Just How Many Rights Can A School Grant Parents?
From Forbes.com
In a new policy brief for the National Education Policy Center, scholar Vivian Hamilton, law professor at William and Mary, takes a look at the current conflict over parents’ rights in education, calling for policymakers to seek “a balance that serves the greater community without compromising the fundamental purpose of public education.”
“The Conflict Over Parents’ Rights” notes four important features of the current parents’ rights movement.
First, activists in the movement claim a far greater control over public education than granted them by the courts. In examining the relevant case law, Hamilton finds that, “while the Court has in some cases required states to defer to parental authority, it has also affirmed the state’s independent interest in safeguarding children’s welfare” and has “consistently reiterated states’ broad power to regulate education.”
Second, advocates in the parents’ rights movement have not merely tried to opt their own children out of certain instruction and curricula, but have sought to “shape school curricula and policies for all students” through methods beyond simply electing likeminded school board members. For instance, laws that codify some parents’ desire for their children not to hear about LGBTQ persons, but which also run right over what some parents of LGBTQ students want. Or rules that don’t just allow parents to determine what their children may read, but what everybody’s children may read.
This, Hamilton notes, despite courts consistently holding that while parents have the right to decide whether or not to send their child to public school, “they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child,” let alone other people’s children.
I especially appreciate Hamilton's phrasing that public schools are schools "for the public". It's in our best interests to have an educated populace. There's a reason Trump says he loves the poorly educated.
The simplest argument which cuts through the nonsense is that it is a subset of parents trying to force their preferences on all parents, therefore the "parents' rights" that are being protected are only some parents' rights and not others. This is a problem of a supremacy mindset, where some parents feel that they are in the group that matters and that others are in a lesser group that doesn't matter. It also completely misunderstands one of the main reasons for public education, which is that an informed populace is essential to a functioning democracy. Public education is where most people first directly experience democracy, learning to understand different perspectives and form their own opinions while being around people from a variety of backgrounds who bring their own experiences and perspectives to the conversation. To reduce public education to a conservative political project would be to undermine the democratic project itself, teaching students to privilege the experiences and wants of a few over the experiences and needs of a variety of other people.