(Headline USA) Republican state lawmakers across the U.S. are trying to require schools to post all course materials online so parents can review them.
This movement is part of a broader national push by the GOP for a sweeping parents bill of rights ahead of the midterm congressional elections.
At least one proposal would give parents with no expertise power over curriculum choices. Parents also could file complaints about certain lessons and in some cases sue school districts.
The bills arose from last year’s debate over the teaching of race, diversity and sexuality.
“I don’t think anybody disagrees that more information is better for parents,” said Brett Hillyer, a Republican state representative in Ohio who is co-sponsoring such a bill. He said the proposal could quell disagreements between parents, teachers and school boards before they get too far.
Other state considering some version of the idea include Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina and West Virginia.
The Ohio bill would affect public, private and charter schools, as well as colleges and universities that participate in the state’s dual-enrollment program for seventh through 12th graders.
Juliet Tissot, a mother of two from the Cincinnati suburb of Madeira, said elementary classrooms are a different story. The nonprofit worker and volunteer said schools stopped sending home textbooks years ago and often fail to provide curriculum details when asked.
“Children are with their parents a lot more than they’re with their teachers, and it’s bad that parents don’t know what’s going on—and they don’t anymore,” she said. “I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner, but it seems like it’s finally coming to a head.”
Tissot also supports policing teachers’ behavior more closely, including requiring them to wear body cameras.
The GOP acted after conservatives complained about public schools’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of critical race theory into the curriculum of many schools.
“The strategy here is to use a non-threatening, liberal value—’transparency’—to force ideological actors to undergo public scrutiny,” Christopher Rufo, a journalist who follows education issues, tweeted, explaining that the GOP proposals will “give parents a powerful check on bureaucratic power.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
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