| Opinion: If Senate Bill 1211 passes, there would be no need to debate whether divisive lessons are being taught. The materials would speak for themselves. By Amy Carney, BEST Deputy Director |
Transparency builds trust.
And though school districts in Arizona and around the country tout trust as one of their core values, they’ve been keeping parents in the dark about the materials used in the classroom to educate students.
Thankfully, state legislators around the country are waking up to the cries of parents and working to pass common-sense curriculum transparency bills that would require public schools to disclose publicly what they are assigning in the classroom.
But the road to successful passage of these bills will not be without a fight. State legislatures are up against pushback from teachers union representatives, special interest groups and district administrators.
These groups claim that parents already have access to lesson plans based on existing parental rights laws. Parents are rightly challenging this notion.
Educators are battling parents who want to know
In a recent case, Nicole Solas, a Rhode Island mom who is being bullied by school districts for refusing to back down on the crucial issue of education transparency, is now facing legal action for standing up for her children.
School districts have gone so far as to raise public records request fees up to thousands of dollars in a bid to stonewall parents. In Solas’ case, the National Education Association sued her in hopes of stopping her efforts to expose the controversial materials being taught to students in her district.
