A discussion is sweeping the country about the role of parents in both the education of their children and what their children\u2019s school should teach. Frankly, it is high time this conversation took place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the decades, since the advent of the Common School, parental involvement in their children\u2019s education has gone from complete authority to having virtually no say. Parents have been eliminated and replaced by the state \u2014 defined as all Federal, state, county, or municipal government entities. Added to this takeover, are unions, who also have taken a keen interest in what your children are taught. As the state gained more control, it expanded the subjects taught, which, over time, included the state\u2019s definitions of morals, ethics, values, character, and similar topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This evolved slowly as the \u201cstate\u201d gained more control of education. It might have continued if not for the pandemic. When schools went remote, parents, for the first time, were able to see the material taught to their children. They were alarmed to find that subjects like Critical Race Theory, radical sex philosophies (including gender preferences), and other controversial subjects were being taught in elementary school as well as secondary schools. Parents started to mobilize \u2014 expressing their displeasure at school board meetings, protesting, and removing their children from public schools. In fact, for the school year 2020-21, national public school enrollment declined by 1.5 million students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The backlash has generated two opposing attitudes about the role of parents in education. Some have suggested that parents should not have any say in what the schools teach, and others suggest that schools should teach what parents want. Neither is right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the obligation to educate our children has now moved from the home to the school, the responsibility for the education of children has not changed. Parents are still the primary entity responsible for the education of their children. Parents control all aspects of a child\u2019s life; where they live, what they eat, when they sleep, who their doctor and dentist are, even where and when they play. Yet, today, they don\u2019t control the child\u2019s education, which is an essential component of raising a child to be a successfully functioning adult. This makes no sense, and parents are now deciding they have had enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s time public schools listen to the parental community concerning what should not be taught in schools.<\/p>Donald P. Nielsen<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Though not widely recognized, parents are the \u201ccustomer\u201d of schools. Private schools recognized this long ago as it is the parents who both select and fund their child\u2019s school. But, as a whole, public schools have not recognized this and have operated as if parents were an unwanted intrusion into their ability to deliver the state-mandated education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, should parent\u2019s dictate what is taught in school? Not directly, but they certainly should expect a certain level of learning to prepare their child for life in the 21st<\/sup> Century. They should expect that the curriculum employed will prepare their child for a career or a post-secondary deployment upon graduation. If they don\u2019t see that occurring, they need to speak up and should have the ability to explore other educational options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Parents have every right to decide \u201cwhat should not be taught in schools.\u201d This played out a few months ago in Virginia and now, more recently, in other states. Those who can afford to do so are putting their children in private schools or, if available, charter schools. Others are homeschooling or some adaptation of that. We are seeing more and more hybrid models of school created and performing the function of regular school. The difference, however, is that parents have a say. Several states have picked up on this parental revolt and are passing \u201cchoice\u201d legislation, Education Savings Accounts (ESA) legislation, and other changes to the public education structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This parental backlash has raised the question, \u201cwhat should we teach our children?\u201d Our education community needs to ensure that we teach the fundamental knowledge necessary to be a productive, contributing citizen of our great country. That is not happening today and will not happen until we fundamentally change our curriculum, particularly at the secondary level. Also, we need to have our public schools start catering to the recipients of their graduates \u2014 not just universities but the business community, non-profits, and governments. All have very specific needs for skilled workers, many of which do not require a college degree. This will require designing a new curriculum that recognizes these needs and prepares our children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We know that the existing system fails to educate almost 70 percent of our children effectively. It is time our obsolete public education system is redesigned, including what students need to know and be able to do to exit their K-12 years prepared for life, lifelong learning, and a career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We also hear the parent community telling us what should not be taught. It is time for public schools to listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Private schools view parents as their customers. But, as a whole, public schools operate as if parents are an unwanted intrusion into their ability to deliver education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":4759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":3,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[59,49],"tags":[895,76,605,188,78,205,896,84,72,894,891,74,897,83,892,893],"coauthors":[1064],"class_list":["post-4752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curriculum","category-teaching","tag-common-school","tag-covid-19","tag-critical-race-theory","tag-education-savings-accounts","tag-k-12","tag-k-12-education","tag-parent-community","tag-private-schools","tag-public-schools","tag-radical-sex-content","tag-role-of-parents","tag-school-choice","tag-state-control-of-education","tag-teacher-unions","tag-what-should-be-taught","tag-what-should-not-be-taught"],"acf":[],"author_names":["Donald Nielsen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4752"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4752"}],"wp:action-assign-author":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/4752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}