On Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022, in a NewsHour Classroom Educator Voice Zoom, teachers and school staff from across the U.S. discussed their concerns about how they have been treated during the pandemic as well as the rapid spread of so-called "divisive concepts" laws.

Guest Anne Lutz Fernandez , English teacher (ret.) and author of the book "Schooled," recommended parents and teachers work together to fight these divisions being sowed by lawmakers and the news media.

"...there is a tremendous amount of common ground that parents have with teachers, and public opinion on teachers is not the dire forecast that we're seeing from some in the media." —Anne Lutz Fernandez

"Schooled" focused on the ramifications of building a test-based and teacher evaluation culture led by education reformers, which drove many teachers including Fernandez to retire or leave the profession. Similar treatment of educators, Fernandez argued, is happening as a result of the current rash of anti-history teaching legislation.

These anti-Critical Race Theory or anti-CRT bills, as proponents call them, have become law in several states and serve the purpose of changing what teachers teach in history, civics and English class, even if it means not teaching the whole picture, or the truth. Controlling or censoring essential content is a challenge long faced by science educators in fights over the teaching of evolution that took place throughout the 1980s, and currently with climate change.

As with all NewsHour Classroom Zoom sessions, the educator audience played an active role throughout the conversation. The discussion was not recorded to respect educator privacy, but Fernandez joined regular host and history teacher Sari Beth Rosenberg to discuss takeaways from the conversation. That debrief is available here:

On the role lawmakers and the media play in contributing to tensions between teachers and parents around COVID and curriculum:

"What we've seen...is there is a tremendous amount of common ground that parents have with teachers, and public opinion on teachers is not the dire forecast that we're seeing from some in the media." —Anne Lutz Fernandez

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