The GOP's Continuing War on Education

The Republican position on education now seems clear: Children should not be exposed to anything that the most bigoted, fearful parent in their school objects to. To do otherwise would be to violate the “rights” of parents. The parents whose rights merit the most concern seem to be white and Republican. The "right" in question is to control not just one’s own children but other people’s children and the concept of education as a public good.

Last week, House Republicans passed a "Parents Bill of Rights" intended to move this toward a reality nationwide, but you only have to look at Florida to see how it plays out. In Pinellas County, Florida, a movie about Ruby Bridges has been removed from the schools for review after a parent named Emily Conklin complained that it might cause white kids to learn that white people hate Black people.

The film in question is a Disney production released in 1998 and shown in Pinellas County schools for years, according to the Tampa Bay Times, and now, in 2023, it’s going to be a problem because … white kids are going to learn to be more racist? Or white kids are going to feel bad about white racism? We’ve been through the “white woman objects to kids learning about Ruby Bridges” thing before.  The reality is that these privileged snowflake parents object to having kids learn just how how ugly racism is, how recently segregation existed, and how racism was open, public and vicious. The objection is to kids identifying with Bridges and being upset about how she was treated.

This is about the idea that one parent’s objection can up-end the curriculum for an entire school district.  Emily Conklin had already decided not to allow her child to watch Ruby Bridges. But that wasn’t enough for her-- she had to keep every kid from seeing it by claiming that it was inappropriate for all of them. Again, we are talking about a 1998 Disney movie about the experiences of a first-grader that has been shown in the schools for years. What kind of parents wouldn't want their kids watching Ruby Bridges and discussing it with their classmates under the leadership of a professional educator?  Don't these parents want their kids to be educated about the real world or not?

Pinellas County also recently pulled Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye from high schools after a single parent’s complaint. And this is all happening in a state that last year rejected 42 math textbooks because they included social-emotional learning concepts and discussion of race that the state prohibited. A similar review of social studies textbooks this year led a textbook company to preemptively strip mentions of race out of the Rosa Parks story. It’s a state where the governor is instituting a partisan takeover of public higher education, with political appointees having the last word on faculty hiring decisions. The objections to specific texts may come from individual parents, but they are empowered by the entire state political structure.

Public education should be a public good. It should be about ensuring that all children have access to a good education.  It’s also about strengthening democracy by educating kids about how we got where we are and about what threats to democracy—like segregation and institutionalized racism—look like. It’s about teaching kids that their communities go beyond people who look and think just like them. Republicans are trying to dismantle all of this.