Arizona teacher argues allowing parents to choose curriculum and books for students is a ‘mistake’
An Arizona teacher spoke out against a proposed bill for schools to ban books discussing sexuality and LGBTQ ideology, arguing that the purpose of public education is to teach what society needs, and questioned the need for parental input in curricula.
“I have a masters degree because when I got certified, I was told I had to have a master’s degree to be an Arizona-certified teacher. We all have advanced degrees. What do the parents have?” special education teacher Alicia Messing said during a Senate Education Committee hearing last week.
The teacher argued that parental input in books that are being assigned in the classroom is a “mistake.”
“Are we vetting the backgrounds of our parents?” she continued. “Are we allowing the parents to choose the curriculum and the books that our children are going to read? I think that it’s a mistake, and I am just speaking from the heart.”
The educator then recited a quote, “The one line that I love is we must remember that the purpose of public education is not to teach only what parents what their children to be taught, it is to teach them what society needs them to be taught.”
The proposed bill would require the Arizona Board of Education to “maintain a list of books that public educational institutions may not use or make available to students, including books that are lewd or sexual, promote gender fluidity or gender pronouns or groom children into normalizing pedophilia.”
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The issue of education has become a top concern among voters, resulting in the formation of organizations like Oregon Moms Union. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, school board meetings have oftentimes become battlegrounds between parents and school board officials.
Parents across the country have protested controversial curricula like critical race theory as well as certain books being in public libraries. This has reignited the debate on how much control parents have over their children’s education.
