As if teachers aren't micro-managed enough. There's a bill proposed by GOP NC legislators that passed the NC House and moved to the NC Senate that would require all NC public school teachers to publish online their lesson plans for parental approval. By the end of each school year "teachers would have to post an outline of what was taught during the year as well as information the public could access to follow up on the material. Teachers would also be required to publicly post “the lesson plans that were used at the school during the prior school year.” According to the bill, “Lesson plans shall identify, at a minimum, (i) all instructional materials by the title and the author, organization, or website associated with each material and activity, (ii) a brief descriptor of the instructional material, and (iii) a link to the instructional material, if publicly available on the internet, or information on how to request review of a copy of the instructional material in person.” Districts would also have to put on their website how materials and instruction are reviewed by the district."
This comes after NC GOP Lt. Governor Mark Robinson created a webpage so that people could report teachers who are "indoctrinating" students and pushed for a panel to "investigate" any reports. A GOP legislator from Iredell County said that “Hopefully we’re just going to teach the kids, we’re not going to try to indoctrinate them", while a Democratic legislator from Buncombe County criticized the bill and called it a "solution looking for a problem" (sounds like the voter restriction laws). Another Democratic legislator said that "This just seems like a pretty large burden to put onto educators...This feels like a heavy-handed element of government.”
The NCAE is strongly opposed to the bill: “This completely unnecessary and unimaginably burdensome law would require teachers and school districts to post online a comprehensive list of all teaching, classroom and assignment materials used by every teacher in every class session. Every single book, article, video clip, song, webpage, or even any assignment or assessment would have to be documented, organized, collected and posted to the web. Every. Single. One. And to what end? So right-wing conservatives can cherry-pick examples of ‘liberal indoctrination’? So that legislators who have not taught a day in their lives can bully and undermine our professionalism? Not on our watch.”
A number of teachers have also criticized the bill. A middle school teacher in Charlotte called the bill demoralizing, and said “It’s a solution in search of a problem. It’s something that I don’t think the majority of parents are calling for." After an already difficult year, Parmenter says this would add to teacher’s workload and would create more issues with North Carolina retaining educators. “I think this year, more than any year that I can remember, we’re going to have to worry about how we’re going to retain teachers, how are we going to make sure that we have excellent teachers and enough of them.” Steve Oreskovic is an 8th-grade teacher in CMS. He says the bill is a slap in the face. “I really wish the party in control of the legislature would help teachers rather than try to micromanage or create issues where there are none,” Oreskovic says.
If you deliberately wanted to drive teachers out of the profession, you couldn't do a much better job than all of these bills that are being proposed across the country in GOP legislatures.
Link:
https://www.ednc.org/05-06-2021-lawmakers-want-lesson-plans-posted-online/
Link:
https://www.wccbcharlotte.com/2021/05/10/bill-requiring-nc-teachers-to-post-all-lessons-plans-and-other-materials-online-passes-state-house/