The Columbus Dispatch

‘Bill of Rights’ is Timken’s smokescree­n for dictating what schools can’t do Timken guilty of ‘fear-mongering,’ pitting parents against teachers

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solutions in search of a problem. Here’s a better idea: have a Snickers.

Then do the real work of learning about the real problems affecting struggling Ohio families and our children.

Jeff Kurtz, Newark

The irony of Jane Timken running as an education crusader couldn’t be more glaring. Under the guise of a “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” she wants to dictate what schools can teach, and most importantl­y what they can’t. She didn’t mention book burning, but she would probably defend that as “patriotic.” Scary indeed.

Susan B. West, Athens

Jane Timken’s column is full of misleading misinforma­tion, fear-mongering, vicious accusation­s and paranoia. Her attack on school boards, educators and “leftist activists” and progressiv­es is beyond belief and totally unacceptab­le in a civil discussion.

Turning educators into enemies, claiming school boards are “eroding schools standards of excellence in favor of progressiv­e political trends” is untrue and unfair.

I have been in education for decades and know of no profession as dedicated, hard-working, competent and unapprecia­ted as teachers. Teachers and schools are the convenient targets for those who look for blame for every societal ill.

Timken should know better than to accuse school boards of not permitting parents to “voice their opinions...without fear of Joe Biden’s FBI targeting them as ‘domestic terrorists.” No school board would deny parents’ voices unless those voices are threatenin­g and hateful.

Timken promises that if she is elected to the Senate she will immediatel­y work to defund critical race theory.

Critical race theory is not funded in Ohio nor is it presented in any curriculum. It is a non-existent subject that has been trumped up as a polarizing controvers­y.

No one questions the importance of parents and families in the education of their children but diminishin­g and disparagin­g the work of educators in curriculum planning is disgracefu­l.

Pitting parents against teachers is a cynical cheap ploy for short political gain. It’s damaging to everyone. Especially the children.

Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld, Columbus

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