Hey Teacher, Leave Them Kids Alone

We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone
Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone
(Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall)

Parental Rights… we hear this mantra coming from the right over what schools can teach, what does it mean?

Right now the biggest flap that the far-right is pushing what they claim is being taught in schools, all around the country there is a cultural war going to bring our educations systems to its knees.

OP-ED | THE NEW POLITICAL CATCHPHRASE: ‘PARENTS’ RIGHTS’
CT News Junkie
By Barth Keck
July 24, 2022


As we approach the Connecticut primaries on Aug. 9, the political rhetoric is heating up. In addition to the abundant TV ads, I’ve noticed some increasingly popular language that has been thrown around by many Republican candidates discussing education: parents’ rights, parental choice, or some variation thereof.

“In order to ensure our children’s future, Connecticut’s school districts should remain local and we should give parents more choice as to where and how their children are educated,” states the website of GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski.

[...]

Themis Klarides, meanwhile, has titled one section of her website “Parental Rights.” The GOP-endorsed candidate hoping to unseat Richard Blumenthal in the U.S. Senate describes the concept this way: “Congress has a responsibility to protect local control and honor the rights of parents. Parents deserve options – the money should follow the child.”

[…]

Lemaj’s website, meanwhile, states, “Over the last couple years, we have seen our classrooms and curriculums become politicized in a way we’ve never witnessed before. Critical Race Theory has no place in any classroom … Vilifying parents or trying to block them from having a say in what their children are being taught will further polarize this critical issue that our children desperately need us as a nation to get right.”

Yeah and who has politicized it?

We don't need no thought control

Who are banning the books? Who are telling them what they can say in class? Who are telling what after class groups they can have? Who are forcing students to say prayers after a game? 

Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!

It is the Republicans who are stirring up hate.

And away we go! Now it seems like every GOP candidate across the country has jumped on the “parental rights” bandwagon. Clearly, not even Connecticut, whose public schools are fiercely local, is immune to the allure of this coded language, as national groups like Parent’s Choice, No Left Turn in Education, and Parents Against Stupid Stuff – among others – have sent representatives to school board meetings and have donated money to state politicians.

Down in states like Texas and Florida they have regional board of educations but here in Connecticut every town is a silo and have their own board of education so we have 169 BoEs.

Several local elections last November, in fact, featured school board candidates running on Rufo’s ready-made anti-CRT platform without providing any tangible evidence of how it’s taught in schools, let alone defining CRT itself. While all of these candidates were defeated last year, the issue is not going away – thanks in large part to the way GOP candidates from Connecticut have adopted “parental rights” as coded campaign rhetoric.

One of the things that I am concerned about of our town Board of Education is non-partisan, they are just individuals with no party affiliation. That doesn’t mean that they are not a member of a political party, it just means that they are not backed by a party.

My concern is that they could all be MAGA and we don’t know it. We could end up with a BoE so far right that they make Trump blush.

So, when Connecticut citizens vote in the upcoming primaries and general election, they should ask GOP candidates, “Can you show us, specifically, what is wrong with Connecticut schools and how, specifically, would you fix them?”

Good luck getting an answer beyond some bromide about “parents’ rights” or “parental choice.”

Oh… that is a big issue with me!

We have to cut taxes! But they don’t tell us what they would cut.

We have to cut wasteful government spending! But they won’t tell us which departments they would cut.

That is know as “A pig in a poke.”

Now they tell us that they want “parents rights” and we are suppose to figure out what that means. Critical Race Theory what the h*ll does that mean? “I don’t know but I’m against it!” because the Republicans says it is bad.

The Republicans hate public school! They only want white upper class children education, all the peons can pick apples and clean our mansions.

Is this the future of education going to look like?

I want my child to attend the following classes:

__ Reading & writing classes
__ Reading (but only the classic) & writing classes
__ Reading (but only the Bible) & writing classes
__ English classes
__ Math classes
__ Math (but not algebra) classes
__ Math (but not algebra or calculus) classes
__ Science classes
__ Sciences (but only evolution and that we are not related to monkeys) classes
__ Earth science classes
__ Earth science (but only a flat earth) classes
__ Earth science (but only that the earth is only 3000 years old) classes
__ Human sexuality classes
__ Human sexuality (but only if they do not cover; homosexuals, transsexuals, intersex, and sex) classes

Is this what the future of public education going to look like? The Balkanization of education?

To me it seems like that the Republicans want to get back to public education that only taught the 3R’s,  reading, writing and arithmetic. They don’t want to teach critical thinking, critical thinking makes children question authority,  critical thinking makes children ask questions,  critical thinking makes children think. Critical thinking gives conservatives a headache.

We don't need no thought control