As I write this review, The New York Post reports that City Schools Chancellor David Banks cashiered an elected mother on a Manhattan Community Education Council (a parents’ advisory board). She got the boot ostensibly for criticizing a pro-Hamas editorial but really because—as she (and most observers) believe—she refused to pledge allegiance to gender ideology (on the Upper East Side, no less). It doesn’t matter that she was democratically elected: the self-anointed “guardians of democracy” will eliminate anybody whose notion of democracy is not theirs. Da, da tovarich! Happily, she’s suing Banks.
Meanwhile, a federal court just told parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, who wanted to opt their kids out of the district’s “comprehensive” gender ideology program that they cannot, affirming the school board’s refusal.
The school lockdowns of 2020 opened many parents’ eyes to the ideological indoctrination being propagandized in American public schools. As parents and children shared the same quarters during online schooling, parents discovered what was “mainstream” in so many school systems. When they woke up, Merrick Garland’s Justice Department labeled them “domestic terrorists” (alongside those Catholics that go to Latin Mass). When a father whose girl was raped as a result of Loudon County, Virginia’s confusion about girl’s bathrooms being for girls, not boys, he was arrested–and is probably one reason why Democrats got kicked out of the Governor’s Mansion in Richmond.
Corey De Angelis speaks of these developments as the “parent revolution” because parents’ rights seem to have become the catalyst that finally brought school choice into prominence. The public school establishment has long arrogated a monopoly on school funds by claiming, in essence, that the proper recipients of educational funds are not students but schools. As long as students “choose” the schools approved by the establishment, you’re entitled to support. If you actually “choose” something different—tough luck.
Catholic parents have long argued about the injustice of tax dollars collected for education being steered only to certain schools (even when other schools nevertheless fulfilled the state’s educational and compulsory attendance requirements). The fact that it took until 2020 for the anti-Catholic Blaine amendments, enacted in many states in the mid-to-late 19th century to preclude public support of parochial elementary and secondary schools, to be declared unconstitutional shows us that anti-Catholicism is alive and well in many parts of American life.
Catholic schools have always suffered a certain stigma: 2025 will be the centennial of the Supreme Court’s decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, invalidating an Oregon law that forbade parents from using parochial schools. “Parochial,” after all, has a certain pejorative connotation: it means narrow-minded or provincial, like those Catholics in their ghettos. (Never mind the changed demographics from increasing numbers of non-Catholic students have chosen to escape the government public school plantation to access a better educational environment in those “parochial” schools). Others who wanted school “choice” began turning to homeschooling or charter schools.
Few parents, however, felt capable, ready, or willing to replace schools, so homeschooling–despite its boom–would always likely remain a minority option. As for charter schools, the public school establishment, in tandem with rabid secularists, has long pursued all manner of legal handicaps for those institutions.
The COVID shutdown, however, gave parents insight into what really is going on in the average American public school–and the average American parent rightly said, “No way!” That exposure, more than all the abstract arguments about choice and justice and options, galvanized the “parental revolution.”
Catholics should, of course, be happy about this. It is a basic principle of Catholic social thought (the one part of Catholic theology that liberals sometimes applaud) that parents are the first educators of a child. The child is the parent’s, not the state’s, not the school’s, not the teacher’s, not the AFT’s, not the NEA’s, not the state or federal Department of Education’s. Schools do not “partner” with parents in educating their child: schools work for those parents. It’s time we get those lines straight and got the terminology clear.
It’s time we get the terminology clear because it’s vital. While the “moderate” spin on the question is the parent-teacher “partnership,” there’s no small number of those ready to say the state should intervene to take kids from parents who stand against its ideologies.
This usurpation of parents’ rights by the most extreme extensions of the parens patriae doctrine spreads across multiple domains. It is to be found in the nonsense of Planned Parenthood v. Danforth (still not explicitly overruled), which said Missouri could not make abortions contingent on paternal consent because, even though he is half this child’s parent, the state cannot “delegate” a “veto” to fathers. (Did you know, fathers, you are the “delegate” of your state?) It is to be found in the discriminatory exclusion of practicing Catholic parents from adoption and foster care unless they pledge allegiance to “affirming” radical transgenderism. It is to be found in the claims of politicians that call “censorship” parents’ efforts to remove books from school libraries (i.e., libraries targeted at minors) whose contents those same politicians dare not quote verbatim in public, being bleeped out when they are read aloud in the mainstream media. And it is to be found in the mindset of “educators” and politicians, like Virginia’s ex-Governor Terry McAuliffe, who declared, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
DeAngelis’s book details the fight for parents’ rights from 2020 through late 2023, with a special focus on the 2021 Virginia Governor’s race as well as fights for school choice and control bills in places like West Virginia, Arizona, and Texas. The book goes into detail, listing the players, the machinations, the attempts to placate parents while conceding nothing, the losses and the gains–and how parents are fighting back. The multiple efforts of Governor Abbott in Texas to get his Legislature to do the right thing on school choice is ample proof of that. At the same time, DeAngelis also shows the forces arrayed against school choice and how they seek to sidetrack and ultimately defeat these initiatives. They recognize–as DeAngelis notes–that they can only be “dismissive” of parental concerns as long as your children are a “captive” audience. And they are going to do their level best to keep them in captivity because it is a question of power.
That was on display in 2021. By the fall of the year after the world shut down for COVID, Catholic schools were largely back in session, public schools weren’t. Current attempts at historical revisionism notwithstanding, the public school establishment back then was bleating that reopening schools would “endanger” the public health.
Back then, I’d occasionally go to noon Mass at my parish. I was dumbfounded. Despite the apocalyptic narratives of the public school establishment, I did not see multiple ambulances lined up in front of our parochial school. The pastor did not announce an uptick in young people’s funerals. And what I saw with my own eyes DeAngelis corroborates the experience of school districts across the country.
Catholic parents, heirs of social teaching that affirms their primacy in the educational enterprise, have a special mission to seize the moment and realign the misalignment of values operating in the American public school establishment. Children are parents’, not schools’. Parents, not schools, are the first and best educators of children. Schools work for parents and should not arrogate any more substantial “partnership.” Education exists for children, not for schools.
And, if education exists for children, then educational dollars also exist for children, not schools. Those dollars should enable a child’s education wherever a parent judges his child will best thrive. The community exists to educate its kids, not to promote its public schools monopoly.
2024 is an election year, that is, a year in which these principles also come down to concrete choices among candidates and in ballot questions. Catholic parents need to be sober-eyed about what stakes are at stake in this vote. De Angelis’s book is a good place to get quickly up-to-speed on the state of the question.
The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools
By Corey A. De Angelis
Center Street Books, 2024
Hardcover, 253 pages
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
The response to Covid was an exercise in totalitarian government (and I’m hoping Garland’s Goons at the FBI read this.)
Our local school’s operational renewal millage was turned down (in May). I think part of it may have been the lockdowns; all that expense for what? Now there is an absenteeism problem – turns out Johnny has been right all along – he doesn’t need to go to school.
And then there’s the embarrassing fact that parochial school systems cost between a third and half as much per pupil as does the sectarian (!) government school system.
Excellent article Mr. Grondelski, just one correction. “The fact that it took until 2020 for the anti-Catholic Blair amendments, enacted in many states in the mid-to-late 19th century”. It should be Blaine amendments, not Blair.
Correct I wrote Blaine but ‘autocorrect’ fixed it
Excellent article Mr Grondelski! I will share your article to spread the word. May God bless you for your commitment to preserving the family from tyrannical government in all its forms.
First, Mr. Grondelski is an extremely good writer. His argumentation is powerful and I agree with many of his points. I also found myself learning as I followed his logic. What I especially liked though was his very confident and way on the money bursts of levity salted throughout.
While agreeing with the premise that children are not property of the state I suggest that if the church wishes to claim the role of family proponents and argue that children are the property of their parents then perhaps the clergy should consider saying a few words from the pulpit on a Sunday about good parenting and what that actually means and doesn’t mean. As a Catholic and an alter boy in numerous parishes I listened to a lot of sermons and never once heard a priest tell their flock that children are not punching bags. Not to generalize, many catholic parents are commendable and should be emulated. But there are also those who are not and need to be forgiven.
Children are the future and the responsibility of all of us. Maybe we all need to do a lot better at living up to that responsibility instead of arguing about who owns the kids.
Thanks. Will try to write something on this.
Children indeed are not punching bags but these days we can see the opposite extreme in child rearing. And lack of discipline in schools.
I have had friends tell me that Catholic schools are “too expensive” and they “cannot afford it”. This coming from people who live in a rather upscale community. Its true tuition prices are high now, especially since teaching nun orders were decimated after Vatican 2. Another unfortunate side effect of the V2 hoopla. The reality is there are few parents who literally “cannot” afford it. What they really mean is they prioritize getting a new car every few years, vacations, golf club memberships, padding the retirement account, etc, over their child’s education.
At some point you have to ask yourself if that stuff is more important than having your child taught that abnormal sexual activity is in reality somehow “normal”. As adults we know it is not. But propagandized kids do NOT know any better at all. They only know what they are taught. I do think the clergy should speak about these issues MORE in church on Sundays. If it makes people uncomfortable, good.
Otherwise, just forget these small details of your kid’s education and keep on getting that new car and going on vacation. But dont be shocked when your child finally tells you that they want to change their sex, or tear down statues of the founding fathers. Don’t kid yourselves. A “free” public education does indeed have a price. The price may be your child’s soul.
Don’t disagree with some of your comments, but there’s another side: if you are going to pay 100% for a Catholic education but the Catholic integrity of that education is 25%, i.e., a watered-down, color-the-Jesus-picture nice, is it worth the investment? Yes, I support parental school choice, but that also means parents should demand Catholic education be what it claims to be and costs.
I dont disagree with your concern.It is very hard to evaluate how “Catholic” a Catholic school might be from the outside. But the reality is even a watered down version of Catholic education is often superior to Public school education, which is rife with DEI, sexual perversion in the lesson plans, a culture of victimization and anti-white racism. I personally would not want my child subjected to that. My children are long adults but I had a chance to evaluate both systems. One child attended catholic school from the ground up through college. The other had both intellectual gifts and learning issues which required help I could not obtain in a Catholic school.Things are not nearly as bad in the public schools then, but issues were starting to become evident. For Thanksgiving, the public school play involved the children ALL dressed as Indians only, no Pilgrims. My child came home that day to announce that his teacher had said that “you can’t discover a place if people are already there.” An early version of erasing our founders and the culture of victimization. What I told my son was that his teacher was incorrect, and that the Pilgrims had a great deal to contribute to the development of our country. Its my opinion you cant change or erase history, no matter how many statues you knock down.
The public school had a great deal of “me first” and “be first” with the most attention and budget share given to the superior students ( many AP classes) and to those with learning disabilities.Middle of the road students were left in the dust.
I found the Catholic school had fewer frills but a much stronger emphasis on basic learning skills, without which you will go nowhere fast. They also had definite policy about how others were to be treated which was taught in a very natural way by, for example, the children assisting one another in whatever tasks came to hand.
Most of all, it would be highly unusual for kids in a Catholic school setting to be exposed to noxious abnormal sexual indoctrination. Treating those who are “different” with kindness does not have to mean acceptance or praise of their deviant behavior. In public school, it does, or else you risk expulsion or being labeled a hater. Our society has spent too much time and money to “normalize” what is not normal at all.
One of my children was struggling to figure out how they could afford Catholic school tuition now that they have 6 children.
The private Catholic school their older children have attended is orthodox but has suffered from some of the same faculty/administration troubles you can find anywhere.
A free public charter school offers college credit courses, has many devoutly Christian/Catholic staff, and seems to be where local faithful Catholics with less than bougie income are now enrolling their children.
So,fingers crossed we’ll see how it goes.
Turning children against their parents is what is done in totalitarian regimes. The same with the mandatory sexual indoctrination being done at the government schools. Sexual zampolits, political officers overseeing political ideological purity. No dissent allowed. The state is mother, the state is father.