US public schools have been around a long time. By 1837, 34 states had already mandated compulsory education. With more than a few battles along the way – like the teaching of evolution or our bouts with desegregation and school prayer – we had never resort to massive censorship, lesson plan and book banning that we face in our schools and public libraries today. It is virtually always in red states, as contemporary Republican legislatures have focused on banning books and teaching subjects addressing discrimination against individuals throughout US history primarily by reason of race or gender (so-called “critical race theory” or “CRT”). Laws passed as solution to a problem we really do not have! Just political bating and electioneering.
Education advocacy group PEN American has found that “There is a legislative war on education in America. At the heart of this war are educational gag orders—state legislative attempts to restrict teaching, training, and learning in K–12 schools and higher education. These bills, which generally target discussions of race, gender, sexuality, and US history, began to appear during the 2021 legislative session and quickly spread to statehouses throughout the country. By the year’s end, 54 bills had been filed in 22 states, of which 12 became law.” All totaled, Pen America tells us, 19 states now have laws targeting discussions of race, gender, and United States history; and 36 other states introduced 137 similar bills in 2022, marking a significant increase compared to the 54 bills proposed last year.
Many of these bills follow what in legal parlance is a PAGA enforcement pattern (“private attorneys general acts”), where individual citizens can initiate claims and either force a mandatory board review of whatever they allege or, if they bring a PAGA lawsuit, victory assures a financial reward to the prevailing citizen-plaintiff. In a September 7th CNN.com article, Nicole Chavez add: “A Texas school district is removing and reviewing dozens of challenged books, including the Bible and an Anne Frank adaptation.
“‘For teachers and for students, what this amounts to is an escalating campaign of censorship. A dramatically increased chilling effect that is leading to all kinds of negative outcomes within the classroom,’ said Jeremy Young, senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America who has been tracking censorship in US classrooms… Young said those laws have so far impacted classrooms in multiple ways. They have led to teachers not bringing up topics that could be considered controversial to avoid trouble, curriculum and school policy changes, and books being banned from schools.
“In Missouri, school librarians have been reviewing books available on campus for potential removal to comply with a new law that makes it a crime to give students books that contain sexually explicit material. If school employees violate the state law, they could be charged with a class A misdemeanor, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a fine of $2,000.
“Meanwhile in Texas, the recent book removals have been linked more broadly to the ongoing efforts by community members rather than a direct response to legislative changes… Kate Huddleston, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas, said there has been an alarming trend of school districts pulling books off shelves in recent months.” To put it mildly, this red state trend of anti-CRT legislation is deeply impacting teachers in these states. Confusion and fear have resulted in teachers leaving the profession and making recruiting needed teachers increasingly difficult.
While there is a national teacher shortage, the greatest teacher gaps are in states with anti-CRT laws that create individual liability for the teachers themselves. As the United States continues to fall way behind China (which placed first) according to the last PISA test (Program for International Student Assessment) in math – the U.S. ranks 36th out of the 79 countries and regions that participate in the test (the majority of which are developed, OECD countries) – these red states prioritize their revisionist history, part of the new GOP “culture war,” over bringing our students up to international competitive standards… disincentivizing teachers from staying in the system. And that isn’t the only horrible that these laws are creating.
History is replete with brutal transitions from democracy to autocracy, and as my August 4th It Often Starts with Book Banning or Burning blog details, one of the earliest hallmarks of this historical toxicity is the kind of censorship we are experiencing here. The notion of not learning the lessons of history, to prevent repeating horrific mistakes, is a dangerous path. To graduate from the German equivalent of a public high school, for example, a student must take an in-person tour of a WWII concentration camp. German texts clearly discuss how Adolph Hitler took the country from democracy to a brutal, murderous dictatorship. Meanwhile, these American anti-CRT laws are purging the lessons of slavery, Jim Crow laws, racial and gender discrimination throughout our history… right into the present day.
The battle for which GOP leader can impact a right-wing agenda more seems to devolve between Republican Governors Ron DeSantis (Florida) and Greg Abbott (Texas). Florida started with their infamous “Don’t Say Gay” act, which ultimately pitted the state against the massive Walt Disney holdings in the state, has since expanded into laws that reach directly into the classroom and public libraries: “The anti-CRT legislation, also known as the ‘Stop W.O.K.E’ Act, was passed by lawmakers [in March, and signed into law a month later] with a section that prohibits teachers from giving lessons that would make students ‘feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.’
“Even DeSantis acknowledged on Friday [4/22] that there are no CRT courses in schools and that those types of courses are taught in universities, but claimed that its ‘principles’ are entering kids' education, thus making it an ‘indoctrination.’” Newsweek, April 22nd. The law facing a current challenge in federal court. In the end, especially after the slam to education from the pandemic, we are depriving American public-school students from an accurate and competitive education, simply to satisfy problematical politicians creating slogans and policies to draw cultural lines between “us and them,” pandering to get elected on truly non-existent issues.
I’m Peter Dekom, and this spate of culture war legislation only polarizes us further, pushes our students into becoming undereducated and unwilling pawns for ego-aggrandizing politicians and accelerates the continued unraveling of the democratic principles that once defined our nation.
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