Parental Rights and Public Education

This was copied off the internet (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/1025). I couldn't state it better myself.

Parental Rights and Public Education

Sonja N. Bohm
July 07, 2005

If you have not yet heard of the cause for the separation of school and state, you soon will. It is no less a cause for freedom than the one Thomas Paine wrote about in Common Sense when he stated, "The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth." What is at stake in our time is the freedom and right of parents to see to the upbringing, well-being, and education of our own children. That right and responsibility has been usurped -- whether intentionally or unintentionally -- by our public school system. In The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine also states:

"All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must either be delegated or assumed. There are no other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either."

I submit that our public school system has assumed, and therefore usurped, the responsibility for the education of our children -- a responsibility that rightfully belongs to the parent. But assumed authority is not necessarily legitimate authority. First and foremost, just as our Creator endows each of us with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (among others), we believe that God has also given parents the unalienable right to see to the upbringing and education of our own children. Unalienable means the inability to be transferred. Just as our right to be FREE can and should not be transferred to another person, so our responsibility as parents can and should not be transferred to another. We can delegate our authority, but never our responsibility.

But yet, many State Boards of Education continually refer to the responsibility of parents as being a "shared" responsibility between the parent and the school. This is misleading, however. I submit that it is an altogether separate and different kind of responsibility. Parents are responsible for the well-being of their children as a WHOLE -- to include seeing to their children's education... Schools are responsible for educating -- but only when the authority to do so has been delegated by the parents.

Because ours is a nation based on liberty, parents are free to raise their children based on their own belief system and principles. A parent's authority to see to their child's education is a recognized authority -- evident in the fact that parents are free to choose whether their children are educated publicly or privately. It is a parent's responsibility that their child is educated -- not necessarily by what means they are educated.

But the California State Board of Education goes one step further than to "merely" assume responsibility for a child's education. In a Parent Involvement fact sheet put forth by the California State Board of Education[i], the Board also appears to assume (or would like to assume) a responsibility of sorts over parents as well when it states:

"...efforts should be designed to help parents develop parenting skills to meet the basic obligations of family life [and to] prepare parents to actively participate in school decision making and develop their leadership skills in governance and advocacy. (Emphasis added.)"

This may seem on the surface to be a noble undertaking on the part of the public school system; but when considered more closely, it becomes evident that the Board of Education feels it necessary to develop some sort of standard -- not only for the education of our children, but for family life as well! And how long will it be until the State Boards of Education have the legal right to determine standards for parental obligations as they do presently for our children's educational standards? Have we reached a point where we have become so dependent upon the public school system for the care of our children (and not just for their basic education anymore!) that school officials have come to the conclusion that they need to also instruct parents on how to parent? While it is true that serious cases of neglect and abuse exist within some families, that is not reason enough -- and is in fact at its core un-American -- for the government to "supercede parental authority in all cases"[ii] as a result. This kind of usurpation has not taken place overnight, but over a period of time -- and right under our noses. And the resulting undermining of parental authority and degradation of family stability will continue to occur as long as we continue to allow it.

In a local PTA school bulletin it states, "if you want to have a voice," join your local PTA. Parents already have a voice -- whether they choose to claim membership to an organization such as the PTA or not. It is time to use our parental authority and take back our schools. If we continue to take the public school system for granted, we will continue to see a further erosion of parental rights and authority in this country. The continued rise in numbers of home schooling and private schooling families in the United States over the past two decades is due in no small part to the rising dissatisfaction with public schooling and its practices. Concerns about safety, curriculum, standardization, and religious liberties are just a few among many reasons for the growing "exodus" of families from public schools -- a testimony as well as a reaction to the rising usurpation of authority that the public school system has slowly and systematically been assuming since its 19th century beginnings in this country.

In the words of author C.S. Lewis[iii]:

"Where the old initiated, the new merely 'conditions.' The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds -- making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation -- men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive,' or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity.' In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. Know your rights!"

A wealth of information can be found with regard to parental/children´s rights and education by visiting any of the following websites/links:

Alliance for the Separation of School and State: http://www.schoolandstate.org/
Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA): http://www.hslda.org/
American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ): http://www.aclj.org/
California Home School Network: http://www.californiahomeschool.net/
Christian Home Educators Association of California: http://www.cheaofca.org/
Exodus Mandate: http://www.exodusmandate.org/
Home Education Magazine: http://www.homeedmag.com/
Personal and Political Empowerment articles by Larry and Susan Kaseman:
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/weblinks/TakingCharge.htm

i] http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ms/po/policy89-01-sep1994.asp (Last modified: May 03, 2005)
ii] Klicka, Christopher J. The Right to Home School, Carolina Academic Press, 2002, p. 40.
iii] Lewis, C.S. The Abolition of Man, Harper Collins, 2000 (1944, 1947), p. 23,26.

The opinions expressed within this article are the author's alone. This article is not affiliated with or sponsored by any person, group or organization other than the author.

Copyright 2005 by Sonja N. Bohm. Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this credit is attached and the title remains unchanged.