New survey finds a majority of teachers say state governments have too much influence over what’s taught in classrooms

(CNN) — Nelva Williamson has been a teacher in Houston for more than 40 years. Two years ago, she began teaching AP African American studies and Williamson told CNN during her lectures she can see her students have “lightbulb moments.”

“I teach that [African Americans] did not start enslaved. There’s greatness in African kingdoms,” Williamson said. She said that students feel uplifted when they learn about Black history predating racial oppression in the United States.

Williamson said the class is empowering for her students, who are predominantly Black and brown girls.

But she’s also teaching AP African American Studies amid a nationwide debates over how topics like race, racism and sexuality are taught in American classrooms.

According to a new survey published Thursday by the Pew Research Center, 41% of teachers surveyed said these nationwide debates have had a negative impact on their ability to do their job.

What’s more, a majority of public K-12 teachers surveyed, 58%, said they feel their state governments have too much influence over what’s taught in public schools in their area.

And as the parental rights movement continues to gain momentum in some states, 60% of public K-12 teachers surveyed said parents should not be able to opt their children out of learning about racial inequality or racism, even if it conflicts with the parents’ beliefs.

Forty-eight percent of public K-12 teachers surveyed said parents should be allowed to opt out of lessons on gender identity or sexual orientation.

Williamson said she feels students should learn about race and racial inequality that has occurred throughout history within the context of the state standards.

“By opting out of these discussions, students are not learning the full depth and breadth of the history of this nation and the world,” Williamson told CNN. “To be opting out of that classroom discussion would be to put blinders on regarding the impact of race around the world.”

Race, sex and gender in the classroom

More than a third, 38%, of students ages 13 to 17 surveyed said they feel comfortable learning about racial inequality and racism in school. A smaller portion of surveyed teens, 29%, said they feel comfortable discussing sexual orientation or gender in class.

The survey also found that within the classroom, topics associated with racial inequality and racism come up more often than LGBTQ issues. A majority of teachers, 56%, said topics of racial inequality and racism at least “sometimes” came up in the classroom, while 21% said the topics came up “often or extremely often,” the report also said.

Aidan Lam, a Pennsylvania high school senior and youth ambassador for the It Gets Better project, a non-profit that services LGBT+ youth, told CNN that queer issues do not come up often in the classroom, but he appreciates when they do.

“Examining the sparse dialogue that does occur at my school, there is healthy debate surrounding both racial and queer issues. I think being exposed to both positive and negative opinions through classroom discussions has enriched my education,” Lam said.

As states like Florida implement laws banning lessons on sexuality and gender identity in classrooms, 68% percent of teachers surveyed who have been teaching longer than a year said gender identity and sexual orientation “rarely or never” came up in their classroom during the 2022-2023 school year, according to the report.

Forty-eight percent of teens surveyed said they should not learn about gender identity in school, the survey also found.

While, nearly half of teens surveyed, 48%, said they would prefer to learn about the legacy of slavery and how it “still affects the position of Black Americans today.”

A slightly smaller but significant percentage of teens, 40%, said they would rather learn that slavery is part of American history but no longer affects the position of Black people in America, according to the report.

Pew surveyed more than 2,500 public K-12 teachers in the US and more than 1,400 teens ages 13 to 17, according to the report. More than 5,000 adults were also surveyed.

The impact of curriculum debates

Across the country, state lawmakers have introduced legislation to ban topics on sexual identity and race from being discussed in K-12 classrooms.

In 2023, at least 510 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures across the US, many limiting access to healthcare and restricting what can be taught about sexuality and gender in classrooms.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation banning certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom in 2022. School districts and teachers across the state of Florida are also trying to navigate a slate of so-called “parental rights” laws that empower parents to have a greater say over what children learn in Florida classrooms.

During a news conference last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed back on allegations that there is movement in the state to ban books, arguing that “curating a book or not in a library for middle school kids is not the same as saying the book is banned.”

DeSantis also addressed recent backlash over some schools in the state issuing permission slips for students to attend Black History Month lessons. The governor accused the schools of “virtue signaling” and critics of “trying to create phony narratives.”

“You had this incident in Miami where they did some permission slip, it was absurd,” DeSantis said. “There’s nothing in the state that required that, the state board of education immediately wrote a letter to the principal that said, ‘knock it off, stop with the nonsense.’”

For her part, despite the fact that Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill in 2021 cracking down on teaching so-called “critical race theory” in Texas schools, Williamson said her classroom hasn’t been politicized.

“We’re still teaching the TEKS as they have been for the past 10 years,” she said, referring to the state’s educational guidelines, or the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).

“Nothing has changed,” Williamson said. “This is knowledge that needs to be out there, partly because it helps to give our students a sense of being in the history of this country.”

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