Washington Post columnist Jamelle Bouie has a piece attacking the so-called “Parents’ Rights” Movement. In What the Republican Push for ‘Parents’ Rights’ Is Really About, Bouie writes:
You may have heard the phrase “parents’ rights.”
It sounds unobjectionable — of course parents should have rights — which is probably why it’s become the term of choice for the conservative effort to ban books, censor school curriculums and suppress politically undesirable forms of knowledge.
When House Republicans introduced a bill that would require public schools to notify parents that they are entitled to see course material and lists of books kept in school libraries, they cited “parents’ rights” as the reason.
“That’s what today is all about: It’s about every parent, mom and dad, but most importantly about the students in America,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy said. Several Republican-controlled states have either proposed or passed similar measures.
[My emphasis]
Of course parents should be notified.* It’s morally unobjectionable. Parents in particular, and taxpayers broadly, are the bosses. The government public schools are the employees. This is not “banning”, censorship, or “suppression.” This is about people knowing, being able to question—and on expressing objection or approval—what is being taught, and how it is being taught. And that requires full knowledge about books, curriculums, and political advocacy.
Knowledge requires the freedom to act on that knowledge. That points to what the parents’ rights movement is really really about.
Mr. Bouie is setting up a straw man. Parents’ Rights is more than a mere GOP bill. It is a movement toward universal school choice. Fundamentally it’s about the education tax dollars funding and following the student, not the school district. It’s about parents and guardians being free to direct the course of their childrens’ education, and about educators and entrepreneurs being free to offer their services in a truly competitive free market in education.
The vicious and scandalous reaction against the parents’ rights movement is a law-empowered establishment’s desperate action to protect its coercive monopoly power over education—which in many respects amounts to an indoctrination, not education, cartel. Of course, not everything labeled “parents’ rights” is necessarily about individual rights, or free market education. While p;arents certainly have a right to question any school’s educational policy and standards, that should be between the parents and the school—and in a free market that wouldn’t be the government’s business. Given the government's monopolistic control of most of America’s schools, getting information can be problematic. But does that justify the House Republicans’ “Parents’ Bill of Rights?” I think not. The last thing America’s schools need is more Federal intrusion into the schools.
That aside, parents have always had the moral right to govern their childrens’ education. They deserve the legal right. Parents’ Rights is fundamentally a civil/individual rights movement. The GOP is not the driver of this historic movement. It’s parents who are alarmed by the erosion of education going on in the government schools they are forced to fund and supply with students. Which raises this question for defenders of the establishment. If your schools are so good, why do you need to collect your revenue and customers by force of taxation and compulsory attendance laws? Don’t you think people would voluntarily choose your schools? I think the answer is obvious.
* [Note: I posted a comment, which is a greatly condensed version of this essay, editred to fit into the Washington Post’s 1500 character limit.
Related Reading:
Book-Banning vs. Age-Appropriate Educational Material
Parents’ School Choice Rights Shouldn't Depend on Winning Election.
Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits?
A Newark, NJ Mother Demonstrates the Educational Power of Parental School Choice
Real School Choice Depends on Free Exercise of Individual Rights
The Enemies of Charters Versus the Parents and Their Kids
Chris Christie’s School Choice Achievement.
Educational Freedom, Not Just Education, ‘Has to Be the Top Priority for Candidates'
"Letter: ‘Vouchers Will Hurt Public Schools.’ So?"
Contra Michelle Purdy, Education is about Independent Thinking, Not Indoctrination.
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