MEDIUM RARE by Jim Rarey
July 3, 2000 SCHOOLS TEACHING PARENTS PARENTING?
Last week the Michigan state legislature authorized $45 million dollars for grants to local and intermediate school districts that come up with plans to teach parents how to prepare their pre-school age children for school and guide them as parents.
While parent participation would be "voluntary", the plans must include staff visits to families’ homes and follow-up to measure effectiveness.
Without question, unfortunately, there are parents who lack the skills for effectively raising children. But would these be the ones who would volunteer to have school staff come into the home to tell them how to raise their children. This writer doubts, human nature being what it is, that many parents who really need guidance would be the ones requesting it.
Several years ago the Romulus School District in Michigan introduced the concept of a student-teacher-parent contract. In the contract parents and students promised to do certain things to contribute to a "healthy" learning environment. One of the conditions of the contract asked parents to delegate the authority to school clinics to administer whatever medication the clinic deemed necessary to the students.
Several families balked at that waiver of parental rights and (at first) refused to sign the contract. When the families were threatened with suspension of their children if they did not sign, all but one family caved in. The two children of the family that still refused to sign the contract were suspended for a semester.
For those families that "volunteer" to join the parent counseling program, what will be the criteria for "good" parenting and proper preparation of children for school?
Parents will be encouraged to read to their pre-schoolers and take them to libraries. What will the parent monitors report if they find parents reading to their children from (gasp) the Bible? Won’t the politically correct mandate for public schools to separate "state" and "religion" brand those parents as "unfit" or misguided in parental influence?
Of course, when too few parents volunteer for the program, it will have to be made mandatory to "save the children." After all, those leaders of the next generation must be ready for a smooth transition into the godless and prayerless public schools like little Elian will be attending in Communist Cuba.
Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety.
The author is a free lance writer based in Romulus, Michigan. He is a former newspaper editor and investigative reporter, a retired customs administrator and accountant, and a student of history and the U.S. Constitution.
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