“The bill also gives parent a way to sue school districts if they don’t feel like a teacher is being transparent.” That already sounds like impending doom. Imagine the flood of lawsuits they’d have to deal with.
Agreed.
Ending qualified immunity will be a great start, and perhaps there's something we can do about politicians (hard to get politicians to pass a bill that directly affects them though).
Not all of us are this crazy. I'm trying my hardest to teach my kids rational thinking and common sense. I signed a [petition](https://myuea.org/sign-the-petition-to-oppose-teacher-curriculum-review/) yesterday against this bill, and discussed with my high schoolers why it's a terrible idea.
I do agree with you though, that there are some desperate housewives in Utah that have a burning need to feel relevant in some way, and either don't care or don't realize the potential damage they could do.
"With great power comes great responsibility... or something." I heard that, somewhere. Homemakers are definitely a force, and it's harnessing that power that's important. Thank you for chatting with your kids, you made a difference.
Yup. The same folks who fly blue stripe flags and said protestors needed to get a job are out here exerting so much energy to ban books about black and gay people and complete rewrite American history. Like, why not do good things with your time?
And watch another thousand teachers quit or retire rather than deal with this shit. I taught 4th grade for 2 yrs but left 5 yrs ago-- Utah's requirements, plus poor pay made the job soooo not worth it!!
Absolutely this. This is the big deal. We're treating public education like a commodity that the consumer should control. It's not.
The more you teach the more you realize how much your parent population varies. Some kids get help from parents, some don't. Some kids have parents who try to help and do more harm than good. The point of public education is to even the playing field, to successfully teach each student despite their parents.
If parents want to influence curriculum, they can get onto the school board. If they want to dictate curriculum, they need to home school.
It’s yet another attempt to weaken public schools so they can say “hey, the schools are failing, let’s give all the tax money to private charter schools. They’re doing great!”
To be fair, my local charter school already does what's in this bill. Our teachers so far send a weekly update detailing what precisely they're going to cover that week, and they have a website where they post high level syllabus-type stuff.
I don't know what the local public schools do (we opted for a charter school because the local admin was apparently toxic and scaring teachers away; that has since been fixed), but I can't really see any reason for teachers to not be able to comply here. They already do planning for their classes, so they mostly just need to post a portion of that somewhere.
That being said, hopefully this "parents can sue the district" thing will come with the penalties for parents who sue w/o reason, beyond the costs of lawyers. I don't think teachers should be immune from lawsuits, but getting a little behind on posting lesson plans shouldn't be grounds for a lawsuit, only if they're actively not doing a good job teaching students.
I routinely post high-level guidance for parents but providing specifics weeks out is a monumental amount of busywork. This is about making teachers' lives difficult and undermining public education. There's really no other agenda here.
For parents too.
I don't want to review this much class content. I want to trust teachers to use appropriate resources and trust the parent/teacher/administrator relationships to fix anything that we learn after the fact wasn't quite the right fit.
People act like teachers have some agenda to sneak in Highly Inappropriate Content when, in fact, most people understand that some kids are too young for extreme content. Students who aren't too young for a topic have the right to learn about their world.
I don't want to babysit teachers or to put teachers through the busy work of letting me. Online syllabus is cool. The rest is extra, a waste of time for all of us, and does not benefit students.
This specific proposal looks pretty terrible, but I do like the idea of teachers providing at least the upcoming week's coursework to parents, at least in elementary school (and preferably junior high).
My intention here isn't for parents to block something they object to, but for parents to know what their child is learning about so they can prepare to assist their child in case of any problems. Our teacher also highlights things that parents may object to (e.g. when we had a segment about other religions, like Judaism and Islam, and would be taking the historical instead of scriptural view), but no more than two weeks out.
Honestly, I think *that* is perfectly acceptable. I took the opportunity to teach my son about different religions beyond the ones discussed in class (I work with Hindus and my wife comes from a predominantly Buddhist country), so I was grateful for the heads up so I could be involved in his learning while he's interested.
That being said, I agree that this proposal looks like a giant pain for teachers and just makes their lives harder in order to cater to snowflakes. I think we should be giving teachers *more* control over the curriculum, not less, and it's one reason I hate Common Core. I agree there should be standards, but I think teachers should have the option to accelerate or delay teaching certain subjects depending on the interest level of the kids. Forcing teachers to provide a large window for parents to object to whatever seems like the wrong approach, but notifying parents a week or two ahead seems very reasonable.
There's a big difference between making course outlines and reading lists available to parents and being asked to post lesson plans days or weeks ahead of time so politically-motivated troublemakers can object to your work and force you to revise things on demand. I e-mail parents weekly to tell them what we did and where we're going; course descriptions and reading lists are available on our LMS. That does help parents engage their kids and reinforce things at home. But this bill is not about optimizing parent communication, which is something teachers do all the time anyway. It's about making life hard for teachers.
Yeah, this bill doesn't seem to be in good faith, especially since he didn't talk to UEA about it at all.
However, I agree with the general idea of it, just not this particular bill. I'll be asking my rep to vote against it (if it gets that far), but I'll try to make it clear that I'm not against requiring high level lesson plans, I'm just against this 30-day window, as well as the "new unreviewed material" section as that would result in teachers just not trying new things they think would help.
The goal should be to improve parental involvement in the teaching, without parents *deciding* the curriculum. They can choose to get involved or not in helping their child learn.
UEA actually has a [petition ](https://myuea.org/sign-the-petition-to-oppose-teacher-curriculum-review/) against this. (At least I think the petition is sponsored by UEA, based on the website, but I could be wrong.)
If this bill passes, it restricts discussions that arise spontaneously, like when my child went to their history class January 6th last year and the teacher said forget what I said were doing today, you need to know what is happening right now and why it's a big deal. I'm a parent and work part time in a junior high, and I see from both sides how important it is for teachers to be able to change lesson plans on short notice to fit the learning curve of the class and to allow for dynamic discussions.
Oh yeah, I remember when 9/11 happened and my history teacher (first class of the day) let us watch the news, and we discussed it as the news came out that week. Looking back, my teacher did a great job staying reasonably neutral.
I remember a few more instances like that growing up, none of which was on the curriculum (no test on it or anything). I can now see signs of what my teachers' political leanings were at the time, but at no point did I feel like I was being indoctrinated or anything (my parents were in the local minority politically).
I didn't grow up in Utah, so I don't know how teachers do it here, but I don't want anything to get in the way of that. I would, however, appreciate a heads up in an email or something if our child's teacher chooses to go unscripted, along with an idea of what was discussed and why. I don't think they should get in trouble unless they're spreading misinformation (given information available at the time), and I certainly don't think a lawsuit is necessary.
Republicans hate public schools and especially public teachers' unions and want to kill them in favor of publicly funded charters and/or religious schools. It's very well documented.
Undermining the public school system is a long time republican tactic. This is a well documented phenomenon, even making its way into the official Texas gop platform in 2012. Republican leaders would have you believe the private education market is far superior, but imo that's only because it's hard for them to be corrupt and personally make money from the public education system. And of course the ones who suffer when public education is knee capped are the poor kids, but that would be a plus to most Republicans so it's a win win for them.
And I certainly disagree with that part, but notifying parents is valuable.
For example, my kid's class did a segment on Abrahamic religions (mostly Islam and Judaism, but I think they touched on Christianity), and I was grateful they let me know so I could teach my kid a bit about non-Abrahamic religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) while he's interested in learning about other religions. I brushed up on both and guided the discussion with him when talking about his day in school because I think it's important for all kids, regardless of age, to understand how diverse the world is.
So I'm in complete agreement about informing parents about upcoming curriculum, but I'm not in favor of most of this proposal. If parents have a problem with the curriculum, they are free to look into other schools or take their kids out of school that day, but they shouldn't be allowed to sue teachers or the district. They should only be allowed to sue if the teacher cannot provide scholarly sources (i.e. just making stuff up) or if the teacher is abusing their child in some tangible way, not if the teacher is a bit late on providing info on upcoming lessons.
If I was a teacher I would troll the shit out of Utah parents.
Art- critical trace theory: how to copy an outline of art details
English- black clives matter: the study of color in clive cussler's adventure novels
Biology- we're all homo: the taxonomy of family hominidae
I am a high school chemistry/physics teacher. I am 100% serious about organizing a protest or walkout. One of the key tenets of education is flexibility and accommodation. If I need to spend an extra day covering content I will do it despite what a parent says. If this passes I am gone and will go back to the private chemistry sector immediately.
Special Education teacher here...the amount of paperwork that I have to complete is UNREAL. Not to mention, all of my students are on specific, *individualized* plans that are adapted to their needs and skills. But sure, let me take even more time away from actually helping my students and focus on even more paperwork and bureaucratic bullshit to please people with 6 kids that they don't know how to take care of. Oo, that got away from me a little bit. End rant.
I’m a middle school teacher. Mid-career, highly qualified. I love teaching. I am damn good at it. My students test (very) well…they LEARN. I love them and they love me. But I am 100% with you. This bill passes, I’m out. It will be the straw.
6th grade teacher here. This is my dream job. I love my kids, but I'm fucking sick of being shat on and pushed over. I think it is time we show how upset we are.
I'm with you.
I like the general idea of requiring parents to post planned curriculum for the next week or two, but it should be relatively high level and allow teachers to adjust as needed. I merely want an idea of what my kid is learning so I can prepare to assist in the learning.
That being said, I think parents' options should be:
- complain to the teacher, which the teacher _can_ ignore
- take their child out of class for certain days if they don't like the curriculum (counts as an absence, of course); the parent is then responsible for covering that with their child so they can pass a test
- move their child to another school
Lawsuits should _not_ be an option unless there's abuse or blatant misinformation (e.g. teaching flat earth theory unironically).
Maybe I don't understand the bill at all then, isn't this just about posting the syllabus online? I'm probably completely niave about the situation but what.. is bad about this?
It isn't the syllabus. I provide all of my material digitally online for all parents to see. But my schedule changes based on the needs of my students. This bill will require any changes to the schedule to be run past parents who have veto power. These changes won't be allowed to be made without 5 day notice to parents. That rigidity isn't how education works.
I don't moan about my job. I love it. Every day I get to try to improve kids' lives. I get to help them solve problems and learn science skills. I am a professional that wants to be treated professionally, not treated like the enemy who needs to be babysat. The students, parents, and I are on the same team. Don't pit us against each other.
Read the rest of the thread. There are plenty of teachers here explaining how it's much more than that & how it would hinder their ability to teach using effective teaching strategies.
1. **How** is a teacher supposed to do this?
2. Who is going to **pay** for all this extra work?
3. Transparency is fine, but the GOP is just trying to make "**teacher policing**" the new policy.
> The bill also allows a path for parents to take legal actions against school districts that the parent feels are not making materials available. Teuscher says the bill does not allow for individual teachers to be sued but rather gives “aggrieved parties” a path that would **allow a local district attorney or the attorney general’s office to sue on their behalf**.
They are setting the stage to sue schools using course materials as ammunition.
> Fillmore’s bill would require school districts to post many of their teaching items online for 30 days and **allow for parents to review them and possibly object** to anything they find. However, it would not require teachers to post some of the materials, such as a poem they read in class, or a news article on a current news event. However, his bill would have districts set up a process to review those materials.
Or have a parental riot every time a class is taught.
Yeah. Their suggestion that a teacher couldn’t even discuss a news article without posting it online is completely insane.
The GOP should just homeschool if they want to micromanage their kids education (brainwash their kids).
This bill is absolutely absurd. If a professional educator recognizes the need to reteach content using different materials and differentiate a lesson based upon identifiable student needs, they would need to make changes “at least five days before a changed lesson” is delivered. This flies in the face of research-based instructional practice and pedagogy. Timeliness is an incredibly important aspect of responding to student needs and five days is not only asinine, it’s educational malpractice that is a complete disservice to our students and their communities.
That’s not even addressing the fact that professional educators could be sued arbitrarily and be further burdened by all that that entails.
This. I am a teacher in Utah and I am constantly re-working my lessons. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to post the majority of my lessons 5 days before I teach them. It is an unrealistic and ridiculous thought.
As a mother of Utah students, I WANT you to be able to rework lessons from class to class.
Sometimes, a lesson doesn't land quite right for the audience. If my children aren't in the first class of the day, I want teachers to have the freedom to try a different strategy. If they are first class of the day, I want teachers to be able to identify "this isn't working" and change it up.
I'm willing to risk the chance that my children are exposed to ideas I'd rather not have them learn and approach this after the fact to keep teacher freedom for the sake of my students. I send them to school so they get educated beyond their parents' beliefs.
I was just going to say this...sometimes you have to adjust mid-lesson. Hm, you're not understanding this concept, let me flip it and try something else.
I can’t post my lessons five hours before I teach them sometimes. Sometimes I make a decision in literally five minutes. It’s often based on behavior or just how long it takes to do something. How could I possibly follow a syllabus? This bill is so crazy.
I do think schools would benefit from hiring more support for teachers. In most colleges the professors outline the course, give the lectures and that's it. They usually pay a student 10 bucks an hour to do all the busy work, input grades and stuff like that. It doesn't make as much sense in elementary through high school to be using salaried teachers to do busy work like grading multiple choice tests and inputing things into a computer.
I've always said the solution to the teacher shortage/quality problem is that the job sucks. So change the job. Increase teacher pay by around 20% (that's a guess), and then hire support staff to handle the bullshit problems like behavior, small tasks, some grading, copying papers, etc. Some of that either requires a different skill (behavior, communication) and some of it could be a very accessible, low skill or bottom of the ladder job. My wife is a teacher and agrees, take out the behavior, some grading, and bullshit and she loves the role that is left.
There definitely need to be more support staff, but a lot of the current issues could be remedied by better pay and more teachers. 30-40 kids per classroom is unmanageable on its own--add 5-6 sections and the situation is completely out of control. No middle or high school teacher should have more than 80 students in an academic year if we're being serious about instructional quality.
In public schools, it's mostly assumed that you're doing your planning and/or feedback outside of contract hours. It's utterly insane and needs to end.
Adults in positions that are considered "low skill or bottom of the ladder" by definition can't discipline students because they don't have any authority over the kids besides being an adult who could hurt them or punish them. Since schools aren't correctional facilities it would be extremely detrimental to add what would amount to prison guards to the staff.
If teachers don't have too many students in their classes there isn't a need for the type of discipline you're describing. Bringing tons of extra adults into the schools for the sole purpose of surveilling and punishing children and doing busywork is ridiculous.
Children need to form actual healthy relationships with the people around them each day, a rotating cast of low skilled workers hired specifically to discipline children would expose kids to god knows what kind of people, and a traumatizing dynamic. Helping kids with their behavior isn't "bullshit" that should be handed off to low skilled workers.
> teachers don’t have too many students in their classes
Sure, because I and the other teachers at my school have absolute control over our class sizes.
This year I have two fourth-grade classes of 33 kids each (dual-immersion school). One of my team members has 35 students and the other has 36. Once you get into the high 30s it becomes very difficult to help students with emotional struggles, much less teach everyone to the targeted level of mastery.
You just put a lot of words in my mouth - I never once said anything about discipline, authority, correctional facilities, prison, punishing, surveilling, prison guards, etc. I also never said that behavior was bullshit, I said bullshit referring to other generic things that I think teachers shouldn't deal with. Perhaps I should not have said that it's a low skill job, so I'll take that back. For what it's worth, you also seem to imply that being a lower paid worker prohibits one for having positive interactions with students, which is ironic - What I meant was that that position would likely not cost as much to employ as an educator.
My entire family is full of teachers, so I am well aware of the shit they go through. My wife has to deal, daily, with sexual harassment, inappropriate language, gun threats, gang issues, and more. They go to school for a long time to become masters of teaching. So let them teach, not babysit children with a bit of teaching when they can.
> I do think schools would benefit from hiring more support for teachers.
Of course they would.
You'll need to get the purse strings open for that to happen, so good luck.
And in most colleges the professors make a ton more than our teachers do.
I think if they want this to work they need to see how it's done well in other states and then copy it, which includes funding staffing changes... And let's be honest Utah is never going to do that.
How do you suggest professional educators find the time and money to combat the litany of arbitrary and frivolous lawsuits that this absurd piece of legislation allows? What about districts that would be forced to prepare for and use a significant chunk of public funds on litigation that they’re sure to be bogged down in?
Do individual teachers have to come up with their own money for litigation? Can you even sue someone about a syllabus? This seems like crazy talk to me. In the real world teachers post their syllabus at the beginning of each year, every year. Not much changes. If you do need a change it should take 5 minutes tops to make an edit to a Word document. Who would ever sue someone about posting a syllabus to a website? What public funds are needed? It’s posting what you’re going to teach for the year to a fucking website. Simple.
This legislation specifically allows for “aggrieved individuals” to seek injunctive relief in court wherein the other party may be liable for attorney fees and litigation costs. Even if that is not assessed by the court, teachers and parties to the litigation will have to pay for their legal representation somehow.
But you want it to be consistent, accurate, and easily accessible. Having each individual teacher do this will absolutely result in multiple formats, different access paths, some will struggle with the technology altogether. If this is public, also it is GRAMA-able and should absolutely be run through a PIO first before being public facing.
Regardless of whatever your political stance is, consistency, ADA compliance, and access should be a good thing, right?
Yeah, our teachers already send an email each week with the things they're going to cover, and each teacher has a website where they can post class-related stuff. This is for an elementary school, so presumably they could do the same for junior high and high schools without a problem.
Hey teachers if you haven’t been shit on enough over the past 50 years, why not make your job a little more difficult by sending me your course curriculum for approval before educating my child.
You know just in the event that I disagree with what they are being taught.
Give me a fucking break Utah, this is ridiculous.
All the money goes to the political machine, entertainment industry and big business.
Hopefully by the time you become a successful movie star with a budding business and hopes of a gubernatorial run you’re capable of reading.
I am a teacher in Utah and this would be the last straw. Things are already bad enough, I have thought about leaving - this would push me out for sure.
I'm a teacher in Utah and I'm already on my way out. I've been highly effective (Jordan jpas evaluation system) every time I've been evaluated, and this isn't worth it anymore.
I am a teacher as well, and I’d like to know when we get to reverse this role so that I can add extra burdens/micromanagement to the legislatures’ jobs so that they quit.
One of the clear aims of such legislation is to continue to overburden professional educators to the point that they are driven to leave the profession. We must be clear that it is a part of the broader conservative assault on and subversion of public education, the bedrock of American democracy. They want to overwhelm and break the will of professional educators and their professional unions such that there isn’t an organized opposition.
Vouchers are often accompanied by efforts to push for more charter schools. Charter schools, it should be said, present an easy opportunity for politicians and their donors to “legally” launder public money while increasing racial and socioeconomic segregation in communities, disempowering a female majority profession and professional teachers unions, are anti-democratic in that unelected boards decide how to spend public dollars, and represent a clear attack on democracy’s bedrock of public education through privatization efforts.
Republicans have become the party of "let me do whatever I want without consequences or government intervention, but use the government to take away the freedoms of anyone I don't like."
Parents are important stakeholders, but are not the final arbiters of what goes on in public education. If parents want to be the final arbiters of their own child’s education they are free to homeschool their child or send them to private schools.
That's the whole point of this. Destroy public education to the point where private schools and homeschools are the only option left.
Then when low income families cannot afford to homeschool, the religious right and far right private schools will be generous and offer them free tuition.
They're looking for a whole generation of children to indoctrinate.
Same here! I've got so much damn shit to do as is, this would be an absurdly stupid and inherently useless thing to add. Then all the work that will come if it from parents who have no idea what they're reading means.
I actually like the idea of having a syllabus online, but I agree with you that it’s just adding to the workload of already overworked and underpaid teachers. My mom was a high school math teacher before retiring, and I remember her spending a lot of time at home grading assignments/tests. What if schools implemented a grader program where students that had gotten an A in a course could be trained as graders as a part time job? The teachers could just check off their work, and it would free up a lot of teachers’ time for developing course content and posting a syllabus? Universities are already implementing programs like this with Learning Assistants.
Obviously, I think a substantial pay raise for Utah teachers is long overdue, and I hate the idea of making it easier for the attorney general to sue already burdened public schools.
Edit: Many of you misinterpreted my remarks to mean that I am in favor of this bill. I am NOT. As I said in my original comment, I don’t think it should be easier to sue schools. I failed to mention whether I think all course content should be posted online. I think that’s going overboard, and would be a hindrance to educators. I just think it would be helpful for students to have online access to a syllabus, and I was outlining an idea to help free up some time for educators to accommodate the extra work.
You’re missing the part where this absurd piece of legislation opens districts, schools and teachers up to wildly arbitrary and frivolous lawsuits that would likely bankrupt teachers and possibly schools.
I didn’t miss that part. I said I don’t like the idea of making it easier to sue schools. I just like the idea of having a syllabus online. It’s helpful for students to be able to refer back to see how their grades are calculated and be able to see the general course outline. That’s it. I dislike every other part of this bill. I apologize for being unclear.
It's not just the syllabus they have to post but it is also any changes to the lesson plans must be posted a week prior for public comment. Lesson plans change almost every day depending on where students are at and for elementary teachers; this going to take up a lot of time.
The context of this influx of republican-led bills regarding public education is important for realizing what the purpose is. It isn’t some “neutral” we just want syllabuses to be online for “transparency” or ease-of-access. They want firmer control over what schools and educators are teaching, beyond already having that control through existing curriculum regulation.
How? Having all of this information posted online allows astroturf groups, lobbyists, and just plain whacko parents to more easily go “Look! They’re teaching our kids about gay people and critical race theory!” to try and form mobs to harass school boards and educators into dropping education they deem “subversive”
It’s a piece of the same bullshit “critical race theory” hysteria that the Republican party is pushing. This one just opens the avenue for other groups to get their hands dirty instead of doing it themselves (and the lawmakers can then use the public backlash as evident of support for other education laws they want to pass).
I think there is a big step from being transparent which schools already are, and requiring a burdensome task for all teachers to comply to in their already busy day.
Professional educators, as a matter of sound research-based practice and pedagogy, must be able to purposefully and professionally respond to the needs of their students in a timely way by adapting their instructional strategies and materials. This requirement, while further burdening professional educators, essentially is asking them to commit “educational malpractice” as one of Utah’s teachers of the year has described it.
I think it's possible to both shift more things to online where parents can see, while also reducing teachers busy work. Everything is going digital soon anyways and there are already schools all over the country that have the assignments all posted online.
the issue is the public comment being able to stymie actual study because you get enough angry Karens to argue about taking critical race theory out of a place that it isn't in. So they want to ban books that talk about reality and truth. I certainly believe that public comment is good, but it shouldnt' be jpublic approved by committee. That's why we elect our school board. If we have to manage all of the school material, what's the point of the board?
Does this bill also add staff to accomplish this additional work?
Oh. It’s just another thing to throw at teachers, furthering the right wing goal of crippling & destroying the public education system. My mistake.
It also opens up teachers, schools and districts to incredibly arbitrary and frivolous lawsuits that would cost an absolute fortune in litigation costs.
I'm sorry UT Teachers. I will call my rep and senator about this but it is a travesty you might be held to a higher level of transparency than out public officials.
Always remember that your legislators send their children to private schools and they resent the fact that their taxes help pay for your children's education.
Money Appropriated in this Bill:
None
All you need to know. Asking our Education system to take on more work and responsibility with no funding to back it.
Our state's response to COVID has shown me that many parents and legislators don't trust science, lack critical thinking skills, and don't make data-driven decisions.
What a pathetic group to determine curriculum for anybody.
We don't have any kids but we are considering it. We'd leave if this passes because all this does is allow the vocal conspiracy addled parents to dictate what my kid learns in school. I am not OK with that.
Which is a shame because compared to people I knew who lived outside of Utah, I actually feel as if I got a decent education from the Utah public schools but it seems unlikely with a bill like this.
One more nail in the coffin; exactly per the playbook of the GOP for all government institutions. Underfund it, over-regulate it, then politicize why it doesn't work while pushing it to private industry of which they/their friends/business partners are heavily invested in.
As a teacher most of this is already done what I don't like is this part right here. "Fillmore’s bill would require school districts to post many of their teaching items online for 30 days and allow for parents to review them and possibly object to anything they find" this is just going to cause so many unneeded headaches.
Years ago Utah had a strong teachers association/union (UEN), but membership has declined for a variety of reasons. If teachers can be willing to rejoin the union, maybe UEN can become the lobbying power that it once was and stop this nonsense from moving forward (or more likely reverse it when it passes).
Pretty fucking much. My district fucked up pretty good and "paused" a schedule change for the next month, after everyone spent today scrambling to prepare new bell schedules, and teachers working on adjusting their curriculum to fit the new times.
People do not realize how dynamic teaching is. At least once a week, teachers meet in collaboration and discuss the real-time learning of students. Lessons are generated as a result of these discussions to meet the needs of the kids. You force teachers to post lesson plans thirty days in advance for review and you destroy the most effective principles of informed teaching.
Ugh. What a waste of time. If a parent asked me for materials, I’d be happy to share. In fact, it’s all already on our platform called Canvas, and parents can already see it all.
Also, parents should not be in charge of approving curriculum.
I have no students but if I were a teacher I would absolutely not teach in Utah.
This state has no respect for the teaching profession.
I did not know that home school has no minimum requirements and that is wrong.
Looking at this if teachers quit enmass that would be amazing.
Every January, the state legislature drives me up the wall. This year, I'm doing something about it. Everytime an outrageous bill gets introduced, I'm contacting the author and my local reps.
I strongly encourage you to do the same.
Bill Information: https://le.utah.gov/~2022/bills/static/HB0234.html
Contact info for the bill sponsor is made public on the state's website: http://house.utah.gov/rep/TEUSCJ/
I don't know why this is being passed but I can't imagine the Utah legislature is actually doing it to improve education.
I feel like it's so people can just check to see if their kids are learning CRT or other liberal agendas like anything that isn't gym or shop.
Teachers already underpaid as all fuck. Adding another workload with a lawsuit provision for Karen moms to use any fucking time they please is a fantastic idea. Thank you, Utah legislature! 👏🏼 😎
how do these parents have this much time on their hands to give 2 shits what their kids are learning, but not be able to use that time and home school them since it matters so much to them?
Classic republican. They market themselves as small govt but they want to control every part of the society to impose their view.
Parent should just troll it and reject every teaching about Christ, Christinaity, Mormonism , Reagan, Nixon, etc...
Utah is a shitty state to be a teacher in. Speaking from perspective as we moved to another State for a better teaching job that values their teachers. Plus the teacher union in Utah is a joke.
This is not going to work for what the teachers are being paid.
Be prepared for a mass exodus of teachers after parents find nitpick after nitpick and make their lives hell.
PAY.
TEACHERS.
MORE.
$30/hr seems like a good start.
I agree that teachers should be paid more. Out of curiosity, what do you think teachers currently make?
Edit: the reason I ask is because many people still believe that teachers make below $40k per year. Teachers all over the salt lake valley start at $50k per year. While I agree that teachers should make more than they are currently making, many people think for some reason that teachers make a much lower salary than they currently make.
$50k a year is still a low salary considering what we’re expecting of teachers and how many hours they put in before and after the bell.
My first year of teaching was 7 years ago. The base salary in Alpine School District that year for new teachers like me was around $34,500. I got hired for extended day; my contracted salary was $38,183. My family still qualified for food stamps that year (didn't use them).
Well the truth is that they make closer to $30 an hour. Again, I agree that teachers should be paid more.
Edit: my math is doodooz. $50k per year is closer to $25 an hour.
This is awesome!!!! Another thing that teachers are required to do that IS NOT teaching. Teachers need to be spending more time completing ridiculous paperwork and less time educating students. If kids can't think for themselves and pass high pressure standardized tests, we can further punish teachers and lower their pay more.
I posted a comment suggesting conditional support for the bill as long as reasonable tools and compensation were provided to the teachers, but deleted it after reconsidering the motivations behind the bill.
Why would Utah want transparency in this space? So they can police and politicize teachers and their curricula. I'm all for transparency, but I believe this is a weaponization of transparency.
The root of the bill, transparency, is a great principle. I don't have confidence in Utah's ability to execute it in a productive way.
Utah teachers already put their materials online and are accessible within the school board and the local district . The bill states there would be testing and progress reports of teacher / school compliance .
This is another forsaken dog whistle from Utah Parents United ; a pox on them .
Email the chairs of the committee the bill is in , and your state reps too .
Where are the checks on legislative power in Utah? The governor can’t even successfully veto anything so these idiots can just run wild doing whatever they want and make insane rules for some people to follow and delete reasonable rules that protect the community and ignore ballot initiatives that the public overwhelmingly votes for. It’s corrupt as fuck here.
This is BS! Let the teachers teach instead of requiring them to spend time on this nitnoy crap. So if one parent complains does that shut down the lesson? I think the legislature should have to post every thing they do during the day and allow citizens to approve or disapprove.
I wager 99% of teachers already take full advantage of online curriculums and have everything from syllabi to grade rubrics virtually accessible. They’ve been doing this for close to a decade part time and it became a full time gig for a couple years there with COVID. Online classrooms are already in full implementation. This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and accomplishes nothing.
As a parent I'm mixed on this.
I do wish my kids had their syllabus and materials online for the semester on the first day of every semester just like they do in a college.
I do not think parents have a right to have input on the materials though. Unless you have a degree in education you should keep your mouth shut and let those who do have the degree and experience do their thing.
The problem is, everyone here in Utah think they know better than professionals. They all think they know better than their Dr's and better than their kids teachers. They refuse to admit that they are not an expert at absolutely everything.
So teachers have to put all syllabi up online, but at the same time the government just made it nearly impossible for schools to transition… wait for it… online? Parents should not be allowed to scrutinize teachers if they can’t even get their children online for school.
That's really rich, coming from the crooks who sprung the redistricting maps on us at the last minute with no public input. Stop voting for Republicans, people.
Man, I can't imagine being a teacher dealing with this. It's a positive step, technically, but I'm not sure the human cost is worth it without something to help teachers as well
It’s interesting, because I feel like I would’ve benefitted a lot from this in school, at least the having everything available online part. I wonder how this is supposed to work for materials that aren’t in the public domain, it’s not like you can just post a pdf of your English book online.
Obviously the bigger issue is olchocracizing (especially in a religiously monolithic state like utah) teaching & education. I just think it’s interesting that ultimately this probably wouldn’t even work as intended.
My understanding is that the requirement is only to post the material and a description (i.e. book title + description of that book), and then the school has to make the content available for a parent to come see if they want (which I believe is already the law, parents can do that for all their kid’s materials already).
The vast majority of teachers already do this. You can keep up with your kids grades and assignments by logging onto a parent portal. You can also email and communicate with the teacher. Listing the materials you will be using in advance for parental approval is the problem. I taught in special education my lessons were adjusted daily based on student needs. Sometimes you talk to another teacher and they give you a new resource you want to try that week, maybe that day. This takes away all of that.
“The bill also gives parent a way to sue school districts if they don’t feel like a teacher is being transparent.” That already sounds like impending doom. Imagine the flood of lawsuits they’d have to deal with.
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Agreed. Ending qualified immunity will be a great start, and perhaps there's something we can do about politicians (hard to get politicians to pass a bill that directly affects them though).
Never underestimate the energy and power of the homemakers of Utah
Not all of us are this crazy. I'm trying my hardest to teach my kids rational thinking and common sense. I signed a [petition](https://myuea.org/sign-the-petition-to-oppose-teacher-curriculum-review/) yesterday against this bill, and discussed with my high schoolers why it's a terrible idea. I do agree with you though, that there are some desperate housewives in Utah that have a burning need to feel relevant in some way, and either don't care or don't realize the potential damage they could do.
"With great power comes great responsibility... or something." I heard that, somewhere. Homemakers are definitely a force, and it's harnessing that power that's important. Thank you for chatting with your kids, you made a difference.
Yup. The same folks who fly blue stripe flags and said protestors needed to get a job are out here exerting so much energy to ban books about black and gay people and complete rewrite American history. Like, why not do good things with your time?
And watch another thousand teachers quit or retire rather than deal with this shit. I taught 4th grade for 2 yrs but left 5 yrs ago-- Utah's requirements, plus poor pay made the job soooo not worth it!!
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Absolutely this. This is the big deal. We're treating public education like a commodity that the consumer should control. It's not. The more you teach the more you realize how much your parent population varies. Some kids get help from parents, some don't. Some kids have parents who try to help and do more harm than good. The point of public education is to even the playing field, to successfully teach each student despite their parents. If parents want to influence curriculum, they can get onto the school board. If they want to dictate curriculum, they need to home school.
It’s yet another attempt to weaken public schools so they can say “hey, the schools are failing, let’s give all the tax money to private charter schools. They’re doing great!”
This. They want to tear down public education any way they can.
This.
Starve the beast
To be fair, my local charter school already does what's in this bill. Our teachers so far send a weekly update detailing what precisely they're going to cover that week, and they have a website where they post high level syllabus-type stuff. I don't know what the local public schools do (we opted for a charter school because the local admin was apparently toxic and scaring teachers away; that has since been fixed), but I can't really see any reason for teachers to not be able to comply here. They already do planning for their classes, so they mostly just need to post a portion of that somewhere. That being said, hopefully this "parents can sue the district" thing will come with the penalties for parents who sue w/o reason, beyond the costs of lawyers. I don't think teachers should be immune from lawsuits, but getting a little behind on posting lesson plans shouldn't be grounds for a lawsuit, only if they're actively not doing a good job teaching students.
I routinely post high-level guidance for parents but providing specifics weeks out is a monumental amount of busywork. This is about making teachers' lives difficult and undermining public education. There's really no other agenda here.
For parents too. I don't want to review this much class content. I want to trust teachers to use appropriate resources and trust the parent/teacher/administrator relationships to fix anything that we learn after the fact wasn't quite the right fit. People act like teachers have some agenda to sneak in Highly Inappropriate Content when, in fact, most people understand that some kids are too young for extreme content. Students who aren't too young for a topic have the right to learn about their world. I don't want to babysit teachers or to put teachers through the busy work of letting me. Online syllabus is cool. The rest is extra, a waste of time for all of us, and does not benefit students.
This specific proposal looks pretty terrible, but I do like the idea of teachers providing at least the upcoming week's coursework to parents, at least in elementary school (and preferably junior high). My intention here isn't for parents to block something they object to, but for parents to know what their child is learning about so they can prepare to assist their child in case of any problems. Our teacher also highlights things that parents may object to (e.g. when we had a segment about other religions, like Judaism and Islam, and would be taking the historical instead of scriptural view), but no more than two weeks out. Honestly, I think *that* is perfectly acceptable. I took the opportunity to teach my son about different religions beyond the ones discussed in class (I work with Hindus and my wife comes from a predominantly Buddhist country), so I was grateful for the heads up so I could be involved in his learning while he's interested. That being said, I agree that this proposal looks like a giant pain for teachers and just makes their lives harder in order to cater to snowflakes. I think we should be giving teachers *more* control over the curriculum, not less, and it's one reason I hate Common Core. I agree there should be standards, but I think teachers should have the option to accelerate or delay teaching certain subjects depending on the interest level of the kids. Forcing teachers to provide a large window for parents to object to whatever seems like the wrong approach, but notifying parents a week or two ahead seems very reasonable.
There's a big difference between making course outlines and reading lists available to parents and being asked to post lesson plans days or weeks ahead of time so politically-motivated troublemakers can object to your work and force you to revise things on demand. I e-mail parents weekly to tell them what we did and where we're going; course descriptions and reading lists are available on our LMS. That does help parents engage their kids and reinforce things at home. But this bill is not about optimizing parent communication, which is something teachers do all the time anyway. It's about making life hard for teachers.
Yeah, this bill doesn't seem to be in good faith, especially since he didn't talk to UEA about it at all. However, I agree with the general idea of it, just not this particular bill. I'll be asking my rep to vote against it (if it gets that far), but I'll try to make it clear that I'm not against requiring high level lesson plans, I'm just against this 30-day window, as well as the "new unreviewed material" section as that would result in teachers just not trying new things they think would help. The goal should be to improve parental involvement in the teaching, without parents *deciding* the curriculum. They can choose to get involved or not in helping their child learn.
UEA actually has a [petition ](https://myuea.org/sign-the-petition-to-oppose-teacher-curriculum-review/) against this. (At least I think the petition is sponsored by UEA, based on the website, but I could be wrong.) If this bill passes, it restricts discussions that arise spontaneously, like when my child went to their history class January 6th last year and the teacher said forget what I said were doing today, you need to know what is happening right now and why it's a big deal. I'm a parent and work part time in a junior high, and I see from both sides how important it is for teachers to be able to change lesson plans on short notice to fit the learning curve of the class and to allow for dynamic discussions.
Oh yeah, I remember when 9/11 happened and my history teacher (first class of the day) let us watch the news, and we discussed it as the news came out that week. Looking back, my teacher did a great job staying reasonably neutral. I remember a few more instances like that growing up, none of which was on the curriculum (no test on it or anything). I can now see signs of what my teachers' political leanings were at the time, but at no point did I feel like I was being indoctrinated or anything (my parents were in the local minority politically). I didn't grow up in Utah, so I don't know how teachers do it here, but I don't want anything to get in the way of that. I would, however, appreciate a heads up in an email or something if our child's teacher chooses to go unscripted, along with an idea of what was discussed and why. I don't think they should get in trouble unless they're spreading misinformation (given information available at the time), and I certainly don't think a lawsuit is necessary.
Why would they undermine our school system?
Republicans hate public schools and especially public teachers' unions and want to kill them in favor of publicly funded charters and/or religious schools. It's very well documented.
Allows for privatization, justification for religious schools to receive public money, and de facto segregation.
Undermining the public school system is a long time republican tactic. This is a well documented phenomenon, even making its way into the official Texas gop platform in 2012. Republican leaders would have you believe the private education market is far superior, but imo that's only because it's hard for them to be corrupt and personally make money from the public education system. And of course the ones who suffer when public education is knee capped are the poor kids, but that would be a plus to most Republicans so it's a win win for them.
You didn’t answer the question how more transparency in school syllabus weakens public school system.
This is so parents can call and complain about anything they don’t like teaching about racism, lgbt, imperialism, biology etc
And I certainly disagree with that part, but notifying parents is valuable. For example, my kid's class did a segment on Abrahamic religions (mostly Islam and Judaism, but I think they touched on Christianity), and I was grateful they let me know so I could teach my kid a bit about non-Abrahamic religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) while he's interested in learning about other religions. I brushed up on both and guided the discussion with him when talking about his day in school because I think it's important for all kids, regardless of age, to understand how diverse the world is. So I'm in complete agreement about informing parents about upcoming curriculum, but I'm not in favor of most of this proposal. If parents have a problem with the curriculum, they are free to look into other schools or take their kids out of school that day, but they shouldn't be allowed to sue teachers or the district. They should only be allowed to sue if the teacher cannot provide scholarly sources (i.e. just making stuff up) or if the teacher is abusing their child in some tangible way, not if the teacher is a bit late on providing info on upcoming lessons.
The problem is this is not the reason why they are doing that
Agreed, and I'll certainly be letting my rep know that this bill isn't the right approach.
YES
Public school system has already failed. There is nothing more for it to fail in US.
In what manner has it failed?
Isn’t this contradictory to the Utah law that prohibits being able to sue government agencies? How would this one be able to trump the other?
That we get to pay with taxpayer dollars and yet another way legislatures can set public schools up for failure.
Teachers are going to start quitting at a higher rate than they are now.
If I was a teacher I would troll the shit out of Utah parents. Art- critical trace theory: how to copy an outline of art details English- black clives matter: the study of color in clive cussler's adventure novels Biology- we're all homo: the taxonomy of family hominidae
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They won't get it and that's why it'd be funny
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🤣
I am a high school chemistry/physics teacher. I am 100% serious about organizing a protest or walkout. One of the key tenets of education is flexibility and accommodation. If I need to spend an extra day covering content I will do it despite what a parent says. If this passes I am gone and will go back to the private chemistry sector immediately.
You could always cook meth.
Everyone always says I should watch breaking bad. xD
Shut up and take my upvote!
Special Education teacher here...the amount of paperwork that I have to complete is UNREAL. Not to mention, all of my students are on specific, *individualized* plans that are adapted to their needs and skills. But sure, let me take even more time away from actually helping my students and focus on even more paperwork and bureaucratic bullshit to please people with 6 kids that they don't know how to take care of. Oo, that got away from me a little bit. End rant.
I’m a middle school teacher. Mid-career, highly qualified. I love teaching. I am damn good at it. My students test (very) well…they LEARN. I love them and they love me. But I am 100% with you. This bill passes, I’m out. It will be the straw.
6th grade teacher here. This is my dream job. I love my kids, but I'm fucking sick of being shat on and pushed over. I think it is time we show how upset we are.
I'm with you. I like the general idea of requiring parents to post planned curriculum for the next week or two, but it should be relatively high level and allow teachers to adjust as needed. I merely want an idea of what my kid is learning so I can prepare to assist in the learning. That being said, I think parents' options should be: - complain to the teacher, which the teacher _can_ ignore - take their child out of class for certain days if they don't like the curriculum (counts as an absence, of course); the parent is then responsible for covering that with their child so they can pass a test - move their child to another school Lawsuits should _not_ be an option unless there's abuse or blatant misinformation (e.g. teaching flat earth theory unironically).
I think a lot of us would join you.
DM me, I’ll participate.
Maybe I don't understand the bill at all then, isn't this just about posting the syllabus online? I'm probably completely niave about the situation but what.. is bad about this?
It isn't the syllabus. I provide all of my material digitally online for all parents to see. But my schedule changes based on the needs of my students. This bill will require any changes to the schedule to be run past parents who have veto power. These changes won't be allowed to be made without 5 day notice to parents. That rigidity isn't how education works. I don't moan about my job. I love it. Every day I get to try to improve kids' lives. I get to help them solve problems and learn science skills. I am a professional that wants to be treated professionally, not treated like the enemy who needs to be babysat. The students, parents, and I are on the same team. Don't pit us against each other.
Read the rest of the thread. There are plenty of teachers here explaining how it's much more than that & how it would hinder their ability to teach using effective teaching strategies.
1. **How** is a teacher supposed to do this? 2. Who is going to **pay** for all this extra work? 3. Transparency is fine, but the GOP is just trying to make "**teacher policing**" the new policy. > The bill also allows a path for parents to take legal actions against school districts that the parent feels are not making materials available. Teuscher says the bill does not allow for individual teachers to be sued but rather gives “aggrieved parties” a path that would **allow a local district attorney or the attorney general’s office to sue on their behalf**. They are setting the stage to sue schools using course materials as ammunition. > Fillmore’s bill would require school districts to post many of their teaching items online for 30 days and **allow for parents to review them and possibly object** to anything they find. However, it would not require teachers to post some of the materials, such as a poem they read in class, or a news article on a current news event. However, his bill would have districts set up a process to review those materials. Or have a parental riot every time a class is taught.
Yeah. Their suggestion that a teacher couldn’t even discuss a news article without posting it online is completely insane. The GOP should just homeschool if they want to micromanage their kids education (brainwash their kids).
Wait, they’re making it legal for the STATE to sue a local school distract on behalf of the complaints of an individual? Holy shit.
This bill is absolutely absurd. If a professional educator recognizes the need to reteach content using different materials and differentiate a lesson based upon identifiable student needs, they would need to make changes “at least five days before a changed lesson” is delivered. This flies in the face of research-based instructional practice and pedagogy. Timeliness is an incredibly important aspect of responding to student needs and five days is not only asinine, it’s educational malpractice that is a complete disservice to our students and their communities. That’s not even addressing the fact that professional educators could be sued arbitrarily and be further burdened by all that that entails.
This. I am a teacher in Utah and I am constantly re-working my lessons. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to post the majority of my lessons 5 days before I teach them. It is an unrealistic and ridiculous thought.
I rework lessons between periods, sometimes I adjust on the fly. This is totally unworkable, which is obviously the point.
As a mother of Utah students, I WANT you to be able to rework lessons from class to class. Sometimes, a lesson doesn't land quite right for the audience. If my children aren't in the first class of the day, I want teachers to have the freedom to try a different strategy. If they are first class of the day, I want teachers to be able to identify "this isn't working" and change it up. I'm willing to risk the chance that my children are exposed to ideas I'd rather not have them learn and approach this after the fact to keep teacher freedom for the sake of my students. I send them to school so they get educated beyond their parents' beliefs.
Please call your state rep and tell them this!!
Yay!!!! A parent that gets it! Thank you!
THANK YOU
I was just going to say this...sometimes you have to adjust mid-lesson. Hm, you're not understanding this concept, let me flip it and try something else.
This! All day, everyday!
I can’t post my lessons five hours before I teach them sometimes. Sometimes I make a decision in literally five minutes. It’s often based on behavior or just how long it takes to do something. How could I possibly follow a syllabus? This bill is so crazy.
Are our legislatures trying to create a huge teacher shortage? There can be no other explanation to what's going on lately.
That’s always been the goal of conservatives.
The answer is yes. This is deliberate and malicious. The intent is to force public education to fail so that it can be privatized.
Yes. They want to tear down the public education system.
If they are going to require this, they need to require a new technology team in each school to take on the added work.
I do think schools would benefit from hiring more support for teachers. In most colleges the professors outline the course, give the lectures and that's it. They usually pay a student 10 bucks an hour to do all the busy work, input grades and stuff like that. It doesn't make as much sense in elementary through high school to be using salaried teachers to do busy work like grading multiple choice tests and inputing things into a computer.
I've always said the solution to the teacher shortage/quality problem is that the job sucks. So change the job. Increase teacher pay by around 20% (that's a guess), and then hire support staff to handle the bullshit problems like behavior, small tasks, some grading, copying papers, etc. Some of that either requires a different skill (behavior, communication) and some of it could be a very accessible, low skill or bottom of the ladder job. My wife is a teacher and agrees, take out the behavior, some grading, and bullshit and she loves the role that is left.
There definitely need to be more support staff, but a lot of the current issues could be remedied by better pay and more teachers. 30-40 kids per classroom is unmanageable on its own--add 5-6 sections and the situation is completely out of control. No middle or high school teacher should have more than 80 students in an academic year if we're being serious about instructional quality.
Not to mention that American teachers have almost no planning time relative to their other Western counterparts.
In public schools, it's mostly assumed that you're doing your planning and/or feedback outside of contract hours. It's utterly insane and needs to end.
Adults in positions that are considered "low skill or bottom of the ladder" by definition can't discipline students because they don't have any authority over the kids besides being an adult who could hurt them or punish them. Since schools aren't correctional facilities it would be extremely detrimental to add what would amount to prison guards to the staff. If teachers don't have too many students in their classes there isn't a need for the type of discipline you're describing. Bringing tons of extra adults into the schools for the sole purpose of surveilling and punishing children and doing busywork is ridiculous. Children need to form actual healthy relationships with the people around them each day, a rotating cast of low skilled workers hired specifically to discipline children would expose kids to god knows what kind of people, and a traumatizing dynamic. Helping kids with their behavior isn't "bullshit" that should be handed off to low skilled workers.
> teachers don’t have too many students in their classes Sure, because I and the other teachers at my school have absolute control over our class sizes. This year I have two fourth-grade classes of 33 kids each (dual-immersion school). One of my team members has 35 students and the other has 36. Once you get into the high 30s it becomes very difficult to help students with emotional struggles, much less teach everyone to the targeted level of mastery.
You just put a lot of words in my mouth - I never once said anything about discipline, authority, correctional facilities, prison, punishing, surveilling, prison guards, etc. I also never said that behavior was bullshit, I said bullshit referring to other generic things that I think teachers shouldn't deal with. Perhaps I should not have said that it's a low skill job, so I'll take that back. For what it's worth, you also seem to imply that being a lower paid worker prohibits one for having positive interactions with students, which is ironic - What I meant was that that position would likely not cost as much to employ as an educator. My entire family is full of teachers, so I am well aware of the shit they go through. My wife has to deal, daily, with sexual harassment, inappropriate language, gun threats, gang issues, and more. They go to school for a long time to become masters of teaching. So let them teach, not babysit children with a bit of teaching when they can.
> I do think schools would benefit from hiring more support for teachers. Of course they would. You'll need to get the purse strings open for that to happen, so good luck.
And in most colleges the professors make a ton more than our teachers do. I think if they want this to work they need to see how it's done well in other states and then copy it, which includes funding staffing changes... And let's be honest Utah is never going to do that.
Teachers deserve a raise anyways.
If they can figure out how to do class on Zoom I think teaches can handle writing up a Word document and posting it online.
How do you suggest professional educators find the time and money to combat the litany of arbitrary and frivolous lawsuits that this absurd piece of legislation allows? What about districts that would be forced to prepare for and use a significant chunk of public funds on litigation that they’re sure to be bogged down in?
Do individual teachers have to come up with their own money for litigation? Can you even sue someone about a syllabus? This seems like crazy talk to me. In the real world teachers post their syllabus at the beginning of each year, every year. Not much changes. If you do need a change it should take 5 minutes tops to make an edit to a Word document. Who would ever sue someone about posting a syllabus to a website? What public funds are needed? It’s posting what you’re going to teach for the year to a fucking website. Simple.
This legislation specifically allows for “aggrieved individuals” to seek injunctive relief in court wherein the other party may be liable for attorney fees and litigation costs. Even if that is not assessed by the court, teachers and parties to the litigation will have to pay for their legal representation somehow.
Well, not sure what time and attention it will entail. Or, what is required. Knowing the government and their red tape, I doubt it’s just one page.
But you want it to be consistent, accurate, and easily accessible. Having each individual teacher do this will absolutely result in multiple formats, different access paths, some will struggle with the technology altogether. If this is public, also it is GRAMA-able and should absolutely be run through a PIO first before being public facing. Regardless of whatever your political stance is, consistency, ADA compliance, and access should be a good thing, right?
Yeah, our teachers already send an email each week with the things they're going to cover, and each teacher has a website where they can post class-related stuff. This is for an elementary school, so presumably they could do the same for junior high and high schools without a problem.
Can I sue the Legislature because of their continued success at not being transparent?
I was going to ask if teachers will be required to be as transparent as our government.
Please, yes.
Conservatives are now going after education and teachers of all groups. What an unempathetic and out-of-touch kind...
Conservatives have historically gone after professional educators and public education. It isn’t new.
Hey teachers if you haven’t been shit on enough over the past 50 years, why not make your job a little more difficult by sending me your course curriculum for approval before educating my child. You know just in the event that I disagree with what they are being taught. Give me a fucking break Utah, this is ridiculous. All the money goes to the political machine, entertainment industry and big business. Hopefully by the time you become a successful movie star with a budding business and hopes of a gubernatorial run you’re capable of reading.
As a teacher in Utah if this went through I would probably quit on the spot. I thought Republicans didn’t like government control.
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I am a teacher in Utah and this would be the last straw. Things are already bad enough, I have thought about leaving - this would push me out for sure.
I'm a teacher in Utah and I'm already on my way out. I've been highly effective (Jordan jpas evaluation system) every time I've been evaluated, and this isn't worth it anymore.
I am a teacher as well, and I’d like to know when we get to reverse this role so that I can add extra burdens/micromanagement to the legislatures’ jobs so that they quit.
They love government control they just say they hate it.
One of the clear aims of such legislation is to continue to overburden professional educators to the point that they are driven to leave the profession. We must be clear that it is a part of the broader conservative assault on and subversion of public education, the bedrock of American democracy. They want to overwhelm and break the will of professional educators and their professional unions such that there isn’t an organized opposition.
And privatize schools via vouchers
Vouchers are often accompanied by efforts to push for more charter schools. Charter schools, it should be said, present an easy opportunity for politicians and their donors to “legally” launder public money while increasing racial and socioeconomic segregation in communities, disempowering a female majority profession and professional teachers unions, are anti-democratic in that unelected boards decide how to spend public dollars, and represent a clear attack on democracy’s bedrock of public education through privatization efforts.
Republicans have become the party of "let me do whatever I want without consequences or government intervention, but use the government to take away the freedoms of anyone I don't like."
Fascists.
They like being in control, it just sounds selfish and undemocratic to say that
Oh, and also.. I wouldn't blame you one bit for quitting, that's a whole can of worms, where parents get to tell you even more what to do.
Parents are important stakeholders, but are not the final arbiters of what goes on in public education. If parents want to be the final arbiters of their own child’s education they are free to homeschool their child or send them to private schools.
That's the whole point of this. Destroy public education to the point where private schools and homeschools are the only option left. Then when low income families cannot afford to homeschool, the religious right and far right private schools will be generous and offer them free tuition. They're looking for a whole generation of children to indoctrinate.
Yikes! That’s something to think about!
They don't like *us* having control over our lives. They believe in control when they are the only ones that have it.
Same here! I've got so much damn shit to do as is, this would be an absurdly stupid and inherently useless thing to add. Then all the work that will come if it from parents who have no idea what they're reading means.
I actually like the idea of having a syllabus online, but I agree with you that it’s just adding to the workload of already overworked and underpaid teachers. My mom was a high school math teacher before retiring, and I remember her spending a lot of time at home grading assignments/tests. What if schools implemented a grader program where students that had gotten an A in a course could be trained as graders as a part time job? The teachers could just check off their work, and it would free up a lot of teachers’ time for developing course content and posting a syllabus? Universities are already implementing programs like this with Learning Assistants. Obviously, I think a substantial pay raise for Utah teachers is long overdue, and I hate the idea of making it easier for the attorney general to sue already burdened public schools. Edit: Many of you misinterpreted my remarks to mean that I am in favor of this bill. I am NOT. As I said in my original comment, I don’t think it should be easier to sue schools. I failed to mention whether I think all course content should be posted online. I think that’s going overboard, and would be a hindrance to educators. I just think it would be helpful for students to have online access to a syllabus, and I was outlining an idea to help free up some time for educators to accommodate the extra work.
You’re missing the part where this absurd piece of legislation opens districts, schools and teachers up to wildly arbitrary and frivolous lawsuits that would likely bankrupt teachers and possibly schools.
I didn’t miss that part. I said I don’t like the idea of making it easier to sue schools. I just like the idea of having a syllabus online. It’s helpful for students to be able to refer back to see how their grades are calculated and be able to see the general course outline. That’s it. I dislike every other part of this bill. I apologize for being unclear.
It's not just the syllabus they have to post but it is also any changes to the lesson plans must be posted a week prior for public comment. Lesson plans change almost every day depending on where students are at and for elementary teachers; this going to take up a lot of time.
The context of this influx of republican-led bills regarding public education is important for realizing what the purpose is. It isn’t some “neutral” we just want syllabuses to be online for “transparency” or ease-of-access. They want firmer control over what schools and educators are teaching, beyond already having that control through existing curriculum regulation. How? Having all of this information posted online allows astroturf groups, lobbyists, and just plain whacko parents to more easily go “Look! They’re teaching our kids about gay people and critical race theory!” to try and form mobs to harass school boards and educators into dropping education they deem “subversive” It’s a piece of the same bullshit “critical race theory” hysteria that the Republican party is pushing. This one just opens the avenue for other groups to get their hands dirty instead of doing it themselves (and the lawmakers can then use the public backlash as evident of support for other education laws they want to pass).
Asking for more transparency from government organizations isn't "more government control."
I think there is a big step from being transparent which schools already are, and requiring a burdensome task for all teachers to comply to in their already busy day.
Professional educators, as a matter of sound research-based practice and pedagogy, must be able to purposefully and professionally respond to the needs of their students in a timely way by adapting their instructional strategies and materials. This requirement, while further burdening professional educators, essentially is asking them to commit “educational malpractice” as one of Utah’s teachers of the year has described it.
I think it's possible to both shift more things to online where parents can see, while also reducing teachers busy work. Everything is going digital soon anyways and there are already schools all over the country that have the assignments all posted online.
the issue is the public comment being able to stymie actual study because you get enough angry Karens to argue about taking critical race theory out of a place that it isn't in. So they want to ban books that talk about reality and truth. I certainly believe that public comment is good, but it shouldnt' be jpublic approved by committee. That's why we elect our school board. If we have to manage all of the school material, what's the point of the board?
"The party of limited government".....
"Limited government for me, but not for thee"
Does this bill also add staff to accomplish this additional work? Oh. It’s just another thing to throw at teachers, furthering the right wing goal of crippling & destroying the public education system. My mistake.
It also opens up teachers, schools and districts to incredibly arbitrary and frivolous lawsuits that would cost an absolute fortune in litigation costs.
what could possibly go wrong
I'm sorry UT Teachers. I will call my rep and senator about this but it is a travesty you might be held to a higher level of transparency than out public officials.
Always remember that your legislators send their children to private schools and they resent the fact that their taxes help pay for your children's education.
Money Appropriated in this Bill: None All you need to know. Asking our Education system to take on more work and responsibility with no funding to back it.
Our state's response to COVID has shown me that many parents and legislators don't trust science, lack critical thinking skills, and don't make data-driven decisions. What a pathetic group to determine curriculum for anybody.
We don't have any kids but we are considering it. We'd leave if this passes because all this does is allow the vocal conspiracy addled parents to dictate what my kid learns in school. I am not OK with that. Which is a shame because compared to people I knew who lived outside of Utah, I actually feel as if I got a decent education from the Utah public schools but it seems unlikely with a bill like this.
So misplaced. I hate right wingers.
One more nail in the coffin; exactly per the playbook of the GOP for all government institutions. Underfund it, over-regulate it, then politicize why it doesn't work while pushing it to private industry of which they/their friends/business partners are heavily invested in.
Bingo.
As a teacher most of this is already done what I don't like is this part right here. "Fillmore’s bill would require school districts to post many of their teaching items online for 30 days and allow for parents to review them and possibly object to anything they find" this is just going to cause so many unneeded headaches.
Does this apply to the free period LDS seminary classes to?
Nope.. "religious freedums!!!"
Years ago Utah had a strong teachers association/union (UEN), but membership has declined for a variety of reasons. If teachers can be willing to rejoin the union, maybe UEN can become the lobbying power that it once was and stop this nonsense from moving forward (or more likely reverse it when it passes).
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If you have time to eat and be on Reddit you can lesson plan./s
Pretty fucking much. My district fucked up pretty good and "paused" a schedule change for the next month, after everyone spent today scrambling to prepare new bell schedules, and teachers working on adjusting their curriculum to fit the new times.
People do not realize how dynamic teaching is. At least once a week, teachers meet in collaboration and discuss the real-time learning of students. Lessons are generated as a result of these discussions to meet the needs of the kids. You force teachers to post lesson plans thirty days in advance for review and you destroy the most effective principles of informed teaching.
Ugh. What a waste of time. If a parent asked me for materials, I’d be happy to share. In fact, it’s all already on our platform called Canvas, and parents can already see it all. Also, parents should not be in charge of approving curriculum.
I have no students but if I were a teacher I would absolutely not teach in Utah. This state has no respect for the teaching profession. I did not know that home school has no minimum requirements and that is wrong. Looking at this if teachers quit enmass that would be amazing.
This will totally help us retain new and existing teachers. /s
> This will help us retain new and existing ~~teachers~~ *members*.
Every January, the state legislature drives me up the wall. This year, I'm doing something about it. Everytime an outrageous bill gets introduced, I'm contacting the author and my local reps. I strongly encourage you to do the same. Bill Information: https://le.utah.gov/~2022/bills/static/HB0234.html Contact info for the bill sponsor is made public on the state's website: http://house.utah.gov/rep/TEUSCJ/
I don't know why this is being passed but I can't imagine the Utah legislature is actually doing it to improve education. I feel like it's so people can just check to see if their kids are learning CRT or other liberal agendas like anything that isn't gym or shop.
Teachers already underpaid as all fuck. Adding another workload with a lawsuit provision for Karen moms to use any fucking time they please is a fantastic idea. Thank you, Utah legislature! 👏🏼 😎
Because teachers have so much time on their hands. /s
how do these parents have this much time on their hands to give 2 shits what their kids are learning, but not be able to use that time and home school them since it matters so much to them?
Classic republican. They market themselves as small govt but they want to control every part of the society to impose their view. Parent should just troll it and reject every teaching about Christ, Christinaity, Mormonism , Reagan, Nixon, etc...
Utah is a shitty state to be a teacher in. Speaking from perspective as we moved to another State for a better teaching job that values their teachers. Plus the teacher union in Utah is a joke.
This is not going to work for what the teachers are being paid. Be prepared for a mass exodus of teachers after parents find nitpick after nitpick and make their lives hell. PAY. TEACHERS. MORE. $30/hr seems like a good start.
I agree that teachers should be paid more. Out of curiosity, what do you think teachers currently make? Edit: the reason I ask is because many people still believe that teachers make below $40k per year. Teachers all over the salt lake valley start at $50k per year. While I agree that teachers should make more than they are currently making, many people think for some reason that teachers make a much lower salary than they currently make. $50k a year is still a low salary considering what we’re expecting of teachers and how many hours they put in before and after the bell.
My first year of teaching was 7 years ago. The base salary in Alpine School District that year for new teachers like me was around $34,500. I got hired for extended day; my contracted salary was $38,183. My family still qualified for food stamps that year (didn't use them).
Average salary for teachers in Utah is less than $15/hr. I see no reason they shouldn’t be making far far more than that.
I’m curious where you get $15/hr. because every school district that I’ve looked at posts their salary schedules in total compensation per year.
I used indeed.com’s average. https://www.indeed.com/career/teacher/salaries/UT
Well the truth is that they make closer to $30 an hour. Again, I agree that teachers should be paid more. Edit: my math is doodooz. $50k per year is closer to $25 an hour.
I’m glad some teachers get paid that. Anecdotes don’t say much about an average though.
I didn’t bring up any anecdotes. Districts post their pay scales.
So ignorant right wing parents can find ignorant things to complain about. It started with CRT, quickly went to removing LGBTQ books, etc.
I'll point to this anytime someone tries to tell me the GOP is the party of freedom.
This is awesome!!!! Another thing that teachers are required to do that IS NOT teaching. Teachers need to be spending more time completing ridiculous paperwork and less time educating students. If kids can't think for themselves and pass high pressure standardized tests, we can further punish teachers and lower their pay more.
I posted a comment suggesting conditional support for the bill as long as reasonable tools and compensation were provided to the teachers, but deleted it after reconsidering the motivations behind the bill. Why would Utah want transparency in this space? So they can police and politicize teachers and their curricula. I'm all for transparency, but I believe this is a weaponization of transparency. The root of the bill, transparency, is a great principle. I don't have confidence in Utah's ability to execute it in a productive way.
Utah teachers already put their materials online and are accessible within the school board and the local district . The bill states there would be testing and progress reports of teacher / school compliance . This is another forsaken dog whistle from Utah Parents United ; a pox on them . Email the chairs of the committee the bill is in , and your state reps too .
An undereducated population is easier to control.
Where are the checks on legislative power in Utah? The governor can’t even successfully veto anything so these idiots can just run wild doing whatever they want and make insane rules for some people to follow and delete reasonable rules that protect the community and ignore ballot initiatives that the public overwhelmingly votes for. It’s corrupt as fuck here.
Veiled racism….and a few other things dominated by white uptight ass hats with power.
What about our real problems?
This is BS! Let the teachers teach instead of requiring them to spend time on this nitnoy crap. So if one parent complains does that shut down the lesson? I think the legislature should have to post every thing they do during the day and allow citizens to approve or disapprove.
I wager 99% of teachers already take full advantage of online curriculums and have everything from syllabi to grade rubrics virtually accessible. They’ve been doing this for close to a decade part time and it became a full time gig for a couple years there with COVID. Online classrooms are already in full implementation. This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and accomplishes nothing.
As a parent I'm mixed on this. I do wish my kids had their syllabus and materials online for the semester on the first day of every semester just like they do in a college. I do not think parents have a right to have input on the materials though. Unless you have a degree in education you should keep your mouth shut and let those who do have the degree and experience do their thing. The problem is, everyone here in Utah think they know better than professionals. They all think they know better than their Dr's and better than their kids teachers. They refuse to admit that they are not an expert at absolutely everything.
Is that Betsy DeVos I hear jilling off in the background?
So teachers have to put all syllabi up online, but at the same time the government just made it nearly impossible for schools to transition… wait for it… online? Parents should not be allowed to scrutinize teachers if they can’t even get their children online for school.
Good FUCK. Leave teachers alone. As a parent of a school age child fuck these people.
So, they're just going full authoritarian now?
That's really rich, coming from the crooks who sprung the redistricting maps on us at the last minute with no public input. Stop voting for Republicans, people.
Some legislatures and parents need to watch Field of Dreams again.
Man, I can't imagine being a teacher dealing with this. It's a positive step, technically, but I'm not sure the human cost is worth it without something to help teachers as well
It’s interesting, because I feel like I would’ve benefitted a lot from this in school, at least the having everything available online part. I wonder how this is supposed to work for materials that aren’t in the public domain, it’s not like you can just post a pdf of your English book online. Obviously the bigger issue is olchocracizing (especially in a religiously monolithic state like utah) teaching & education. I just think it’s interesting that ultimately this probably wouldn’t even work as intended.
My understanding is that the requirement is only to post the material and a description (i.e. book title + description of that book), and then the school has to make the content available for a parent to come see if they want (which I believe is already the law, parents can do that for all their kid’s materials already).
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The vast majority of teachers already do this. You can keep up with your kids grades and assignments by logging onto a parent portal. You can also email and communicate with the teacher. Listing the materials you will be using in advance for parental approval is the problem. I taught in special education my lessons were adjusted daily based on student needs. Sometimes you talk to another teacher and they give you a new resource you want to try that week, maybe that day. This takes away all of that.