ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHERI W. JAMES
THE STATE Senate has killed a parental-rights constitutional amendment for this session. But conservatives promise to make a campaign issue of the bill that would allow Virginia parents to sue whenever they believe someone has interfered with their right to "direct the upbringing and education" of their children.
A number of prestigious organizations, including the Virginia Education Association, the Virginia Perinatal Association, Mainstream Loudoun and the American Jewish Congress lined up to oppose the amendment.
Why the negative reaction? The joint resolution, SJR 98, which was introduced in 1996 to amend Article I of Virginia's Constitution, seems simple enough. All it says is, "The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children shall be a fundamental right." At first glance, it seems pretty wholesome.
Just this one sentence, however, raises the fundamental question of who will run the public schools: elected officials and school administrators, or individual parents. Unfortunately, it does nothing to encourage or enhance parental involvement. Instead, it opens school districts and their employees to potentially debilitating legal challenges.
First, the amendment would lead to a fundamental change in Virginia's principle of local control over public education. School policies are now made by democratically elected or appointed officials who are accountable to the voters. The amendment would hand this tradition of school administration over to the courts.
Second, the amendment would create an unfunded, open-ended liability for the state by requiring taxpayers to pay government agencies' legal bills in suits brought by parents.
Third, the amendment would undermine the trust and cooperation between schools and parents by allowing parents the right to sue school districts and individual employees for violating their "parental rights."
For example, parents would be able to sue:
* For emotional distress and mental anguish caused by a school district that requires their child to take a particular course.
* To ban certain textbooks and other curricular materials that they deem objectionable. For example, parents who believe that evolution is a myth would be able to sue to prevent any mention of Darwin in a biology class.
* To require a local school board to adopt a special, alternative curriculum promoting their race, culture or religion.
* To withdraw their child from courses they find objectionable or have the child exempted from a required course that is objectionable. For example, the parents who believe evolution is a myth would be able to sue to exempt their child from taking science.
* To force the school system to allow their children to attend a particular school outside of their district or attendance zone.
* To force local school boards to pay the tuition for their child to attend a private or sectarian school because the public school does not meet their needs.
* To require school boards to prohibit schools from offering health education courses and health services.
* To challenge regulation of home schooling by the state Department of Education.
* To exempt their children from any kind of education.
These are not matters for the courts. Parents already have numerous opportunities to influence and shape the education of their children through direct involvement with schools, interaction with teachers and administrators, and electing local school boards. Issues of serious concern are more appropriately debated at the school or at a public school board meeting.
The parental-rights amendment would not only jeopardize our public schools, it also would take away legal and medical protections for young children, and disrupt a wide range of children's services, including adoption, child protection and health care.
But it is the school system and the children it serves that would be the biggest losers. Good parents don't need this amendment, and bad parents would abuse it.
Cheri W. James is president of the Virginia Education Association.
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