Kansas has its own transparency bill now. Kansas legislators need to stop being puppets of Rufo and others. Parents already have a lot of access. It seems these bills are more aimed at giving access to anti-public education groups and making our teachers and administrators, who are already overworked trying to recover from a global pandemic, feel unsupported and under attack and contributing to an exodus from the field of education. These bills are not going to help Kansas kids.
“Such requirements are nearly identical to those outlined in the model bill co-authored by Rufo, who has publicly described how ‘moving to curriculum transparency & represents the next frontier of conservative opposition to anti-racism initiatives in public education. Some transparency advocates, like the Republican sponsors of bills in Iowa and Florida, have gone so far as to propose requirements that live-stream cameras be installed in nearly all public school classrooms.“
Chase Woodruff, Colorado Newsline February 9. “Colorado School Transparency Bill Linked to National Groups Battling ‘Critical Race Theory’.” Colorado Newsline, 9 Feb. 2022, https://coloradonewsline.com/2022/02/09/colorado-school-transparency-bill-critical-race-theory/?fbclid=IwAR2KQQ-xKFgiccxBytJiSEIWDDRMXX9RgU3QTQhSPAqAGdAXEsKe7R4WvEw.
“The strategy here is to use a non-threatening, liberal value — ‘transparency’ — to force ideological actors to undergo public scrutiny,” Rufo wrote on Twitter last month. ‘It’s a rhetorically advantageous position.’“
“‘This is a massive distraction for our educators from doing what they need to be doing right now, which is focusing on meeting the needs of our students,’ she said. ‘That’s what our teachers need to be focused on right now, not jumping through bureaucratic hoops to meet a need that simply doesn’t exist.’“
“‘It’s one of the reasons that our members cite as to why they’re considering leaving the profession — being kind of in the swirl of this political vitriol,’ she added. ‘It’s concerning, because there’s a high probability that we can see high-quality educators leave the profession because they simply are overwhelmed and at the end of their rope.’”
Originally published to Facebook 2/9/2022.