education” target=”_blank”>Teachers union< on Monday titled, “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.”
In the piece, writers Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire argued that recent protests by parents against school boards are not grassroots efforts but Republican tactics to stoke racial tension.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, endorses Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) at a campaign GOTV town hall meeting in Houston, Texas, U.S., February 29, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
(REUTERS/Brian Snyder)
“Knowing that every vote matters, the GOP has increasingly relied on a strategy of voter suppression. Simultaneously, Republicans have worked to ensure that their base turns out in force by stoking White racial grievance. The recent firestorm over critical race theory is a perfect case in point. Never mind that this concept from legal scholarship isn’t actually taught in K-12 schools or that it isn’t what most protesters believe it to be. Republicans gain an electoral advantage by convincing their base that White children are being taught to hate themselves, their families and their country,” the piece wrote.
HEAD OF TEACHERS UNION PRAISES OP-ED CLAIMING PARENTS DON’T HAVE RIGHT TO SHAPE KIDS’ CURRICULUM
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Weingarten retweeted the article with the note, “Great piece on parents’ rights and #publicschools.”
The tweet received hundreds of replies with several users calling out Weingarten’s attack on parents’ rights.
Cato Institute scholar Corey A. DeAngelis tweeted, “the president of the teachers union just endorsed this article. [W]ake up, parents.”
DeAngelis, who works as the research director at the American Federation of Children, also replied to the original tweet calling to “defund teachers’ unions” and “fund students, not systems.”
Other Twitter users similarly called out Weingarten’s apparent tone-deaf argument.
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (R) listens to American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten speak to the media after speaking to members of the AFT in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. May 6, 2019. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
(REUTERS/Rebecca Cook)
The issue over parents’ rights to their children’s education has become a hot-button topic in the virginia-governor-race” target=”_blank”>Virginia gubernatorial race<
“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” McAuliffe said last month.
