Bullying, Right Wing Parents Have No Place In Public Education

The Virginia governor's race has shown a spotlight on the GOP's manufactured "parents' rights" movement which, if not blunted, would allow a loud minority to censor public education and erase segments of the population for mention whatsoever.  Naturally, those the Christofascists and white supremacists of the GOP base want to erase are racial minorities, especially blacks, and LGBT individuals. In the preferred world of these bigots, we simply would not exist and our contributions to America's history and society would never be mentioned in public school curriculums.  GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin is running a dishonest ad that takes statements of Democrat Terry McAuliffe out of contest to act as if Mcauliffe wants to silence parents.  Nothing could be further from the truth and McAuliffe merely opposing bullying, racist and extremist minorities for dictating school policies and curriculum.  The ad is a lie, but then Youngkin (and the rest of the GOP statewide slate) is lying about many things, including his ties to hate groups such as The Family Foundation and Family Research Council, the latter of which has a leader with documented ties to white supremacist groups.  The Washington Post slams the ugly elements of the GOP base who are seeking to threaten and intimidate school boards across the country.  Here are editorial highlights (in Texas, some parents frighteningly wanted "both sides" of the Holocaust to be taught):

As Virginia’s governor in 2016, Terry McAuliffe (D) faced the decision of whether to sign into law a bill that would have required schools to notify parents of instructional material with sexually explicit content. “Parents,” we wrote, “should be involved in their children’s education and schools should heed their concerns.” Nonetheless, we urged Mr. McAuliffe to veto the measure. Most school districts have in place policies or practices that take into account the concerns of the community and those of individual parents; the bill would have undermined the ability of local school boards to make decisions, and it targeted notable books by authors of color.

Mr. McAuliffe rightly vetoed the bill, and that decision has surfaced as an issue in his race to reclaim the governorship against Republican Glenn Youngkin. In defending his decision, Mr. McAuliffe misspoke in saying “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Mr. McAuliffe’s campaign said the comment, made last month in the second and final debate before the November election, was taken out of context.

Mr. Youngkin has seized on the misstep, putting Virginia front and center in the nation’s increasingly heated debate over what should be taught in schools and who gets to decide. . . . there also are legitimate concerns about some Republicans stoking a “parental rights” movement for political gain, furthering cultural divisions. By their telling, a cabal of school administrators and teachers have sidelined parents from critical decisions including mask wearing, sex education and the teaching of U.S. history.

No question that parents should have a say in the education of their children, but individual parents can’t dictate that schools teach what they want.

Allowing one parent — or a group of parents — to bully, threaten and intimidate school officials into their way of thinking is not what our democracy is about. And it is not what learning should be about. It is chilling that a school administrator in Texas suggested that an opposing view of the Holocaust needed to be taught to comply with the state’s controversial law on curriculum content. Everyone — parents, teachers and school administrators, as well as politicians — needs to focus less on what books are being taught and more on giving students the skills to think critically and form their own judgments.

If not stopped, these right wing elements will next be pushing for creationism to replace hard science and many will be erased from curriculums across the country.  White Christian nationalists should never be allowed to dictate school policies and ban books they dislike from school libraries as is now happening in the Virginia Beach City Public Schools.