The Florida Legislature would have you think it invented parental rights last year when it passed the Parents’ Bill of Rights. It did not. Most of those rights have been in the books for decades. The ploy aims bigger: to continue the GOP’s assault and destruction of public education. Parents are being weaponized into mercenary service by a legislature that needs docile foot soldiers who have no clue they’re being manipulated. Making them look like heroes is part of the scam. The parental bill of rights is intended to bring out the worst in parents. It’s doing an awesome job.
I’m not referring to the majority of parents who are too busy to attend circus-like school board meetings or harass teachers and principals. Those majorities know to trust teachers to do the job they’re trained to do better than any one or two parents can. They know it’s schools’ job to open their child’s mind beyond the confines of home.
Speaking personally for a moment: I have a modicum of education–clearly not enough to know not to use the word “modicum,” but enough to know that nothing I can do singly or with my wife could remotely approach the variety and expertise of the dozens of faculty members who’ve taught my two children in schools. That I may have had differences of opinion or methods or even pedagogy with some of them is natural, and irrelevant.
We did some homeschooling when they were younger. But at school, my children’s faculty were in charge, not me. I didn’t send them to school to have more of home but–to quote the gospel according to Cleese–for something completely different. Metaphorically speaking, why limit them to a bookshelf when they could have an entire library, assuming not so metaphorically that library hasn’t been raided by the school board’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. I trusted the faculty to do the right thing. If teachers made errors at times, as I very much hope they did (they did not disappoint), that was part of the deal. My children were taught by human beings, not by Magic Kingdom animatronics. The trust was implicit the moment I registered them at school, as was my duty to store the chip on my shoulder in one of those innumerable self-storage facilities around town.
I’m pretty sure the majority of parents are equally trusting. Public education has its challenges, most of them lawmakers’ doing. The occasional transgender bathroom, queer book or Black Lives Matter passage in an English textbook are not among those challenges. They’re part of what’s working in schools. Unless you hear it from the loudmouthed minority of know-nothing knowitalls who asphyxiate their child’s intellect or identity at home then turn up at school to accuse anyone who might be letting in some air.
Those are the parents to whom the GOP dedicated its bill of rights, the parents more interested in McGuffey era doctrine than 21st century education, parents who glorify the three R’s while calling for banning books, whitewashing discussion and firing teachers. They’re the parents who don’t know the difference between a value and a prejudice, between pluralism and tribalism: parents who object to schools fostering acceptance, broadening values, celebrating differences, unless they’re the ones being accepted, unless it’s their values, their differences that are exalted, however parochial or reactionary. And of course they’re the parents who place their own rights above those of children, a horrifying capsizing of ethical norms.
Those are the GOP’s shock troops. The Parents’ Bill of Rights is their consummate manifesto.
It relies on an attractive but ridiculous assumption: that parents are infallible. Parents can be as toxic to their children as a home environment can be stultifying. If it weren’t for the leavening effect of education, and particularly public education, we’d still be in the dark ages. Parents may be programmed to raise children biologically. It’s not especially challenging. It doesn’t follow that they’re programmed to raise them lovingly, morally, intellectually and culturally.
Lawmakers know that. After all, they wouldn’t be where they are if we didn’t have so many parenting screw-ups. So the flattery of the parental bill of rights is a lie. It assumes that parents know best, when they know least. But its intention is strategic. It turns parents into the GOP’s insurrectionists. Who better than parents who know next to nothing about education to throw against education’s supposed ramparts while fueling the mythology of schools as fortresses that have snubbed parental involvement all these years. If only.
The bill of rights is the GOP’s trojan horse. It bring parents into the schools to pursue the ultimate aim: the continued demolition of public education. Florida Republicans have been doing an excellent job of it for a couple of decades, using various means.
On a per-pupil funding basis, Florida is the seventh-stingiest state in the nation. Democrats did a pitiful job at it too when they controlled government, though Republicans have accelerated the drain. Today’s funding total includes the money siphoned off by charters, as it did not previously. It’s another weapon in the demolition derby. Some charters are excellent. Most are failures. They hide mediocrity behind the state’s indifference to standards and reporting requirements. They close more frequently than bad restaurants. Look at Flagler. With one exception, it’s a graveyard of charters.
Then there’s vouchers, the abuse of our tax dollars to pay for students’ private and religious education, compounding the unconstitutional disgrace with tax breaks to corporations–nearly $900 million worth this year alone. Imagine what public schools could do with that if it weren’t swindled from them (and us taxpayers).
Finally, there’s the sham of school choice, again intended to flatter parents into thinking they can choose their kids’ education path the way they might choose between lanes at fast food joints, when in fact the choice formula is another way to pit schools against each other while undermining their ability to plan for any kind of stability in enrollment and absolving the state from ensuring equitable funding across the board.
But all those attacks have been at the periphery. The Huns of public education needed their own militias to destroy from within. That’s the genius of the parental bill of rights.
Most of it is a redundant restatement of laws and procedures already in place, whether it’s allowing you to pull your kid from any health class where the word “vagina” might be spoken, allowing your anti-vax phobias to prevail, giving you access to your kid’s records or to any and every instructional material in circulation. None of this is new, much as hysterical school board members might want to make you think otherwise.
But while the Bill of Rights magnifies the privacy and autonomy of parents, it gives parents the right to violate that very privacy and autonomy where it counts most at school: between students and teacher. It breaks that trust and imposes a Stasi-like surveillance system that is as anathema to academic inquiry and personal growth as those cameras and microphones the legislature wants to shackle on teachers in classrooms. Just as the same lawmakers want to reduce Florida’s women to “host bodies” for pregnancies, to use Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva’s vulgar words, they want to reduce teachers to robotic dispensers of party-line civics and plantation-era morality. Teachers who violate the rules will be punished like rule-breaking students. No wonder there’s a teacher exodus. It’s just what the GOP wants. Destruction from within.
This isn’t about rights. It’s not about parents. It’s certainly not about children, and it damn well isn’t about education. It’s about ending public schools as we know them, as the single-most powerful engine of pluralism and unity in America. The GOP has the legislature. It has the governor’s mansion. It has the judiciary. It has the chambers of commerce. It’ll never get the universities. But there is no bigger prize than the schools. That victory, Florida’s biggest defeat, is now in sight.
Pierre Tristam is FlaglerLive’s editor. Reach him by email here. A version of this piece aired on WNZF.
Deb says
I agree 100%!
Samantha says
The GOP with the help of Donald and Ron DeSantis they are turning our country and states into communistic government. Can’t say this can’t say that, not allowed to read this, you are not allowed to vote because you aren’t white. The discrimination list is getting larger as each day basis.
If this is how people trust voting for these characters shame on you because your children and grandchildren will be living in a communistic country.
Mark says
LOL. Can’t say this can’t say that? You seem to have it backwards. Did DeSantis say you can’t voice your opinion at a school board meeting? I believe it is liberal progressives who are saying you can’t speak at a school board meeting. You know, the liberal progressive, or aka socialist/communist.
Pierre Tristam says
Mark, just as you wouldn’t want to be called a fascist or a brownshirt, don’t make those idiotic comparisons regarding liberals progressives, particularly since, as I suspect, you’re much closer to being a socialist than you realize (Medicare much?). That said, your claim that parents have “an inalienable right to decide what their children are taught” is an appealing slogan, but it’s wrong, whether you’re homeschooling or sending your kid to school. If one has an inalienable right to decide what they’re taught, it inevitably would mean that one also has the inalienable right not to have them taught anything. That’s not the case. Even with Florida’s almost non-existent homeschooling regulations, you must still show that your kid is progressing and is being taught something. You’re not allowed to raise an illiterate. Once you decide to send your kid to school, you can tailor small parts of the curriculum to one end or another, but you can neither dictate it nor opt out of whatever chunks of it your disapprove of, a few minor exceptions aside. You might keep your own kid from reading certain books in English class, assuming you have a good reason. But you can’t draw up your own syllabus, or decide in history class that the whole units on white genocide of natives, the Black holocaust and the anti-Asian atrocities of the 19th and early 20th century (assuming they’re even taught) just aren’t the sort of thing you want your child to be exposed to. Just as you can’t choose what taxes to pay or what to have your tax dollars spent on. Whether we like it or not we abide by a social contract to a degree. The problem here is that the GOP follies I’m highlighting are attempting to turn public education (among other things) into the equivalent of gated communities. But that’s what private and parochial schools are for, though you’d not want to get started on how few inalienable rights you would have there. It’s also what the GOP would rather we had: all private, all parochial, or at most all charters.
Local says
How moronic can u be? Democrats like you spreading REAL MIS INFORMATION IS THE PROBLEM.” Not allowed to vote because you’re not white”? Really??? Also ….democrats are the frontrunner on suppressing free speech.
Edith Campins says
Really? Democrats are not the ones banning books, or trying to prevent teachers from saying gay or transgender or trying to prevent the teaching of true history. Democrats are not the ones showing up at school board meetings in fake military gear, trying to intimidate everyone. Nor are they the ones threatening those who politely voice opinions that they don’t agree with. And they certainly not the one hurling insults at those who show up to peacefully advocate for the causes.
Bailey’s Mom says
This is so true and scary! We have to stop the nonsense going on in this state and at our local meetings.
Please come out and support your Teachers & School Board Members (well at least the members that aren’t banning books, erasing LBGQT rights, and putting our childrens health at risk). We have to silence or be louder than the Few & Loud 3%.
Vote them out in 2022!
Mark says
VOTE VOTE VOTE that’s what everyone has to do. Not just every 4 years or every 2 years but VOTE EVERY SINGLE ELECTION. The Florida Legislature is a joke meeting for just 2 months out of the year and campaigning the rest of the year. They can slam these bills through now with minimal input hoping that the populace will forget about them before the next election. They’ll shake hands with you at the local store, restaurant, event etc. while taking your rights away. I used to consider myself an independent voter voting for both sides yet that went out the window over the last dozen years or so. I don’t care if my relative or neighbor is running for office, if they are part of the whiny GOP then no vote for them. All politics starts local use your Vote in your best interest and your families.
Mark says
Parents have an inalienable right to decide what their children are taught. Get over it.
Denali says
Help me out here, Just where did you come up with this idea? I have never come across this premise in any of my readings on education. Thank you.
Ben Hogarth says
Parents do not own their children Mark, I hate to break the news to you. Inalienable right would actually infer the child has the right to the same access and equal opportunity education as the child next to them. I find it more tragic if the child is set up for failure for life because their parent(s) is an idiot(s).
And any parent that would censor books they haven’t even read certainly qualify for that title.
Florida Voter says
I am becomingly increasingly convinced that the GOP (as a party) is using “1984” as a step-by-step playbook.
1) Cult of personality: Big Brother / Donald Trump?
2) Perpetual War: “War on Terror” (no longer need specific targets)
3) Omnipresent government surveillance: cameras in classrooms and microphones on teachers? … among other examples
4) Historical negationism: legitimate political discourse, so many of Trump’s lies
5) Propaganda: just look at Faux News
6) Doublethink: the election was fraudulent but not in the races where Republicans won, alternative facts
7) Thought Police and Thoughtcrime: look no further than this “Parental Bill of Rights” (nice example of doublethink with the bill’s name, too … it gives individual parents the “right” to reduce education for everyone).
What all did I miss? I don’t really separate Newspeak from doublethink … maybe I should.
MikeM says
That’s funny. Half the country thinks the same thing of Joe Biden. Remember you are posting on an extremely liberal site. So most people on here would agree with you. Most. Not all. Certainly not me.
T says
Read learn think for once his lost crybabys courts,his own appointed judges said he is wrong and no evidence and not to mention smart guy his lost pop vote 16 said because illegals voted then 4 years later no evidence and why is it that all states he won was no fraud but only the ones he lost
Stop hate says
To the LEFT , to the LEFT , Flagler Live going further to the left!!!!!!
Dennis C Rathsam says
Your right To the Left to the Left….Pretty soon they,ll be out of town!!!!!!
Fredrick says
Well Pierre if you get rid of your liberal bias BS in the article, stop blaming the GOP for everything in the article I would agree with you. But put the blame where it belongs. It belong with the parents. Our schools suck. We have a good teachers and bad just like we always have. We have turned schools into a daycare center. If you are a parent who takes responsibility in your child you can make sure your child has a good education. If you use the school as daycare your child, are not involved or do not take responsibility for your child’s actions and are not involved with their education you child will fail.
T says
What I think you need to comprehend more they stroke they’re trying Democrats are trying to take freedoms but yet Republicans are taking more freedom from everybody than anything books TV propaganda BS Anthem A-Z nobody ever cared about any of this subject before until Republican said to care about it
Ben Hogarth says
But it is not the Democrats who are passing unprecedented legislation in this state. It is not the Democrats who are perpetuating fears of indoctrination in public school systems in order to siphon public tax dollars for private benefit. It is not the Democrats who dominate School Board governments at the local level, wasting absurd amounts of time debating non-issues. The list goes on and on.
The GOP is absolutely to blame for all of this. Everything that is happening is 100% by Republican design. It is not our fault that 70 million Americans have been sold lie after lie for decades and believe in “ghost” issues in the school systems when the real issue is the inherent danger children are placed in everyday – fearing for their lives. Republican voters are not represented by their elected officials in Tallahassee, and rarely at home. If you live in Florida, a state almost exclusively dominated by the GOP (and has been for decades), and still blame Democrats for your current situation – look hard in the mirror. Own it. You’re part of the problem.
Jimbo99 says
Interesting choice of a photo, mixed messages, “Use Your Voice” (Protestor), then there’s the “No Justice, No Peace” (Rioter & Looter), the one that painted the latter, that one is your trouble maker, just from a casual observance from a safe distance. School is where one educates themselves, they’ll have all the time in the world to make their name upon graduation. I suspect the more intelligent one’s will go on to colleges & universities, that’s not saying anyone isn’t smart with just a HS Diploma, but it’s harder without the degree(s) for at least a foot in the door.
Ben Hogarth says
The GOP in Florida is nothing more than a front for an ever-shrinking group of wannabe oligarchs. The long-established aristocracy of Tallahassee was slowly rubbed out following the rise of the “Tea Party” in the state. Their designs under people like Richard Corcoran were drafted long before Trump decided to run for office, let alone become the face of the Republican Party. There is an old adage of “follow the money” – it could not be truer for Florida Republicans. It’s not exactly a new concept for Republicans in any state to siphon public tax dollars for private benefit. They’ve always claimed that private businesses and ultra rich individuals pay the vast majority of taxes, so in their mind it’s just sending the money back to its originator. The issue is that those businesses and corporate leaders owe the success of their business to all of the workers they employ just as much as their own efforts. If workers cannot travel on well-maintained roadways, put their children through a decent public education system, and have no access to affordable care, the entire system suffers. Ironically, all of this was forecast in Karl Marx’s works, particularly those outlining the inevitable conflict between those who control the means and mode of production, and the workers.
But the corruption of public purpose and the deceit of the masses is more insidious in Florida. Charter schools have some of the highest “fail” rates in Florida than anywhere in the nation (40% or more). That means that 4 out of 10 charter schools have at some point, lost their accreditation. Florida Republicans know that they can “strike two birds with one stone” by siphoning public dollars away from public schools and giving to the private charters. On one hand, they can slowly kill the efficacy of public institutions entirely by limiting their access to financial resources. On the other hand, they can enrich themselves by allowing “turn and burn” failed charters to charge exorbitant fee costs to parents while covering their basic overhead with the public tax dollars. This would allow the profit margin for charters to be near 100% of all revenue. FOLLOW THE MONEY. Always.
And there is nothing stopping them. They’ve already developed the red-herring “Critical Race Theory” narrative, which has become tantamount to a philosophical “false flag operation.” By selling the average Floridian parent on these fears, they’ve built a case for further transgressions against basic public institutions like public schools and libraries. Meanwhile, the average parent will continue to see their wages shrink to global inflation and “death by fees.” But hey, at least it’s not a “tax” right?
Right.
Dennis C Rathsam says
I disagree totally, one of the real reasons teachers are leaving is money & benifits.
Trailer Bob says
Ridiculous article and many commenters full of hate to their fellow human beings.
I do not see life in Florida apparently as many others do.
If I DID, I would move.
Stop the hate and separation of different groups of people.
My views, life, and experience of living in Florida is much more comfortable than you and your followers.
I like bring people together and being kind, etc…
You, apparently, have a very warped view of reality.
Done…one less reader to listen to your insanity.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Bob, Lets get togeather, and start a conservative page. A page of truths, not fiction! Free speech…the real America! Tell it like it really is….STICKS & STONES CAN BREAK MY BONES, BUT WORDS WILL NEVER HURT ME!!!!!! America is getting weak, the Woke few just need help. Stand up for your principals, say what it is you need to say… After all if your life, dont let a few liberal fools shit on your parade.
NotWoke says
This is the headline while Putin is invading Ukraine, and the President is non compos mentis? And at the same time, the VP, sent to Europe on a publicity tour is busy making word salads?
Public education needs to be ended as we have come to know it during COVID, which has thankfully exposed the leftist doctrination out tax dollars are funding.
The dude says
Yet… you and yours were screeching on that “THE SCHOOLS MUST OPEN!!!” not to long ago.
Pick a lane sparky. Close the schools or open them?
bluepaws says
It is OUR child Not the GOVERMENTS CHILD ! As a TAXPAYER that funds the PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM I do have a say in what is taught our children ! Pierre grow a brain or stop smoking what your smoking you idiot ! Public education needs to do what they are paid too do ! Teach children math, history , civics , English , and how to read ! Not CRT BS, Hate, sexual orientation , ETC ! The Public schools are not hired to be Therapists ! Parents can raise their own children thank you very much for nothing ! The DEMS need to STOP their nonsense ! Idiots like LIAR JOE ! Thanks GOV DeSantis we need more leaders like you in this broken country and less idiots like Pierre !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pierre Tristam says
Speaking of smoking, I think my last was a fabulous Cojiba. You might want to try one. The Humidor at European Village is excellent therapy, and a lot cheaper than shrinks.
T says
It’s funny you say that cuz you didn’t care before until Republicans told you to care about it correct otherwise you would it be 4 years
Deborah Coffey says
There is no CRT taught in public schools; there never has been. Who’s the LIAR?
Pierre Tristam says
Deborah, what are you talking about? Of course there’s CRT. It’s an every other day daily mandatory class, right between gender reassignment surgery sessions (I think the medical flagships at Rymfire and FPC specialize in that one) and after the first of the five mandatory prayers facing Mecca, alternating with How to Be a Socialist on the other days. Thankfully it doesn’t interfere with the LGBTQ raves after lunch or the forced vaccines and booster-jabbing when kids line up to take the bus or at car-rider line (where they also hand out free condoms and the day-after pill).
Alonzo says
The old saying lay with dogs rise up with fleas. Vote Repub. become a communist. They are telling women how to use their bodies, soon they will be telling us what we can and can’t learn.
Sherry says
Another excellent article, Pierre!
Florida Voter and Ben Hogarth. . . great comments. . . right on!
It’s no surprise to me that Jimbo99 makes an “out of context”, (bigoted?) harsh judgement regarding the words spray painted on the school bus. . . completely ignoring the opening words “I Love You.” Why is it that when “anyone” speaks of true “peace” requiring “justice” there is a resounding knee jerk reaction from the (FOX) right. . . labeling the speaker/writer as a “rioter/looter”?
In addition “graffiti” of any kind on a school bus should not be tolerated.
James says
To: Local Stop watching propaganda Fox Station your listening to the wrong station.
William says
We never hear what the GOP Cult want to do for our country. Everyday all we hear out of their mouths is complaining. They don’t know how to work with the boys in Washington to pass bills that will improve our country and its people. They bow down to a want to be dictator because they are too coward to speak the truth about him. And they want us to vote for them, I DON’T THINK SO.
Sherry says
@ William. . . excellent point! Even Minority Senate leader Mitch McConnell refuses to state precisely what the (“trump cult”) Republican party plans to do to improve the lives of the American people.
I see here much more than complaints from the “cult”. . . screaming hate filled insults, name calling, repeating lies and conspiracy theories. That often is the way the cult communicates.
Sherry says
Those parents screaming that they want direct control over the curriculum in “Public” schools should “home school” their children . . . it’s just that simple. Consider the distinct possibility that if each generation only learns what their parents teach them a massive degradation of education will ensue and their world view will eventually become infinitesimal. . . perfect for the “close minded” cult members. . . perfect for their fascist dictators. Ignorant people are just so much easier to dupe and control!
Sherry says
@bluepaws. . . Seek joy, peace and love from within.