At the heart of debates around education freedom and school choice is the subtle but sinister sentiment that parents can’t be trusted. They are too busy, too poor, or too ignorant to make the right decisions for their kids, and others know better how to raise and educate children. Never mind that parents have successfully cared for and educated their children for millennia, ensuring the ongoing survival and continued success of our species.
Distrust of Parents
As economist Richard Ebeling writes in the introduction to Sheldon Richman’s book “Separating School & State“:“The parent has been viewed—and still is viewed—as a backward and harmful influence in the formative years of the child’s upbringing, an influence that must be corrected for and replaced by the ‘enlightened’ professional teacher who has been trained, appointed, and funded by the state.”We see this distrust of parents play out in a number of policy areas, including most recently with the implementation of universal government preschool for four-year-olds (and increasingly three-year-olds) in cities such as New York and Washington, and in academic reports arguing for “Cradle to Kindergarten” government interventions. These efforts are nearly always framed as helping parents, taking the burden off of low- and middle-income families, and addressing inequality and achievement gaps. But the message is clear: parents, and especially disadvantaged parents, can’t be expected to effectively raise their children and see to their education without the government’s help.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio talks with children after reading them a book in a pre-kindergarten class at P.S. 130 in New York on Feb. 25, 2014. Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images
