JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Joining a national movement, the Missouri General Assembly is considering a raft of bills intended to give parents more say over what happens in the classroom. Among the goals, Republican supporters say, are increased transparency in curriculum and ways for parents to challenge teaching materials they consider inappropriate or harmful.
Many of the proposals, which echo those in states like Kansas, Arizona and Florida, however, have drawn swift critique from Democrats and public school advocates. The bills, they say, are election-season vehicles for exploiting parental anger over pandemic restrictions and anxieties about classroom treatment of race and gender issues.
The debate reached a higher pitch this week when the GOP-controlled Missouri House granted preliminary approval to a "Parents' Bill of Rights." It would allow parents to bring civil lawsuits against school districts that violate the bill's provisions. The measure says parents have the right "to direct the education of their minor child."
It requires schools to get written permission from parents before students can attend assemblies, field trips or extracurricular activities. And it allows the Missouri Department of Elementary & Secondary Education to withhold funds from schools that are found to have repeatedly violated any of the bill's rules.
"There are situations where parents are being ignored, not listened to," said bill sponsor Rep. Ben Baker, a Republican. "There's a lot of things that that could entail when it comes to things that are being taught in the classroom. Whether it's age-inappropriate material, whether it's books that should not be in front of students at those ages or whether it's critical race theory."
Critical race theory, a college and law school-level concept that examines the role of institutions in perpetuating racism, is not taught in Missouri's K-12 system. The term, however, has been adopted by conservatives to cover objections to a range of classroom materials touching on race, diversity or context to dark chapters in the nation's history such as slavery and Japanese internment.
Lawmakers say elements of the theory are part of a creeping progressive influence over classroom content.
On the House floor, the bill of rights illustrated the growing divide between conservative rhetoric and what is actually being taught in Missouri schools. Much of what is in the bill are rights that parents already have, opponents argued.
While it promises transparency by allowing parents to review all classroom materials — and "check in" with their child during school hours — its requirements place new burdens on teachers and set them up for failure, Hazelwood Democrat Paula Brown said Wednesday.
"There is absolutely an attack on public education," said Brown, a former teacher. "These bills are being written to make us purposely fail."
For Heather Fleming, a former teacher who founded Missouri Equity Education Partners, the proposal, and others like it, are unnecessary and impractical. They're also a solution in search of a problem, she said.
"This is all coming from the same place," she said. "It's coming from a disingenuous attempt on the part of a lot of these individuals to activate their base."
Across the country, state legislators have promoted the legislation in response to a wide range of complaints on COVID-19 mask requirements, books, classroom materials and the often-invoked but rarely-described critical race theory.
Among the bills moving through the Missouri General Assembly is a proposal that would allow parents "to object to instructional materials and other materials used in the classroom based on such parent's beliefs regarding morality, sexuality, religion, or other issues related to the well-being, education, and upbringing of such parent's child."
Another would prohibit school districts "from accepting private funding for the purposes of teaching any curriculum substantially similar to critical race theory or The 1619 Project." The New York Times Magazine long-form journalism project, launched in 2019, argues that slavery played a central in the nation's founding.
On Tuesday, while the House debated the Parents Bill of Rights, Republican Brian Seitz added, and then withdrew, an amendment that would have prohibited students from participating in "any orientation or requirement" with "race or sex stereotyping." Seitz promised to file the amendment again next year.
In response, David Tyson Smith, a Democrat, said that Seitz was trying to take advantage of the national debate surrounding critical race theory — describing it as a "phantom problem."
"It's really part of a national strategy by a group of people to get people riled up and angry and get them at the polls," Tyson Smith said. "This is not a problem in Missouri and it's not a problem in America, as far as racism being taught in school. It's a political page out of a political strategy book to get people to vote. It's unfortunate that so many people have been misled."
Brown, said most of the proposals are attempts to "hijack curriculum" for political gain.
"There have been some parents upset with the things that their kids are learning in school, but I don't think it's widespread," she said. "I have zero evidence that it is widespread. But the parent bill of rights and the anti-CRT bills, the social studies bills — we literally do have bills out there that tell teachers exactly what they should teach."
