During oral arguments in the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson unintentionally made a practical and convincing case for universal school choice.
A few years back, the Montgomery County, Maryland, school board instituted an “LGBTQ-inclusive” curriculum that included storybooks for kids as young as prekindergarten. The books are ostensibly part of the English curriculum because, apparently, they feature words and sentences. But the rationale for the program, according to the school system itself, is to “disrupt” the “binary” thinking of skeptical kids. Which sounds very much like indoctrination.
For instance, one of the “think aloud moments” for kids reading “Born Ready,” the tale of a confused girl, is “noticing how happy Penelope is when his mom hears him and commits to sharing with their loved ones that he is a boy.” “Pride Puppy!” is about a cute little dog who wanders into the Pride parade and meets friendly drag queens and leather-clad participants. “Love, Violet” and “Prince & Knight” is about same-sex attraction.
Even secular parents should find the idea of strangers teaching their prepubescent children about sexuality and gender dysphoria at such a young age and in such a frivolous manner unacceptable. As most conscientious parents understand, kids do not “know themselves best.” One of the most vital duties of parenting is guiding children through the confusion of adolescence and teaching them morality. It is not consecrating every harebrained notion that pops into their precious, underdeveloped brains.
In any event, a group of religious parents led by a Muslim family in Maryland who believe the messages in the books conflict with their beliefs sued the county — not to stop the classes, but for the right to opt out of them. Yet, Montgomery County refused to allow them to do it, maintaining that the opt-out requests would be so numerous they would disrupt the class.
This might sound crazy, but if enough parents oppose a non-academic curriculum that it would be endangered, shouldn’t a public school do their best to accommodate taxpayers, rather than the opposite? Of course, in the progressive mindset the individual is subservient to the state, not vice versa.
So, Mahmoud v. Taylor is now in front of the court. During oral arguments, which seemed to be going relatively well for parents, Jackson conceded that she was “struggling to see how it burdens a parent’s religious exercise if the school teaches something the parent disagrees with.” After all, they have a “choice,” she noted. “You don’t have to send your kid to that school. You can put them in another situation.”
Theoretically speaking, this makes complete sense. You can surrender your impressionable young child to hokum about gender transformation that conflicts with your faith or you can leave the school entirely and, presumably, send your kids to a private institution or homeschool them.
The problem here is that Maryland is one of the worst states for parental choice. Jackson, who spent years on the board of a Christian academy in Maryland, should know this. Other than a tiny voucher program, there is nowhere to go. Maryland doesn’t have open enrollment policies that, at a bare minimum, allow parents to change schools within the district. Whichever school happens to be closest, no matter how poorly it performs or how ill-fitted it is for your child’s needs, is where they must go. Children might be the valuable thing in your life, but a Maryland parent is afforded more choices on where to buy a television than where they educate their kids.
Maryland barely has any charter schools. Parents who want to homeschool, which is challenging enough, must wrestle with needless regulatory burdens to teach their own children.
Anti-reform activists argue that school choice would result in an exodus of parents (and funding), undermining public schools’ ability to function. This is called a marketplace. If you can’t attract parents, it’s probably because your service is substandard.
Anti-reform activists also argue that voucher programs are for rich people when the reality is that they are mostly for the middle and working classes, who are unable to escape these propagandizing institutions. Montgomery County is one of the wealthiest in the country, so perhaps parents there have a better chance of escaping than most.
Irrespective of who school reform would help, it is an exceedingly small favor to ask schools to allow parents to opt out of classes that teach “inclusivity” — a euphemism for a radical cultural agenda. The fact that schools refuse to meet this request only illustrates the radicalism of these institutions.
But, fortunately, Jackson has the answer on how to fix it.
David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books — the most recent, “The Rise of Blue Anon,” available now. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on X @davidharsanyi.
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As you all have seen some black leaders comments on the Israeli tragedy shows how a lot of black Americans are supporting this attack on the Jewish nation by making excuses for Hamas – If you are White, Asians, Hispanic, and even middle eastern and anybody who is not black – you ARE justified to feel discriminated by Blacks Americans because you are – and you have every reason not to like black America – As shown for all of us to see and experience its A VERY RACIST BLACK AMERICA indoctrinating a very racist ANTI AMERICAN black supremacism and socialism that is influencing the behavior on these DAs and of the Democratic Party today and putting on display for all of us to see a culture that has been teaching for the past 50 years in their homes and neighborhoods, hate and racism towards the white population – I have experienced racism and abuse from blacks Americans and im not the only one experiencing this abuse – people stop taking their abuse and its time to start calling it out and start calling out the racism’s’ coming from the black community hell bent at hate against the white, Asian and Hispanic while excusing rampant crime by mostly blacks while trying to sell everyone having been victimized by history to excuse not taking accountability and to continue the rampant abuse on the rest of us.
Another instance of oppression of the sane productive majority, executed with the feigned impactable position that the confused guilt tripping minority is harmed. In a democracy it is the majority that rules and the 3% of the immoral gay community should not have the power to force the sane majority to have their undeveloped kid’s minds exposed in a recruitment campaign for moral acceptance on an unworkable immoral ideology that would make reproductive life failures out of what used to be a fecund, productive American majority. It soon becomes an equal opportunity for inequality in life choices, where a matured mind would immediately reject homosexuality having lived long enough to see the unhappiness, confusion and self-hate these life choices mostly end up in. Siding with suicide can be tolerated when kept within the 3% scant minority of misguided American ways of life, but when tolerance is promoted to a level of majority social acceptance, it’s a one-way trip to creating an American hell where every which way but loose is used by the democrats to separate people into a State that was designed as UNITED STATES, starting with the basic thought processes that allow a nation to be able to reproduce itself, not paying people $5000 each to make up for the bad choices of giving gays the equality they can never provide the nation, where national impotency becomes the indoctrinated mental flavor of the day.
ONE MORE thing that needs to happen in schools. STOP BASHING ON BOYS! I listened to a vid a friend (fellow Squid who is now retiring), sent me, about him talking to three different school admins, about his twin daughter/son getting into colleges..
ALL THREE, said they GLADLY WELCOME the daughter, and have over 3 DOZEN Different financial help programs for her.
NOT ONE THOUGH, said the same for the son.