Do you like what your child is learning at school? If not, what can you do about it?

19 Jul, 2011 Education Guide

This week two controversial, but very different, pieces of education legislation in California got me thinking about this question.

Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that mandates the teaching of gay history along with other civil rights social studies curriculum. Critics of the bill called it an absurdist capitulation to special interests (ie gay advocacy organizations), while others characterize it as a fitting educational response to the proliferation of bullying-related suicides and gay bashing among high school students. Personally I agree with the latter position, but I get how conservative parents will chafe at the idea of the school assuming responsibility for yet another issue once left to parents to explain. Every since the schools began teaching sex in the 1950s, there’s been always been a lot of consternation about what schools choose to teach. Sure, it usually comes down to politics – but it’s also a turf war with parents hollering “get the heck off my property!”

The Parent Trigger law also may have broad ramifications for the nation’s public schools. Created by the Parents Union in Los Angeles, with seed funding from Green Dot Charter schools, the Parent Trigger gives parents a kind of power they have never had. At low performing schools, if more than 50% of parents sign a petition, they can enact a turnover: opting for a new staff, a new principal or opening a charter school in its place. The law, which has already inspired similar legislation in Connecticut and proposals elsewhere, was originally signed into law by Arnold Schwarzenegger and is now being tested with a school in Compton. When Jerry Brown took office, those critical of the Parent Trigger hoped that under his tenure the state Board of Education would defanging the law. Instead, the board approved changes to the law which sharpened its teeth.

At the controversies around both these laws spring from the fuzzy lines drawn between the parent’s role and the school. Increasingly, schools diving deep into the parental purview, teaching issues like character and sexuality. By the same token, there’s another movement afoot (begun with homeschoolers and epitomized by the Parent Trigger) that seeks to give parents some real power over their children’s education.

All the platitudes around supporting childrens learning are so easy to say — so easy for everyone to agree with. But then when it comes to give real life to these ideas… them there devils in the details. Our diversity of ideas, beliefs, and values in America makes education fraught with contention. It also ultimately makes the parent’s role in their child’s school all the more confounding.

Do you feel like parents should take the advice of experts, educational policy wonks, and teachers? Or do you think we need to step into the fray and become more vocal decision makers in how our children learn?

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