Parent and caregiver advocacy is crucial as children’s right to inclusive learning and honest history education is being limited in some states and communities. While the media often highlights the vocal efforts of a few politically motivated parents’ groups to censor teaching and to exclude some children and families from representation, we know that most parents and caregivers support fair and inclusive education practices that protect the learning and well-being of all children.
May 3 is the Freedom To Learn National Day of Action, a day of advocacy for inclusive education and young people’s freedom to read, learn and build a just future. Our collective responsibility is to counter disinformation, uplift honest history and engage our communities to serve all children.
“Because we know that attacks on knowledge are fueling threats to freedom, and that repression in one place fuels its spread elsewhere, we call for global resistance to all efforts to destroy the vital tools that help us to imagine and create more equitable and inclusive futures for us all.” —African American Policy Forum
From an early age, each of us must navigate numerous social institutions, many of which were designed to perpetuate centuries-old inequities. For us to move in those spaces with power and agency, civic knowledge, skills and dispositions are essential. But alarming trends reveal a sharp decline in civics competency among adults in the United States, and participation in places that bring people together to solve common problems has withered, too. Civics education needs a critical social justice lens so people can fulfill the potential of a multiracial and inclusive democracy.
