On Public Schools.

Hoo boy.  Frank Bruni  -- former food critic turned NYT columnist turned Duke journalism professor -- serves up a doozy in his online NYT newsletter today.  He's no longer writing columns in print, but still kept his sweet gig -- with less oversight, it seems -- presenting his opinions in the digital paper...

("I'm a double dipper, a dip- dip- dipper! ... )

He's arguing -- parents who don't like what their children are taught in the public schools today have the right to pull students and homeschool them, or place them in private schools where the values taught align with what is being taught in the home.

Wow.  He must not be following the vitriol that is exploding in our country, over parental rights and what liberal teachers in some schools are being exposed for ... presenting in their classrooms.

The right answer, of course, is stick to the academic basics.  Science, math, reading, computing.  Nobody is arguing religious values be taught in the classroom, but... he doesn't understand what parents do not want their children exposed to at young ages.

We can't even agree on the science to be taught.  Biology, chromosomes, what makes a sex (male/female) opposed to a gender (masculine/feminine).  Do we teach your new science standards, or what has traditionally been accepted as true. (male female couplings to conceive) * (chromosomes determining sex).

Anybody who saw the male-identifying teacher -- in a private school of black schoolchildren -- explaining that doctors guess what sex a baby is at birth, but sometimes they get it wrong, like they did when the teacher was called a female baby girl and then decided she was a man at 18, understands the Pandora's box being opened.  Anybody who has spent time around young children knows they are impressionable, and teaching them false science like that is not a good thing.

Bruni stands up for his non-parental taxpayer rights, stating he has an interest too in what children are being taught.  OK, run for your local school board, Frank.  Try to influence local curriculum that way.

People have accepted that religion is not taught in public schools, and everybody says values can be taught without the religious component.  But we don't see that happening...  Discipline is down, and some parents are failing in the home, and with the schools' blessings, it seems.  They are getting no training on how to be moral and honest, and in our society, it shows.

Like it or not, parents have a right to protect their children from teachers with agendas.  There is no reason for a teacher to bring his or her private life into the classroom.  We can teach what the laws are, how to respect others, and tell the children to ask their parents if they are asking questions that go beyond the academic basics.

But nobody has a right to mandate a child be educated in a values education that differs from what is being taught in the home.  Mr. Bruni is (inadvertently) advocating for Charter Schools and giving vouchers to parents on behalf of their children who want to opt out of the public education, if teachers, administrators and school boards refuse to back off on the progressive indoctrination many are now receiving in the early grades too, it seems.

I don't think he has really thought through what he wrote in his brief newsletter snippet, nor how voters in the fall are going to be focused on this issue, like we saw in the Virginia governor's race where Terry McAuliffe dropped the infamous line:

"I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Most people want more parental involvement in the schools and in their children's lives, not less.  More people want to provide a solid values based education in the home, and not have that contradicted during the mandated school hours.

If we want to fund every parent with a voucher to select where their children get their schooling, keep pushing these issues down to the children.  Otherwise, think of others?  Not everybody shares your values.  What are you going to do?  Stop paying taxes and supporting public schools?

Like it or not, this is the hot-button issue coming out of the pandemic years.  Parents want a say, and God bless them for that.  There is no need to pretend that because a school might have families without a mom and dad in the child's life, that the curricula needs to focus on that.

Teach respect, as best you can with children at that age.  But the clear answer is:  stick to the subject matter.  Don't work to push your topics on schoolchildren.  Don't look for them to affirm your private beliefs in the public schools.  That's how you teach children to be non-offensive and respectful:  don't try and teach them something that overrides the sciences, and that the majority culture in a region does not accept.

It's column fodder to him, but it really is life-and-death to a lot of other people's children.  And they will fight for them, and ... (*gee, did you ever consider?) not everyone can afford private schools to give their own a solid education without vouchers, nor should they have to "suck it up" and let their own be indoctrinated in nonsense they disagree with.  (Everyone can be respectful of divorced parents, gay parents, single parents, and transpeople.  But being respectful does not mean accepting those situations as the "norm" now.)

Thirty-one states had passed amendments against gay marriage before the Court legalized it.  Abortion as just a clump of cells to be excised if the future birth is inconvenient or might bring forth a disabled child never became the norm in plenty of places either.  The Court likely will overturn that one soon.

Why push these controversial issues into the classroom?  If you take the Bibles and values out, well... ok.  But don't try to sneak them back in now, when it's your own values you want taught.  Think before you publish, and realize the fuel you are pouring on the fire...

Children should not used like this, or robbed of real educations to push such standards.  Just keep it out of the classroom already.  Don't run so far ahead of the pack as a whole that you lose track of what is happening in your wake.  Your amazingly awesome "wins" don't matter much when the team as a whole loses, bigly.  Respect the room?  The whole classroom? Even those who do not share your progressive multi-partner family values that contradict basic scientific values?  Bio-dads still are necessary to procreate, no matter what other families teach their own.  Best to just not go there...