Several states have passed laws as part of the educational 'culture war;' is it more about education or votes?

Number of laws passed affecting education culture wars
(Washington Post map; click to enlarge; click here for the interactive version.)

Over the past three academic years, half of U.S. state legislatures have passed laws restricting what cultural values can be conveyed through American education, an analysis by Hannah Natanson, Clara Ence Morse, Anu Narayanswamy and Christina Brause of The Washington Post finds. Just over 40% of those laws bar transgender students from sports teams that match their gender identities, while over a one-fourth limit what teachers can say about race, racism and history. 

That suggests that both political parties are "doubling down on the culture war," the Post reports, as both sides use "the education laws to signal their values to voters: While Republicans are proposing and passing the measures, Democrats are loudly opposing them." The paper citing Houman Harouni, a Harvard University lecturer who studies education. "This, to me, reads more like a PR campaign," Harouni said. "On either side, I don’t really think this is about education."

The online education offered during the pandemic allowed many parents to get a closer look at what was being taught in schools and some didn't like what they saw, Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told the Post. Politicians everywhere took note of Republican Glenn Youngkin's rise to Virginia governor on a 2021 campaign promising to give parents more control over lesson plans. 

"So now, there’s a sense among some conservatives that pushing this kind of legislation can actually win over swing voters," Pondiscio said. "A sense that attacking public education is an electoral winner."