Must we stay divided over education?

In September 2020, during a gubernatorial debate with Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” McAuliffe, who was responding to Youngkin’s assertion that parents should be more directly involved in their children’s education, was taken to task for his response and the quote became toxic Twitter fodder before the debate even ended.

McAuliffe, who served as Virginia’s governor from 2014 to 2018 and left office with a strong approval rating, was, at the outset, heavily favored to win the governor’s race. How Youngkin managed to eat away at McAuliffe’s lead was both a master class in political theater and a cautionary tale for any candidate who thinks most voters blindly trust and support public education. Youngkin’s plea for more intentional parent involvement had nothing to do with making public education better for all of Virginia’s students. Rather, it was about controlling what schools can and cannot teach. Youngkin was keenly aware that conservative media groups had for months been making false claims about the deeply misunderstood concept called critical race theory and its impact on public schools, so he deftly used that misinformation to call for more “parent power” over education.

The response from parent-voters in Virginia was immediate and highly emotional. Parent groups across the state took to social media platforms decrying the intentions of “social justice” Democrats and vowing to fight against “woke schooling.” But if we step back and consider how schools actually work, we can see that McAuliffe’s debate response was supremely rational. He was simply pointing out the impracticality of individual parents dictating what an entire school system should or should not be teaching.

Unfortunately for McAuliffe, that response was the proverbial match in the powder keg that Youngkin could exploit for maximum impact. After almost two years of COVID-19, many parents in Virginia were dissatisfied or downright angry with their public schools for a variety of reasons. Any hint that they may be silenced when expressing their concerns was enough to send them toward a candidate who they believed was more likely to look out for them.

Schools as dividing line

It never ceases to amaze me how education can divide people. Despite generations of individuals and families using education as a stepping stone to a better life, education can, and often does, tear communities apart. I suppose it is the very power education has in a society (to change fates, to create more equity, to give more people a voice) that makes it so dangerous. The nation’s brutal fight to desegregate public schools is perhaps the starkest example of how threatening that power can be, but there have been many more battles, large and small, since then. Youngkin’s win in Virginia was just another example of how easy it is to stoke fear and turn parents and communities against one another in the name of education.

Politicians and power brokers will continue to weaponize concepts like critical race theory and social and emotional learning to inflame and divide voters because that strategy works.

So where does that leave a fearful nation that has endured two years of a global pandemic and watched helplessly as members of a divided and dysfunctional federal government act out like a group of angry toddlers unable to share their toys? Many have predicted that, moving forward, the Youngkin strategy will be the premier playbook for political candidates seeking to rile up a voter base that feels threatened when school systems address structural racism, racial justice, and other issues that are now front and center in this country. This likely means that the low-priority status that education usually enjoys during election cycles may be a thing of the past. Politicians and power brokers will continue to weaponize concepts like critical race theory and social and emotional learning to inflame and divide voters because that strategy works.

Unfortunately, the COVID crisis has contributed to education becoming a potent tool for misinformation and manipulation. While the pandemic has been awful for just about everyone, it has been especially brutal for families trying to manage their children’s education. Even if you set aside the fear of people getting sick, the unpredictability of the crisis and the relentless demands to adapt to changing circumstances have been traumatizing for educators, parents, and students. Even though we are slowly learning to manage the crisis, and while many young children are finally getting vaccinated, educators and families are now confronting the stark realization that there is no way to fully address — or even quantify — what has been lost during the pandemic. The loss is simply there, amorphous and terrifying.

That feeling of loss, coupled with a healthy dose of disillusionment and trauma, is fodder for politicians who know how to prey on voters. By stoking anger toward and mistrust of those they blame for COVID’s effects on the public schools, they tap into the most basic human emotion: survival. After two years of pain and uncertainty, parents are desperate to regain a sense of control over their children’s fate. And given the central role that education plays in their children’s lives, it’s not hard to understand why the schools have become such a lightning rod for political rhetoric.

Learning from the crisis

Given the anger and outrage now being vented at school system leaders across the country, it’s easy to overlook just how much the education community has learned over the last two years about what the schools can and cannot do in response to national crises. Ideally, those hard-earned lessons will fuel a host of organizational changes and improvements that will help public education survive in these uncertain times — and I use the word survive because, after two years of pandemic-related chaos and drama, schooling has attracted unprecedented amounts of attention not only from ambitious politicians but also from venture capitalists and for-profit education providers. Already active in the education market, these players realize that parents and communities may now be particularly receptive to new options and alternatives to traditional schools (Heller, 2020). Financial forecasters seem to agree: They estimate the education market will be worth $1.96 trillion by 2025 (Research and Markets, 2021).

It’s easy to overlook just how much the education community has learned over the last two years about what the schools can and cannot do in response to national crises.

Amid all of this turmoil, can education leaders harness the strength and expertise required to apply lessons learned from the pandemic and adapt as needed? Perhaps. As Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told an interviewer several months ago, the pandemic has presented us with “an opportunity to reimagine what schools could look like” (St. George et al., 2021).

Clearly, the use of technology to provide remote instruction has enormous potential to bring new educational resources to a wide range of individuals and communities. And while many of us have lamented the negative aspects of Zoom and the endless hours of screen time our children have experienced during the pandemic, it is important not to lose sight of the positive aspects of emerging technologies. Rural communities, incarcerated populations, individuals with disabilities, and many other student populations have and could continue to benefit from new innovations in remote and hybrid learning.

COVID also gave us a powerful reminder about the many roles schools play in their communities, such as feeding families, providing childcare, offering a safe haven after hours, and serving as shelters during disasters. Americans have always tended to undervalue the many contributions public schools make (unless, of course, they’re talking about their own local school, which they know well and deeply appreciate), but that mindset ought to change, given recent experiences and investments. Indeed, COVID relief funds and the federal stimulus package encourage states and districts to use their federal dollars to support a “whole child” approach to schooling that addresses a wide range of students’ and families’ needs.

And while it is hard to think of unfinished learning as anything more than tragic, there are lessons to be learned from the pandemic’s effects on academic achievement, as well. Armed with ample federal funding, educators and innovators are coming at this problem from all sides. Extended learning hours, tutoring, intensive literacy programs, and community partnerships are just some of the strategies schools are using to compensate for what has been missed. If we are smart, the interventions we use and the research we must do could inform the field for years to come. To infuse so much money into the education sector and learn nothing from our efforts would add insult to injury and be a colossal wasted opportunity. I pray we are smarter than that. Although there is little we can do to control the actions of craven politicians determined to divide people, we can keep our own house in order. Hyperbole aside, education is truly at a crossroads and the stakes have never been higher.

References

Heller, R. (2020). Keeping an eye on the global education industry: A conversation with Anna Hogan. Phi Delta Kappan, 102 (2), 32-35.

Research and Markets. (2021, May). U.S. education market (K-12, post-secondary, corporate training, and child care): Insights and forecast with potential impact of COVID-19 (2021-2025). Author.

St. George, D., Strauss, V., Meckler, L., Helm, J., & Natanson, H. (2021, March 15). How the pandemic is reshaping education. The Washington Post.

This article appears in the February 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 103, No. 5, pp. 62-63.