An Arizona educator’s protest against parental concerns wasn’t the own she thought it was as she inadvertently articulated the failings of credentialism.
Around the country, more state legislatures are waking up to the fact that their education departments have gone unchecked resulting in a veritable cornucopia of corrupting content filling school libraries and curriculums. As such, many of those lawmakers have set out to right the ship against indoctrination akin to measures like the Stop WOKE Act and the Parental Rights in Education law enacted in Florida which have forced a review of school libraries in the Sunshine State to remove inappropriate content.
The Arizona Senate Education Committee held a hearing Wednesday on SB 1700 which aims to empower parents to have a greater say in what their children are exposed to, and special education teacher Alicia Messing was personally affronted by this.
“I have a master’s degree because when I got certified, I was told I had to have a master’s degree to be an Arizona-certified teacher. We all have advanced degrees,” she cried out before the committee. “What do the parents have?”
“What do the parents have?”
The kids.— László (@DeadLaszlo) February 20, 2023
what have parents got?
A supreme right to determine the educational & societal topics discussed & not discussed in the schools their children attend, which they also, coincidentally, pay for.
it would be good if parents flexed harder, frankly.
— cunobeline (@myfintwitacct) February 19, 2023
“Are we vetting the backgrounds of our parents? Are we allowing the parents to choose the curriculum and the books that our children are going to read?” Messing railed before abandoning the crux of her argument with an appeal, not to logic, but to emotion. “I think that it’s a mistake, and I am just speaking from the heart.”
Unsurprisingly, Messing’s comments ignited a firestorm online as people reacted fervently to her implication that government-controlled entities had a better grasp of what’s in the best interest of kids than their own parents.
If our teachers don’t understand freedom and parental rights, how do they teach our kids? This tells you a lot about teachers’ colleges that train our future teachers to believe kids belong to a society, not the parents.
— Lily Tang Williams (@Lily4Liberty) February 20, 2023
Parents should be vetting teachers.
— Monika (@MonikaMusing) February 19, 2023
They said the quiet part out loud. They hate parents.
— Merissa Hamilton ⛽ (@merissahamilton) February 19, 2023
The special education teacher went on to add, “The one line that I love is, ‘we must remember that the purpose of public education is not to teach only what parents want their children to be taught, it is to teach them what society needs them to be taught.'”
Evidently, Messing believes kids need to be taught about normalizing pedophilia as that was listed among the specific content that proposed legislation in the Grand Canyon State aims to prohibit.
“Exclude from school libraries all books, publications and papers of a sectarian, partisan or denomination character, or that are lewd or sexual, that promote gender fluidity or gender pronouns or groom children into normalizing pedophilia,” SB 1700 specified as currently written.
The line promoted by Messing seems to be favored by progressives at the moment as recently the Michigan Democratic Party used similar verbiage denigrating parents before deleting the post that they admitted, “ignored the important role parents play–and should play–in Michigan public schools. Parents need to have a say in their children’s education, end of story.”
how it started how it's going pic.twitter.com/ckRbnDgUok
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) January 17, 2022
Others made sure to remind Messing and her ilk that parents, i.e. the taxpayers, are society and have every right to determine what their children are being taught about said society, especially when schools should be focusing on core curricula like reading, writing and arithmetic.
Anybody who tries to separate kids from their parents is a bad person with bad intentions. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a groomer or a statist.
— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) February 19, 2023
Are they taking my hard earned money through tax dollars? I have every right to approve the curriculum being taught in my children’s school. Teachers and administrators who think like this are why more parents choose private or home schooling for their children.
— (@CallMeK1123) February 19, 2023
The purpose of public education is to teach kids reading, writing, and arithmetic. The purpose of parents is to teach kids “what society needs them to be taught”. It isn’t up to her to define what that is.
— Comrade Swamp Madness (@SwampMadness) February 19, 2023
The past few years has made me despise credentialism. Sure, we need people to have the credentials to perform certain jobs, but all credentials are not equal and they don’t mean a person is ethical or competent. Women like this prove that ‘credentials’ aren’t everything.
— AmberF (@AmberFaire1) February 19, 2023
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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