Thread by @lymanstoneky

it's just wild to me that anybody thinks public schools *should* be teaching kids about sex and gender identity

this is very clearly not their job, at least not until they can get math and reading scores up to par for all kids.

https://twitter.com/JeffreyASachs/status/1493649959043964933

there's just a cultural divide here about what we believe public schools are supposed to be doing. one side sees this as gagging a legitimate function of schools, the other sees schools being reigned in from going into totally illegitimate functions.

idk man, i kinda don't want the school i pay tax dollars to to spend the money teaching my child to hate the things i believe? and i think this is a perfectly reasonable sentiment that actually almost everybody shares?

but some of us recognize that this means public school curriculum has to be extremely bare-bones and thus that effective education will have to occur in a pluralist voucherized model in smaller schools, whereas others seem to think they should get their vision imposed on all.

people responding upset like "no, your kids need to be exposed to different ideas!"

cool, okay, i look forward to your kid being forced to memorize the catechism and go to chapel, so they can be exposed to different ideas.

oh, right, i see, you think *other* people's kids should be forced to learn things the parents find objectionable, but not your kids?

okay. got it, cool, good.

okay look, compromise: we don't force kids to learn the catechism, but all textual examples used for learning literacy are excerpts from the catechism, and all descriptions of the family include the child's baptismal sponsors.

because ya know what? people with godparents deserve representation!

so you see how this goes right?

it turns out, we all have really incompatible ideas about how our children should be raised and educated!

which is fine!

so how about, our public schools stick to the minimum stuff we all agree on.

if what you think is that schools should be comprehensively preparing children for all the challenges of life, okay, fine, but since we have diametric disagreements about what those challenges are and how people should respond to them, that means: we can't have shared education.

I 100% absolutely believe to the core of my being that Jehovah's Witnesses should be permitted to take their public school dollars and use them to finance JW-friendly schooling environments which do not celebrate Christmas or birthdays!

https://twitter.com/_Xelkelvos/status/1493690754828488706

The rampant persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses around the world and in America; the casual disdain for their different cultural norms; it's an example par excellence of exactly what's wrong with American education, and EXACTLY the kind of difference I want to accommodate.

the quiet part out loud

it's about ending religion

https://twitter.com/JamesDSneed/status/1493693067299373058

just want to point out that the comments I'm getting are not especially subtle in their views of "how should religious minorities be treated"

https://twitter.com/ListenToVictims/status/1493720086187810821

when one dares to suggest that parents should get to choose what school to put their kids in and that they should have an option amenable to their values, the response is quite literally that religion should be destroyed and persecuted minorities have it coming.

anyways, im looking forward to moving back to KY and raising my kids there for at least a few years so they can know where they come from, but who knows if there's even a future for them in america???

people very sane and rational in my mentions.

https://twitter.com/xshadow23x/status/1493739245206265857

my dms are even better

lots of people angry about this thread. not deleting it, i'm right: parents should be able to choose the school that they think is right for their kid.

Also, let me note that all the people making extremely angry, profane, and threatening responses are kinda proving my point that what's going on here is teaching children to hate their parents and the things their parents believe.

"All we want to do is mention the existence of homosexuality you bigoted ************** *********** freaking ***** **** you deserve to die you ***** unamerican **** !"

idk i kinda think the people tweeting that yes they really do want to take my kids away from me because im too religious are.... sincere, and mean what they say, and are not rare in society, and are common in the ranks of education and social work programs *in particular*

yes, i think many people are responding to a belief they think i have by making death threats and saying my children should be taken from me.

that's exactly what i think is happening.

and why i don't want my kids educated near their kids.

https://twitter.com/ASFleischman/status/1493963879084347392

i absolutely agree that what's happening is a lot of people become extremely angry and violent when they learn about things other people believe with which they disagree.

this obviously applies to conservatives just as much as progressives!

but my view is: given that we have disagreements, and given that in fact those disagreements are not easily surmountable, it's best if we provide parents a lot of free choice and discretion about childrearing environments.

and the response i'm getting is, no, that's terrible, we absolutely must impose our specific values on all children, regardless of what the parents think.

it seems very clear to me this is the argument, because it's what 99% of the replies are saying.

example of the derangement!

i am literally arguing that if parents want a school which provides explicit direct affirmation of different sexualities, taxpayer money should pay for that!

we just shouldn't force all children to attend that school!

https://twitter.com/destroyideas/status/1493964828519505924

and if parents want a school that provides explicit direct affirmation of a specific religion, taxpayer money should pay for that!

we just shouldn't force all children to attend that school!

i am literally arguing for accommodation very high levels of diversity in our school system!

it's amazing how people interpret "we should NOT force kids to learn things their parents don't support" to mean "we SHOULD force kids to learn things their parents don't support"

i mean given that persecution of polygamous religious groups was kind of A HUGE DEAL in american history i really do feel strongly we should probably *not* discriminate against polygamous groups. weird to argue we should!

https://twitter.com/RaskolnikovsAxe/status/1493965350521745409

"how DARE you propose we stop discriminating against the people we've been discriminating against for centuries????"

this is just like above where JWs came up, and i got mentions were people were like, no, this proposal is awful, it would allow JWs to experience less discrimination, that would be SO BAD

but actually, these are not bad things!

of course I think polygamy is awful and bad, and I think JWs are wrong and heretical... but my specific religious views cannot be the basis for law in a society which is extremely diverse! this is just liberalism 101!

in the same way, some people think non cisgendered heterosexual identity should be actively celebrated. some people think it should be neutrally acknowledged. some people think it should be discouraged or condemned.

none of these are universally shared or constitutive to...

... american society, today or ever, and thus it seems unreasonable to suppose that any child should be compelled to be in an educational environment which adopts one of these stances.

and here's a nice counter-example! opposition to monarchy *is* foundational and constitutive to american identity! and ever since the 13th-15th amendments, opposition to racial and origin discrimination is explicitly a constitutional norm!

there can be absolutely no doubt that our constitution is opposed to distinctions based on race, and as a result it is reasonable to suppose that taxpayer money should not support curricula which explicitly opposes our constitutional form of government, e.g. neoconfederate views

likewise, there can be absolutely no doubt that our constitution is opposed to theocratic government, so if a a school taught children "the basis of government in america should be that the pope selects a divinely appointed monarch" there might be an argument to make!

but when what we're talking about are things that are not explicitly related to the overthrow of our constitutional form of government, where people with different views on it are already clearly constitutionally required to be tolerated, there's no argument for coercion.

i just want all my detractors here to understand that every irate tweet you tweet is exactly the evidence me and people like me need to explain why our preferred policy is so vital and important. your anger is our justification!

Nice article talking about some of these issues in a very thoughtful way here. I agree, and I take it to the logical conclusion: for the sake of peace, we must not have a norm of everybody-in-the-same-schools. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

just to be clear:

I STRONGLY support the right of Muslim families to access taxpayer dollars in America to ensure their children receive an education which is amenable to their faith!

https://twitter.com/andkenbr/status/1493970635856523266

Anti-sharia laws and other anti-Muslim laws are a rising tide of religious discrimination which is also eroding the legal rights accruing to other religions; people of any faith who value their rights should be forthrightly condemning anti-Muslim legislation, for our own sakes.

While of course I believe Islam to be a false religion, I also believe Muslim parents have a right to educate their children in the faith without their child being forced to accommodate to Christian cultural norms.

And in return, all I ask is the same treatment. Let me educate my kids in peace.

The logical solution here is to require schools to qualify for funding by having exit exams at certain grades where students must on average score at least X, and it includes questions about controversial issues.

https://twitter.com/wwwojtekk/status/1493971322350804994

For this model, JWs could teach kids, "look, for the exam, blood transfusions matter; but of course, that's all lies."

Or they could find any number of hybrid ways to do it. Which is fine! The kid still gets exposed to the knowledge base, has an opportunity to explore it, etc.

For matters directly pertaining to life and death (STIs, for example), there's a compelling argument.

people *really* hate the JWs.

what did the JWs do to you people???

did they.... knock on your door, or something?

https://twitter.com/ListenToVictims/status/1493720086187810821

i mean look, i think they're heretics and i disagree with them on tons of stuff but the JW hate on this site is kinda eye-popping and also weird. they're not violent or offensive people! why do you people hate them so much????

it's not like they're gonna show up at a hospital and rip a blood transfusion out of your arm or something.

they don't even usually vote! they're totally politically harmless!

i feel like opinion of groups like JWs, Amish, Haredi Jews is a really good litmus test for whether you might just be an all-purpose generalized bigot about religious belief.

if people literally separating themselves and having their own community quietly doing their own thing

gets you up in arms and angry.... you might just be a bigot!

the most negative non-bigoted feeling you can have about these groups is either "meh" or "i sort of wish there weren't so many tricycles in the way of my stroller on the sidewalk? please put'em in the yard?"

and to be clear, I live in an ultra-orthodox neighborhood, so being annoyed at the different habits of one of these isolate groups is not a hypothetical to me! but i just cannot fathom feeling something beyond mild annoyance at an inconvenience.

feels obvious but it's worth noting, i absolutely do want my kids to know gay kids exist, i just think public school teachers are gonna be crappy guides that entire suite of life topics.

https://twitter.com/bdgrabinski/status/1494013150496129025

this is like saying you want your children to be ignorant of broccoli because there's not a broccoli curriculum at the public school, or like saying you want your child to be ignorant of parental love because there's not a parental love curriculum

i don't want my kids to be ignorant. my 2-year-old has already heard me talking about MANY of these issues since she here's me talking about my demography research with my wife, and it gets very frank and forthright.

but the same knowledge can be transferred in many different ways and with different attendant affect and effects, and those contextual elements are often as or more important than the actual information.

As an aside, this thread has of course drawn tons of hostility.

But my inbox is also packed with Mormons and Muslims and JWs and Jews, etc, nodding along or saying, "thanks for the thread; wish i could RT it safely"