The Parents’ Rights Movement’s Effect on School Board Functioning

Abstract

School board meetings across the country have become battlegrounds for political debate. Once civil, these forums have devolved into chaotic scenes fueled by truculent speeches against race-conscious policies, protecting LGBTQ+ students, and updates to history curricula. These are often made by parents, acting as foot soldiers for the “Parents’ Rights Movement,” who package their activism as a campaign for increased transparency. Their efforts have derailed hundreds of meetings by escalating tensions, all the while eclipsing good faith community stakeholders who want to address impediments to student achievement and school success. The rise of “parents’ rights” activism has come at a time when the American education system is plagued by numerous crises. Average test scores for reading and math are the lowest they have been in decades; in the last recorded school year, more than 2.7 million students received an out-of-school suspension at least once,¬¬ while over 100,000 were expelled; schools, experiencing the residual effects of the pandemic, are seeing record high rates of absenteeism across all demographic groups––potentially related to the sharp rise in depression and anxiety diagnoses among children nationwide; and, the looming teacher shortage has been exacerbated by a shrinking pool of substitutes, nurses, and school social workers. While districts desperately try to navigate the issues above, “parents’ rights” groups have made identity (i.e. race, gender, and sexual orientation) the focal point of their crusade. Their rhetoric against race-conscious and transgender-affirming content in schools notably omits students who are targeted based on their race, gender, and sexual orientation on school campuses. In my paper, I hypothesize that a movement to ban library materials and censor curricular content has forced school boards to spend valuable time on issues that align with “parents’ rights” values, which I deem “political,” and away from addressing the aforementioned crises, which I deem “constructive.” By measuring the number of constructive and political comments from board meetings in three districts with a large “parents’ rights” activist presence––and comparing trends before and after the rise of such activism––this paper demonstrates how the Parents’ Rights Movement has hindered school districts’ ability to properly function.