“The pandemic produced an unexpected but welcome parental rights revolution in education, and we’re seeing that in North Carolina and nationwide,” Terry Stoops, director of the Center for Effective Education (CEE) with JLF, told The Epoch Times.
JLF wrote the Parental Bill of Rights to supplement parents with resources and information on ways to become better advocates for their children, Stoops said.
“Because for many years, parents were told to leave education to the so-called experts rather than to taking an active role,” he said. “What we wanted to do at the John Locke Foundation was to articulate at a very basic level the rights parents should have in order to be an effective advocate for their children.”
Its goal in publishing the document, Stoops said, is to sway lawmakers into incorporating the framework of the document into law.
“We will call upon the North Carolina General Assembly to affirm their commitment to families by ratifying a parents’ Bill of Rights that retains some or all of the rights outlined,” Stoops said.
“They are tired of being marginalized,“ Luebke said. ”Parents are standing up and reminding everyone of their right to control their child’s education and their commitment to working alongside teachers and administrators to give their children the best possible education.”
The Bill of Rights
There are six rights listed in the document that assert the parent’s role in their children’s education.According to the bill, a parent should have the right to direct their child’s physical, mental, and emotional health and how and where their child is educated.
In addition, a parent should have the right to transparency in schools, the document states, and a safe and nurturing classroom and school environment.
The parent should be able to be actively engaged in their children’s education, as well as have the right to recourse and accountability of school districts, administrators, and teachers.
‘Conspiracy-Laden Politics’
In 2021, Cooper vetoed House Bill 324, which would have prohibited teachings in the K–12 school system that are contrary to “the equality and rights of all persons.”Cooper called the bill “calculated, conspiracy-laden politics,” echoing many Democrats at the time who alleged that critical race theory (CRT) didn’t exist.
Though CRT is a Marxist philosophy that claims society is a class struggle between oppressors and the oppressed—specifically labeling white people as the oppressors and all other races as the oppressed—for many teachers and parents the phrase has come to encompass a more expansive trend that incorporates not only issues of race but also themes of sexuality.
“Legislators prioritized this last session but didn’t get it passed because of our Democratic governor, but I believe we’re going to see in the upcoming session a revival of the legislation that wasn’t able to pass last year, as well as new legislation to help North Carolina parents,” Stoops said.
Earlier in April, Georgia lawmakers approved a parental rights bill that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is expected to sign.
Many of these bills were propelled by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signing of the Parental Rights in Education Act in March 2022, which—in addition to prohibiting discussions on complex sexual topics such as sexual orientation and gender identity in Kindergarten through third grade—gives parents more of a voice in their children’s education.
In other states such as Iowa and Indiana, similar bills have been proposed.
‘I Haven’t Given the Government the Right to Co-Parent’
Kelly Mann, grassroots outreach coordinator with the JLF, met with parents and noted their concerns to provide input to Stoops and Luebke, who wrote the Bill of Rights using the feedback provided.Mann, a parent herself, said she shared in the frustration with the other parents because, before she worked at JLF, she had already been advocating for parental rights in education after witnessing the unchecked power school boards were exercising over parents and children that came to light during the pandemic.
“I haven’t given the government the right to co-parent with me, nor do I intend to,” Mann told The Epoch Times.
The Parental Bill of Rights comes as many parents who have never before run for office have begun running for local school boards, including in Guilford County, where Mitchell leads an effort that has brought parental rights candidates into the race.
“We all started talking about what we are most discouraged about before deciding that it needed to be put into a public statement for elected officials to know that as parents, these are our concerns because our rights are being infringed upon across the state,” Mann said.
Mann said parents “were especially fired up” when the National School Boards Association (NSBA) wrote a letter to President Joe Biden comparing parents at school board meetings to domestic terrorists committing hate crimes, a letter which days later prompted U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to issue a memo directing federal law enforcement to investigate the alleged “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against teachers and school leaders.
Following this, several state school board associations discontinued membership with the NSBA despite its apology and rescinding of the letter.
“We felt like our voices had been smothered and discredited,” Mann said.
For parents who feel they’ve been marginalized, Mann said she hopes the Parental Bill of Rights renews a feeling of support and validation for the struggles they’ve had over concerns largely chastised as conspiracy theories in many media outlets.
“Here is something we can all get behind that will improve the situation, protect our rights as parents, and protect our children in the coming future,” Mann said.
