It has always been puzzling why our public schools have had such disdain for the parents whom they are supposed to serve. Not only are parents paying the salaries (and pensions) of the teachers and school administrators in their communities, but public schools were established to operate in loco parentis and, at least in theory, to work in tandem with parents to achieve shared educational goals for children.
Had that actually been the case, we would not be struggling with the massive educational and social crises we are experiencing today. For example, had schools made any attempt over the decades to partner with parents by providing guidance and materials to support out-of-school enrichment learning, the growth that was lost to the months and years of virtual learning during COVID could have been decreased or erased altogether.
But, no. And the question that many of us who had been promoting this idea of an “adjunct faculty” of trained and equipped parents in every school and community is “why?” Why have schools been so reluctant to encourage an army of aides who would work—without pay—to help the schools achieve their stated goals? It just didn’t make sense.
Then Black Lives Matter let the cat out of the bag. Their website proudly—though briefly—told the world that one of the institutions they wanted to “deconstruct” was the nuclear family. The BLM leaders endorsed the beliefs of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who saw the traditional family as an oppressive design that needed to be abolished.
So, the teachers, administrators, education professors, and union leaders who call themselves “progressives” and who are aligned in belief with BLM and Marx and Engels have viewed parents as the “enemy” all along (as did Thomas Dewey, the founder of progressive education). They never actually said as much, until BLM spilled the beans, but now all the decades of battles between traditional families and their left-leaning schools over sex-education, religious intolerance, rewritten history (and now pronouns, locker rooms, and washrooms) can be seen for what they really are.
Perhaps you think that your child’s third-grade teacher is different. She doesn’t hold parents in contempt or want to abolish all traditionally structured families. But can you say the same about your child’s curriculum coordinator who decides what lessons and from what textbooks your child will be taught? And what do you know about the education professors to whom that third-grade teacher must return for reindoctrination every five years? How about the speakers and trainers who help mold that teacher and all her colleagues during the several in-service days that are on every school calendar?
The truth is that these nameless, faceless administrators, professors, and trainers have the same socialist/Marxist goals espoused by BLM including the deconstruction of every facet of society that could compete with the state for the power to control how we think and act. The family has such power, and, thanks to BLM, we may finally see families exercising that power in defense of their children.
William F. Russell, Ed.D.
Illinois
