Budget & Tax, Education

Parental rights include ‘the right to genuine school choice’

April 17, 2023

Brandon Dutcher

“Parents have a fundamental right,” Boston University education professor Charles L. Glenn once wrote, “to choose the schooling that will shape their children’s understanding of the world. But a right isn’t really a right if it can’t be exercised.”

Unfortunately, it can’t be exercised (as we’re reminded all too well during tax season) by many Oklahoma families who are forced to give a large share of their annual income to the federal, state, and local tax collectors in order to fund schools these families don't choose.

That’s why policymakers have a duty to respect “the fundamental right of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children, grounded on parents’ pre-political childrearing authority,” as philosophy professor Melissa Moschella wrote in a Heritage Foundation report. “Public schools’ monopoly on public educational funding violates parental rights.” Parental rights include “the right to genuine school choice.”

To her great credit, state Rep. Rhonda Baker recently pointed out that “there are a lot of parents that have reached out to individuals within our caucus that do have concerns about what’s taking place in some of the schools and they want a different choice.”

We respect that parent and their right to choose. … COVID opened their eyes to a lot of things that were taking place within the classroom that parents may not have agreed with. And those parents are the ones that have begged us, ‘Offer us a choice. Give us a chance. Some of the things that we are seeing are not consistent with the values within our home.’

So “rather than continuing to penalize parents financially for raising their children in accordance with their consciences,” as I said in 2017, “it’s time for Oklahoma policymakers to enact and expand policies—vouchers, tax credits, ESAs, and more—which secure parental rights.” For everyone.