Parents' Bill of Rights is good politics

 Quin Hillyer:

Of all the pledges in the House Republicans’ new manifesto called the "Commitment to America," the one that may be most effective is the advocacy of a Parents Bill of Rights.

As my colleague Kaylee McGhee White noted here on Friday, and as Republican Glenn Youngkin showed in his upset victory for the Virginia governorship in 2021, parental rights and related educational issues now rank right at the top of voter concerns. And the voting public far prefers the Republican approach to the Democratic one.

Amid a host of examples of school boards or administrators either utterly refusing to be transparent about readings and book materials or else making access to such information prohibitively expensive or time-consuming, item one in the Parents Bill of Rights is essential — namely, the “right to know what’s being taught in schools and to see reading material.” Parents, not the state, have primary authority for raising their children, and the organs of the state, including public schools, serve rather than rule the parents.

The second item in the PBOR is simple and clear: the “right to be heard.” Faced with a Department of Justice that frighteningly and abusively would label parents as “domestic terrorists” just for speaking up at a school board meeting, this right stems from the First Amendment right to petition the government. School officials who refuse this right should face severe sanctions.

Related to the first item is the “right to see school budgets and spending.” This is basic representative democracy 101: Public school budgets are part of the public purse, reliant on tax dollars, and taxpayers have the authority to see how their money is being spent. Period, end of question.

Item four is the parents’ “right to protect their child’s privacy.” And fifth and final is the “right to be updated on any violent activity at school.” The latter came to the fore when school officials in Loudoun County, Virginia, lied by denying a sexual assault on a girl by a crossdressing boy in a girls’ bathroom.

...

That some school officials would deny parents these rights should be concerning.  It is a political fight the school officials should lose. 

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