Kentucky teachers aren’t the enemy. Bills to undermine their hard work are.

I have been a public school teacher for 25 years and never have I felt more misunderstood and misrepresented. Across the United States, lawmakers are filing bills designed to erode trust in public education. While the authors of these bills say they want to help parents be better informed, these bills are not about transparency, but about intimidating principals and teachers and sowing suspicion among our most valued stakeholder, the parents who entrust us with their children.

According to legislative researcher Jeffery Sachs, 35 states have introduced 137 bills since January 2021, limiting what schools can teach. New Hampshire’s HB 1255 bans teachers from depicting any part of U.S. history in a negative light, and Indiana’s HB 1134 would require lesson plans posted in an online portal allowing families to opt-in or out of assignments.

Here in Kentucky, Rep. Joe Fischer, R-Fort Thomas, and Rep. Matt Lockett, R-Nicholasville, both filed bills in the House aimed at shutting down discussions about race in K-12 schools, according to the Courier-Journal’s Olivia Krauth. In the Senate, Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, filed SB 138 that would “prohibit school districts from requiring educators to discuss controversial issues or current events.”

Sadly, these bills are designed to address a crisis that doesn’t actually exist. There is no secret agenda among teachers to brainwash your child to vote or think a certain way. The fact is, whether you have a child in school or not, every Kentuckian has access right now to the educational standards we teach. You can access them at kystandards.org. The Kentucky Academic Standards (KAS) outline the knowledge and skills that all Kentucky students should master by graduation.

While the standards address what is to be learned, it is up to the teacher to design curriculum, or how learning takes place and what resources are used. I upload my lesson plans every week to an online platform called Canvas. Every parent of every student in my classroom has access to these plans already, along with the resources I will use and links to the assignment.

All decisions about courses, subjects and content are made at the local level. And the most local person is the classroom teacher who is responsible for the growth of his students. For example, if I were a middle school Physical Education teacher, I would be required to help my students develop Standard 4: “Students will demonstrate responsible personal and social behavior that exhibits respect for self and others.” To do that, I might design a lesson to help students practice skills like sportsmanship, etiquette, and teamwork.

For this lesson, I could use a game of volleyball or kickball or hacky sack or pickleball or ultimate frisbee or muggle quidditch. The standard is the same statewide, but the curriculum, the way

I teach the standard, may change. As a professional educator, I make that decision based on where my students are in relation to this skill, where they need to be, and how I can best get them there. Often, that changes daily, depending on the class and the individual students in it.

One intimidation tactic in these legislative bills is to require teachers to post their lesson plans nine months in advance, but a responsive teacher revises her lessons as she teaches them. One thing I love about teaching is that no two days, no two classes, no two students are alike.

It’s not called a “teachable moment” because I’ve anticipated it nine months in advance. I know my subject and my students, and I might recognize in the moment that this experiment or example or story, instead of the one I’ve planned, might be the very thing that makes the light bulb go off above the head of my students.

Parents and taxpayers, do not be deceived. These bills are not about transparency. Ask any principal or teacher: we are begging for you to come to our classroom, volunteer, talk to your students about what they are learning, and learn with them. Teaching has never been more transparent than it is in 2022.

Instead these bills are designed to introduce the fiction that teachers have some secret pact to make your child hate their own race and themselves. Contrary to what these bills seem to indicate, we teachers are not radicals teaching your child to hate their country. We are mothers and fathers, churchgoers and Little League coaches, who are members of the very communities in which we teach. Parents, we have exactly the same goals as you - to produce active, curious, informed citizens prepared for an independent and fulfilling life in a democracy which values freedom and choice.

We have nothing to hide. But accountability isn’t the real goal. The real goal is to sow suspicion among stakeholders, demoralize and disrespect classroom teachers, and drive qualified candidates away from a career in education.

Unfortunately, Kentucky students will suffer the most.

Liz Prather teaches Literary Arts at The School for Creative and Performing Arts at Lafayette High School in Lexington.

This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 11:53 AM.