A mirage pitched by 'parental rights' advocates

Longview event's focus on CRT, gender issues ignores the real education crises

A fire is burning in public education, but organizers of a “A Crisis in K-12 Education” event in Longview are sending the fire truck to the wrong address.

The mid April event at Father’s House Church purports to help adults scrutinize schools over sex and gender education and critical race theory and educate them about religious liberty. Organizers assert that the government is using public education to “indoctrinate children (and) separate them from their parents.”

However,  this really is part of a national effort by the far right to censor school content. It is masquerading as a wholesome-sounding “parental rights” issue. It is a weary continuation of the culture wars that ignores the real burning issues in K-12  public education. Some of these include:

• Student test scores are low here and in many communities, and academic recovery from the pandemic has been tortuously slow. Kids are not learning how to read, do math or understand science. Among all Longview students, only 43%, 27% and 38%  met state standards for English, math and science tests, respectively, in 2022, according to state data. Kelso’s numbers were nearly identical. Statewide achievement rates are somewhat better but still disappointing:  51%, 38% and 43% met standards for English, math and science last spring. Low-income students are particularly struggling: In Longview, 70% to 75% of them failed to meet state standards last year. Poor educational achievement will doom many of them to lives of poverty and crime.

• Rural schools such as those in Wahkiakum County are falling apart because the funding system is broken and unfair to small, tax-poor districts. A recent Seattle Times story documented, for example, how Wahkiakum High School chemistry students must conduct experiments in the stadium bleachers because the science room is inadequately ventilated.

•   A just-released study shows that the percentage of American 9- and 13-year-olds who read for fun on an almost daily basis has dropped to the lowest level since at least the mid-1980s, according to a survey conducted in late 2019 and early 2020 by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The reason is obvious: A survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit research organization, found that teenagers spent seven to 10 hours a day using online media, according to Education Week.

 *  Thousands of teachers are quitting for a host of reasons: staff shortages and burnout, the stresses of the pandemic, low pay and suspicion-laden scrutiny of what they teach in the classroom.  The Wall Street Journal reported that 300,000 public-school teachers and other staff left the field between February 2020 and May 2022, a nearly 3% drop in that workforce, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The newspaper quoted a 2022 National Education Association poll  that found 55% of teachers said they would leave education sooner than planned, up from 37% the previous year. 

• The nation can’t seem to protect its school kids. Last week’s attack that killed six staff and students at a Nashville private school was the19th shooting at an American school or university in 2023. There have been 42 K-12 school shootings since the May 2022 massacre of 21 people in Uvalde, Texas, according to CNN.

Hard-hearted obsessions, political mirages

We should be discussing ways to make schools safer and boost academic achievement, not conjure up mirages about gender identity and CRT that are meant to rile the right-wing base.

That’s what events like the one planned at Father’s House are intended to do. The speakers include two conservative firebrands: State Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, and Heidi St. John, a Clark County Republican who lost a bid for Congress last year.

The six-hour event is sponsored by Family Policy Institute of Washington, a conservative Lynnwood, Wash.,-based organization that advocates pro-life, religious liberty, parental rights, “Christ-centered policies” policies and “seeks to articulate a clear vision for healthy families in our state.”

I have nothing against these values, but this upcoming event is anything but a call for Christian love and fealty.

For starters, why shouldn’t our kids, at age-appropriate grades, be taught that some people struggle with gender identity and that the mental health anguish it causes leads many to suicide and drug abuse?  Shouldn’t they learn now to resolve conflicts that arise, for example, when a transgender person seeks to play sports or use bathrooms as a member of the “opposite sex?”

Teaching about sex and transgender issues is NOT an inducement to get sex-change surgery or have sex. Nature has done a pretty good job of the latter already by flooding teens with hormones before their brains are fully developed. Sex education is about understanding sex and, if anything, how to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Pro-life Christians (and everyone else)  should support that.

The obsession with critical theory also is equally hard-hearted and misguided.  CRT is a college-level  concept — which has ample justification — that racism is institutional and not just an individual choice. It’s not even taught in local K-12 schools.

Learning about black history and the struggles of slavery and segregation is not “indoctrinating” white students to hate themselves and America.  It’s teaching them that we’re still way short of achieving “justice for all.” In a broader sense, it’s teaching understanding for people of color, who are projected to surpass 50% of the U.S. population by the 2040s.

Christian believers certainly are free to advocate for their ideas, express concerns and send their children to private schools. But they can’t be allowed to impose their dogma on public schools or institutions.

People who want to shut out others’ views of the world lack the courage of their convictions, fearing their own can’t compete in the free marketplace of ideas.

That is what democracy and education are all about.