School boards across the country appear to be moving to the left after Democrats, liberals and moderates won seats over conservative candidates in several key states. Education has become a flashpoint issue ahead of the 2024 elections, with fights erupting in school board meetings over how race, sexual orientation, gender, and other topics are handled in the classroom. Now, ABC News is marking American Education Week all across the network with a focus on the future of our schools as part of our series The American Classroom. So let's bring in Sonia Douglas, professor at Columbia University's Teachers College and the founding director of the school's Black Education Research Center. For more. Sonia, thanks so much for coming on. What's your reaction to last week's, these elections and this apparent shift away from conservative school board candidates?

Thank you so much for having me this morning. I think last week's school board elections were a sweeping rejection of conservative efforts to ban the teaching of race, gender and sexuality in our nation's schools. And they underscore the fact that Americans want to keep the culture wars out of education.

Now, parental rights advocates say that they want more of an influence in what their children are taught and have access to at schools. So what's your reaction to some of the proposed book bans and curriculum restrictions that are often centered on topics of race, gender and sexual orientation?

Well, I think that the issue of book bans, again, was very much one that's focused on politics. There was, I believe, roughly eleven individuals who have been responsible for the majority of book challenges over the last couple of school years. And so at the Black Education Research Center, we also found that most Americans agree that the CRT bans are mostly about politics, and so those attacks have not resonated. We believe that the elections last week also showed that and are excited about the fact that most Americans support truth and teaching.

So how do you respond to parents who are concerned that schools are moving away from core education and that they should be concentrating less on these topics and more on how students read, how they're writing, their math skills?

Yeah, I think those are appropriate concerns, but I don't think that they're mutually exclusive. I think teaching about these difficult topics, which can be sensitive, are really valuable when we think about literacy and English language arts and even mathematics and science. And so it's important that teachers have the freedom to teach, to teach the truth in all of the content areas. And that again, the priority is to ensure that children have access to literacy instruction and other content areas that will allow them to be successful academically.

Now, sex education is a big part of this debate. Some parents are concerned that schools are shoving sexual content on children too young. So when do you think it's appropriate to teach children about sex? And do you think it's up to parents or school officials to decide that?

I mean, that's a great question. Ultimately, I think parents and teachers need to work in partnership and support of children, no matter the topic. I think parents do have to make a decision of what's best for their child. But it is appropriate to teach sex education in schools, especially or only when teachers are trained to do that, and to do that in a supportive environment. So I really think this is an opportunity to think about how teachers and families and educators work together to support our young people, because they really do need our support in this post Pandemic era.

I sure do. Sonia Douglas. Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

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