On Tuesday, March 15th, PressReader.com reported that the Arizona State Senate has passed curriculum transparency legislation which will require public schools to post teaching materials online. The bill now goes to the Arizona House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass.

The article reports:

As approved on a 16-13 party-line mar­gin, SB 1211 requires a list­ing of all mater­i­als and activ­it­ies for stu­dent instruc­tion. This ranges from text­books and digital mater­i­als, to online applic­a­tions and school assem­blies and guest lec­tures.

Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glend­ale, said this will not be a hard­ship on teach­ers as they need post only the titles and inform­a­tion within seven days.

Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glend­ale, said this will not be a hard­ship on teach­ers as they need post only the titles and inform­a­tion within seven days.

Sep­ar­ately, SB 1211 requires school dis­tricts and charter schools to provide inform­a­tion on their web­sites the pro­ced­ures for par­ents to access, in advance, to review the cur­rent learn­ing mater­i­als and activ­it­ies being used. And the mater­i­als would have to be organ­ized, at a min­imum, by sub­ject, grade and teacher as well as be dis­played in elec­tronic formats that can be searched or sor­ted.

All the Demo­crats on the Sen­ate floor voted against the meas­ure. ‘‘I am 100% in favor of trans­par­ency and par­ental involve­ment,’’ said Sen. Christine Marsh, D-Phoenix.

‘‘I know first hand that open com­mu­nic­a­tion between par­ents and teach­ers allows for bet­ter instruc­tion and adapt­ab­il­ity for the stu­dents,’’ she said. ‘‘But there are other ways to facil­it­ate that without this par­tic­u­lar bill which will have … unin­ten­ded con­sequences on both stu­dents and on teach­ers.’’

Marsh said the addi­tional require­ments will cre­ate more work for teach­ers that ulti­mately will res­ult in them being able to spend less time with their stu­dents.

On of the good things (if there are any) about the Covid pandemic was that it opened parents’ eyes to what their children were being taught in schools. Since the school shutdowns, there has been a substantial increase in the number of children who are being homeschooled. If the public schools want to keep their students, they need to be transparent and go back to teaching reading, writing and arithmetic and stop trying to indoctrinate American children.