Red States Tell You Teachers are Radicalizing Our Kids

 Gap Between Parent and Non-Parent Perceptions 

                      of School Quality Widens

% of Texas public school parents and % 

non-parents who give A or B grades for

local public schools

Charles Butt Foundation (Texas Public Opinion Research)

Red States Tell You Teachers are Radicalizing Our Kids

But What Do Parents with School-Age Children Really Believe?

To illustrate how teaching “radical” and inappropriate materials in public schools has become simply a right-wing political statement (as opposed to a bona fide championing of parents’ rights over their children’s public school curricula), it is important to look at what parents actually believe about their public schools and the teachers and what polled aggregations of voters believe, where non-parents are included in the samples. So let’s look at a powerful anti-CRT state, Texas, that has been proselytizing how children are being indoctrinated and misled in their schools. It is important to note the disparity between the opinions of those parents with school-age children compared to the overall general public without reference to parenthood. 

A Gallup Poll from August 2021 noted that “73% of parents of school-aged children say they are satisfied with the quality of education their oldest child is receiving. Twenty-eight percent of parents are ‘completely’ and 45% ‘somewhat’ satisfied, which is essentially unchanged from one year ago when satisfaction fell after the pandemic forced schools to close to in-person instruction…

“Gallup has also tracked Americans' satisfaction with the quality of K-12 education, generally, in the U.S. annually since 1999. For the past two years, U.S. adults were about as likely to say they were satisfied as dissatisfied with the quality of U.S. K-12 education, however the public now tilts more dissatisfied (54%) than satisfied (46%).” From Gallup. Now for a look at a super-red state, Texas:

“The share of public school parents giving their local public schools an A or B grade is up 12 percentage points in two years to 68 percent in the latest statewide survey on [Texas] public education by the Charles Butt Foundation [see below]. In contrast with the increase among parents, there’s a decline in school ratings among those without a child currently enrolled in K-12 schools. Forty-eight percent of non-parents now give their local public schools As and Bs, versus 56 percent a year ago. That makes for a 20-point gap between parents and non-parents in their ratings of the state’s public schools. 

“About three-quarters of public school parents also report that their child has a very or somewhat strong sense of belonging at school. And if other options were available, eight in 10 would choose to keep their child in their current school rather than send them to a different one.

“On teachers, public school parents also are now more likely than Texans overall to give A or B grades to the public school teachers in their community; 76 percent do so. And they’re slightly more apt than all Texans to say they’d like a child of theirs to have a career as a public school teacher. These are shifts from the past two years, when views among parents and non-parents were similar.

“Other results find substantial confidence in teachers. More Texans trust teachers to make decisions in the best interest of public school students than trust principals, local school boards, district administrators, or state elected officials. Seventy-six percent of Texans trust teachers to assess and monitor students’ academic progress; 67 percent, to develop and choose curriculum; and 65 percent, to support students’ self-management, interpersonal skills and decision-making skills.” Results from a Texas Poll taken by the Charles Butt Foundation (Public Opinion Research) from 9/24/21 thru 10/4/21. 

But if you listen to the rantings of Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, Texas school children are living in a hotbed of radical teachers indoctrinating the young with racial lies, Marxist propaganda and explicit sexual discussions… and parents are up in arms against this diabolical – if non-existent – trend. The same Governor who has signed legislation that makes it more difficult for minorities to vote (for example, 40% of the recently disqualified ballots in liberal Houston belonged to Black voters), moved enforcement of his evangelical base’s demand to end abortions to the general public now allowed to file individual lawsuits with minimum recoveries set for a victory with a very low threshold of proof, with parallel anti-CRT laws based on the that purported radicalization going on in public schools.

If teaching radical and un-American CRT lessons were a truly deep parental concern, that concern would be reflected in a radical rise in parental criticism of and faith in public schools and their teachers, certainly and clearly in the red states where statutes, banning CRT in one form or another, are being passed.  But parents’ feelings about their public schools have remained constant or risen, even in super-red state Texas. The only people that radical right-wing politicians have convinced of the rise of CRT are folks without school aged kids. Culture wars and CRT are political issues that really were not on anyone’s minds… and still have no real traction with parents. Pretty much, these unscrupulous politicians need causes to raise their electability, even if they have to fabricate the issues and further bring disunity and polarization to America.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while I think we should throw these manipulative bastards out of office in the next election, through voter manipulation and gerrymandering, these same politicians’ right-wing constituency has been given relatively enhanced power at the ballot box.