Washington Examiner: GOP looks to go on offense at state level with curriculum transparency push

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Republicans in dozens of state legislatures have introduced bills aimed at expanding curriculum transparency in public schools following months of backlash from parent activists over the inclusion of critical race theory and gender ideology in lessons.

A group of Republican lawmakers in the Minnesota state Legislature was the latest to introduce transparency legislation Monday, adding the Gopher State to a growing list of states that have introduced such legislation, including Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Indiana, and Michigan.

The basic premise of the bills in each state is largely the same: Curricula and school materials must be made available to parents who wish to review them. Some bills require that such materials be posted online for parent access, while others only require that they be provided to parents who request to review them.

Curriculum transparency has received increased attention in the past year as parents have taken issue with public school lessons incorporating critical race theory, which teaches that American institutions and culture are systemically racist, along with sometimes graphic lessons on gay and transgender ideology. The pandemic-induced switch to remote learning is largely credited with providing parents a previously unavailable window into their children's classrooms.

Entering a contentious midterm election year in which Republicans are widely expected to benefit from President Joe Biden’s continually sinking approval ratings and voter frustration over kitchen table issues, the party sees the bills as a way to signal to voters that the GOP is working to protect parental rights in education.

The party is widely seen as having greatly benefited from parental frustration in the Virginia governor’s race last year, which saw now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin defeat Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe on a platform that leaned heavily on education.

McAuliffe infamously handed Youngkin a campaign ad during a debate when he said he didn’t believe that “parents should be telling schools what they should teach” after Youngkin pressed him for vetoing a bill that would have enhanced curriculum transparency in the commonwealth during McAuliffe’s previous stint as governor.

In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Republican State Leadership Committee national press secretary Stephanie Rivera said that “contrary to what Democrats and teachers unions across the country believe, parents deserve a say in what their children are taught in the classroom.”

“State Republicans are going to win in November because they are focused on putting families first by enacting policies that give parents a greater voice in their children’s education, keep politics out of the classroom, and allow kids [to] reach their full potential,” Rivera said.

Rivera pointed to a survey the RSLC conducted in several battleground states that found that over 60% of voters think “America’s education system [has] become too focused on pushing partisan political agendas at the expense of teaching basic math, science, reading, and writing skills.”

But while the GOP sees an opening to hammer their political opponents, Matt Beienburg, the director of education policy at the conservative Goldwater Institute, says curriculum transparency should not be a partisan issue.

“This really should be a bipartisan issue that, you know, regardless of one's political leanings, transparency just says, ‘We're putting everything out in the open so that we can have … awareness,’” Beienburg told the Washington Examiner in an interview.

Beienburg and the Goldwater Institute said model legislation they created has helped shape curriculum transparency bills in over a dozen states. The institute has tracked 25 states that have introduced transparency bills.

Despite Beienburg’s hope for bipartisan support for transparency, the issue has sounded alarm bells and vocal opposition from teachers unions and the American Civil Liberties Union, which say such bills will chill classroom speech and are aimed at preventing teachers from discussing race and gender in the classroom.

“Curriculum transparency bills are just thinly veiled attempts at chilling teachers and students from learning and talking about race and gender in schools,” the ACLU said in a tweet last month.

The unions and the ACLU, Beienburg said, oppose such bills because they “see this as a threat to their ability to infuse politics into the classroom,” putting them at odds with parents and voters from all ideological backgrounds.

The ACLU’s opposition to the efforts was particularly notable to Beienburg, who said it was both ironic and hypocritical that the organization was opposing transparency efforts, despite having supported them in the past.

“Whether it's the ACLU or the teachers unions, they explicitly say, ‘This is going to make it harder for us to have’ what they characterize … as innocuous conversations about race or gender,” Beienburg said. “If you're concerned about parents knowing what materials you're using while having those conversations, that's a red flag.”

But as much as it is a red flag, Beienburg was quick to point out that the transparency legislation does not prevent teachers from using any particular materials.

“There’s nothing in the transparency [bills] that prevents [a teacher] from using a resource, it just says that he has to disclose that,” he said.