America’s K–12 education system has become the latest front in the elite-driven culture war. The discourse and dialogue in schools have been captured not by reason and evidence but by identity politics, with today’s media suggesting many parents today either support or even promote radical ideas.
These identity-laden calls for action are dangerous for democracy and the antithesis of a liberal education. Thankfully, a recent survey from the Survey Center on American Life of 2,625 American adults, including an oversample of 610 current parents with children under age 18, found that most parents want viewpoint diversity, reject identity politics, and are far less supportive of these woke impulses than it may appear in both mass and social media.
For instance, most parents of school-aged children — defined here as those with a child between the aged of three and 17 — do not believe that books with dated language or references that might be offensive to certain groups should be removed from public school libraries: a topic that has generated much debate in recent months. Seventy-four percent of parents disagree with such censorship compared to 78 percent of those without school-aged children. It is worth noting that among Republican-identifying parents, 91 percent are opposed to removing books compared to a much lower 54 percent of Democratic parents. Regardless of this significant difference, the majority of parents remain very much against removing books.
Relatedly, when asked whether schools should ensure that students read authors from a variety of different racial and ethnic backgrounds — the overwhelming majority of both parents (90 percent) and non-parents (89 percent) agree that schools should ensure students are exposed to a diversity of authors. While Republican parents are a bit less enthusiastic than their Democratic counterparts (82 percent vs. 94 percent), understandable given recent moves to remove works of Western canon in the name of identity politics, large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans remain supportive here.
When parents were asked whether or not teachers should avoid discussing controversial subjects that might make students uncomfortable, a clear preference emerged. Seventy-eight percent of parents believe that teachers should discuss controversial subjects, which is even a handful of points higher than the number of those without school-age children who say the same. Democrats (83 percent) are somewhat more supportive here than Republicans (72 percent) are. Regardless of this partisan difference, having students confront ideas instead of being coddled is strongly preferred by both parents and Americans overall.
Turning to the question of curriculum, most Americans still have confidence that the teachers in their local public high school can teach controversial issues in a fair and honest way. A majority (55 percent) of Americans are confident that teachers can present information in a balanced fashion and 56 percent of parents feel the same way. There is a notable partisan cleavage, with a majority of Democrats (68 percent) but less than half of Republicans (43 percent) trusting teachers. This is, again, understandable given the progressive impulses many educators have given their own educational backgrounds.
Finally, the data reveal that a minority of Americans want the concept of white privilege — a defining idea in this new anti-racist age — in our students’ textbooks. Just 46 percent of parents and non-parents alike think that white privilege should be in our textbooks. In contrast, majorities of parents and non-parents believe that the history of the gay rights movement, as well as the fact that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and many other founders were slave owners, should be included. Large majorities — over 80 percent of parents with children under 18, and those without — supported including information about the federal government’s role in creating Japanese internment camps during World War II, as well as chronicling how the US government forcibly removed Native Americans from their land many decades ago. Thus, it is clear that Americans rightly understand the need to confront painful and problematic past actions while opposing the racist, divisive language present in many schools that is far too influential today.
The extreme progressive impulses infecting higher education in the United States have moved from campus quads and dormitories into our nation’s middle and high schools and even into our kindergartens. This past April, a teacher at New York City’s Grace Church School published an open letter explaining that the school’s new “anti-racist” ideology induces shame in white students for being oppressors, such that “children are afraid to challenge the repressive ideology that rules our school.”
While many parents may be understandably afraid to challenge progressive ideas in their children’s schools, they should know that their fellow parents around the nation value viewpoint diversity and want challenging and uncomfortable ideas to be taught and discussed. Parents overwhelmingly reject the divisive and polarizing ideas of anti-racism — they just need to speak up and push back on the progressive agenda.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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