OPINION:
Red state lawmakers are racing for runner-up regarding school choice. Still, those who care about ideological indoctrination in our public schools must also go for the gold when it comes to protecting parents and students with academic (curriculum) transparency. No policy will boost the impact of school choice more dramatically nor equip parents more powerfully to push back on woke activism in K-12 education than requiring public schools to disclose online the specific materials being presented to students.
Consider that in the last few days alone, whistleblowers like “LibsofTiktok” have exposed stories ranging from “First grade teacher boasts about … offering books to kids about gender identity including a book about toddler who becomes transgender” to “Missouri school district invited middle schoolers to a drag show today without informing parents.”
Just a few weeks earlier, The Daily Signal’s Tony Kinnett exposed the media covering up the teaching of critical race theory in Arkansas’ Bentonville school district. Meanwhile, in Georgia, a “diversity, equity, and inclusion” curriculum salesman confessed on camera to duping schools into buying CRT-infused content, while school administrators in Idaho, Utah and Ohio were all recorded privately celebrating their evasion of state bans on CRT in K-12 schools.
Even in the Lone Star State, researcher Jay Greene recently discovered that over 90% of political donations by rural Texas school employees went to Democrats, suggesting that “Rural Texans and the educators who teach their kids in public schools clearly view the world very differently.” In every state, content like The New York Times’ 1619 Project has landed on students’ desks even without public awareness or approval.
Fortunately, amid the near-constant flood of such headlines — even in deep red states — state lawmakers can land a one-two punch against the ideological indoctrination and political machinery of America’s education establishment.
Last year, former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey called on state lawmakers to make history with the two most promising K-12 policy initiatives in the nation: expanding education savings accounts and adopting full online academic transparency to require public schools to disclose the books, articles, videos and other materials assigned to children so that parents knew precisely what sort of content was being taught in their nearby public schools.
Despite having a razor-thin, one-vote majority in both chambers of the Arizona Legislature, Mr. Ducey succeeded in signing the first fully universal school choice program in the nation and came within a single vote (thanks to one defector in the state House) of also passing full online transparency.
Now, as other states are rising to the occasion and catching up to Arizona on school choice, conservative lawmakers across the country have the chance to fully take the baton and finish what Arizona started by enacting both universal school choice and online academic transparency.
Already this session, Missouri state Sens. Rick Brattin and Andrew Koenig, Texas state Rep. Steve Toth, Arizona state Rep. John Gillette, Indiana state Sens. Aaron Freeman and John Crane, and Nebraska state Sen. Dave Murman have sponsored robust online academic transparency legislation. Governors such as Arkansas’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Iowa’s Kim Reynolds have likewise championed online academic transparency for their states.
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania lawmakers both passed online curriculum transparency legislation — vetoed by their left-leaning governors— while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took the strongest step so far by signing curriculum transparency legislation last spring requiring the disclosure of classroom library materials.
Now, as The Heritage Foundation has made clear in its new Education Freedom Report Card state rankings, school choice and academic transparency represent the twin pillars of parental empowerment. While congressional Republicans have advanced a proposal at the national level, under America’s system of federalism, it is state lawmakers who should and must act to ensure transparency in our government-operated schools.
Indeed, some states have already adopted legislation establishing parents’ rights to inspect the materials used at their schools. But in practice, these parents have continued to lack a mechanism to meaningfully exercise those rights without having to take time in the middle of the workday to travel to a district facility (when the parents are otherwise occupied with their own work or child care) or submit costly public records requests, just to try to see what’s actually being used.
Moreover, even in states like Arizona that have achieved universal school choice, most families still default to their public school system and yet have no way of seeing what is taught at those schools before they’re forced to make an enrollment decision. The Academic Transparency Act equips parents with the ability and information to see for themselves what’s actually being taught in those public schools so that they can navigate their options and make an informed decision about whether to exercise their newfound school choice opportunities.
When coupled with school choice, academic transparency will ensure that public schools are accountable and forthright about what materials they present to students — including the “supplemental materials” that aren’t formally adopted by the district, which often introduce the most controversial and politically charged content. And this, in turn, will ensure that schools cannot teach critical race theory and other politicized topics without full parental awareness.
• Matt Beienburg is the director of education policy at the Goldwater Institute. He also serves as director of the institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy.
