(FreedomBeacon.com)- Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley is pushing forward a bill that will defend the rights that parents have to influence the education of their children.
On Monday, he tweeted a link to a column he wrote for Fox News about the bill, and accompanied it by writing:
“Parents’ Bill of Rights is needed to combat left’s indoctrination of students.”
Two weeks ago, Hawley’s office announced that the senator would be introducing a Parents Bill of Rights “to turn back efforts to shut parents out of their children’s education. Senator Hawley’s bill will protect the right of parents to know what their children are being taught, who is teaching them, and which organizations are receiving school contracts.”
This week, details emerged of the specifics of the bill. It outlines eight rights that all parents will have over their children’s education. These include:
- The right to information about who is teaching their minor children, which includes outside presenters and guest lecturers
- The right to all school records that concern their minor children, which includes medical and other records
- The right to know what the school is teaching their minor children, which includes all instructional materials, books and curricula
- The right to information on all organizations and individuals that receive funding and contracts from the school
- The right to have sufficient transparency and accountability about all school boards
- The right to check in on their minor children by visiting the school during normal school hours
- The right to gain information about the transmission and collection of data related to their minor children
- The right to know details of all situations that affect the safety of their minor children while they’re in school
As Hawley wrote in his opinion piece for Fox News:
“I’m proposing a Parents’ Bill of Rights, for every mom and dad in America. My proposal would guarantee them the seat at the table they deserve, one that no bureaucrat — or political party — can take away.
“The need for action is urgent. Democrats and their allies in academia increasingly view our schools as laboratories for the indoctrination of American children. Over the past year, we’ve learned how school districts have quietly introduced new learning materials in classrooms related to critical race theory — often without parents’ knowledge, let alone approval.
“Faced with backlash, now the Left denies there is any such thing as critical race theory, and the media gladly repeats the falsehood. But parents know better.”
Hawley emphasizes that parents should be the ones in charge of their children’s education. The government needs to “give control back to parents,” he wrote, “not woke bureaucrats, and empower them to start a new era of openness in education.”
Education has long been a hot topic for parents, obviously, but it’s grown to new levels recently. Controversial issues such as student safety, how districts handle transgender students and whether they teach critical race theory have all risen to the top in recent years.
