Education as a Political Tool: The Battle for School Curricula
Ohio joins the chant: "Don't Say Gay!"
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill 8 (HB 8), also known as “The Parents’ Bill of Rights,” into law last year, and it has recently gone into effect.
The law requires all public schools in the state to adopt a series of policies that ensure “that a parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent’s child.”
To ensure that parental rights are restored, schools must inform a parent of any “substantial changes to a student’s services or monitoring related to the student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or wellbeing.”
According to the law, these “changes” can exist as a variety of things, including abnormal academic performance, sickness or physical injury, bullying, harassment, or symptoms of suicidal ideation. Most of these components are broad and open to interpretation, but curiously, “any request by a student to identify as a gender that does not align with the student’s biological sex” is described verbatim.
In its initial proposal, the bill would have also required public schools to adopt a policy to alert parents regarding “instructional materials with sexually explicit content.” However, in the final text, the law looks a bit different. Schools will be required to alert parents when there is “instructional material with sexuality content.”
Does the language change indicate the creation of a new “Dont’t Say Gay” law?
The “Don’t Say Gay” law is a term usually used to describe the legislation proposed to limit or avoid discussions about LGBTQ+ topics in public education. These bills specifically target younger students but have made their way into high schools by virtue of vague language.
Discussion topics must be “age-appropriate” or “developmentally appropriate,” but these laws do not define or clarify “appropriateness.” This ambiguity creates uncertainty about what can and cannot be discussed in classrooms.
In Florida, schools no longer offer the AP Psychology course due to the law. Gender and sexuality are important components of the class, and the law prohibits teaching this content. The College Board has a policy that rejects content censorship and modification, so it simply doesn’t teach the class anymore.
In recent years, schools across the United States have experienced an increase in censorship in their libraries. Now, with this legislation becoming more popular in conservative states, students are losing more books and resources. Students have lost access to powerful resources that grant them the ability to learn about oppression and discrimination. Students are denied the right to learn about racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia through books. Some schools no longer have accessible libraries.
However, these materials are essential for students. These materials offer students a perspective that is not their own and a perspective that is not their parents’. These materials show students issues that they have not experienced first-hand, allowing them to gain empathy and insight into their own views about the world.
Students need varying perspectives on world issues to understand the world, especially if those perspectives reveal a flaw in our society. These perspectives are important for young people because they empower them to become active members of society and democracy, which is arguably more important.
What are Parents’ Rights?
These bills share attributes with the growing parents’ rights movements. These movements began in the 1990s when groups of conservatives desired to limit comprehensive sex education in k-12 schools. Now, in 2025, these movements, though rooted in the same ideas, aim at other targets.
Many parents believe in raising children with their own “values,” and this idea in itself is not malicious. However, it is disappointing that proponents of this legislation are insinuating that school employees, with whom we as a society trust with educating our children, are committing vile acts of indoctrination if they give a perspective that does not align perfectly with each parent.
Laws like this don’t just restrict teachers' ability to support their students who may be queer or gender-queer. It barely allows them to acknowledge the existence of identities that aren’t cisgender or straight.
Lesley University studied youth homelessness, a critical issue in the U.S., and its relation to the queer youth population. According to the study, one in four LGBTQ+ kids feel forced to leave their home after coming out, 50% of them face negative reactions from family after coming out, and 68% feel family rejection. Youth homelessness is a critical issue. 1.6 million kids are homeless each year, and 40 percent, almost half, identify with the LGBTQ+ community.
Testimonials promoting bills like HB 8 often claim that controlling their child’s upbringing is a fundamental right, which couldn’t possibly be true for parents who would rather give up their child than have a gay kid.
There are no guaranteed safe places left for today’s queer youth. GOP leaders do not understand what it is like to have that fear.
Every day, there are children who silence themselves due to these unsafe environments, and friends and allies at school may be their only source of freedom. Gay and trans kids are not too inappropriate to exist at school. Education should be centered around the students, no matter how the students identify.
School curriculum and access to quality education is a matter of life and death. What a student gets out of a lesson or a book is only in their control; it’s not up to anyone else, certainly not a parent or a teacher. Real content and real history will not turn a child into a Democrat or a Republican; learning that homosexuals exist will not turn a child gay. Having a diverse curriculum does not satisfy any political agenda. And if you think it does, maybe you lack security in your political identity.