A ballot in Colorado measures that seeks to constitutionally protect the right of parents to send their child to any school, including a private schoolalso aims to create the right for parents to direct their child’s education, which raises questions about the ways in which parents can influence what and how students learn.
The provision in Amendment 80 follows a national movement that has seen parents across the country demand that school libraries ban books they deem inappropriate for students and raise concerns about how teachers approach topics like gender and race in the classroom.
Leaders of the conservative political nonprofit Advance Colorado Action, the organization behind the ballot measure, declined to comment on why they want to give Colorado parents the right to determine their children’s education and what impact it would have on schools and teachers.
“There is a lot of information out there about our position on this,” Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado Action, wrote in a text message to The Colorado Sun.
In an interview this month with conservative radio hosts Jeff Hunt and Bill Thorpe, Kristi Burton Brown, executive vice president of Advance Colorado Action, denied that this provision would give parents more control over the types of lessons teachers teach or the way schools functioning.
“Who (has) the final say in which school choice is made? It’s the parent, not the government,” Burton Brown said. “And that doesn’t mean parents come in and say, ‘I don’t like this curriculum.’ I don’t like this book.’ It doesn’t give them any more right to do that than they already have.”
But introducing a right for parents to direct their child’s education into the state constitution opens up the possibility for parents to sue schools to challenge homework assignments or the use of certain books, or possibly try to get their child removed from class of a homosexual teacher. said Kevin Welner, director of the University of Colorado National Education Policy Center.
Fifth-grade teacher Liz Banesberger’s classroom at C3, or Creativity Challenge Community, in southeast Denver. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
“It’s easy to foresee a lot of troubling demands,” said Welner, who is also a professor at the CU School of Education in Boulder. “At what point can the school tell parents to stop directing their child’s education?”
Welner noted that it is currently impossible to know how courts would interpret parents’ right to direct their child’s education in court cases and what impact this would have on schools.
“I think it opens up those lawsuits,” he said. “Whether courts will later close the door on those lawsuits is an open question, but I certainly expect those types of lawsuits.”
Parents and education advocates, like Ami Prichard, president of the Colorado Parent Teacher Association, see parents as important partners in their child’s education, communicating with teachers and schools about what’s happening at home and helping make decisions about how they can prepare their child for raising their child. success.
At the same time, parents should respect and trust the expertise of teachers who guide students through classwork, said Prichard, whose organization opposes Amendment 80.
“When it comes to how students are taught and assessed, these are the types of decisions made by those with advanced degrees in education and child welfare,” Prichard said. “The parent is the expert on their child. The teacher is the expert on the curriculum. And if we can combine these two things, education can really work for every child.”
Prichard said she is concerned that the ballot measure will destabilize classrooms and overwhelm teachers with input from outside the classroom.
“There are many different ways that parents can make their voices heard and advocate on behalf of not just their own student, but on behalf of all students, but it’s a completely different situation when you have people who have no training in education. in making decisions about which curriculum is best,” she said. “If a teacher has 150 kids with 150 different ideas about what they should teach, there’s just no way to make it work.”
Prichard, who described the language around giving parents the right to direct their child’s education as “vague,” sees a direct connection between Amendment 80 and the national parental rights movement. The conservative movement gained momentum in recent years as culture wars divided teachers, parents and school board members in districts across the country over the types of books children should be exposed to and how they should learn about race, history and gender.
Many of those involved in the movement have long advocated for voucher programs and now see an opportunity to advance that cause, including by demonizing teachers and public education, said Jack Schneider, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and director of the Center for Education Policy.
“You thought your child’s school was doing well,” Schneider said. “You thought you supported public education in your community, but what is actually happening is that Marxist educators have run wild and are now indoctrinating children, teaching white children to hate themselves, organizing gender reassignment camps and whatever other total lies that they can get away. peddling. Then you might be able to convince people to participate in a program like private school vouchers, which… has historically been unpopular, but which could be popular if you can convince people that public education is no longer worth it .”
That movement has lost much of its momentum in the U.S., in part because many parents are happy with the education their children are receiving, Schneider said. He added that parents have “strong rights” in schools that have been consistently reaffirmed by courts, including the right to ensure that their children are not discriminated against on the basis of their race, gender or ability, he said.
Still, some parents like Yazmin Navarro, who is running for a seat on the State Board of Education in the highly competitive 8th Congressional Districtargue that parents’ rights in schools are eroding as the lines of communication between schools and parents break down.
“To me, parental rights mean that I have the final say on everything that happens to my child educationally, and I need to be informed about everything that happens at school,” says Navarro, who has a young child who is enrolled in a special school. “I don’t care if she scraped her knee. I need to know this information. For me it is very simple.”
Navarro, a Republican from Johnstown, said she worries that some school districts are withholding crucial information from parents, such as the specific pronouns children want to use.
Republican Yazmin Navarro of Johnstown is running for a seat on the Colorado State Board of Education in the 8th Congressional District. (Handout)
“It’s common sense,” she said. “It’s common courtesy. We let you borrow our children with the idea that you are there to give our children an academic education. That’s it. And the fact that you do more than that and especially if you don’t inform the parents is a big problem.”
Navarro added that parents should also be able to review the curriculum before it lands on their student’s desk.
“I really believe it’s important for parents to be able to see what’s in the curriculum ahead of time,” she said, “so they can make a decision for their family, what’s best for their family. ”
That approach could cause major disruptions at schools, says Prichard of Colorado PTA.
“It essentially throws our entire system into chaos and takes away the rights of school boards to oversee the curriculum and to be able to implement a guaranteed and viable curriculum,” Prichard said. “It takes away the rights of our State Board of Education to be able to pass and implement standards. It takes away all the things, the pillars on which our education system rests, and implements chaos. And chaos is simply never good for schools. It’s never good for children.”
Amendment 80 would need the support of 55% of voters to pass on November 5.
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either directly observed and verified by the reporter, or reported and verified from expert sources.