Parents and Students Have the RIGHT to Pick the World-View in which Their or Their Children’s Academic Education Is Taught.

I have included many stories from the internet to give examples of the issues out there.  Many of those have links to the stories. 

 I have included random Mission, Vision, and Values statements from many Christian schools (no links) to show how the private schools in the free enterprise system advertise their world-views.

​ To try to stop confusion, my words, are in this shade of green. 

Government’s interest in K-12 education is primarily that children grow into adults that are literate and numerate in order to hold a job and be an interdependent and contributing part of the society.   Surely there are other components as well to be well rounded. 

As long as children are progressing down that path, there should be NO role in government deciding the worldview in which the students are taught.  
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​Parents and teenage students should have the deciding role in ALL the controversial issues.  How is sex education taught?  How is evolution approached?  What are the social norms in society?  

​What is freedom, capitalism and socialism, and what is better?  How is religion incorporated into education?  What is the purpose of education?  What are the limitations of science and how much is overreaching?  

Should the Bible be the basis for morality?  If not, who gets to decide?  Are we allowed to teach stealing is wrong or is that mixing church and state in public schools?  Is the non-aggression principle the highest ideal?  Should education undermine your values?  Should education teach us how to think or what to think or both?  Should you be taught to be intolerant of, immorality or intolerance?  

​Too many people make the case that there are better ways and worse ways to educate children on all these issues and want to force ALL students to their perception of the superior choice.  Many even claim educational child abuse or child education neglect when parents choose certain pathways.  

Too many people think that they have discovered the ‘TRUTH’ or the ‘MORALITY’ and wish to impose THEIR way of thinking on everyone.  Too many claim science has determined; thus it is a fact when smart and educated people have real questions about the science.  Too many determine that studies PROVE a certain issue thus it must be taught to everyone.     

Some people advocate that children should ONLY be taught how to think and not what to think.  Others whole heartily disagree and make a strong case for a healthy balance of both.  Many parents understand that young children are impressionable and need clear and ongoing morals training.  Older adults that have lived a long life and have many decades of continued studies on all these issues still have major differences on the values to instill.

When there is a monopoly on education and every child must be taught the same, there is a fierce battle over what is taught.  When the winner takes all, the stakes are very high.  Counterfactuals are eliminated or minimized.  People use every political and legal weapon to take down the other side in their efforts to have their children educated within their viewpoint.  Protests and ill-will from the losing sides sow discord among the people.  Many parents feel they need to correct the teacher which undermines the education constantly.   

​When parents do not have a say other than being one of the millions of voters on what THEIR children are taught, there is despair and a real feeling that parental responsibility is diminished.  The 30 hours in class, plus travel time and homework per week monopolizes a child’s time and leaves little time to teach issues that are wrong or missing in the schools.  It is far better to have those academic hours to inculcate the lessons, values, principles, and morals you, the parents, determine are the most important.    

​Some think that it is good to have that monopoly, so that all children can be taught patriotism, until the other side wins and ‘America-the-oppressor’ is taught to everyone.  A healthy Judeo-Christian sex education yields to perversion.  Liberty education yields to socialism.  The values of the traditional family yields to anything goes.  Self-esteem built from achievement yields to simply self-esteem.  Morality based on the Bible yields to self-defined morality   

​In conclusion, parents and students have the RIGHT to pick the world-view in which their or their children’s academic education is taught.  The free enterprise system creates many options and parents are empowered to pick the option that is best for the student.  Having many counterfactuals, parents will have more information to make the right chooses.  Different parents will always have different ideas about the desired methods and outcomes; however, when everyone chooses, better outcomes will result.  Liberty will be preserved.