BILL: Should Parents Control School Curriculum? - Parents Bill of Rights Act - H.R.5
Do you support the GOP-led Parent's Bill of Rights?
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
"[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."
"Sending a child to public school does not terminate parental rights at the door. It gives power back to parents."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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
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Oh good lawd, if you want full control over what is taught to your kids, home school them. Otherwise, leave it to the professionals. Also, pay attention and be involved with your child's education. If there is something you don't like TALK TO THE TEACHER so you can opt your kid out.
Why do people try make simple things difficult?
Parents rights how about women's rights, she is the major player in parenting in all cases. Her right are the utmost importance from healthcar, family support to abortion rights. Women be free of abuse and intimidation by other, it's their choice!
There is a huge difference between parent's controlling school content and keeping parents informed on what their children are learning. Parent's have every right to know what 5heir children are learning and have the option to opt their children out of certain courses
Keep parents out of school circulum decisions. The parent's bill of rights weakens students' education by imposing the hateful beliefs of extremists on a well-rounded education.
The purpose of Public Education is to provide a core of skills and factual knowledge to students which allow them to be productive citizens.
public educations original purpose was to meld disparate populations into American ideals, language and a base knowledge base.
parent can already contribute through school advisory councils and school boards. Parent who want their opinions taught should do so at home.
Oppose. Parents should not be deciding the curriculum of public schools. If they don't like it. They can go to a private school that aligns with their view
Why is the goal to outsource the raising of one's kids to people with goals not to increase skills, but to create a room that indoctrinates ideologies. After year of year seeing kids performing worse on science and math and writing, those skills should be primary. Outside of that if you want to teach people to think critically instead of how/what to think, then maybe all individuals might rise
I very much support this bill. And our education is to provide a foundation of mathematics, science,English,history,arts, sports. when has it become an avenue of deception and secrecy. Our children are our future. We love them and nurture and care for them. We are not subject to the national education extremes, as they are funded and should be subject to fair parental oversight. If we allow education free reign in the wind of new doctrine can destroy mind the will in the emotions of our children and as parents we cannot stand for that.
Parents should be able to control the education of their own children but not the children of other people. Don't want your children reading a particular book, tell them no to. But you can't tell everyone's children not to read it. The Nazis burned books, modern day fascists ban them
If the parents want that kind of control over their child's education, they can home school.
Republicanism, is a Suppressionist Organization, Suppress Voters, any way they can, Voting Districts dilluted, lack of Mail Voting, Lack of Ballot Return Locations, Ballot Box Hoodlems, Purposefully presenting a Threatening Presence, (new law fixes that one), GOP sending FalseDate/Locations, so Voters would miss chance to vote in person, b/c on wild goose chase, to wrong location and/or wrong time.
Vote Against Suppression.
Good Morning,
I am 100% OPPOSED to this bill. Parents have always had the right to speak to the school board, to ask questions about what is being taught in schools and they have always had a choice to allow their students to attend public school, private school, home schooled, charter school if they do not agree with the content that is being taught in their student's school.
This bill is a overreach as we are allowing few parents to decide what is best for all students. We are demeaning the credentials of the educator with this bill by telling them what they can or can't teach. We are currently in a teacher shortage crisis and this is one on many factors that do not create a positive climate for future and current educators.
OPPOSE THIS BILL
By the time I get through with people all disagreeing over what should be in the curriculum, there won't be anything left to teach. Everybody disagrees with something and all of a sudden everybody's become an expert. An expert in something they complained that they had to teach their kids privately during the pandemic. If you did agree that strongly with what is in the curriculum, then take your child out of school and send them somewhere private or homeschool. But don't force other people to lose out on some thing they might prefer to have.
Parents are STAKEHOLDERS and an important part of the funding of our educational system. Parents make up one of the largest "Lobbying" groups in America. Whether they know it or not. Irrespective of identity politricks. Let's go mothers and fathers let's ensure our future by providing assurances that our children are empowered to be respectful adults.
It's pretty funny that parents that send their kids to private schools are somewhat in control of their children education structure but when it's government aka public school then it's not up for debate. It's a union thing and shut up and pay your taxes and don't question your child education system.
Parents HAVE the right to know what's being taught. All this will do will be to give radical voices power to stop real education. No more of this. Our children need to learn the real history of this country and learn to live and be with others different than them. This bill is deeply racist and discriminatory and must never pass.
More from the Right-wing, White Nationalist, Bigoted/Intolerant, Shallow Minded, Sleepy, Stupid/Ignorant, BOOK BANNING, and other than that, mostly nice(?) people 🙄👎, side. They appear to be the ones INDOCTRINATING THEIR OWN CHILDREN to FAIL in life. Geez!
Hey dumbass Reps., this where you are trying to lead us? FU!
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/02/1179906120/utah-bible-book-challenge
I have heard a LOT about so-called "grooming" being bandied about these days and the hypocritical conservatives are trying to instill that in our public schools. Book banning and avoidence of historical truths and scientific facts (I.E. the holocaust, racism, climate change) are pushed. WHY? Because it makes students "feel bad"? What kind of wimps are we raising? In some states, they want to bring in chaplains instead of counselors and they want the 10 commandments posted in public schools. (That last thing particularly boggles the mind because of the lack of any kind of adherence to those commandments by many of the so-called Evangelicals/the MAGA crowd and their "chosen one" Donald Trump). The Separation of Church and State must be preserved. We are NOT a "Christian" nation. (Especially when you consider how many of those who claim to be "Christian" in ear splitting decibels, appear to care not for or are ignorant of, the actual teachings of Jesus.)
Only if I can send my kid to school in a fuck Jesus golf shirt
How did homeschooling work out during Covid? If we didn't need teachers, parents would get paid to do it. Get out of their way, let them do their jobs! ...shut down the damn book Nazis too!
I urge you to vote NO
As a former educator, I know that parents are too far removed from what is relevant to present day education. Parents tend toward prejudice & the past.