Don’t be fooled…All Parents Should Be Invovled in Education
Recently, some Democrats have created the impression that they oppose parental and family involvement in our schools, and some have rightly called out the futility of such a reactionary position. It isn’t totally their fault, since this is precisely the trick that legislative and policy efforts undertaken in the name of parent’s rights were put in place for to begin with.
But this trick intends to miss the point. In this exchange, one side favors parental involvement, elevating their experiences and those of their studnets so that more equitable systems might be put in place and years of discrimination, bias, and exclusion might begin to be replaced with systems that better align with the American ideals of free expression AND the fundamental nature of how learning works through discussion and deliberation across lines of difference.
Those currently “championing” parent’s rights and making it illegal to teach anything that might make a white child “uncomfortable,” is the very antithesis of a party of parent's rights. The campaign is a charade explicitly designed to trick others into making silly and unthinking replies, and some have been too quick to oblige. Only by failing to think it through would anyone be able to conclude that so-called Parent's Bills of Rights, and the so-called, "anti-woke" legislation are actually about empowering parents to have a say in their schools. All these stunts accomplish is to further silence and trample on the rights of most parents in our schools.
Do any of the Parent's Bills of Rights protect the parent of an LGBTQ student who is bullied and insulted every day? Do parents who think that a GSA at their child's school might actually prove to be the lifeline they need to survive middle school have their voice protected by this legislation and policy? If a parent approaches a school board with that request, must the school board listen and provide them what they need? Or, will the legislation advancing so-called parents rights mean these parents must be told that they are not permitted to interfere in the work of the schools?
What about a parent of an African-American boy who has been regularly and systematically marginalized in classes where teachers don't see his potential when they see his color (while claiming they don’t) and instead assume that everything the boy does is worthy of disciplinary exclusion and control? If that parent speaks up about how uncomfortable their child is and how completely the child is denied the right to even an adequate education, will the Parent's Bills of Rights make sure that parent has a say in how their Childs's school works?
What about a New American family from Mexico? When the lessons on immigration policy have to be taught from the perspective that people who want to move to America and contribute to our shared future by working hard and paying taxes really ought to be considered criminals, invaders, or worse, rapists and murderers? When their children are taught that the America Dream is open, equal, and accessible to all without regard to race, will this parent have the right to correct the clear and demonstrable falsehood carried by that lesson?
The list can go on. The present wave of "anti-woke" legislation and attendant "Parent's Bills of Rights" are not about making sure that the majority of students and families in our public schools have a say in their children's education at all. They are written so that a particular student who feels "uncomfortable" learning that American history is strongly shaped by intentional legal and social efforts to elevate people with light skin at the expense of those whose skin tone is darker, that child’s parent can step in to stop learning for everyone.
Learning is actually supposed to make people uncomfortable so that they will learn, grow, and change so that our futures will be better than our pasts, but we now have laws on the books that enable a white parent to stop all learning if their child becomes uncomfortable, but if the child in a Black family is made uncomfortable every day, never sees themselves in the history or literature they study, are not taught to read well, and disproportionately and unfairly punished and excluded from school in the name of discipline and control, that family's right to participate in their child's education is not only systematically denied, but now their voices are being made illegal in the doublespeak name of “Parent’s Rights.”
Most families in our public schools are actually being told to stay out of K12 education and leave it to the "experts" who know that racism has been vanquished and those who believe they experience it or any other forms of exclusion, silencing, or abuse in our schools are wrong and should leave education to the "professionals."
Far more families send children to school every day who experience racism, homophobia, and countless other forms of structural violence. The school to prison pipeline is the reality for countless children and families in our schools, and the “Parten’s Rights” movement is using policy and legislation to silence them and make sure they cannot play a role in their child's education at all.
So, don't fall into the trap of saying parent's shouldn't be involved; they should, but the parent's rights movement today is all about parents who already have their voices heard being able to extend their power and keep parent's whose voices have been marginalized for years from sharing their experiences and getting involved in building schools that will serve their children well.
If these were truly efforts to advance parent's rights and their productive involvement in our schools, we would see forums created for communities of color to share their experinces in schools. If these efforts were actually about parent's rights, they would press to get parents at the table driving action toward effective reading instruction, fair and restorative disciplinary systems, and accurate and complete historical teaching that opens discussions rather than foreclosing them around one particular group's "comfort."
Parents AND STUDENTS should ALL have a say in education; not just those who agree with one political party or one particularly loud politician. To believe otherwise is to have lost track of the American "ideals" that they claim to advance behind an agenda of orthodoxy, intimidation, and control.