I think you have that backwards. Parents and the community should have the final say when deciding what is included in a curriculum, not (potentially activist) teachers and school boards.
> Parents and the community should have the final say ...not (potentially activist) teachers and school boards.
Aren't school boards usually elected by the community?
Also, generally, a lot of public school teaching is about encouraging a newer generation to think for themselves, and potentially be exposed to ideas that are not constrained by the parents and the community.
Parents who want to micromanage what ideas their kid is exposed to should consider homeschooling.
Let's get real for a second and be honest about the very real problem we are discussing:
Political activist teachers are pushing their agendas onto students. This has been quietly happening for some time, but has become harder for the teachers to hide as children started completing more instruction and schoolwork in the home.
These are not isolated incidents and the examples of this happening are everywhere in the US. In fact, many teachers have been caught openly bragging about trying to create "radicalized" students. This is precisely why we've seen a grassroots push by parents against teachers and admin.
That only works to a point. If a community decided "math is stupid, our schools shouldn't be teaching it", they should quite rightly be overridden. Instead of treating it like a power grab, perhaps the process for determining curriculum should be more open and transparent?
If a community decided that math is stupid and our schools shouldn't be teaching it, they may actually have a point. Who defines "math"? Is it all the way to Calculus 2 because the math teachers got excited and thought everyone needs to get that far? Is it politics disguised as math?
I'd trust the community in that case. And if it backfires, they get to live with the consequences. Not everything needs to be idiot-proof. Our country might do much better if we just let bad ideas fail hard.
It wouldn't be so bad if "bad ideas fail[ing] hard" didn't have the potential to quite literally ruin the lives of the youths who come up in these environments.
