"In August of 2022, a resident of Denton, Texas, appeared before his school board to demand the removal of a salacious library book. He read aloud passages from the novel describing detailed sexual acts. But the book he was reading from, Love Lies Beneath, wasn't actually available in the school district's libraries. He had confused the sexy psychological thriller with Lies Beneath, a young-adult novel about mermaids."
"Since at least the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," in which a Tennessee high-school teacher was accused of violating a law that prohibited the teaching of evolution, Americans have argued about school curricula. But from the 1980s until the end of the Obama years, a bipartisan focus on achievement, as measured by standardized-test scores, was largely "keeping the lid" on these educational culture wars, Hlavacik writes."
"The lid came off with the 2015 repeal of the No Child Left Behind Act, which had rated and rewarded schools based on those scores. Now, he concludes, it's culture wars all the way down. Instead of trying to improve students' reading and math skills, Hlavacik writes, schools have become theaters of political drama and control. Each side tries to impose its dogmas upon the classroom, following what he classifies as two basic scripts: exposé and innovation."
A mistaken public complaint in Denton, Texas exemplifies how culture wars distort educational policy. Since the 1925 Scopes trial, debates over curricula have recurred, but a bipartisan emphasis on standardized-test-driven achievement from the 1980s through the Obama years largely suppressed broader conflicts. The 2015 repeal of No Child Left Behind removed that moderating focus and intensified cultural battles. Schools increasingly operate as stages for political drama and control, where competing factions deploy two dominant scripts—exposé and innovation—to warn of corruption and advance transformative educational agendas.
Read at The Atlantic
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