Parents "Bill of Rights": Picking Lice off of the Educational Monkey

Across the country, states are considering a Republican-based education bill promoted as the “Parents Bill of Rights”. This bill would promote “curriculum transparency”, allowing parents to review school curriculum “without cost and immediately upon request, and add a notice requirement that requires schools to make “reasonable arrangements” for alternative instruction when families object to what is being taught.

This transparency bill is a relic from the 50s that belongs there. Joe McCarthy is dead. The Berlin wall has been taken down. Elvis Pressley left the building. We must educate our children today to live in the world of the future not in a world of the past. To enable them to succeed and thrive in the increasingly diverse and interconnected global community of tomorrow we must ensure that they have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to do so. However, the “Parents Bill of Rights” impedes our ability to do so. It would allow a small army of the angry to pick what they consider to be the lice off the educational monkey. This will result in a shallow, disjointed curriculum for the rest of us that creates a distorted view of the world.