How to Make Education a Bipartisan Issue Again
It’s not exactly news that our country’s political debate is a hot mess right now, with “negative partisanship” at all-time highs, and many Americans viewing their fellow citizens with distrust, if not disgust. Sadly, the vitriol has even reached the issue of K-12 education, a policy area that not so long ago still managed to bring the two parties together. The culture wars are roiling our schools, with pitched battles at board meetings over Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, sex ed curricula, and even the books stocked in the library.
Disagreement isn’t a problem in and of itself. As we teach students in civics classes, our democratic institutions are there to resolve differences of opinion peacefully and constructively. The process isn’t always easy, speedy, or pretty. And given that schools prepare students for the real world and will inevitably reflect cultural values and wade into controversial topics, they have always been, and will always be, magnets for disputation.
What’s concerning, though, is that the current level of divisiveness—often fueled by national media narratives, single-minded politicians, and cynical campaign strategists—is making it hard for educators to roll up their sleeves and do the work at hand. As the new school year unfolds, that work is to help America’s 50 million public school students catch up from the massive learning losses that so many of them experienced during the pandemic.
Simply put, the culture wars are making it hard to implement even common-sense strategies in our schools.
Consider the example of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). The term is relatively new, but the concept is not. The expectation that students learn to practice self-regulation, navigate social situations, and empathize with others has been around since the beginning of education. Academic learning requires schools not just to attend to what content students learn, but how they learn it and whether they have the social and emotional skills—as well as the health, nutrition, and personal well-being—that enable them to focus, stay motivated, and work well with others.
For example, teaching elementary students to read means helping them understand their strengths and areas of growth, developing strategies for coping with frustrations and seeking help, and building an understanding of different perspectives and new ideas. These are all social and emotional skills.
And parents get it. Recent surveys found that parents strongly support schools teaching these skills. That doesn’t mean they want SEL to crowd out reading, writing, and math—nor do we. They are also eager for schools to help students develop social and emotional skills outside of the classroom, such as through sports, music, and other extracurricular activities. Parents also understand the critical role they play in imparting these skills to their children—in the home, in their faith traditions, in the examples they set, and otherwise.
So, what’s the problem? Unfortunately, SEL is now being depicted by some as a Trojan Horse and a politically motivated attempt to bring left-wing ideology into our schools. We understand these concerns – and agree that parents should know and feel comfortable with what their children are learning and experiencing in schools. We should take parents’ worries seriously and make clear that SEL goes hand in hand with character, self-discipline, and good citizenship. It’s not, in most places at least, an attempt to foist any particular ideology on students and their families.
And then we can get back to priority number-one—addressing students’ academic recovery, while also supporting them socially and emotionally, in the wake of a terrible pandemic.
Let’s listen to the millions of Americans, educators, and parents who want to focus on what’s best for our kids, not the culture warriors who are looking to make education a political issue. As they say, nothing succeeds like success. We have a chance to do right by kids and get the bipartisan reform effort back on track.
