Over the past several years, the attention of state and local politicians has shifted more and more toward the dialogues unfolding in K12 classrooms. From censorship legislation to imposing harsh punishment for imposing one’s views about a particular subject, teachers find themselves walking on eggshells as they navigate this new politicized world of education.
A new analysis from PEN America, an anti-censorship organization, suggests that there has been a significant increase in what they call “intimidation legislation” over the past few years driven by one crippling force: fear.
“Fear is the new watchword in public education,” the report reads. “Across the country, teachers, librarians and school administrators are attesting to a chilled climate, in which they are more concerned with running afoul of new censorious laws than with educating their students.”
But what caused this shift? The researchers identified two driving forces:
- Increasingly coordinated campaigns targeting curricula and book bans.
- The spread of state legislation enables these local challenges and “exerts broader ideological control over schools.”
“These forces are increasingly operating in tandem,” according to the report.
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The chilling effect of fear tactics
In 2023 alone, 17 educational intimidation bills have been passed compared to only seven in 2021. This uptick represents a “startling uptick in this ideological attack on public education,” the report reads. Such legislation poses significant chilling effects that impact the daily lives of both administrators and teachers alike, according to the researchers.
First, these bills impose a burden for initiating certain forms of instructions by placing a “cost” or “risk” on them. For instance, some bills require schools to notify parents before or after certain concepts pertaining to “sexuality” and “gender stereotypes” are mentioned. Others may give parents more power to challenge “inappropriate” book titles in their school libraries.
“These bills ultimately empower would-be censors to impose new control on public education by intimidating educators into self-censoring, taking a wide berth around any topics that could incur controversy or conflict,” the report reads.
Secondly, such decisions damage one’s ability to feel safe and welcome in their own school. This is especially true for student groups who are frequently impacted by such legislation, primarily LGBTQ+ students. While these bills are masked as an effort to protect students from harmful material, the researchers declare that they ultimately harm one’s learning environment and school climate.
Finally, many of these bills give power to parents to make decisions about what can and can’t be taught, not only for their own child, but for the school or distinct as a whole.
“As such, despite the common usage of ‘parental rights’ rhetoric, these bills actually disempower the majority of parents and empower an activist minority to make curricular decisions for all students in a school or district,” the report reads.
The bottom line, according to PEN America, is when K12 schools become a “battleground” amid the ongoing culture wars, teaching becomes harder, and students suffer because of it.
