What Does it Mean to “Dismantle” Public Education? Casting Educators and Teachers’ Unions as the Bad Guys

Estimated Read Time: 12 minutes

The national extremist agenda to dismantle public education has been all over national news as it takes a stronghold in school districts across the country. Here in Douglas County, public education advocates have been fighting it since the first reformers took office on the school board in 2009, and we are facing it again today. So, what does “dismantling public education” really mean?

As far back as the 1920s, the United States has a long history of attacking public education. Some of the more blatant include educational gag orders and government attempts to limit teaching and learning, which we covered in our blog, Book Banning and Educational Gag Orders, as well as segregated schools and voucher programs. 

So why attack public education? What is the goal? 

• Privatize education by eroding the financial support for public schools

• Use public tax dollars to promote Christianity in schools

• Keep school districts racially, and socio-economically segregated

• Inhibit civic discourse by creating a narrative about the United States that sanitizes our complex and nuanced history

Attacking our public education system harms our children, our communities and our entire nation. As you read through this series, please ask yourself a few questions: Who benefits from dismantling public education? Who is the most harmed by dismantling our public education system? And what can you do to support public education on a local, state, and national level?

In Part I of “What does it mean to “dismantle” public education?” Redirecting Funds, Charter Schools, and Vouchers, we examined financial reallocation at the state level and the relationship of charter schools and vouchers in public school systems.

Part 2 dives into the organized effort to disparage our educators and villainize them when they organize through unions to advocate for better pay and working conditions. 

From Heroes to Villains

Just a short two years ago as COVID-19 uprooted all normalcy in our lives, we started seeing teachers celebrated as “heroes.” Educators were forced to adapt and adopt remote learning for our students as we entered a global pandemic. They quickly learned a variety of web-based platforms to continue teaching and connecting with their students. And they created engaging and creative learning content and, even through the physical distance, continued to show our children that they cared about them and their well-being.

How quickly the “hero” narrative changed...

Educators have become scapegoats – blamed for the learning loss from school closures and COVID safety protocols during a global pandemic; accused of indoctrinating children as part of a fictional critical race theory narrative. And most recently, a GOP state house candidate in Maine made an outrageous claim that “liberal teachers” were responsible for the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. 

We’ve seen similar accusations in our own district – DCSD BoE President Mike Peterson said during a political luncheon that teachers were sneaking sexually inappropriate content into the classroom; and our local chapter of FAIR (Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism) used a social media post to encourage community members to share their concerns with a local school and teacher after a sign encouraging inclusivity was posted in a classroom.

Like all elements of this organized and widespread effort to dismantle public education, blaming teachers is, unfortunately, not a new strategy. There is a long history of teachers fighting to be recognized as professionals and for their rights to earn liveable wages and have workplace conditions in which they and their students can thrive. Remember the teacher walkouts of 2018? Teachers all over the country, including Colorado, walked out of their classrooms to advocate for better pay, working conditions and retirement benefits. After witnessing West Virginia teachers participate in a nine-day strike in 2018, just days before Colorado teachers participated in a walk out and lobbying effort at the State Capitol, Colorado State Senator Bob Garner and Representative Paul Lundeen (now a State Senator) proposed legislation to punish teachers participating in strikes with jail time. The bill did not make it out of committee.

Questioning the integrity and professionalism of teachers

This extremist agenda has led to some of the most insidious “indoctrination” and “grooming” accusations against our teachers, questioning the integrity of our teachers and the safety of our children with them. The language that often accompanies this is that talking about equity, diversity, or inclusion is: “race essentialism,” “reverse racism,” “woke,” “divisive,” “a victim mentality,” or “part of a LGBTQ agenda.” 

The term “indoctrination” is coded language adopted by these extremists, flagging curriculum that discusses accurate and inclusive history and curriculum/books that are inclusive of BIPOC or LGBTQ+ people and lived experiences. Christopher Rufo, advisor to FAIR (Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism), has made a name for himself as the architect of the manufactured panic around critical race theory being taught in K-12.

Here, we have also witnessed a contrived moral panic when Becky Myers referred to an “LGBTQ agenda” in her board candidate survey response to FEC United. And included in Corey Wise’s complaint to the Office of Civil Rights, one of President Peterson’s apparent motivations to run for school board was a thinly veiled dog whistle that homosexuality was part of the DCSD math curriculum.

The “grooming” narrative is an old one, starting in the 1970s with Anita Bryant and the “Save Our Children” Campaign. The premise plays on a harmful trope of LGBTQ+ people, claiming that they are “grooming” children for sexual abuse. This current homophobic rhetoric has added an extra component of transphobia as well. Notably, Rufo is also involved in promoting this “grooming” narrative and has recently introduced his coordinated media plan to create moral panic around a term, “gender ideology,” in the same way that he did with critical race theory. The result is the dehumanization of the LGBTQ+ community and a negative impact on the mental health of LGBTQ+ educators and students.

The goal of these terms are to immediately shut down conversations about accurate and inclusive history, concerns expressed by BIPOC and LGBTQ+ teachers, staff, and students’ experiences of racism, homophobia and transphobia, and to derail equity policies/initiatives that have sometimes been around for decades.

These disparaging narratives about teachers create a subsequent “moral panic” in which community members become fearful of teachers and become emboldened to make such egregious allegations. In an article from The Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky writes, “Moral panics do more than demonize a group of people. They serve in part to create a group of people and mark it as deviant.” These concocted narratives of moral panic harm teachers and staff, and therefore, our students.

It also results in an environment in which teachers are fearful to teach and support inclusivity efforts. Educational gag orders, legislation that prohibits certain curriculum or books, have been introduced or passed to punish teachers. In the recent review of social studies standards in Texas, “involuntary relocation” was a term proposed as an alternative term for slavery, and an Ohio lawmaker introduced the idea that “both sides” of the Holocaust should be taught. The recent effort also had an effect during the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection; many teachers were concerned with how to talk about such a crucial event. Dylan Huisken, a teacher in Missoula, Mont., reflected on his lesson planning for the first anniversary of January 6th and how he would teach his students about what happened, demonstrating the importance of these lessons in our schools. "Not addressing the attack is to suggest that the civic ideals we teach exist in a vacuum and don't have any real-world application, that civic knowledge is mere trivia." 

Teachers and staff have had their safety compromised due to being targeted either for their identities of being a part of the BIPOC or LGBTQ+ community or for presenting ideas of equity and inclusion. Willie Carver, who was selected as Kentucky’s Teacher of the Year 2022, resigned from his position, citing increased levels of hostility toward LGBTQ+ students and staff. Many Black teachers report the mental toll of experiencing racism in their schools and districts. In Colorado Springs, the former equity director, Alexis Knox-Miller, reported being followed to various community events to discuss the district’s equity audit, specifically by members of the local chapter of FAIR, with their only goal to criticize the equity policy. As mentioned earlier, DCSD educators have been targeted when putting inclusive signs in their classrooms, which was also documented in Wise’s complaint to the Office of Civil Rights.

Villainizing Teachers Unions

Professional organizations/unions have become a convenient target for extremists. They invented and spread the narrative that the groups of laborers that helped create the modern work day, are somehow out to replace American capitalism with a socialist society. It’s a long-time narrative that some business owners have used as an excuse to cut corners, often resulting in unsafe working conditions for their employees and not paying them adequately. 

Teachers unions are no exception. Your five-year-old’s teacher, who helps her sound out her letters, is also somehow the enemy because she would like to improve the learning environment for your child by having fewer students in her class. It’s really tough to speak out of both sides of your mouth – how can you appreciate your elementary school educator for helping your student overcome his test anxiety, but also believe that being a member of the teachers’ union somehow makes them untrustworthy? We see this dichotomy at work here in Douglas County all the time. District and Board of Education leadership praise our educators and their commitment to our students, the urgency to pass a Mill Levy Override to better pay the teachers in our county; the same leadership also claims the district teacher’s union, Douglas County Federation (DCF), is at fault for stirring up divisiveness and misinformation in the district. 

“Unfortunately, distorted stereotypes of the corrupt union boss, the distrust of any collective speaking out against the powers-that-be as being anti-American and socialist and other similar tropes are appropriated and distorted by those who refuse to recognize just how hard teachers work for them and the welfare of their children.”

To learn more about what teachers' unions provide and how they serve teachers, staff and students, read our blog The Latest Dog Whistle From School Reformers: Teachers' Unions.

Many professions have a union option. It’s where innovative strategies are taught, and where access to legal help and professional certifications can be offered to serve to strengthen individuals. Teachers’ unions are no different; they often help ensure that wages are livable and fair as well as ensure that work conditions are safe and in line with best practices.

Nationally, and locally in DCSD, teacher salaries are low, compared to other industrialized nations. There are many factors that are difficult to extract. Many of these countries have stronger health and medical support, better social programs and better working environments, but even with those benefits, the U.S. still falls short. Teachers in the U.S. struggle to live off their income. In fact, in a 2021 national survey of 1,200 teachers, 82% have held or are currently holding second jobs to supplement their incomes. This should be a giant red flag regarding the sustainability of the teaching profession. In DCSD, our teachers struggle to afford to live nearby because housing is so expensive in Douglas County. 

“It’s really kind of disheartening when you think that many teachers not only have bachelor’s degrees but master’s degrees and still have to hustle for their income,” said Donna M. Davis, an education historian and professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, EdSurge reported. “The system is clearly broken when we have highly qualified professionals needing to supplement their income to survive, who are one catastrophe — one paycheck — away from complete ruin.”

Meanwhile, here in DCSD, BoE President Mike Peterson condemns our local teachers’ union for potentially asking for higher wages (remember, DCSD educators are paid the lowest in the Denver metro area).

“You're gonna see the collective bargaining come in, that self-licking ice cream cone. Where the teacher’s union funnels money into candidates to get elected to the school board, then they negotiate with the candidates that they funded, for more union dues, and on and on it goes.”

Unions with collective bargaining agreements can assist in helping teachers and staff make liveable wages. Unions are not the villains; they are organizations of professionals that hold our community and school boards accountable for improving the working conditions of their employees (which thereby improves the conditions for our students) and paying them salaries they deserve.

Lowering Standards for Teachers

The whiplash description from hero to villain has been a gut punch to an already burdened profession, and now there is a teacher shortage across the country. Educators are considering leaving the profession in large numbers. 

“A National Education Association poll conducted this year found 55% of teachers said they would leave education sooner than planned, up from 37% last August [2021].” 

As a result, several states have lowered standards to be a teacher, resulting in less qualified people filling the roles. In Arizona, legislators lowered teacher qualifications to the point of needing neither a teaching license nor a four-year degree to teach. In Indiana, teacher shortages are being approached slightly differently. A new law, passed this spring, allows adjunct teachers to instruct in subject matter where they have at least four years of experience, and they are mentored by a teacher for one year.

By lowering the standards for teacher qualifications, two messages are loud and clear – first, teachers are not professionals; and second, lowering the quality of public education is acceptable. 

Reducing education to simply an exchange of material between teacher to student dismisses the science of teaching and the professional skill sets and deep understanding of child development learned through higher education. We have seen proof of this from other angles. The president of a far-right Christian college in Michigan, intent on dismantling public education as we know it, called the education departments in higher education“the dumbest part of every college ... Education is the study of how to teach. Is that a separate art? I don’t think so.”

Part of the extremist playbook for dismantling public education is creating a problem that gets fixed by breaking down the public education system, piece by piece. Driving teachers from the workplace, diluting the profession with less qualified teachers and implying that an education in Education is “dumb” or less important than any other profession, erodes the public education system from yet another angle – opening the door for “solutions” like the privatization of public education.