Recently, a certain type of anxiety has taken hold in American public schools; it’s not the well-known concern about test scores or teacher shortages, but rather something more difficult to identify. These days, you can sense it as soon as someone steps up to the microphone at almost any school board meeting in a contested county. Instructors move around in their seats. Administrators gaze at their notebooks. Everyone is anticipating the next demand, objection, or legal threat masquerading as a parental concern.
The so-called “parents’ rights” movement has created this world. And the world is truly peculiar.
Over the past few years, the movement for greater parental control over public school curricula has gained traction in ways that ten years ago would have seemed nearly unthinkable. Parents now have official power to object to books, flag lesson plans, and, in certain situations, have materials removed from classrooms and libraries within weeks of filing a complaint thanks to legislation in Florida, Texas, and more than a dozen other states. This authority is frequently granted without the parent’s having to read the material they are objecting to. The outcome has been more akin to a gradual institutional panic than a reform movement.
Some of these demands have an instinct that can be understood, even sympathized with. Parents have always had a right to know what goes on in a school. It is worthwhile to ask questions about age-appropriate content, how history is presented, and whether a classroom feels welcoming. American law has a long history of acknowledging that parents have significant rights regarding their children’s education, dating back to Supreme Court rulings. There is real moral significance to that tradition.
However, observing how these laws function in reality gives the impression that something has gone wrong. The movement’s actual tactics, such as email campaigns, database lists of allegedly problematic titles, and coordinated pressure on individual teachers, appear to be more of a plan to undermine public education from the inside out than a genuine examination of curriculum. In certain districts, school librarians have reported removing books ahead of time due to fear rather than formal objections. That isn’t parental advice. That is fear-based institutional self-censorship.
All of this has an unsettling historical echo, according to legal experts who focus on educational rights. The last time “parental freedom” emerged as a prominent political catchphrase in relation to public education was in the years after Brown v. Board of Education; at that time, the freedom being upheld was the right to maintain segregated schools. That’s not to say that every parent who uses these laws now has to deal with that past. Most likely don’t. However, the rhetorical apparatus has an unsettling history, and it’s noteworthy that these campaigns frequently center around books that address issues of race, identity, and sexuality—the same topics that have historically caused significant discomfort for some groups of people in public settings.
The child is lost in the cacophony. The student at the center of any discussion about parental rights is frequently overlooked. Students have rights of their own, including the right to a meaningful education that equips them to live in a complex world with people who are different from them. Courts have consistently ruled that education serves the democratic society just as much as the individual family and that children are not just extensions of their parents’ wishes. Whether that idea can endure in the current political environment is still up for debate.
Observing teachers subtly self-censor, librarians subtly unshelving, and school after school retreating from challenging content gives us the impression that something is eroding without anyone fully acknowledging it. Damage isn’t always severe. One canceled unit at a time, one removed book at a time, and one weary teacher who quietly concluded it wasn’t worth the struggle are all examples of how it happens.
Stronger students have never been produced in public schools by unrestricted parental authority. In the past, it has resulted in more stratified individuals who are more cut off from diversity and ill-prepared for life beyond the classroom. The parents who are currently afraid are real, and their anxieties should be addressed honestly. However, the laws being drafted in response to those anxieties are accomplishing something quite different. The kids in the classroom are suffering as a result of their transformation of the space into a battleground.
