Should parents be able to monitor their children and their children’s teachers while they are in class?
This week, conservative lawmakers in Iowa proposed a bill that would require public schools to install state-funded cameras in every classroom so parents could view their children’s classrooms via livestream. Members of the Iowa House Education Committee are expected to discuss the proposal further Wednesday.
Every public school classroom from kindergarten through senior year of high school would be impacted by the legislation.
Rep. Norlin Mommsen, a Republican who represents a rural district in eastern Iowa and is sponsoring the bill, said its purpose is to “increase the involvement of parents in their children’s education,” by allowing them to watch live footage of their children’s classrooms, according to NBC News.
As it currently stands, the bill – H.F. 2177 – would require each public school district in Iowa to install cameras in all classrooms except those used for special education and physical education. Expenses for installing and maintaining the cameras would be provided through the bill.
Per the proposed legislation, those who do not comply with the requirement would face phases of penalties. For a first offense, there would be a written reprimand. For a second offense, there would be a fine equivalent to 1 percent of the employee’s weekly salary and for a third or subsequent offense, there would be a fine equivalent to 5 percent of an employee’s weekly salary.
Late last year, a similar bill was introduced in Florida. That legislation’s stated goal is to prevent bullying and fighting. However, Republican state Rep.
Mike Beltran – a co-sponsor of the bill – said it is designed to make sure staff members are “teaching the kids properly.
According to NBC News, teacher advocates have criticized efforts to put livestream cameras in classrooms as an attempt to censor classrooms and intimidate educators who focus on subjects such as race and history.
Censorship in schools became a headline-making issue in recent weeks when a Tennessee school board banned Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel “Maus,” which deals with the impact the Holocaust had on the author’s family. Last year, discussions of “Critical Race Theory” an academic theory found in graduate-level classrooms, also erupted in U.S. elementary school board meetings.
In recent years, Republican-led legislatures in Georgia, Texas and West Virginia have all passed laws allowing cameras in classrooms, under certain conditions. More than 70 bills in 27 states were filed during the first three weeks of this year to regulate topics such as race, history and sexuality, according to an analysis by free speech advocacy group Pen America.
“Some politicians around the country want to limit not only what history our kids can learn about and what books they can read, censor the truth of our history in some cases, and, now in Iowa, they want to install classroom cameras for live monitoring of teachers,” said Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, the largest educator union in the U.S.
She said that the state should not waste funds on monitoring equipment and should instead focus on hiring more staff, reducing class sizes and improving programs.
Iowa State Education Association President Mike Beranek also called the bill “completely outrageous and dangerous.”
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