Month: June 2025

Caught in the Crossfire

The research I do for this blog has driven my concern about teachers being “handcuffed” by micromanagement and censorship in far too many states. Texas and Florida may lead this unhelpful pack, and my growing frustration sought an outlet.

Until now, my writing has been non-fiction, but nearly two years ago, a creative and talented teacher named Claire Peters started pestering me in my dreams, in the shower, on long car rides. My mythical colleague had a story to tell and hounded me to tell it. Reluctantly, I let myself be drawn in. Claire’s story led me to research schools, communities, and laws in Texas, to merge real places and issues into this telling. Although this novel is fiction, it’s grounded in what happened to teachers in Texas during the 2022-2023 school year, interference and micromanagement that continue to this day. The realities drew me in, and I hope they draw my readers in, too.

I didn’t know the ending when I began. I just let Claire lead me, and this is where we landed.

In hindsight, a conversation with a fellow writer reminded me that I, too, had experienced this kind of micromanagement in my very first teaching job, an experience so challenging that it nearly ended my teaching career at the start. You can read all about it my teaching memoir, Tales Told Out of School: Lessons Learned by the Teacher.

I was lucky. I was pregnant with our second child when that school year ended, and we were committed to my being home with our children once my husband finished graduate school. Taking care of our sons gave me a five-year respite which created the space for me to try teaching again. Decades later, I’m grateful for that second chance. But that first experience clearly pushed Claire’s story for me.

I give you Claire Peters. She isn’t me, but I think we’d be friends if she were human. And I’m grateful for her pushing me to tell this story. I hope you found her as compelling as I did. 

And I hope her story generates conversations about what it means to be a good teacher in a system that discourages good teaching. I believe that the best teachers coach learners to ask open-ended questions and then seek answers for them. I believe that the point of studying the humanities is to better understand people and lead to better decisions in the future. I believe that history teachers help learners discover the past so that we are not condemned to repeat its mistakes. How, then, can a teacher caught in the cultural crossfire coach learners effectively? How can that teacher encourage questions and independent thought when history is whitewashed and connections are discouraged?

I don’t have answers, but I will always pose questions. We need to protect independent thought, to raise independent thinkers. We cannot do that with our hands tied.

Note: My book is available through Harvey’s Tales in Geneva, Illinois [https://harveystales.com/] and on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Here We Go Again!

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My relief about last month’s Supreme Court’s decision not to allow Oklahoma to open the nation’s first publicly funded Catholic charter school may have been premature. I knew the decision was narrow and ended in a tie, with Justice Barrett recusing herself, but at least the court “affirmed last year’s Oklahoma Supreme Court decision that the concept of a publicly funded Catholic charter school is unconstitutional.” (oklahomavoice.com)

The first amendment to our Constitution unequivocally states, “”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Court’s tie ruling, however, suggests some openness to dismantling that separation. Our current administration insists that we are a Christian country despite the clarity of the amendment’s statement.

In 1980 in Stone v. Graham, the Court found that Kentucky’s requirement to post the Ten Commandments in schools “violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The Court found that the requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted ‘had no secular legislative purpose’ and was ‘plainly religious in nature.’ The Court noted that the Commandments did not confine themselves to arguably secular matters (such as murder, stealing, etc.), but rather concerned matters such as the worship of God and the observance of the Sabbath Day.” (www.oyez.org )

Despite precedents like that, a year ago, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a bill into law mandating that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in the state and said, ““I can’t wait to be sued.” Last November, U.S. District Judge John deGravelles that “the law is ‘facially unconstitutional’ and ‘in all applications,’ barring Louisiana from enforcing it and adopting rules around it that obligate all public K-12 schools and colleges to exhibit posters of the Ten Commandments.” (nbcnews.com)

When this case reaches the Supreme Court, the outcome should be a no-brainer. Constitutional law scholar Sanford Levinson warns, however, that the current Court’s willingness to dispense with past precedents may lead to a different decision.  (hls.harvard.edu )

And Louisiana is not alone. This fall every school in Texas must post a copy of the Ten Commandments, and they will not be permitted to post any alternatives: “the bill requires every classroom to visibly display a poster sized at least 16 by 20 inches. The poster can’t include any text other than the language laid out in the bill, and no other similar posters may be displayed.” (texastribune.com)

Other states have climbed on this bandwagon. In 2024, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed a state senate bill that would have permitted posting the Ten Commandments in schools. Last summer Utah passed a bill “adding the Ten Commandments along with the Magna Carta to a list of approved historical documents and principles allowed to be studied in public schools.” The final watered-down version that passed removed the requirement and made the display optional. (abc4news.com) In Oklahoma, House Bill 1006, which failed last year, has been revived and would require a poster or a framed copy of the Ten Commandments to be posted in a conspicuous place in every public school classroom in Oklahoma, the same state where Education Superintendent Ryan Walters “ordered public schools to keep a copy of the Bible in every classroom and incorporate the Christian text into lesson plans. Several district leaders have said they won’t comply, and a lawsuit is challenging the order.” (oklahomavoice.com)

The Supreme Court has weakened the doctrine of separation of church and state before. In 2005 in Van Orden v. Perry, a lawsuit about a monolith displaying the Ten Commandments being placed at the Texas state capitol after being donated by a private group, the Court determined that, “The Establishment Clause does not prohibit per se all forms of government action that may have religious content or a religious message.” (supremejustia.com) In the 2019 Kennedy v. Bremerton case, the Court determined that the football coach had the right to pray on the high school football field after a game, where he could be joined by players. (www.law.cornell.edu)

I fear that the current US Supreme Court will continue to make decisions that erode the separation of church and state. Mandated posting of the Ten Commandments excludes other religions along with atheists and agnostics. It has no part in our public square. Our founding fathers were not anti-religion, but they sought relief from the enforcement of any single religion. I believe in an inclusive and welcoming space for all learners. Religious instruction has been a private matter and must remain so.