This piece provides good food for thought. I agree with BloombergQuint columnist, Andrea Gabor, that McAuliffe sent the terribly wrong message that "parents shouldn’t be "telling schools what they should teach.'” Such a terrible message to send in a democracy. We all pay the taxes that fund our schools. We all have a voice. I also agree that parents, school districts, and school boards shouldn't take the bait by people who enter these spaces with the intention of polarizing and weaponizing discourse.
As mentioned herein, school-family partnerships and partnerships with community-based organizations, in general, can provide excellent vehicles through which to address parents' concerns.
Regrettably, Gabor fails to mention that parents, educators, and community are indeed speaking up throughout the country and they are advocating for Ethnic Studies curricula so as to be more culturally inclusive of children's lived experiences, cultures, and identities. Why is it so hard even for liberals to vocalize this, much less lend their support?
Ethnic Studies is a positive agenda that liberals themselves need to understand so that they can more effectively "talk back" to what really is a contrived agenda that seeks to limit the teaching of the truths of history.
If we can't name racism, classism, sexism, ableism, or homophobia or their intersectionalities, we'll not only shut down honest conversations and explorations in what it means to be human, we'll be forever condemned to our toxic, polarizing thoughts and emotions. And what a massive disability for our youth, all of whom must be prepared to navigate a multiracial democracy in an increasingly complex, highly diverse, and yes—polarized, world.
-Angela Valenzuela
Fight the School Culture Wars by Embracing Parents
Andrea Gabor 06:30 PM IST, 13 Nov 2021 01:10 AM IST, 13 Nov 2021
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- When Republican Glenn Youngkin won the gubernatorial election last week in Virginia, the first statewide GOP victory there in more than a decade, it was widely seen as vindication of a political strategy to weaponize the school-board culture wars. In truth, the school-board warriors around the U.S. weren’t as successful as some high-profile Democratic defeats suggest. Even in red states like Missouri and Wisconsin, many candidates who advocated bans on mask mandates and the supposed teaching of what culture warriors tendentiously call “critical race theory” were defeated.
But there’s no denying that Virginia parents were angry at Democrats. That was partly because a former Democratic governor had rebuffed their demands to reopen schools during the pandemic, even as children from neighboring Maryland, and even New York City, returned to classrooms with little ill effect.
Most galling of all, though, was the incendiary and misguided statement by the eventual losing Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, that parents shouldn’t be “telling schools what they should teach.”To suggest that parents have no place in school decision-making is to deny the fundamental role of public schools as places for the teaching and practice of democratic values. Schools should want more parental involvement, not less, a matter of equal concern on both sides of the cultural divide. For example, in New Orleans, the nation’s first all-charter-school city, where charter organizations backed by Democrats and Republicans sought to marginalize parent and community engagement in schools, the backlash has been fierce.
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/culture-war-in-the-schools-fight-back-by-embracing-parents
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