Major news organizations have taken the side of teachers in the ongoing conflict between conservative parents and school administrators over the future of education in the United States. Despite the fact that Covid-19 school closures no longer made sense, the press continued to support teachers. They have also given teachers’ strikes, which have become increasingly unreasonable and self-serving, kid-glove treatment. Additionally, the press has helped promote a negative and slanderous view of homeschooling, similar to that pushed by leading school officials.
The press and education establishment have overlapping interests and beliefs, which is hardly coincidental. For example, the Associated Press recently published an article with a headline that reads, “As conservatives target schools, LGBTQ+ kids and students of color feel less safe.” The article uses loaded terms and matches what teachers and other activist groups (erroneously) claim about schools’ “bans.”
The AP story focuses on a group of anxious teenagers, including Harmony Kennedy, 16, who sincerely believe minority representation is being erased from school curricula all over the country, including in Harmony’s state of Tennessee. The article fails to mention that the term “African American” appears 54 times in Tennessee’s current social-studies standards, including specific mentions of the Civil Rights Movement and much more.
Tennessee law prohibits schools from receiving public funding if their curricula promote “divisive concepts,” including that “one race or sex is inherently superior or inferior to another race or sex” or that “this state or the United States is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist,” among other concepts. The state’s definition of “divisive concepts” also includes the promotion of “division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class, or class of people,” as well as “stereotyping” or “scapegoating” on the basis of race or sex.
Despite the fact that African-American history is still being taught in Tennessee, the AP’s reporting regurgitates the fears of teenagers such as Harmony, who are needlessly worried. The report concludes by lamenting that, “as conservative politicians and activists push for limits on discussions of race, gender and sexuality, some students say the measures targeting aspects of their identity have made them less welcome in American schools” — and now for the kicker — “the one place all kids are supposed to feel safe.”
This type of advocacy in reporting always seems to favor school administrators and bureaucrats, and it cannot be overlooked. Regardless of whether it’s school closures, fights over hypersexual curricula, or homeschooling versus public schooling, mainstream news outlets will side with academic bureaucrats and teachers’ unions almost every time.
