This story was originally published by Daily Montanan: URL: https://dailymontanan.com This story has not been altered or edited. (C) Daily Montanan. Licensed for re-distribution through Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. ------------ Parents want to take back schools, but when did they ever leave? – Daily Montanan ['More From Author', 'April', 'Darrell Ehrlick'] Date: 2022-04-21 00:00:00 I have to give credit to the wonderful marketing job some politicians have done at creating a controversy out of nothing. That would perfectly describe the movement that urges parents to take back their schools. To hear some worried politicians and aspiring school board members tell it: Communism, immorality and self-hatred have seeped deeply into the classrooms, textbooks and discussions, and our kids are being brainwashed by critical race theory. As a reporter, I have yet to hear a kindergartner talk of redlining. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard many high-school students talk about how standardized testing may affect scores of minority populations. That’s probably because critical race theory isn’t something taught a lot in any public school curricula. But opportunistic political operators have seized upon these as issues to make parents worried that their children can be turned gay – as if just by hearing such a concept, they’ll glom onto it. And, they’re worried that if students learn about past historical transgressions, like slavery or the way we’ve subjugated Native Americans, then maybe they’ll come to hate America rather than trying to make it better, as every generation has previously and continuously tried to do. But what makes me most surprised, even to the point of being amused, is that parents think they’ve been cut out and discarded. Yet having covered school boards and education politics in some way since the 1990s, I think the most powerful group in any local school district is the parents. They are the ones who show up at meetings. They are the ones that lead political campaigns to oust leaders or support levies. They are the ones who, at times, torment or campaign for their students to get some kind of treatment or lobby for an exception to some grievous rule that offends their parental sensibilities. That a very conservative movement, vexed by the COVID-19 vaccine and masking requirements, could hornswaggle the public into believing that parents have been cut out of the educational conversation shows just how out-of-touch some of these same parents are. Have I always agreed with teachers? No. Have I always agreed with my childrens’ teachers? No. Have they always listened to my concerns respectfully? Yes, absolutely. Have they always done what I asked? No, because they’re the experts on education. Having been through school taught me many things, but it doesn’t mean that I am an educator, just like going through surgery doesn’t make me a surgeon. Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the perspective that education is a partnership – a support system of teachers and parents together. But that partnership shouldn’t mean a veto power over any part of the curriculum, no matter how minimal. And it shouldn’t obligate the educators to both teach the students and receive prior clearance for every single concept, worksheet and text their child is exposed to. In other words, parents want all the supervision and oversight of homeschooling, but none of the hard work that goes along with it. This isn’t the definition of a helicopter parent, it’s more like an Air Force parent, with every conceivable aircraft hovering above their student, waiting to pounce on any infraction that seems suspect. It’s one thing that I have marveled at throughout the tenure of my career: I can’t count how many times I went to meetings where curriculum was discussed, materials were presented, only to look around and find myself the only person in the audience. Parents didn’t seem to notice or care about that. And when the same school districts would have open houses to show possible textbooks or showcase new materials and solicit comments, there’d be a handful of parents, but certainly nothing like the crowds that amassed to protest masks, vaccines or remote learning. So forgive me if I wonder about parents who have – dare I borrow this term – become “woke” to public education. The question was perfectly summarized by Billings Public School District Superintendent Greg Upham who, in a different setting, was asking the question: What do you want public education to be? His point was that what public education was originally designed to do, and the expectations that are placed upon it today, are different, but our society has not reconsidered the question. Parents would like to think the answer is that we only want our children educated – and that’s all. But school has turned into something different, largely because of parents. Now, because both parents often work, breakfast is provided at school. Because families struggle with food insecurity at home, the schools have created a backpack meals program. Because not all students can go home for a hot lunch – or any lunch at all – there are food programs. Specialists help students struggling to read and write because not all homes have a bookshelf filled with books, let alone the time to sit and read. And at the end of the day when some kids get out of school, there’s wrap-around care for working parents who need someone to watch younger kids while they work. It would be funny if not so ironic that parents are now engaged in a great take-back-the-schools effort. It seems to me that parents have been telling the public schools what they want for years now, and public schools have worked miracles to become a feeding center, tutoring service and daycare in addition to classroom instruction. So for those parents who want to take back the school, I can only say cautiously: Be careful what you wish for. [END] [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2022/04/21/parents-want-to-take-back-schools-but-when-did-they-ever-leave/ Content is licensed through Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/