There is a bill before Congress that its authors and proponents call “The Parents Bill of Rights Act.” They claim this novel legislation will provide parents with a greater say in what educators teach. The authors of this bill are pandering to people whom they themselves have frightened by misrepresenting current trends in education. 

They are trying to disguise their bid for hegemony by misappropriating the title Bill of Rights. Parents do have a right and a duty to provide and direct the education of their children. However, they have no right to force public school curricula to coincide with their own beliefs or prejudices. Our public schools are responsible to the entire pluralistic community, not to any sect or political party. 

If parents find public school curricula offensive or inadequate they must found their own schools. Nineteenth-century Roman Catholics considered the public schools incompatible with Catholic teachings and educational philosophy, and so they created an alternative school system. Segregationists reacted to mandated integration of schools by founding their own segregated schools or “Christian academies.” Advocates of educational methodologies and curricula unavailable in public schools have founded their own schools, as have parents who were simply not content with the quality of education provided by public schools.

This “Parents Bill of Rights Act” is an attempt to provide the cover of law for efforts by Christian nationalists to impose their beliefs and their will on their fellow citizens. They like to claim that “America is a Christian country,” but if America is subjected to the control of these people, it will no longer be the United States of America nor in any way Christian.