"Parental rights" advocates have a"dirty secret," charges Alyssa Rosenberg in the Washington Post. They're too lazy to teach their kids to avoid sexually explicit books and resist political indoctrination in class. Instead they "fob off parental responsibilities" on "public servants," asking librarians to remove sexually explicit books from school libraries and teachers to reveal what they're teaching.
For example, Alaska parents asked their local library to remove books intended to indoctrinate kids in LGBTQ+ ideologies” from the children’s section, or put them on a restricted shelf, she complains.
Rosenberg thinks "parents should explain to their kids what they’re forbidden to check out and why," and ask school librarians to enforce family rules.
Does that mean every student would have to check out books with a librarian, who'd have to verify they're not on the no-LGBTQ+ list or the no-Harry-Potter list or the no-white-saviors list or . . . ? Would parents have the right to patrol libraries in search of Roald Dahl books that describe characters as "fat" or unexpurgated copies of Huckleberry Finn?
And how does that work for classroom lessons?
Rosenberg thinks young people are interested in gender, sexuality, current events and fart jokes, as well as racism and climate change. (Sex and fart jokes, yes.)
“Students experience violence, they experience racism, they experience poverty,” says Texas state Rep. James Talarico, a former middle school English teacher. “If you’re old enough to experience these things, you’re old enough to read about these things.”
I think public schools that ignore community values -- whatever those values are -- or treat parents with contempt will lose students that they probably can't afford to lose.
The proposed Federal Parents Bill of Right could backfire, writes Jon England on Libertas. It lets parents "look at curriculum, meet with their child’s teacher, review school budgets, and inspect library books," but never affirms that "a parent is the ultimate authority in the life of their child until they come of age."
States already are granting these rights, England points out. A federal law "undermines state authority and puts more power into the hands of the Department of Education."
Parents' rights are under attack, he writes.
MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry said, “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”
What parents want is the ability to "walk away" from a school that isn’t meeting their child’s needs, writes England. Education choice bills that fund a student instead of a system give parents, including low-income parents, the option to leave.