A nationwide movement to write "parental rights" into law has raised questions about how big a role parents should play in determining what happens in public schools.
The Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act (PRRA) debated last year in the U.S. Congress would have outlawed any attempt by federal, state, or local governments to interfere with a parent's right to direct the upbringing of a child. The PRRA would also have granted parents the right to sue in federal or state court over any violation of the act.
Although the PRRA was not enacted into law, many observers expect another parental rights bill to be introduced in the U.S. Congress. A push for parental rights is also occurring at the state level. Legislation and state constitutional amendments similar to the PRRA have been introduced in more than two dozen U.S. states.
Proponents of parental rights laws argue that government bureaucracies, including public schools, often infringe on parents' rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children. They cite instances where schools have violated parents' wishes by making condoms available, exposing students to sexually explicit materials, and giving students counseling without their parents' consent, for example. Proponents of parental rights laws include conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition.
The Of the People Foundation, based in Arlington, Va., has championed parental rights. According to Jeffrey Bell, the organization's chair, "The futility of bureaucrats' substituting their judgment for that of parents is perhaps most evident in public schools. Some elements of the growing parental rights movement are motivated by the fact that values taught in school often contradict values taught at home; others are more concerned with the 'dumbing down' of academic standards. Both problems result from a lack of accountability to parents," Bell writes.
"We ought to ensure that parents have greater input into government programs and public school policies that too often contradict values taught at home," Bell asserts. "Parents struggling to monitor their children's exposure to controversial messages in pop culture have a right as taxpayers to demand that their government not contribute to this problem."
The Coalition for Parental Responsibility, a group that promoted a parental-rights amendment to the Colorado state constitution, contends that "the amendment will help make public schools more accountable to parents by giving them greater oversight of academic standards and by helping to ensure that values taught at school don't conflict with values taught at home. . . . Parents will have better legal standing to require schools to get parental permission before their children are subjected to psychological 'surveys,' for example." (By a narrow margin, Colorado voters rejected the proposed amendment in the November elections.)
Cathleen Cleaver, director of legal studies at the Family Research Council, cites a recent national survey by Luntz Research that asked registered voters: Who do you feel should be primarily responsible for the upbringing and education of children—parents or the government? "Voters favored parents by a landslide 94 percent," Cleaver writes. "The time has come to put a stop to efforts to replace Mom and Dad with Big Brother."
Opposing Views
Opponents contend that parental rights laws could give small groups of parents veto power, in effect, over the curriculums of public schools and promote lawsuits against school boards, among other harmful effects. Opponents include the National PTA, the National Education Association (NEA), and the National School Boards Association (NSBA).
The National PTA considers the PRRA "overly broad and extreme in scope." The Act would "allow the federal government, through the courts, to dictate educational policies, including curriculum decisions, which should be decided through parental involvement at the local school district level," according to a National PTA statement.
Moreover, parental rights laws "would be detrimental to parent involvement" in public schools, says Shirley Igo, the National PTA's vice president for legislation. Such laws would create a "very adversarial" relationship among parents with diverse views, Igo says, rather than encouraging them to reach consensus on what's best for all children.
The Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act, if enacted into law, would "wreak havoc in the public schools," the NEA believes. The PRRA goes far beyond guaranteeing the right to "opt out," says Michael Simpson, NEA's assistant general counsel. The Act would force schools to provide a special "designer" curriculum for each student, based on parents' demands, he contends. A parent could insist upon Latin classes for his child, for example, or demand Ms. Jones instead of Mr. Smith as his child's biology teacher—and threaten to sue the district if he doesn't get his way. Tailoring the curriculum to meet parents' demands would place an enormous burden on teachers, Simpson says, and the costs to school districts could be "exorbitant."
The NEA also contends that the PRRA, if enacted, could mean the end of academic freedom: "Any teacher who disobeys this kind of parental order, for example, by teaching Romeo and Juliet (suicide) or Macbeth (witchcraft), can be sued in federal court for money damages and attorneys' fees. . . . [If] a biology teacher discusses Darwin's theory of evolution in class, then parents who do not want their children taught about evolution will be able to sue the teacher for violating their parental rights." In the face of such threats, Simpson says, educators will steer away from any curriculum topic to which parents might possibly object.
(Proponents of parental rights laws, however, counter these "education gridlock" arguments: "These and most other criticisms are grounded in the mistaken notion that these [parental rights] proposals would provide an absolute right for parents, which would override any state interest in the welfare and education of children," the Family Research Council maintains. In fact, well-established limits to parental rights would continue to apply, proponents say.)
Opponents of parental rights laws also argue that proponents hope to use such laws as a backdoor to school vouchers. With parental rights laws on the books, they contend, parents may be able to force school districts to pay for private school tuition, as a way of allowing them to exercise their right to direct their children's education.
Parental rights laws aim to address a problem that doesn't exist, opponents say, because parents already have ways to make their objections heard.
"Schools have worked very, very hard to give parents some choice," says Gary Marx of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). For example, schools allow parents to "opt out" of materials that they find objectionable on religious grounds.
Parents can also appear before their school board to voice objections, says August Steinhilber, general counsel for the National School Boards Association. If the school board is not responsive, parents can vote to change its members. And parents already have rights in court, Steinhilber notes. "The system we have now is the best way" to address parents' competing demands on public schools, he believes.
Although some parents may want to "draw up the menu" for their child's education, Marx says, schools have a responsibility to prepare students for the broader society. Therefore, schools must respond to needs that may go beyond the desires of an individual parent. The United States has compulsory school attendance laws, he points out, because such laws are in the interests of society—although some parents might choose to have their children work rather than go to school.
The parental rights movement is "very antidemocratic," Simpson says. In our present system, "elected school board members determine the curriculum, not bureaucrats." Parental rights laws would give individuals the right to override the decisions of these elected officials, he asserts.
Looking Ahead
Observers say it's too early to tell whether the parental rights movement will lose or gain momentum following its recent setbacks. The movement remains a threat, Igo believes, because parental rights laws are "still a high priority" for the conservative groups that have been advocating them.
Jeffrey Bell sees the need for parental rights laws increasing as we move into the Information Age. "As our ability to manipulate, control, and magnify our intellectual capital increases, government can again play a critical role," he urges, "by protecting the right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children."
