May 1 in Chicago: A day of 'civic miseducation'
- Joanne Jacobs
- 16 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Busing Chicago Public Schools students to anti-Trump protests on May Day was "civic miseducation," writes Nicholas Kryczka in a Washington Post commentary. A former public school social studies teacher, he's now an education professor who trains history and civics teachers.
To support a would-be nationwide general strike against Trump, the Chicago Teachers Union lobbied to close the public schools for a "day of action," writes Kryczka. While schools stayed open, some teachers taught special May Day lessons, and teachers led about 2,000 students to the main rally, where "local leftists, elected Democrats, labor unionists and nonprofit leaders chanting promises to refuse fascism, abolish ICE and resist Trump." Many high school students skipped school.
Most social studies teachers say they "teach students how to think, not what to think," according to a nationwide study he led three years ago. Teachers "can only do their jobs with integrity if students and parents trust them to play it straight," he writes. "Last week’s events undercut teachers’ ability to serve as trusted brokers of civic and historical inquiry."
Even if it were ethical for teachers to steer underage students into their preferred political organizations (and it isn’t), one is left to wonder: What, exactly, do young people learn when protest becomes a state-sponsored field trip?
"Only one of the Chicago Board of Education’s 21 members has publicly acknowledged the problems with state-sponsored political speech," Kryczka writes, while others have "openly condemned neutrality as being complicit with oppression."
Kryczka is a Chicago public school parent. He wants "teachers to develop my children’s capacity for debate, teach them their rights and responsibilities, and present the full range of perspectives shaping American politics."
At Chicago's Burbank Elementary, most teachers showed up for work on May 1, writes Chalkbeat's Mila Koumpilova. Middle-schoolers were assigned to "write letters to elected officials on topics such as homelessness, gun laws and immigration" as part of a "day of civic engagement." Thanks to substitutes, there were teachers for all classes except for art, music and PE.
"Some parents and advocates voiced dismay that the cash-strapped district chose to chip in for student participation in a political rally and questioned whether classroom May Day lessons would verge on partisan indoctrination," she writes.
The district said instructional materials would “provide diverse perspectives rather than advance any particular viewpoint.”