Peter Greene reviews efforts by Congressional Republicans to pass legislation guaranteeing parent rights. He goes through the legislation point-by-point and concludes that most of the “parent rights” are already common practice in American public schools.
He writes:
The bullet point version of the bill lists five rights– the right to know what’s being taught, the right to be heard, the right to see school budget and spending, the right to protect their child’s privacy, and the right to be updated on any violent activity at school. Most of which seems… kind of redundant, giving parents rights that they already have.
But maybe the actual bill reads a little better. (Spoiler alert: it does not. It is far worse.).
What the GOP is really seeking is to give parents the power to veto whatever is taught, which is alarming as it will lock in place the “right” of parents to rewrite history.
American public schools have many problems related to class sizes, lack of investment in repairing and upgrading obsolete facilities, racial segregation, and the need to retain qualified teachers, but the GOP does nothing to address critical needs. What it is actually willing to do is to pander to its aggrieved base.
Greene writes:
There’s are also levels of irony here. For one, the voucher programs that the GOP loves so well (e.g. Betsy DeVos’s Education Freedom Scholarships) champion schools that don’t have to do any of these things–and often strongly resist any pressure to make them do any of these things. The other is that the GOP is still trying to brand itself as the Parent’s Party, despite its opposition to paid family leave, medicare for all, and a variety of other measures that would actually help parents (like. say. addressing the US’s shameful maternal mortality rate). But why actually do something when you can instead float some doomed symbolic legislation that doesn’t actually do anything, let alone something useful.
The prohibition in the bill against the sale of student data or its use for commercial purposes is an improvement of the current federal law, as is the strengthening of COPPA to allow parents to opt their kids out of the online collection of student data from students themselves – which is already in COPPA but currently applies only to students under 13 and has been weakened through FTC guidance. I read the other clause he cited that provide a loophole for data collected for “educational purposes” as pertaining to FERPA not COPPA, which deals with the data collected indirectly pertaining to students by schools or their contractors.
the words “or their contractors” saying A LOT.
“I read the other clause he cited that provide a loophole for data collected for “educational purposes” as pertaining to FERPA not COPPA, which deals with the data collected indirectly pertaining to students by schools or their contractors.”
That’s a loophole large enough to drive a semi through.
Kevin McCarthy with an announcement:
Over the past nearly two years, we have seen a troubling trend take root in the Democrat (sic) Party. Their elected officials want to take power away from parents and hand over more control to politicians and teachers unions to dictate what our children should be taught in classrooms. end quote
Kevin McCarthy is engaging in McCarthyism of the Joe variety. Lie, lie, lie, stir the pot with the eye of Newt (Gingrich) and then add some Majorie Taylor Greene conspiracy theory sauce, Boebert 2nd amendment gun powder and Louie Gohmert hot chili bloviator peppers. By the way, there is no such party as the Democrat Party, it’s the Democratic Party. GOPers would rather die than add the -ic to Democrat.
But the Repugnicans certainly know how to add the ick to their own.
McCarthyism of the Joe variety; eye of Newt. LOL!!!
Kevin McCarthy with an announcement:
Over the past nearly two years, we have seen a troubling trend take root in the Democrat (sic) Party. Their elected officials want to take power away from parents and hand over more control to politicians and teachers unions to dictate what our children should be taught in classrooms. end quote
Kevin McCarthy is engaging in McCarthyism of the Joe variety. Lie, lie, lie, stir the pot with the eye of Newt (Gingrich) and then add some Majorie Taylor Greene conspiracy theory sauce, Boebert 2nd amendment gun powder and Louie Gohmert hot chili bloviator peppers. By the way, there is no such party as the Democrat Party, it’s the Democratic Party. GOPers would rather die than add the -ic to Democrat.
I hope this isn’t double posted because the first try was disappeared.
Republicans have engaged in these culture wars for 60 years since Goldwater. Rockefeller was booed off the stage at the 64 convention. .They are not interested in reaching out to the mythical independent voter. Their goal has always been to motivate their base.
Do you think Democrats will lose one vote if they endlessly attack the Christian Taliban attacking our schools . White Nationalists Nazis or maniacs who own AR 15s ,,, Instead what I see is a party with few exceptions that does not know how to use language and is PC to the point that every time a member does use effective language they are castigated. No better example than Clinton’s half basket of deplorables . The whole basket was rotten as we saw 4 years later. .
No better example than my Problem Solver Congressman now running for Governor who has showcased School shootings. Holding rallies with the parents and relatives of Park Land survivors. Yet he has ceded the field on the validity and meaning of the Slave Patrol amendment . Even highlighting the Cultural differences on guns with some of his Republican colleagues as if that is a valid reason not to pass an assault weapons ban. An AR15 is not a hunting riffle and a bunch of aristocrats had no intention to arm the commoners . No Court till 2008 had maintained that they did.
The education issue should be; you should be able to send your children to school without ever having to fear a school shooting. Religiofascists should not be able to dictate your child’s curriculum.
Schools are not revising history they are finally teaching it.
Use language and imagery. Are they worried about being called demagogues . Republicans certainly have never been.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/biden-needs-an-enemy/620778/
This is what the Repugnicans are going to run on in 2022: Parents’ Rights. The irony of that would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic.
Exactly!
It’s about time Parents was given the rite to determin there children’s curikulems. I fer one was apalled, jist apalled, that my kids had to set there in “science” classes n larn that the Earth was round and wuznt at the center of the universe and that they wuz all these stars and galixes n what not out their when its cleer from the Bible that theys a firmamint that the Lord set up above the Earth on pillars n the lites of the heavens is stuck in it like raisins in a biscuit puddin. This heres a CLEAR violation of my parent rites, n the SUpreme Court agres with me!
Its time Parents took bak there schools! So, thank ye, Republicans! Now maybe we kin have class’s that is useful like how to pack yore own shot gun shells and TRUE like ones own the histree of the world from Creation to modurn day Dimocrat Babylon!
scuse me. That wood be ‘n the SUpreme Court agrease with me!’
“Firmamint”: isn’t that a Wrigley’s gum flavor?
Precisely the same cosmology found in a number of other Near Eastern religions at the time. A solid dome of the heavens supported by pillars, the Earth a flat expanse covered by that dome, both separated out from the primordial waters.
The Babylonian creation epic, the Enûma Elish, tells of a goddess called Tiamat—the primordial saltwater ocean—envisioned as a serpent or dragon. She mixes with (mates with) the freshwater god Abzu and gives birth to various monsters. Her name is cognate with the Hebrew word tehom—the abyss, or deep, of Genesis 1.2: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep [tehom]. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Clearly, the Genesis story is a development from the older Middle Eastern myth. In the Babylonian tale, Marduk, in the sixth generation of gods born of Tiamat and Abzu, defeats the primordial sea monster, establishes his supreme reign, and then creates humans.
In one of the many ancient Greek creation myths, the primordial mother goddess Gaia gives birth to the horrific “father of all monsters” Typhoeus, or Typhon, who has a two viper’s tails, one enormous humanlike head, and a hundred additional snake heads instead of fingers, each with eyes flashing fire. The 2nd century Greek Pseudo-Appolodorus, whose encyclopedic work serves as one of the primary sources for Greek myth, describes Typhon as so large that his head grazed the stars and his body stretched over all distances (“one hand reached to the west, the other to the east.”) The “hundred heads” was probably not meant literally. Instead, the word hundred was probably a placeholder for “some vast number,” as in the comedian’s “I’ve got a million of them” or the child’s “gazillion.” In Greek myth, Zeus, with the help of the mortal Cademus, defeats the monster Typhon, and the victorious Zeus, along with the other Olympian gods, attends the marriage of Cadmus with Harmonia (Harmony).
Same story. Different tribe. Those passages are from my unpublished book Trillions of Universes.
LOL, Lenny!
They are called PUBLIC SCHOOLS for a reason.
Except for dictating policy on how many times a teacher must visit with parents, there is nothing here not already protected in law.
Which leads to – WHY DON’T “PUBLIC” CHARTER SCHOOLS or ANY SCHOOL THAT RECEIVES FEDERAL OR STATE FUNDS HAVE TO COMPLY WITH THEIR NEW FANCY LAW
Schools are required to allow parents to see materials -because they are… public – – but most policies do (or should) REQUIRE PARENTS TO HAVE READ THE MATERIALS BEFORE THEY CAN REQUEST REMOVAL FROM THE SHELVES
Most schools have an exclusion allowed for sex education, the Pledge of Allegiance, and probably teaching evolution.
Of course, if this absurdity goes anywhere – will their bill of rights include…
The RIGHT to assure a quiet safe space for pray for students,
The RIGHT to bathroom access for students who are transgender,
The RIGHT to be taught historical accuracy,
The RIGHT to study current events and share opinions without fear of retribution…
The RIGHT for students to THINK and HAVE AN OPINION
and it is that last line which scares the Corporate Overlords the most
WHAT I DON’T GET: Why the people (I’m not claiming it’s all Republicans) who argue that teaching the accurate history of slavery & racial discrimination in the US should be prohibited because it makes white children feel bad, also protest removal of monuments & public place names honoring prominent figures of the Confederacy (even if the objects are not destroyed, but rather relegated to museums or other appropriate venues where people may choose whether to be confronted with them daily) because it’s “erasing our history & part of our culture,” even though it’s made black children feel bad for 100 years.
I understand that being confronted with these difficult truths can certainly have a profound emotional effect on children of any race, but couldn’t the history curriculum also include presentation & discussion of a modern perspective in which we correct & move beyond mistakes of the past?
I still don’t understand what parents’ rights means?
Some parents don’t want Toni Morrison’s Beloved banned from all public high schools and some parents do. Which parents get their way?
What this seems to be is that white right wing parents have rights, but other parents don’t have rights.
What happens if a group of parents who aren’t racist want their schools to teach about racism? Do they lose that “right” if right wing parents want to censor that?
Right is whatever the right believes.
The right has the right to decide what’s right in school. I have given an example above of the superb science curricula that could result.
They want the loudest & “whiniest” voices to be the ones to get their way. Let’s stop acting as if these mostly racist, fascist hypocrites are anywhere close to being a majority in this country.
In some positive news about some truly outstanding teaching:
https://www.gpb.org/news/2021/12/03/these-nyc-kids-have-written-the-history-of-overlooked-black-female-composer
Public schools that use admissions screens to weed out almost all applicants are capable of great things.
BOB: [no response; sighs]
Thanks for this, Bob! I “discovered” Florence Price’s music some months ago and have been listening to her music at least weekly since. What a wonderful story and a perfect example of what good, creative teaching is.
A Republican once asked me if I indoctrinate students. It was at a party and I was wearing a Bernie 2020 shirt. I said, “Yes, I certainly do. Of course I indoctrinate students. I indoctrinate them into being good citizens and supporting their country, the cradle of democracy. I do it with the help of Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes.” He appeared satisfied with my answer and stopped questioning me. Parents have a right to ask questions. They do not have a right to make demands.
Indoctrinate
Indoctrinate
With Dr. Seuss
And educate
With little Whos
Indoctrinate
With Doctor Spock
And educate
With science talk
Indoctrinate
With Doctor King
And educate
With justice ring
“For one, the voucher programs that the GOP loves so well (e.g. Betsy DeVos’s Education Freedom Scholarships) champion schools that don’t have to do any of these things–and often strongly resist any pressure to make them do any of these things”
It’s completely incoherent. The only schools they demand “transparency” from are public schools, while they all lobby to fund private schools and any and all private contractors.
This is the kind of lousy “governance” the new privatized systems will have- mandates designed to harm public schools while private schools and private contractors receive public funding with no requirements or mandates of any kind.
Public schools lose/lose with ed reform- their students derive no benefits from the “ed reform movement” AND their students are also stuck with ed reform’s politically motivated, gimmicky mandates.
If public schools did an honest accounting of what this “movement” has contributed to public schools or public school students balanced with how the “movement” has harmed public schools, what would be the result? It’s a net negative as far as I can tell. Can anyone point to how public schools or public school students have benefitted? If they can’t, why are we still taking direction from this anti-public school echo chamber?
What’s the upside for public schools or public school students with ed reform? It’s been 20 years. Shouldn’t they be able to show “results” in our schools and students by now?
Private schools and charter schools received pandemic funding too.
Odd how no one in the ed reform echo chamber is demanding an accounting of where that money went.
The “transparency hawks” turn into doves when the schools and systems they favor ideologically are not at all transparent.
They’re all hypocrites. It’s particularly amusing since private, religious schools in the US have a long, well documented history of covering up child abuse scandals. Obviously public schools have abuse too, but to focus exclusively on public schools? It’s just ideologically driven nonsense.
I await the ed reform expose on crime in private and charter schools- I’ll be waiting a long time. They aren’t permitted to analyze that. No criticism or real analysis of the schools they and their funders favor is ever done.
Some of these cities they “analyze” at are half charter/private schools.They’ve succeded in privatizing half the system- yet all the criticism and oversight falls only on the public sector schools. Gosh, I wonder why. Surely “science” doesn’t dictate such ridiculously skewed analysis.
They don’t even pretend to perform any productive or positive work that benefits public school students. Here’s a typical ed reform article extolling the wonderfullness of private school vouchers and promising some attendent “trickle down” effect for public school students:
“Twenty years ago, then-Governor Jeb Bush signed a groundbreaking new tax credit into Florida law. The 2001 initiative, soon renamed the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, provides dollar-for-dollar tax credits to corporations that contribute to nonprofit Scholarship Funding Organizations. These organizations then distribute funds to low-income students to help cover the costs of private-school tuition and transportation. Because the funds are not directly collected through tax dollars, the resources students receive are conventionally described as scholarships, not vouchers. But in reality, the program operates much like a voucher program would.”
Got that? We should hire and pay these people to run “public education” because their promotion and marketing of private schools inadvertently, maybe, perhaps, provides some attenuated benefit to students in public schools.
This is the actual ed reform agenda for public schools- they don’t have one. They promise that their promotion and marketing of entirely different schools will, by the magic of markets, have some benefit for public schools.
If you’re a public school and you are taking direction from or paying these folks, you are getting robbed. They return no value to your students or school.
It’s pretty simple. If public schools can’t point to a concrete, verifiable benefit to public schools and public school students as a result of anything the ed reform echo chamber has accomplished over the last 20 years, public schools should cut ed reformers loose. Find someone who adds value to your schools. These people don’t. Move on.
https://www.educationnext.org/ripple-effect-how-private-school-choice-programs-boost-competition-benefit-public-school-students/
Ever since the Contract with America, Republicans have been looking for similar tactics to solidify public ignorance by pandering to it to create their political capital. Anyone who thinks should know better than to fall for this propaganda.
Just happened to read top story on HuffPo now on story of how McCarthy is embracing the nut jobs as Republican standard-bearers. Opening sentence could apply to this post and sums up GOP strategy nicely: “The path to power for Republicans in Congress is now rooted in the capacity to generate outrage.” The so-called parents bill of rights fits right in.
Is now?!!!!
“the moral fiber of the American people is beset by rot and decay.”
“With your help and with God’s blessing, I pledge my every effort to a reconstruction of reverence and moral strength, those great pillars of human happiness in our land.”
“You will search in vain for reference to God or religion in the Democratic platform”
I’m witcha. “…is now..” was not my choice of words, I am in complete agreement with you. But it is trivially interesting that some in the media are catching on after all these decades. Not comforting, though.
“Education Next
A 10 percent increase in the number of students using scholarships to attend non-public schools increases reading scores by 0.7 percent of a standard deviation and math scores by 0.3 percent of a standard deviation.”
That’s what the ed reform “movement” offers public school students.
Surely we can do better than this if we instead hire and take direction from people who actually support our schools and students. This is a lousy rate of return on our billion dollar investment.
No private or charter school would take direction from (or hire!) people who work full time lobbying against charter and private schools. How did public school students get stuck with people who work against their schools? Can we change direction or are we obligated to follow along behind this echo chamber for ANOTHER 20 years?
What’s the return for our students? I see the clear benefit to this Right wing ideology and the adults who promote it but where’s the pay off for public school students? Don’t they matter?
Look at your own public school. Look for any contribution or improvement at all promoted or provided by this “movement”. Shouldn’t they be able to show some by now? They supposedly “serve” public schools and students. Have they done that?
Hmm… a Republican-sponsored bill of parental rights, all of which are unabridged by current pubsch policy?
I say, this is a golden opportunity for Democrats to reach hands across the aisle! Put out press releases—“in a rare moment of common purpose and bipartisanship, key Democrat legislators praised McCarthy’s proposed legislation, announcing they will pull out all stops to get it passed immediately!”
I posted Peter’s column at OEN https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-GOP-House-in-General_News-Peter-Greene-211206-616.html