In the space of a few short months, we’ve gone from a panic about teachers communicating critical race theory in K–12 schools (without even fully identifying what that idea means or whether it’s actually being taught in schools), to a proposal for a full-on surveillance regime to monitor such teachers, to a slate of new laws about punishing and even recovering money damages from them. If you blinked, you missed it. A year ago, we were fighting about how race, gender, and history were discussed in the classroom. Today, in states across the country, teachers are being threatened with tip lines, video cameras, and personal monetary liability and damages. From bitching to snitching in under a year.
Welcome, then, to the new normal: close parental supervision of educators to ensure loyalty and obedience
Teachers are already on the ropes for so many reasons. Now terror, second-guessing, and personal financial liability have been added to their pile. As NBC News reported, these threats are pushing some educators to leave the profession.
There’s one other element at work that must be factored in. As Margaret Renkl argues, the real goal in Tennessee wasn’t just to ban a book here or there, or to traumatize teachers into mass exodus. The real goal is a state-sanctioned push for privatized sectarian education. In this program, the current Supreme Court is also a primary driver. The effort to erode the line of funding between secular and religious schools will be one of the first triumphs of the 6–3 supermajority this term.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/02/whats-really-at-stake-in-the-war-on-teachers.html