It’s one of the few upsides to the school closures and remote learning that federal and state officials — largely at the behest of teachers’ unions — forced on America’s schoolchildren over the past couple of years: Parents suddenly became more aware of what their kids were being taught in public schools.
A lot of them didn’t like it, and rightly so. The backlash has been tremendous, starting with the victory of businessman and political newcomer Glenn Youngkin, who won the governorship of Virginia after making parental involvement in schools a key campaign issue.
I’m pretty sure the teachers’ unions didn’t see that one coming.
On Wednesday’s show, Dr. Phil McGraw stepped into the debate, hosting proponents of both sides of one of the most divisive issues affecting American public school policy: how to treat minors who call themselves transgender.
“Over the last few years, schools have been getting their own report card, with a lot of parents giving them a big, red F and bringing in the government to make changes,” Dr. Phil said in introducing the show. “Why? Well, parents say they began to really see what was being taught during COVID quarantine.
Trending:
“They had the time, and they started paying attention — and they were not happy,” he said.
Joining Dr. Phil were Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, co-founders of Moms for Liberty, who want to ensure that young kids are protected from inappropriate content in their public school classrooms.
“National sex education standards right now for K-3 say that gender ideology, that those children need to know by third grade that you can be a boy or a girl, neither or both,” Descovich said. “That is very concerning to our moms and to parents. There is no reason that a kindergarten teacher needs to teach that to 5-year-olds. That is something families should be discussing.”
Descovich, a former school board member, accused the Equality for Florida organization of pushing policies intended to deceive parents. That organization’s executive director, Nadine Smith, was also part of the show’s discussion.
Do you/would you send your child to public school today?
“The policies in the state of Florida — and this is from [Smith’s] organization directly, from when I was on the school board — they have put procedures and policies in place in the state of Florida that not only don’t inform parents of these decisions being made about the safety of their children, they purposely deceive parents, Descovich said. “This is very concerning to us and this is one of the reasons that moms are so rallied behind this mission. They do not want to be deceived by teachers and school leaders.”
The discussion centered around Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Law, enacted earlier this year. If that doesn’t sound familiar to you, it’s because most left-leaning legacy media outlets tend to refer to the law more often as “Don’t Say Gay.” (Dr. Phil rightly pointed out that the bill lives up to that pejorative — the word “gay” is never used in it.)
“Hasn’t the Supreme Court ruled that the parents have the right for the care and custody of their children in making the decisions for their care and custody in all manners — medical care, education — the Supreme Court ruled on that a long, long time ago. Correct?” Dr. Phil asked USC Gould School of Law professor Jody Armour.
Armour actually let slip more than I think he wanted to, describing a conflict between parents and the public school’s agenda (however high-minded that agenda might sound).
“We want parents to be engaged in the development of their children, you know, that’s very important,” he said. “But [emphasis added] we also, as a public school system, we want to educate citizens who are going to go out and be flourishing and thrive in a democracy that’s multicultural.”
Setting aside the idea of whether or not a multicultural democracy can thrive in the first place, notice the “but” there. Armour didn’t say “and,” as in, let’s do what parents want and also prepare kids for life. He said “but.” He knows there’s a conflict between what American parents want and the agenda of a public school system run by, let’s face it, agents of the state.
“But the onus of that lies with the parents,” Dr. Phil responded. “They’re in control of the care and custody of their children.”
Then he nailed him with the perfect question, the one leftists never have an answer for. (Actually they do have an answer for it; they just know they can’t admit to it in public.)
“And my question to you is: What makes you think you know better than a parent about what should happen to a child when they have a life-determining decision about whether they’re going to make a decision about gender or anything else?” Dr. Phil asked.
“You have to call before you give them a Tylenol , and you can’t make a presumption that this child can’t take this information home.”
The folks representing the woke side of this debate didn’t have much to say to that, as you might imagine. One parent — and I don’t like to use this term, but if I were one to go about pasting “beta male” stickers on certain people’s foreheads, his is the first I’d seek out — tried to cite mental health statistics at Dr. Phil, who has three degrees in psychology as well as a year of post-doctoral work.
Good luck with that.
You can watch clips summarizing the show here:
Of course, this debate didn’t touch on the core issue. The problem isn’t what public school educators are allowed to teach or not teach. The problem is that public school educators exist, that we allow children to be taught by agents of the state, who have assumed the rightful role of parents in too many cases.
Privatize education in this country, get the government out of it and parents back in, and we’ll have solved half our problems overnight. But even if we’re not going to go that far, get the federal government out of it — just as the Supreme Court has done with abortion — and put education back into the hands of the states.
Getting rid of this book or that one from our classrooms, or this policy or the other from our school boards, can be good ideas. Sometimes they represent a battle won. But all of those victories occur in a war we shouldn’t even be fighting.
The government has no place in any classroom — pre-school, kindergarten, elementary, middle, high school or college. No place. None. Nada. There’s nothing in the Constitution that gives it that authority.
You want parents to control their kids’ education — for which, by the way, we will answer to God Himself one day? Close down the unconstitutional Department of Education, return the more than $6 billion it spends every month to families with school-age children, and give parents true freedom of education. That’ll be a strong start.
Otherwise, we’ll just be giving Dr. Phil more mom v. woke leftist debates to feature on his show.
