Sue Lani Madsen: Parents are the new special interest group

There are three simple principles behind the parents’ rights movement, according to the author of “The Parent Revolution.” “Don’t keep secrets from parents, be transparent about spending and be transparent about curriculum,” Corey DeAngelis told the group at a Mountain States Policy Center reception on Monday in Spokane.

Those principles were at the heart of I-2081, the initiative to the Legislature signed by over 450,000 voters and adopted in the last session. Known as the “Parents Bill of Rights,” it outlines 15 commonsense areas affirming parents’ rights to be involved in their children’s education.

It’s part of a trend DeAngelis traced to the 2021 gubernatorial race in Virginia. When Glen Youngkin beat Terry McAuliffe on the issue of supporting parents’ rights, he “made the GOP the Parents Party” according to DeAngelis. In a movement balancing the clout of the teachers union in state and national politics, DeAngelis said “Now kids have a union of their own – their parents.”

Adopting the Parents’ Bill of Rights legislatively is a political strategy for Democrats trying to have their cake in March and eat it for dessert in November.

Democrats were faced with a dilemma when all six initiatives to the Legislature from Let’s Go Washington were certified with more than enough support from voters. At first, the legislative leadership stalled, not even allowing hearings in committees. Then they allowed adoption of the three with most emotional appeal, those most likely to energize a get out the vote campaign in November that might hurt progressive candidates.

By proactively adopting the Parents’ Bill of Rights in the Legislature last March instead of letting it go to the voters, Democrats running the agenda bought the right to amend it immediately. If the law had been adopted through the ballot box in November there would have been a two-year hands off period before it could be changed.

With the law set to go into effect, Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal issued a statement to school districts asking them to ignore all of it until clarified by the Legislature, claiming conflicts with federal privacy laws. “If a student does not feel safe coming out to their family and they turn to a trusted adult at their school for support, they have a right to receive that support without fear of being outed by their school,” said Reykdal’s news release.

While Reykdal acknowledged the importance of involved parents in his statement, reaching out to involve parents as part of the circle of safe adults is not mentioned as an option. The emphasis is on secrecy from parents. All parents.

Reykdahl is up for re-election this year and may have been one of those elected officials hoping to avoid a high turnout among energized parents empowered by I-2081.

His most likely opponent in November, David Olson, is a long-tenured school board member in Gig Harbor committed to parental involvement in education and their children’s lives. “Unless there is a restraining order or alleged abuse, every parent should have a right to their kids’ medical records and counseling records,” Olson said. “Thirteen-year-olds do not have the mental capacity to be making decisions affecting the rest of their life.”

A lawsuit was filed in May by the ACLU on behalf of a small chorus of far-left progressive organizations, seeking to set aside implementation of the entire Parents’ Bill of Rights. Judge Michael Scott in the King County Superior Court recently granted a temporary injunction to block the parts of the law granting parents access to mental health counseling and medical records for their minor children, regardless of the quality of their parenting.

Good parents now paying attention may trigger a larger debate over Washington’s mature minor statute, where a 17-year-old needs a parent’s permission for a tattoo but the school can hide treatment for major depression and self-harm. The inconsistencies are just plain weird and contribute to driving a wedge between parents and children.

In the understandable interest of being a safe haven for the small group of kids with truly dangerous parents, school policies have increasingly treated all parents as if they are under suspicion, guilty of not having their kids’ best interests at heart.

The progressive policy focus on treating all parents like outsiders to their children’s education is the driving force behind the parent revolution.

DeAngelis described the way back to the center as bipartisanship through hyper-partisanship. “If a party leans into an issue and it becomes politically disastrous to oppose it, there is more of an incentive for the other party to move to the center,” DeAngelis said.

For parents, that may mean turning out in November to start a movement back to the center. For Olson, he hopes for a trifecta in the offices of governor, attorney general and superintendent of public instruction and “we’d start to see some real change in public education.”

Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com.