The bill is an unfunded federal mandate, and it's a whopper.
Most people probably did not notice that the Contract with America promised to pass a law affirming parents' rights and responsibilities in regard to their children. Those who did probably assumed it was a harmless example of motherhood and apple pie. They were wrong. When you take a good look at it, the bill turns out to be extremely destructive.
The Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act makes individual parents the sole judges of what is best for their children educationally and authorizes them to demand it from local schools. The law is vaguely worded so we might see a flood of lawsuits to determine how far these rights extend. But a couple of things are obvious. This law is an invitation for parents to sue schools, or even teachers, who act contrary to the parents' ideas of what their child's education should be -- and when that happens, the schools and teachers are likely to lose.
At a minimum, the law gives parents the right to dictate the curriculum their child follows. This means that in a school of 300 students, the teachers and administrators might be forced to provide ... how many different designer curricula? One hundred? Two hundred? Maybe not, but imagine the chaos if the school had to provide even 10 or 15 or 20 additional curricula. Of course we could expect a science curriculum for children whose parents are creationists. And why not curricula for Black separatists or neo-Marxists? It's the parents' call.
If parents are mostly satisfied with the standard curriculum, the law would still permit them to reject some courses. You don't think Bobby should have to study biology because you have moral objections (or because he doesn't think he'll like it)? Since you are the final arbiter of his education, you can pull him out. If the school objects because the course is a requirement, you can mount a court challenge -- and you will have a good chance of winning.
The Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act would also give parents the power to decide which school rules are applicable to their children. In the past, parents have challenged schools on all kinds of rules and decisions with which they disagreed -- no pass/no play regulations, student hair and dress codes, teachers' grading decisions, to name a few. The courts have generally upheld the schools if they could establish that rules, or programs, were "reasonable" or served a "legitimate pedagogical" purpose. If this law passes, schools will have to meet a tough, new standard. They'll have to prove that curricula and regulations with which parents disagree are "essential to meet a compelling governmental interest" and are the "least restrictive means" of accomplishing that interest. This is a test usually reserved for First Amendment issues, and it is practically impossible to meet. For example, in a famous 1989 dial-a-porn case, restrictions on the company were struck down because the government could not show it had a "compelling interest" in protecting children from filth on the telephone. With a standard of proof like that, schools will be tempted simply to give demanding parents what they want.
But even if schools avoid court challenges, the financial demands of the law will be crushing. Suppose every school in the country has to hire one more teacher in order to accommodate demands for designer curricula -- an extremely conservative estimate. That would cost local school districts $3.3 billion the first year. The people who are pushing this legislation don't suggest that if parents want to call all the shots in their children's education, parents should also take over paying for it. Neither do they describe the bill as an unfunded federal mandate, but that's what it is, and it's a whopper.
Schools will not be the only ones threatened by litigation. Teachers, too, can be taken to court and may be personally liable for anything they teach that goes contrary to the various standards of various parents. Will they be willing to endanger their livelihoods and savings so they can teach Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which romanticizes suicide and disobedience to parents? Of course not. Most teachers will probably try not to teach anything that will offend anybody -- if they can figure out what that might be.
Devastating though this law would be from an educational and financial point of view, it is still worse from a social one. Bringing together a diverse group of children to learn the same things is essential in creating a common civic culture. If the schools are forced to abandon this role and bow to the particular demand of every parent, we will lose the glue that has held our society together.
If you think that a law as foolish and misguided as this will simply disappear, you had better think again. The Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act currently has well over I 00 sponsors in the House. People who want to rescue public education from this dangerous absurdity had better get to their phones and faxes.