now that parents are involved, teachers feel they are being persecuted.
That’s not the case at all. They are being asked to teach while allowing parents to be parents. That’s the way it should be.
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