Do parents have the right to shape their kids' curriculum?

C. Bradley Thompson writes,

The family is the most exclusive private association known to man, and, as Plato knew, it is the single greatest obstacle to collectivism. Families are inward looking units that resist government-imposed homogenization, and they are an inherently conservative cultural force that seek to preserve the private manners and mores of each and every particular family. Worse: families are the origin of private property, the division of labor, inequality, and gender roles. The family is a naturally occurring social unit that has always stood against the State in its attempt to collectivize the community for either reactionary or progressive ends. Figuratively speaking, every family is protected by a virtual “No Trespassing” sign barring entry.

Nowhere was this view stated more clearly than in a 1973 keynote address to The Association for Childhood Education International, delivered by the Harvard educational psychiatrist, Chester M. Pierce, who said:

Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our Founding Fathers, toward his parents, toward our elected officials, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you, teachers, to make all these sick children well by creating the international child of the future.[3]

The schools have thus become surrogate parents concerned with child rearing—not by default, as they typically argue, but by design. The proponents of government schooling actively seek this role. They consider themselves to be your child’s “second” parent. We know this because they have said so. The Chicago Teachers’ Union tweeted recently, “We fight for your children like they are own, because when we teach, they are.”[4] In 2021, parents all over the United States were told by the Education Deep State that they have no rights to determine what their children will or should learn in the government schools. A headline in The Washington Post summed up how Big Ed views the role of parents in the education of their children: “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ curriculum. They don’t”![5]

As I wrote about in “A Declaration of War,” the Biden administration mobilized and unleashed the full power of the federal government’s National Security State against parents (now labeled as “domestic terrorists”) who were protesting at local school board meetings around the country against Critical Race Theory, Critical Gender Theory, pornography in school libraries, mask mandates, vaccine requirements, and remote learning. The parents’ real crime was, of course, their attempt to reclaim control over what is being taught to their children in the government schools.

The time has come for the American people to address the fundamental question of our age: who is responsible for the education of your children, you or the State? Put differently the question is: do you want to live in a free society where parents control the education of their children, or do you want to live in an authoritarian society where the State controls the education of your children?

Read more here: https://cbradleythompson.substack.com/p/the-battle-for-the-minds-of-americas?s=w