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My goal this year is for 10+ state legislatures to pass curriculum transparency bills, requiring public schools to make all teaching materials easily available to parents via internet.
It's time to get the political predators out of the shadows—and return power to families.
It's time to get the political predators out of the shadows—and return power to families.
The strategy here is to use a non-threatening, liberal value—"transparency"—to force ideological actors to undergo public scrutiny. It's a rhetorically-advantageous position and, when enacted, will give parents a powerful check on bureaucratic power.
The Left will expect that, after passing so-called "CRT bans" last year, we will overplay our hand. By moving to curriculum transparency, we will deflate that argument and bait the Left into opposing "transparency," which will raise the question: what are they trying to hide?
Democrats in state legislatures, who are in the pocket of the teachers unions, will all oppose any effort to provide parents with transparency into the classroom. As we saw in Virginia, this will lead to public suspicion, frustration, and, ultimately, electoral revolt.
Last year, my investigative reports on critical race theory in public schools generated a powerful media narrative. With curriculum transparency, every parent in the country can become an investigative reporter and expose any school that promotes racialist abuse.
The reality is that critical race theory in education is deeply unpopular with the parents of all racial backgrounds. It can only thrive through secrecy, manipulation, and expansion through the bureaucracy. This legislation would put a check on those methods of power.
The ultimate goal is to shift incentives: we will empower parents over the bureaucracy and put a price on promoting racialist abuse in public schools. That's how we fight CRT, that's how we continue to build the parent movement, and that's how we win.
My brilliant colleagues @JamesRCopland and John Ketcham at @ManhattanInst have created a model curriculum transparency policy that is already driving massive interest with governors and state legislators.
Read the model policy here: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/transparency-school-training-curriculum
Read the model policy here: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/transparency-school-training-curriculum
P.S. At the end of last year, I made sure to get teachers union president Randi Weingarten on the record in support of the principle of curriculum transparency. This gives us another rhetorical lever—they have accepted our premise, now we fight over the details.
