From the 9th Circuit Court of the United States, Fields, Haberman, Hoaglin, Shelter V. Palmdale School District:
“We agree, and hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. We also hold that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students.”
“They asserted that there is no deeply rooted and fundamental right of parents ‘ to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs.'”
“Parents have a right to inform their children when and as they wish on the subject of sex; they have no constitutional right, however, to prevent a publich school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise, when and as the school determines that it is appropriate to do so.”
“While parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child. Whether it is the school curriculum, the hours of the school day, school discipline, the timing and content of examinations, the individuals hired to teach at the school, the extracurricular activities hired to teach at the school, or, as here, a dress code, these issues of public education are generally ‘committed to the control of state and local authorities.'” – US Sixth Circuit Court, quoted by 9th Circuit
“In sum, we affirm that the Meyer-Pierce right does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door. The parents’ asserted right ‘to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs,” by which they mean the right to limit what public schools or other state actors may tell their children regarding sexual matters, is not encompassed within the Meyer-Pierce right to control their children’s upbringing and education.”
“In summary, we hold that there is no free-standing fundamental right of parents ‘to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs’ and that the asserted right is not encompassed by any other fundamental right. In doing so, we do not quarrel with the parents’ right to inform and advise their children about the subject of sex as they see fit. We conclude only that the parents are possessed of no constitutional right to prevent the public schools from providing information on that subject to their students in any forum or manner they select.”
This infuriates me. Essentially, once you send your child through the doors of a public school, you relinquish the right to choose to excuse your child from any curriculum or information the school decides to throw at your child. There was a time when, if your child was in a class that would be showing an R rated film, you could have them excused without question. There was a time when, if you did not want your child to have to go through sex education in a public school, you could have them excused without question. Now, they are subjected to psychological research without full parental awareness, let alone permission. I just heard about a middle school in Maryland that has shut down any parental awareness of their sex education programs, refusing to let the parents see the textbooks and the children are instructed not to speak with their parents about what they heard in class.
I will never give my children up to the state to be molded and shaped by politicians with agendas, psychologists, and other opportunists, all who refuse to let me be involved or informed of my child’s development. A parent has an absolute right to decide what their child is exposed to; that’s what freedom is all about, freedom from state interference in your personal decisions, so long as they are within the laws that protect society.
We constantly talk about the separation of church and state, we go to great lengths to attempt to protect it. Yet we are ignoring the separation of state from the inalienable right of each individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have the right to create life without interference from the state, but are we to sit idly by as once we have created that life, if we send our progeny through the doors of a state school, that we relinquish all right to have any say in the development of the very life we created? We can decide to create, but not to nurture, for we are left to the whims and politics of the state. That is no pursuit of happiness, not for us nor for our children. Our pursuit is our own and always should be, it should not be the homogenous pursuit of the state and the changing tides of its politics.
I do not mean to say that every parent should have the right to sway the development of school curriculum down to the last iota of information. But each parent has the right to be informed of what their child is being taught, and they should have the inalienable right to refuse to expose their child to such information. If this cannot be accomplished, if this cannot be promised by the state, then every parent should be informed of the lack of their rights before they make the decision to send their child through the doors of a public school. How many parents know what they are giving up when they make that decision? These days we cannot visit a doctor without signing off on an acknowledgement of our rights, we cannot sign up for a free email account with reading and understanding a terms of use agreement. Why then, are we asked to send our children away to school without being informed of our rights, or lack thereof? There is a discontinuity in the law that needs to be addressed, regardless of what the courts decide is or is not a parents’ right. Anyone in this country who sacrifices a right must do so individually, with full knowledge of their sacrifice. Otherwise they have been blindly robbed of the very liberty and pursuit of happiness that this country was founded upon.
You make the argument as if EVERY public school is suddenly going to teach pornography in the schools. What about the children whose parents don’t teach them anything at home about sex and how to protect yourself? Or how diseases are transmitted? Are these kids supposed to learn on the streets? I would think you of all people would want kids to understand what’s going on in the world around them. Certainly you’ve seen and talked to parents who don’t care what their kids do. They send them out to school, aren’t there when the kids come home, barely say two words to them. What happens to those kids? Then they go out, have sex, get diseases or pregnant, and suddenly the parents complain that the school system isn’t helping them. Legal rulings are always worded in a way that sounds harsh. No reasonable school system is going to shut out parents from those kinds of decisions. What the school systems need to do however is protect themselves from the whims of that one parent who complains about everything and anything and forces the school to change even though no one else complains about it. I hate the idea that one single person or group has the power to change things that affect the greater public. It’s like religious groups saying suddenly that in 2005 putting the word “Christmas” before “tree” is in bad taste because it might offend someone. It’s a tree! Christmas exists and a large number of people celebrate it. Same thing goes with schools. I think this specific case probably had to do with a small number of parents who felt the need to constantly try and shove the school into doing what they want contrary to what the majority of parents wanted. By the way, I went to public school for a while and I didn’t turn out too bad.
I’m not saying all public schools are evil and about to teach pornography, I’m just saying the parents have the legal right to be involved and informed if they so choose. And frankly, more parents should be involved. But if the schools try to shut out the parents, then even the parents who are trying will be ineffectual. I don’t see what’s so wrong about wanting to make sure that lines of communication between schools and parents stay open, and that if a parent objects to something, they know they have the right not to let their child participate. I really, really don’t see what’s so wrong about that, and that’s all I’m getting at.
Take it from me: public school is the Devil. But also trust me when I say that this is going to be overturned by the parents. All parents have a right to choose what their kids do and do not learn in school, particularly if it’s of a sexual, religious, moral, etc. nature. The courts are going to see that and overturn what the public school system did.
And, frankly, I’m glad for it. What kids need more of is parental involvement, something that’s severely lacking and is hurting our nation’s children. This is really why I think public schools are pushing to try to manage kids: because the parents themselves won’t. If they can instead encourage – hell, even enforce – parents to take a more active role in their children’s education, it would do a world of good and perhaps the vast majority of public schools could get off this downward spiral they’ve been on for years.
I don’t think all public schools are bad. I work for a very good local school district and used to work for a neigboring one. That being said I think the judges are wrong in their decisions in this case.
First, I have a huge problem with them ruling that parental rights as to the instruction of their children do not extend further than the school’s door. Because they certainly do. The school itself demonstrated that it believed this when it issued a permission slip for the survey. They acknowledged that a parent’s rights to their child overrules the school’s rights. In addition, that permission slip was blatantly misleading. A survey designed to identify “barriers to learning” does not mean, at least to me, identifying a child’s affinity for sexual thoughts or actions. I think what is most outrageous is that they thought it was a good idea to give this survey to first, third and fifth graders.
Regardless, this survey seems to be flawed. Most surveys are developed to determine opinion. This survey was developed to observe a psychological trend. By bringing up sex and asking the questions they asked, I wouldn’t be surprised if the children who may not have had these thoughts for another couple of years started to have them now. It’s inappropriate.
The people responsible should be charged with corruption of minors or negligence. It’s ridiculous.
Let me give you the flip side of the coin. Here in Utah, militant parents have so cowed the school boards that “sex education” is reduced to “maturation programs”, and is so watered down as to offer the kids (whose parents have forfeited the birds and bees talk) little or nothing to go by. And it gets worse — if these kids (inquiring minds want to know) go looking for reliable information in the public library, all the books on human sexuality are behind the counter! Yeah, right, that’s one fat hurdle a curious teenage mind isn’t soon likely to jump over! And so they get such information from the worst possible places — ignorant (or perhaps not!) friends, media, etc.
Every situation is different Heather, and unfortunately kids in the larger society aren’t all afforded the same luxuries you are — being homschooled (by parents smart enough to do so in the first place) — living in a loving, two-parent home, pampered and full of opportunities some of us only get to dream about. So for the rest of us, we have to make our public schools the best we know how.
Why is this getting turned into a debate over sex education? Did I say this was about sex education? Did I say I was against sex education classes in public school? No, I didn’t. I just said I was against the courts and the schools refusing to let parents decide what is best for their children individually. I even said I didn’t want the schools to be prey to every parents’ individual nit-picking when it came to planning the curriculum. All I said was that parents have the right to be informed of what the schools are going to teach to their children, so that they can make an informed decision whether or not they want their child to participate. That’s it. I don’t see why this has become such a debate. I honestly don’t understand why anyone would be against that kind of awareness and free sharing of information. This has absolutely nothing to do with sex ed and everything to do with cooperation between parents and educators.
And yes, sure, there are parents out there who aren’t doing their job, who aren’t as involved as they should be. But you know what? That’s absolutely no reason to deny the rights of those parents who are trying the best they know how. And hey, maybe more parents would be involved if it wasn’t such a hassle having to deal with courts like this and school administrators who are as uncooperative as those at the school involved in the case in question.
Frankly, I think schools should have sex education of some form, I just think it should be free from political agendas and lobbyists. And above all, parents and children should have the right to say they do not want to participate, for whatever reason. Otherwise the state risks interfering with the church and civil liberties. Everyone talks about the separation of church and state as if it’s only one way, that it’s to keep the church out of the state. That’s completely ignoring the fact that the basis of that part of our laws was to safeguard against what happened to the puritans in England – that the state was prosecuting the church. It goes both ways. The state has no right to trample over the religious rights of its citizens, and if your religion says you don’t want your child to see R rated movies or be exposed to the political agendas inherent in most sex education classes, then they should have that right to say they do not want to participate. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not saying I have an opinion one way or another about what’s in sex ed, I never once said in my post that I was against sex ed in schools. I just said parents should be aware of what the state is planning to teach their children, and they as parents should have the right to decline such an education either in whole or in part.
All I meant when I said I wouldn’t send my child to public school is that I’m seeing a growing trend in the diminishing of a parents’ involvement in the public school system, and that disgusts me. No good parent would send their child to a playground without knowing who else was there or what kind of play equipment was there, because their child could get hurt. No good parent would send their child to a doctor they’re unfamiliar with, a doctor who could potentially do their child harm. No good parent would ever send their child anywhere without knowing the environment and what their child will be exposed to. I don’t see why sending your child to a public school where you don’t know what your child will be exposed to is any different. And that’s exactly what I refuse to do. If this court case stands up over time, if this growing trend of shutting parents out of the schooling process continues, then that’s why I’ll never send my child to public school. It has nothing to do with sex ed, and everything to do with the overall attitude toward parental involvement.
And? And? There was the teacher in DC the other day, arrested and charged with giving his students bootlegged, uh, videos of a not too child-friendly nature, to sell as a fundraiser. What, exactly, is wrong with people?
i read that decision and thought it was good news.
I wonder where your values really are
Going down to the the last couple of lines in this entry, I can only think back to when there was still a Cold War. I can’t remember the source, but I’ve heard it said that “in order to supplant any country’s way of life, aside from the brute force of an outright military invasion, the best place to start is in the schools.” Roger Waters may have been on to something, in the lyrics of “Another Brick In The Wall: Part 2.” “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control.” I don’t think he was completely talking about just being down on teachers.