So what are your kids learning in school this year?
I know I've posted stuff like this before, but a few recent examples from my personal life that I think of whenever I hear conversations like this:
1. My spouse is a middle school foreign language teacher, a relatively high ranking union rep, and one of the advisors of the school's lgbt+ club. She was recently moved to a portable classroom which was put up at the last minute because of a labor shortage, her usual school-provided US flag wasn't hanging for the first week of school. But she decorated her classroom as much as she could, and put up a pride flag that included black/brown stripes on the wall for her club. A few days into the school year, the principal of the school received a call from a concerned parent that she is forcing the students to pledge allegiance to the "gay, black lives matter flag" and that as a Christian and taxpayer, they find this deeply unsettling and want an explanation.
She has always stood at the front of the classroom and recited the pledge of allegiance to the US flag every morning for the past eight years, and has explicitly invited but not demanded her class do the same. She ended up spending over an hour on the phone with this parent for a conversation I got the privilege of hearing one side of explaining that no one is ever forced to pledge allegiance to any flag in her classroom, but she invites all students to make the traditional pledge to the American flag if they want to and are comfortable doing so. Parent conceded, ranted for a long time about not wanting to be appear homophobic, but is really concerned by public schools promoting sinful behavior, and suggested she will be closely scrutinizing the curriculum to make sure her son isn't being targeted for his beliefs.
2. In teaching a foreign language, she often goes over relevant news articles to try to increase engagement. On George Floyd's birthday, she spent the warmup discussion talking attempting to engage her class about why he was in the news again. She has a strong belief in two things in this exercise: if students care enough about a topic to talk about it in the target language, it's a great thing for language acquisition, and she really tries to get students to express different ideas so they can have an easy, low-stakes place to start to think critically, communicate respectfully, and hear each other's thoughts. A couple days later, she receives a long, rambling email from a different parent accusing her of indoctrinating their child, bringing up George Floyd's various criminal offenses, accusing her of 'failing' the child because of their family's political beliefs, and saying that they have to have a several hour conversation every night to discuss what has happened in French class (the kid is doing fine in class, and has told my spouse how much he French - she is generally pretty popular with the kids). She ends up meeting with her principal and drafting an email with the support of admin and another teacher to try to communicate that the child is doing well, how proud she is of the child for engaging in class every day, that she takes this feedback seriously, and that they are doing what they can to keep the kids engaged with a focus on language acquisition and communication, which are some of the main state standards they are focusing on in this class.
Additionally, there have been lawsuits for access to all school district emails and records containing the possibility of evidence that the district is using taxpayer money to fund CRT ideology in the district (as well as a similar lawsuit alleging the district was intentionally sabotaging efforts to have kids in school full time last year) The school has apparently spent significantly more of that taxpayer money hiring lawyers to defend themselves than budgeted, leading to budget shortcoming in other areas.
Which is all to say, I'm sure there are plenty of examples of parents finding horrific indoctrination and overt ideology in public schools. And it is definitely true that all choices that a teacher makes regarding what they teach and how they teach it are somewhat political, so there is almost no way to teach in a truly 'value-neutral' way. Even in subjects like math, different pedagogical models are politically influenced (do you teach to the bottom of the class to make sure everyone has the same basic proficiency? do you just teach your curriculum and let floundering students keep on floundering?) In French class, choosing which articles and stories to talk about by default will always contain some bias and some awareness of a larger politicized world. My spouse does focus on media with more black and brown people in it; her school district is ~90% white, and she considers it part of her job to prepare her students for interacting with more diversity after they graduate. This is a political choice, and she is aware of the consequences of that choice.
All the teachers I know are extremely, extremely vigilant around trying not to overtly politicize their classrooms, because all the teachers I know have a strong sense of idealism, a strong value in their content area, and a lot of pride in their ability to teach their subject. And because they are acutely aware that if they leave a tiny bit of flesh on the bone that might reveal some left-leaning bias, they are going to be targeted by a group of litigious parents with a lot of time on their hands, and no teacher I know ever wants to participate in a prolonged conversation with parents in their free time to defend themselves against allegations of bias.
For some additional context, my spouse has been informed by administration that she is likely on a 'list' going around a certain group of parents and will likely be targeted professionally in some capacity in the coming years. Pictures of the doors of particular teachers' classrooms have been posted on social media by parents with threatening, violent language. An image of a left-leaning school board member in crosshairs was put up just outside the entrance to the school administration's building, proudly erected by one of this group's self-proclaimed leaders. This group of parents has so far failed to elect a single school board member that they have supported, despite claiming to speak for the silent majority of parents in the district.
tl;dr: parents are crazy, no idea what kind of teacher will willingly jeopardize their precious free time to indoctrinate students. They are mostly just trying to get get through the school day
