In the view of Terry McAuliffe, former Virginia Gubernatorial candidate: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
According to Mary-Michelle Upson Hirschoff, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law, it is not even clear that parents have an unambiguous right to have their children excused from instruction they regard as objectionable. She states: “The curriculum of a public school in a democratic system of government is necessarily a subject of political debate. These controversies dramatize the inherent tension between the interests of the state and the interests of the parents in shaping the child’s development.”
And what is the position of Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers? She declared war on “culture warriors” who are “bullying teachers.” She elaborated: “But culture warriors are labeling any discussion of race, racism or discrimination as CRT to try to make it toxic. They are bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching students accurate history.” She opposed those who want to “limit learning and stoke fears about our public schools.”
Whatever happened to the axiom, “the customer is always right?” This is a basic foundational premise which operates all throughout the private economy. The customer wants to purchase new dungarees with holes in them that look ten years old? All the buyers need to do is snap their fingers and their wish is the command of the business sector. Do they want electronic vehicles? Entrepreneurs hasten to provide them. The same with computers instead of typewriters; cell phones in place of land line telephones and cameras; “roughage” instead of food that makes life worth living. They like large groceries instead of mom and pop stores, or, electronic shopping? Again their wishes are sovereign. “The customer is king” might well be the motto of the capitalist system.
Why is this not working in education? Why are there millions of parents outraged with what their children are being taught? The problem is so serious that Attorney General Merrick Garland has felt the need to involve the Federal Bureau of Investigation to quell these protests.
