'Insane' claims about schools are fueling conservative takeover of education: columnist

The Republican Party and conservative activists are pulling out all the stops to take control of the U.S. education system based upon "insane" claims of childhood indoctrination, claims columnist Jonathan Chait.

The political observer states that comments made by some conservatives about what is happening in schools should be looked upon with extreme skepticism, and that the wild assertions are just a pretext for riling up parents.

According to the columnist, "Republicans have begun saying things about American schools that not long ago would have struck them as peculiar, even insane" and illustrated his point by noting that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) recently complained that schools have become “a cesspool of Marxist indoctrination.”

Noting that embattled Donald Trump fretted about "pink-haired communists teaching our kids,” Chait warned "... at every level of government, Republicans have begun to act on these beliefs. Over the past three years, legislators in 28 states have passed at least 71 bills controlling what teachers and students can say and do at school. A wave of library purges, subject-matter restrictions, and potential legal threats against educators has followed."

As he notes, the battle over schooling -- and what children can and can't be taught -- is an extension of the culture war Republicans revel in when elections near.

By extension, he added, the loss by Donald Trump in the 2020 election has led exasperated conservatives to find a target they see as tangentially related.

"The Republican Party emerged from the Trump era deeply embittered. A large share of the party believed that Democrats had stolen their way back into power," he wrote.

"But this sentiment took another form that was not as absurd or, at least, not as clearly disprovable. The theory was that Republicans were subverted by a vast institutional conspiracy. Left-wing beliefs had taken hold among elite institutions: the media, the bureaucracy, corporations, and, especially, schools."

"Inevitably, perhaps, conservative fears of sexual indoctrination have led them to seek out evidence of heresy in school libraries. Concerned parents have been pestering school boards to keep scary books away from little Susie’s innocent eyes since the school library was invented. "

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