A new poll indicates that the overwhelming majority of voters in Ohio support teaching about racism in schools, which some might consider surprising considering Ohio is a red state that has become the focal point of Donald Trump’s and J.D. Vance’s transparently racist campaign against Haitian migrants.
Baldwin Wallace University’s Community Research Institute surveyed 877 registered voters across Ohio, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 1, and found that a whopping 84% of those respondents favored teaching America’s history of systemic racism. Respondents were specifically asked about what educators should teach, whether prayer belongs in school and if parents should have control over what students are taught in classrooms.
The results indicate that while Republicans would have us believe that most Americans prefer a more conservative approach to educating the youth — which would include giving parents more say so when it comes to educational material, whitewashing Black history in order to preserve white America’s delusional perception of their “shining city on the hill,” and generally pretending the LGBTQ community doesn’t exist — voters prefer a more progressive approach.
From Cleveland.com:
They’re the same questions the team asked in 2022, when critical race theory was a hot-button issue in political races. Lauren Copeland, director of BW’s Community Research Institute, said they asked again to see whether public opinion had changed.
The results? The vast majority of Ohio voters continue to support – and have even strengthened support for – teaching the history and impact of race and racism in the United States and sexual orientation in schools. They also prefer to keep parental opinions out of the classroom.
In 2022, 75% of respondents supported teaching race and racism, and 57% supported teaching students in sixth through twelfth grade about sexual orientation. Today, numbers have increased to 84% and 61%, respectively, the latest results show. The margin of error for most of the questions in the survey is plus or minus 4%.
“I think this says conservative politicians may try to use issues like curriculum and critical race theory as wedge issues in elections to try to mobilize their base, but that these issues don’t resonate with the electorate at large,” Copeland said. “What these results show is that Ohioans largely trust the schools to teach on issues such as race and racism and on sexual orientation.”
Ohio Democratic Rep.Joyce Beatty, Source: Bill Clark / Getty
The numbers don’t lie
Here’s how the percentages in favor of teaching the truth break down: 94% of Democrats, 84% of Independents–and a surprising 78% of Republicans surveyed agreed that students learning about the history of racism in America, including its impact on modern society is important. And, 68% agreed that teachers are doing a good job of teaching these subjects in an unbiased manner, and that the concepts taught to students are age-appropriate.
The results of the survey became notably less progressive when it came to the subject of teaching about gender identity. While 61% of respondents favored teaching students from the sixth through twelfth grades about sexual orientation, only 43% supported teaching about gender fluidity.
Either way, though, more than half of the respondents agreed that, while book-banning Republican officials have tried to frame their war on wokeness as a fight for parental rights, the truth is parents need to fall back and let educators do their jobs.
More from Cleaveland.com:
While 56% of respondents opposed giving parents the ability to stop schools from teaching topics they do not like, only 52% opposed giving parents a say over which books are available in school libraries, results show.
Responses strongly followed party lines.
Roughly 74% of Democrats and 61% of Independent voters favored keeping parents out of the classroom, compared with 39% of Republicans. Meanwhile, 66% of Democrats and 59% of Independents favored keeping parents out of libraries, compared with 38% of Republicans.
Unsurprisingly, Republican respondents were the reason why the results were as close as they were regarding parental control. It’s not necessarily that parents shouldn’t have a say — they have a right to know what their kids are being taught, after all — but what we’ve been seeing in white conservative America is parents trying to enforce their ideologies into the education system. The result of that has been blatant propaganda against critical race theory, LGBTQ+ studies, and the ubiquitous thing they call “woke.”
Arguably, the most nefarious aspect of this right-wing projection is that conservatives pretend they represent popular opinion in America, and studies keep indicating that is not the case.
