There is little doubt that modern public schools are increasingly pushing controversial gender theories onto students, and one new study indicates that the effort is far from an organic shift by teachers and local school districts.
According to the Defense of Freedom Institute, the nation’s largest teachers union has been actively persuading educators to emphasize “gender identity politics into classroom teaching.”
During a conference last month, the American Federation of Teachers held a pair of sessions on the topic. One was called “Affirming LGBTQIA+ Identities In and Out of the Classroom” and the other was titled “The TGNCNB [transgender, gender nonconforming, nonbinary] Inclusive School and Classroom.”
Going beyond merely calling for acceptance of those who identify as LGBT, Defense of Freedom Institute determined that the true goal was to reshape public education in the image of far-left activists.
“Both session descriptions offered attendees ideas and action items to take back to their schools,” the group reported. “The unions’ mission is clear: train teachers to affirm every gender identity that conflicts with a student’s sex, ignore basic biological facts, hide the training from parents, and shape school policies to force others to do the same.”
A recent poll by the American Federation of Teachers found that Americans reject teaching CRT & LGBT identity in the classroom. By a 30% margin, Americans believe that teaching critical race theory should be kept out of public school classrooms.
More here: https://t.co/2WBBHlG1aQ pic.twitter.com/1NyQjzGOoZ— Commonwealth Policy Center (@CPC4Kentucky) July 29, 2022
Along with the National Education Association, America’s second-largest teachers union, the AFT has been a vocal opponent of efforts to limit exposure to explicit material and ensure that parents are made aware of changes in gender identity or pronoun use by their children while in school.
For its part, the NEA called on teachers to showcase so-called “inclusive symbols” — Black Lives Matter and LGBT “pride” flags, for example — in their classrooms regardless of any policies prohibiting such displays.
A total of nearly five million U.S. teachers are members of either the AFT or NEA.
Angela Morabito, who was one of the authors of the report, argued that the “average rank and file teacher got into that field because they care about learning and they care about students,” but unions are getting in the way by injecting the job with a divisive social ideology.
“The teachers unions are very clearly on the wrong side of not just what’s good for students and families, but what’s good for their own membership,” she said.
