Texas’s War Against Public Schooling

It’s not really news that Texas is ground zero for the ultra-right’s attempts to ban books and restrict teachers’ latitude when it comes to curriculum, style, and even choice of words. And, as one would expect, some school board meetings get pretty nasty and, at times, actually violent.

Until the pandemic, the number one reason parents home schooled their kids was to ensure a proper indoctrination in Christianity and conservative values, and the eradication of anything that might resemble thinking critical of these tenets.

Now, parents in Texas and elsewhere have taken this one giant step forward, demanding to control the way public education works, down to the classroom level–thus the discussion of installing cameras to ensure teachers are in full compliance.

What these folks are somehow forgetting is that the charter of public schools has nothing to do with what parents demand; it’s purely the delivery of intellectual growth required to make that young person a productive member of society.

Want to pull your kids out of school and turn out little replicas of your rigid (perhaps hateful and ignorant) views?  That’s your right, unfortunate as that may be.  But don’t think you’re going to set a whole generation of Americans back 100 years.

Below: Texas governor Greg Abbott and his placard proclaiming “Ensuring parents are the primary decision-makers.”