Should Parents Be Involved in Educating Their Children?

            Families, communities, and nations are stronger when parents protect their children from use, abuse, and indoctrination. The Left has long been indoctrinating college-age students, and they are now trying to do the same with K-12 children and teenagers. The implementation of certain programs into schools was moving along smoothly until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and parents could see what the schools were teaching their children.

            Parents began attending school board meetings to express their viewpoints, and school district personnel did not appreciate the parental views. Jarrett Stepman at The Heritage Foundation gave the following sequence: For example, parents were first told that critical race theory and similar ideologies were not being taught in public schools, so parents should sit down and shut up. 

            Parents did not sit down and shut up because they saw evidence of CRT showing up in the classrooms and in teacher training sessions. Some school districts were saying that CRT did not exist, while at the same time promoting CRT. Parents did not buy the message, so the Left was forced to abandon the lie that schools were not teaching critical race theory.

            The Left next admitted that schools were teaching critical race theory because “it’s a good thing” and “left-wing groups would rally around educators prohibited from teaching it.” However, parents continued to voice their opposition to CRT in angry outbursts at school board meetings across the nation. Stepman explained, that there was a clear message coming from parents and other concerned adults “from different parts of the political spectrum.”

The message is that children should not be defined “by their race into oppressors and oppressed.” No truly sane person believes that little white babies are racists and little colored babies are doomed to failure simply because of the color of their skin.

According to Stepman, the newest message of the Left is: “parents, stop your squawking, you don’t even have a right to determine how your child is educated.” This was the clear message from Democrat Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe who made this statement, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Parents in Virginia obviously think otherwise because McAuliffe’s approval rating has fallen in double digits over the past two weeks. He could lose the election because of his stance on education.

The Left does not want parents to have any say in what is taught to their children because the “experts” know what is best for the children. Stepman gave the following example:

Jack Schneider, who is a professor at the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, wrote in The Washington Post about how parents really don’t have a right to determine what their children learn in schools.

“Common law and case law in the United States have long supported the idea that education should prepare young people to think for themselves, even if that runs counter to the wishes of parents,” Schneider wrote.

Is subjecting children to critical race theory in public schools really preparing students to “think for themselves,” or is it about indoctrinating children in a perverse ideology?

            Schneider continued his reason for why it is an unwise decision for parents to determine what schools teach their children: “When do the interests of parents and children diverge? … Generally, it occurs when a parent’s desire to inculcate a particular worldview denies the child exposure to other ideas and values that an independent young person might wish to embrace or at least entertain.”

            Stepman pointed out that this is an insane reason because “the teaching of critical race theory and similar ideas [is] inculcating a particular worldview.” He explained that Schneider, McAuliffe, and other people on the left believe that “children are the wards of the state.” He used a statement by Lindsey Burke, director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritages Foundation, to show the wrongness of the ideology.

Burke explained that such an idea is philosophically wrong and “runs afoul the American legal system.” She used a case decided by the 1922 Supreme Court and cited by The Washington Post article. The case, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, concluded, “the child is not the mere creature of the state.” Then Burke continued with her explanation.

“I think the authors forgot,” Burke said. “Maybe they had the Cliffs Notes version of the court case, but that really is the most important line. And that’s absolutely right. The child is not the mere creature of the state. They belong to their parents. Parents are their first and foremost educators. So they should be, of course, involved in what their schools are teaching.”

            Parents in Virginia and across America understand this concept well, and they are standing up to school districts and taking their rightful place in the education system. Parents want schools to help prepare their children and teenagers to be productive members of society, and they do not appreciate schools indoctrinating their children in woke ideology. Parents must hang tough and win this battle because their families, communities, and nations need them to be a part of educating the rising generation.