The two largest teacher unions in the nation are allegedly coaching educators on left-wing perspectives of race and gender, prompting some parental rights activists to claim such issues are resulting in greater support for school choice in Texas.
A recent report by the right-leaning Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI) claims that such guidance was given to attendees of the American Federation of Teachers’ (AFT) “Together Educating America’s Children” conference and the National Education Association’s (NEA) representative assembly.
At NEA’s assembly, a rally was held to protest education policies in Flordia that were implemented by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Attendees and NEA organizers criticized the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” policy, which prohibits discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation for children in the third grade and below, according to the report.
The NEA event also allegedly targeted Missouri over parental rights legislation meant to regulate how children are taught about some culture war issues that happen to clash with families’ religious beliefs, calling it “anti-LGBTQ+.”
Brady Gray, president of the Texas Family Project, claimed that the unions’ positions have been driving Texans to favor school choice, according to the Texas Scorecard.
“We live in a time where trust in public institutions is diminishing. It is not helpful that at seemingly every turn we learn of new ways teachers’ unions and their ilk are plotting to sabotage parental rights,” alleged Gray. “It is no wonder that more than 85 percent of Republican primary voters support school choice efforts.”
Additionally, NEA offered guidance on pronoun usage, claiming that the pronouns “Ze, Zim, and Zir” were common in society and advising union members to use preferred pronouns in intra-organizational communications, according to DFI.
The NEA also adopted a measure on how to strategically respond to legislation and rhetoric the organization perceives as anti-LGBT.
“We know that in ‘24, the next presidential election, [the attacks on LGBTQ communities are] only going to get worse,” claimed C. Scott Miller, a grade school teacher who co-chairs the NEA’s LGBTQ caucus, according to Education Week. “This helps give NEA a roadmap on how we maneuver through those attacks and how we’re coordinated and making sure we’re one voice rather than fragmented or not on the same page.”
The DFI report further claims that AFT encouraged its members to question “[c]isnormativity,” the notion that individuals’ gender identity matches their biological sex, arguing that the assumption “can be limiting for [transgender, gender nonconforming, nonbinary individuals].”
“[AFT trains] 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,” the report alleges.
DFI also mentioned in its report that both teacher unions criticized the Supreme Court’s recent decisions to end race-conscious college admissions, with the NEA allegedly suggesting that the current Supreme Court is “an illegitimate Court, shaped by Trump.”
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Gov. Greg Abbott has voiced his intention to sign some kind of school choice legislation this year. An upcoming special session on the topic is expected to be convened in October.
“Every parent deserves choices about where they will send their child to school. All these parents know this isn’t a Republican issue, it’s not a Democrat issue. This is a civil rights issue,” Abbott previously said, according to the Texas Observer.
Polling conducted by the University of Texas at Austin indicates that support for school choice is on the rise, with most respondents saying they support some type of school choice legislation.
