‘Free Speech Advocates’ Panic Over Parents’ Push for More Curriculum Transparency

Teachers, unions and “free speech advocates” argue that more school curriculum transparency would be equivalent to “educational gag orders,” experts told NBC News.

State lawmakers in at least 12 states across the U.S. have introduced legislation to promote more school transparency by requiring teachers to post educational materials online, NBC News reported. Conservatives see more transparency as a way to prevent controversial curricula such as race-based education, Critical Race Theory (CRT) and sexually graphic books.

CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.

“People are going to disagree on a lot of these issues,” Matt Beienburg, the Goldwater Institute’s director of Education Policy, told NBC News. “Transparency is something I think that at least allows for that conversation to know what is being taught. Everybody should be able to rally around the fact that we shouldn’t be teaching something in secret.”

Public schools have become battlegrounds for culture wars over mask rules, COVID-19 vaccinations, school reopenings, CRT and remote learning. Parents have called on school boards across the country to allow them more of a say in what their children are being taught.

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe with the help of parents who were fed up with the current administration and the state’s policies, and made it clear they wanted to see change in the state’s education system. 

He promised to ban concepts like CRT and to put parents first. McAuliffe slipped out of favor when he claimed CRT was a “racist dog whistle” and made the assertion that he doesn’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.

“We reject the notion that parents shouldn’t have a say in what their kids are learning in school,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a Jan. 11 speech.

Chris Rufo, journalist and anti-CRT proponent, has been critical of teachers unions who “don’t want families to see what’s happening in the classroom.”