School Choice Can Break Gender Ideology’s Hold on Public Education

NThere is no better indicator of the importance of school choice than this:
gender ideology,
It has been sweeping the public education system for the past few decades, bringing in thousands of children who are vulnerable and deprived of their parental rights.

Gender ideology is more than just a fact taught in public schools. It is also enforced by administrative authorities. Teachers and peers alike are required to accept a gender-confused student’s new identity by referring to them by their preferred name and pronouns and even allowing them into the restroom of their choice. Refusing to accept this identity could result in your expulsion.
get you fired
Or
subjected to a Title IX investigation
.

Parents who might be concerned about their children’s mental health and gender dysphoria’s impact on it have no say at all in any of this. Most public schools are not required to inform the family if a student switches identities, and in many states, educators are expressly told to hide a student’s new identity from the parents so as to avoid “outing” The student.

Recent research has shown that
New York Times

article
California mother, for instance, recalls that her 16-year-old daughter identified herself as a boy when she saw a homework assignment written with a different name. When she asked her student’s teacher about the different name, the teacher admitted that her child had been going by this new name and set of pronouns and using the boys’ restroom for six months. The mother was informed that parental permission was not necessary for this because it was state policy. “respect the student’s wishes.”

The most concerning aspect of this report is how few the
California
public school cares about this young girl’s well-being. According to her mother, she had been diagnosed with autism, ADHD, PTSD and anxiety. She has also had difficulty socially due to the pandemic.

The new gender identity of her daughter should be understood as a cry for help. Instead, her public school accepted this new identity without question, began socially transitioning her behind her parents’ backs, and pushed her to start thinking about a physical transition, including puberty blockers and a double mastectomy.

There are many things we can do to stop the egregious behavior found in public education. Laws requiring schools to keep parents updated about their students’ mental health and obtain permission before using a student’s new identity are a great place to start. Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act should be the model for legislation of this kind.

There is another option: school choice. This week is National School Choice Week, and stories such as the one mentioned above are an important reminder of the education establishment’s many failures. It is unacceptable for families to be trapped in an education system that ideologically grooms their children and actively undermines parental rights. They have the right to remove their children from schools that violate their values and to send them to one that is more suitable.

This freedom is not available to all families in the country. Everyone else is financially stuck with the public school system to which they’ve been assigned. And, as this California mother’s experience makes clear, the consequences can be devastating.

School choice
also gives families the power to hold the public education system accountable — especially if it tries to force its ideology onto their children. Schools that disregard parental rights will soon find that they’re hemorrhaging funding as families take their taxpayer dollars elsewhere, and they will have no choice but to embrace reform.

Education freedom is a guaranteed way to break gender ideology’s chokehold on the public education system. If conservatives want to eradicate this harmful belief system, then school choice must be a priority in the legislative agenda.

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Kaylee McGhee White serves as the deputy editor America’s Restore For the Washington Examiner As a Senior Fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.