ACLU’s attacks on education transparency are an attack on democracy

Does the American Civil Liberties Union care about democracy?

When it comes to public education, the so-called civil liberties organization is hostile to it. The ACLU attacks transparency — something that is necessary to a functioning democracy.

The ACLU is not happy that some Republican legislators across the country are filing what they call curriculum transparency bills. The general idea is that schools should post lesson plans and course outlines online so that parents can see what their children are learning. Since parents are the ones funding these schools, largely through property taxes, that makes sense. The teachers and everyone at these schools work for the parents, not the other way around. The parents deserve to see how the school spends their money.

Yet, the ACLU tweeted this in response to these curriculum transparency bills: “Curriculum transparency bills are just thinly veiled attempts at chilling teachers and students from learning and talking about race and gender in schools.”

It’s an absurd, anti-democratic position. How can parents form an educated opinion of public education and their local school boards if they don’t know what their district schools teach? Someone could be oblivious to what’s being taught at school, assuming it’s similar to what he or she learned growing up. Meanwhile, there could be a curriculum parents find abhorrent and don’t want their children learning, and it could change their perception of the education system.

I’ve made an effort at improving curriculum transparency in my state. I put in public records requests for the sex-ed curricula at most public schools in Massachusetts last November. Some of the stuff being taught is astonishingly bad, and parents deserve to know about it.

There are school districts teaching children that there are unlimited genders, including children as young as 11 years old. They’re using graphics such as the “genderbread” person and gender unicorn to make these points. Explicitly pro-abortion organizations such as Advocates for Youth and Planned Parenthood have designed curricula that some schools use. And in the case of Planned Parenthood, some school districts use a curriculum from them that teaches 12-year-olds about anal sex. Why shouldn’t parents know about that?

From my experience, parents get angry about what’s going on in their children’s schools when they find out. Many don’t know what’s going on until it’s brought to their attention. When they do, it’s a reminder that public education shouldn’t be a blank check for left-wing teachers unions to push their agenda onto children.

If finding out the truth about schools makes parents want to send their children to private school, send them to a charter school (although many are just as woke as district schools), or homeschool their children, that says more about the district school than it does the parents.

When people and organizations oppose transparency in education, we should ask: What are you afraid of? The truth is, many people would find their children’s school curriculum appalling, and schools might have to change what they teach.

Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.