This is a series of my responses to arguments for the public financing of private education. While the first argument I posted about deals with tax liability and entitlement, this one focuses on the particular power afforded to parents in a child’s life:
Parents are the only accountability for a child’s education.
How could state and local governments, the thinking goes, consider to limit parental authority in a child’s schooling if the only true responsibility sits with the student’s parents? Advocates use this line of thinking to push for private school vouchers and/or policies that give parents and guardians significant veto power over individual curricular decisions (think: comprehensive sex education).
So it’s still entitlement, but towards a child’s upbringing not just public dollars. If you’re wondering, these are all arguments I’ve heard personally several times in my role as a lobbyist and advocate. I gave testimony against a private school voucher bill once and asked that, if the bill had to pass, it required private schools that receive public funds to administer assessments and publicly release the results. I believe that if public dollars were financing an education, the public would deserve a peek as to whether the education was any good. One lawmaker scoffed at the idea and said the above line verbatim.
Parents cannot afford to disregard all other authorities
I think a part of the strength of the idea of parent empowerment is the distortion of authority we give the nuclear family in the white evangelical church that I’ve written about previously:
I’m afraid that there is pernicious lie sitting in the heart of how white Christians talk about and prioritize the nuclear family, and this falsehood helps fuel the fire burning public support for common schools. The lie goes like this: your immediate family is the most important thing in this world at all times, thus all other people or responsibilities should bow down to the preferences of the family. Somehow the need to honor oaths and take care of those under your authority has transformed into an idolization of practices that could run counter to the Gospel.
This is not to say that parents are not in a unique and privileged position in their child’s life, they absolutely are. The Bible makes it clear that the family is given a special dispensation for how the gospel is declared to this world. But if taken at face value this line of reasoning can be used to suggest that no other person has a valid perspective on what’s best for someone’s child. What’s left is an unhealthy disregard for doctors, neighbors, church elders, grandparents or literally anyone that does not confirm our already-held beliefs about our children. I think every teacher or principal has run head-first into this problem when a parent says “I know MY child” to refute an accusation against them. My mom knew me more than anyone but probably still didn’t know I had the capacity to cuss as much as I did in middle school.
Further, what happens when parents are right about the needs of their children? Using that need to run to private education helps so few people. Why should the benefits be limited to only that family? Let’s say that a mother is concerned about the method by which a school diagnoses and addresses dyslexia. Removing her child and putting him in a private school that applies the science of reading could benefit him but leaves the less-resourced parents in a system that continues to harm their children’s ability to learn to read. The last few decades of education policy in America have created stakes that seem bent on convincing us all that our children are competing with each other. In a competition I’m incentivized to not only do right by my child but also make sure that other children fail. My child’s success depends on being better than. Parents have a necessary role to play in education, but we must make sure that the way forward does right by all kids even if their parents don’t have the resources to regularly speak into school policies.
Which parents?
There’s no easy way to write this: policymakers only defer to parents if they’re white.
When did “parents” become so valued in policy circles? Until around 2020 I had never heard parents talked about around schooling except in a derogatory, dog-whistly way. School folks and policymakers would wax poetic about the true villain of excellent schooling being uninterested and/or unavailable parents. These people feel more comfortable degrading the single mom who doesn’t show up to parent-teacher conferences than any other character or element in a child’s life. I heard this point last week while sitting in on a Georgia Senate committee meeting about literacy. Speakers had explained that we needed better teacher preparation courses in college and additional resources in schools. In response multiple lawmakers expressed disbelief that parents were not highlighted as the main deterrent to an educated child.
They’re talking about Black folks, right? Am I crazy here? Going back to the Moynihan Report in 1965, white Americans have countered claims about systematic racism with narratives about how the real problem in the Black community is children without fathers and empowering welfare queens. You don’t have to squint to see this same story playing out into how people talk about urban schools (coded language for majority-Black).
An important aside: research shows that Black fathers are just as present, if not more so, than fathers of other races in their children’s lives. Also, any discussion of Black people and the social safety net that doesn’t include the effects of racism, segregation, income inequality, toxic stress and pollution (just to name a few) is academically unserious.
Blaming children’s schooling on their parents fits neatly in the white evangelical imagination that prioritizes individuality and the nuclear family.
If American education is failing (as many white churchgoers say it is) and this failure is due to incomplete or evil parents, how on earth can these same parents be expected to do what’s right for their children in a school choice environment? It’s honestly shocking to hear this current deference to parents in education, and the only way I can square it is if we’re talking about completely different people. “Private school parents,” “homeschoolers,” “concerned” parents, etc. all bring to mind white people and therefore deserve more autonomy. The recent stories of a thriving neo-Nazi homeschooling movement in Ohio show the dangers of this false association.
Honestly this “parent authority is absolute” reasoning screams of segregation. “Other parents cannot be trusted but I will make sure that my family is not brought down by the sinking ship.” It’s the cut-and-run strategy that treats our neighbors as zombies just waiting to bite and infect the undefiled.
The harsh truth is that we were created to be in community with one another. The first thing that God declared “not good” was for man to be alone. We should be running for opportunities to live in community with others, and be the first to suggest solutions that lift up ALL children, not just our own. Until the white church can do this consistently, any talk of parent empowerment will translate politically into white power.
-Stephen