Breckenridge Texan

Social media trolls often aim at public schools

Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared in The Dallas Morning News, where Glenn Rogers is a contributing columnist.

As a veterinarian, I have observed that well-adjusted dogs have an uncanny ability to know whom to trust and whom to mistrust. Usually, I agree with the dog.

People have similar instincts that give us a creepy feeling toward certain people. It may be the way they treat waitstaff, employees or their spouse that gives clues about their moral compass.

For me, my radar is hypersensitive to anyone that disparages the teaching profession. Like any profession, there are bad apples that should be removed, and public schools need improvement along with support. But bad apples don’t justify bullying an entire profession.

Social media trolls

Social media attacks on teachers are a growing problem in schools. Threats, harassment and insults can significantly damage a teacher’s emotional and psychological well-being, leading some to leave the profession. This form of aggression is the most frequently reported against educators and can escalate to physical violence if left unaddressed.

Often, such attacks are political. Well-funded organizations such as Moms for Liberty and Libs of TikTok have repeatedly been linked to unwarranted attacks on public schools.

Gordon ISD is a small, exemplary rural school district with strong leadership quietly nestled in scenic southern Palo Pinto County. Community and parental involvement in school activities is outstanding.

In June 2023, Gordon ISD was suddenly, viciously and falsely attacked on social media by Libs of TikTok for allegedly grooming children for transgenderism. A book dealing with transgender life was available statewide through TexQuest, an online library supported by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and coordinated with the Texas Education Agency. No one in Gordon ISD ever accessed the book and the book had been suppressed by school officials. But that didn’t stop the internet trolls.

This attack was politically motivated. Libs of TikTok pointed out on social media that Gordon was in the district I represented, and that I had “a history of being anti-school choice.”

This false attack rattled teachers, parents, school board members and administrators throughout the district. Online bullying and even some locals jumping to conclusions without substantiation caused major emotional distress for the teachers who were unjustly targeted.

On June 28, 2023, my state office sent out a press release and official statement denouncing these unfounded and malicious accusations.

More recently, John Kuhn, superintendent of Abilene ISD, posted on Facebook about his frustrations with disrespect and unwarranted attacks against high school teachers in his district. Social media trolls went on attack, calling his teachers “demons” for assigning a chapter from the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for a high school honors English class. This book is written from the perspective of a 9-year-old boy who lost his dad on 9/11 in the terrorist attack on the twin towers.

When reading about this Abilene scenario, I reflected back 55 years ago on my outstanding eighth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Kirtley, and our long, in-depth study of To Kill a Mockingbird. This Pulitzer Prize-winning classic has been banned and challenged numerous times in schools and libraries across the United States due to its use of racial slurs, themes of rape and depiction of racism. Yet the integrity and courage of the main character, Atticus Finch, and his principled stand against hate and bigotry had a profound impact on my character development and led to a better understanding of the dangers of a mob mentality fueled by misinformation and stereotypical assumptions. This was in the late sixties in rural Graham, Texas.

To Kill a Mockingbird has not been universally banned in Texas, but its inclusion in school curricula has been recently challenged and restricted in specific Texas school districts due to its controversial content.

Propaganda mouthpiece

In January of 2022, Michael Quinn Sullivan, publisher of the Texas Scorecard, tweeted, “A reminder that ‘public education’ is a babysitting service offered at the convenience of the government employees. Public education in Texas is about employing otherwise unemployable adults, not educating kids.”

As the propaganda mouthpiece of a political machine funded by megadonors Farris Wilks and Tim Dunn, the Texas Scorecard seems hellbent on unfairly smearing Texas public schools.

Whenever a teacher acts inappropriately, which is rare, the Scorecard pushes out an article blasting all public schools in general. While these few teachers should be held accountable and justice should be served, these few bad apples are not representative of all 370,000 Texas educators.

Yet, the Texas Scorecard actively uses these rare events to campaign for the destruction of all our public schools. Political operatives from the Wilks and Dunn political network, along with out-of-state billionaire-funded organizations, continually trash-talk our public schools. Yet their logic is not consistent. Would they or their organizations push to defund the police based on a few bad police officers?

The endgame of the attacks is the privatization and elimination of our public schools, and all teachers and public-school employees are in their crosshairs.

Anti-public education politicians

While never visiting a public school during the 2024 Republican primary, Gov. Greg Abbott often railed about the need for “education not indoctrination,” implying that liberal indoctrination was the norm in the public-school curriculum.

Earlier this year, Abbott backed a bill to ban “furry” behaviors in public schools and promoted debunked rumors that schools were providing litter boxes for students. These political stunts and rhetoric to satisfy the far right are nothing more than public-school bullying tactics.

A 2023 survey of Texas educators found that Republican teachers are a sizable portion of the teaching population. In my experience with rural school districts, many teachers are conservative and vote Republican, hardly the indoctrinators constantly mentioned by Abbott.

The attempt to privatize and eliminate public education (government schools), once considered a fringe far-right goal has now become a major tenet of the Republican Party. Rather than supporting and improving our public schools, each Texas legislative session in the last decade has further eroded local control of public schools while creating unfair advantages for private and charter schools.

Teachers have become the convenient scapegoat for societal woes and an easy target for hyper-partisan politicians. Teachers are often at a major disadvantage to defend their actions or to engage in public discourse, due to real or perceived restrictions on free speech, fear of retribution from the weaponized Texas Education Agency, and confusing messages on the permissibility of open discussion of current events. Even merely encouraging teachers to vote has led to unwarranted accusations of electioneering.

Immediate piling-on after inflammatory statements, without hearing both sides, is especially accentuated in the world of social media.

Teachers are trained to teach and desperately desire more time devoted to productive teaching activities, rather than teaching to standardized tests and increasing time spent on nonproductive statewide mandates. Most teachers care deeply about their students’ futures and the provision of sustainable knowledge necessary for work and contribution to societal needs.

It is past time to speak out publicly and often against the bullying tactics causing harm to our public schools and resolute teachers. Politicians and other elected officials, regardless of party or status, should be immediately called out and voted out when caught making false and hateful statements about teachers.

Maybe we should take a lesson from dogs who seem to know, innately, who to trust. It shouldn’t be hard to sniff out social media trolls. They reek like the Grumpy Old Troll of folkloric fame.

Glenn Rogers is a rancher and veterinarian in Palo Pinto County. He served in the Texas House of Representatives from 2021 to 2025, representing Stephens County. He is a Dallas Morning News contributing columnist.