BILL: Should Parents Control School Curriculum? - Parents Bill of Rights Act - H.R.5

The Bill

H.R.5 - Parents Bill of Rights Act

Bill Status

• Introduced by Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA)
• Committees: House - Education and the Workforce | Senate - Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
• House: Passed House 
• Senate: Not yet voted
• President: Not yet signed

Bill Overview

• The bill, passed in a 213-208 vote, ensures the rights of parents are honored and protected in the nation's public schools.
• The bill enshrines parents' rights to know what is going on in their children's education and a right to have access to teacher-parent meetings, school budget decisions, curriculum and books, and the ability to speak before a school board. 
• The bill encapsulates other GOP priorities, such as policies on transgender students.
• While there were no Democrat votes in support of the bill, some amendments received bipartisan support. One of these includes a requirement to provide parents with notice of major cyberattacks and the GAO to submit a report evaluating the impact of the bill on protecting parents' rights.
• The bill offers a national expansion of Florida's "Parental Rights in Education" Act, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
• The bill has a slim chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate or being signed by President Biden.

What's in the bill?

Makes curriculum and library catalogs available to parents

• The bill would make library catalogs and curriculums public and available for parents to peruse and challenge.
• This could empower parents to suggest book bans and potentially create an avenue for lawsuits against school districts that don't comply with parents' wishes.
• In the 2021-22 school year, more than 1,600 book titles were banned.

Enables parents to stop "woke indoctrination" in schools

• Parent's rights activists have been worried about "woke indoctrination" in schools, with issues like critical race theory and gender identity theory being hot-button topics. The bill would enable parents to have a say in the curriculum and to challenge the school district on what is taught to their children.

Allows parents to know about transgender rights at school

• The bill includes provisions that state that parents have a right to know whether transgender students can play on girls' sports teams or use the washroom that matches their gender identity.
• The bill would require schools to gain parental consent for students who want to use different names, pronouns, and facilities that match their gender identity.
• The bill would also require parents to consent before any medical exams, including mental health or substance use disorder screenings, are conducted on their children while at school.
• If a school does not gain consent, it could lose federal funding under the bill.

Allows parents a higher degree of direct control

• Schools would be required to offer a minimum of two in-person parent-teacher meetings annually.
• School boards would be required to hear feedback from parents and make changes accordingly.

Argument For

• Rep. Letlow, the sponsor of the bill, said:

"[This legislation] is not an attempt to have Congress dictate curriculum, or determine the books in the library. Instead, this bill aims to bring more transparency and accountability to education, allowing parents to be informed, and when they have questions and concerns to lawfully bring them to their local school boards."

• Rep. Erin Houchin (R-IN) said:

"Sending a child to public school does not terminate parental rights at the door. It gives power back to parents."

• Of the Democratic position, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said:

"They're afraid of parents being able to come in. They are afraid of the sunshine going into the classroom."

Argument Against

• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the bill "will meet a dead end." 
• Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said:

"This bill is going to be weaponized by far-right groups and used to threaten schools with legal action if they don't pull books off the shelves. They want to ban books about Black and Brown people and they want to ban books about L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ people."

• Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) said:

"This bill does not give parents any more rights than they already have. [It is a] one size fits all approach across the country, assuming the size that fits is a right-wing straight jacket."

• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said:

"Rather than actually invest in empowering parents, making sure parents have the opportunity to be engaged and involved in the education of their children, the extreme MAGA Republicans want to jam their rightwing ideology down the throats of students, teachers and parents throughout America."

• David Stacy, government affairs director for the Human Rights Campaign, said:

"These efforts to censor curriculum and force the outing of transgender and nonbinary students are borrowing from a discriminatory wave of bills sweeping the country — a wave of bills, incidentally, that the majority of voters have not asked for and do not support."

Should parents have a say in the school curriculum, library catalogs, and transgender rights in the classroom?

—Emma Kansiz