Parental Rights in Schooling.

Overview & Synopsis

Parental rights in schooling, which protect parents' entitlement to provide for the education of their children, are discussed in this chapter. The courts and legislatures are being forced to deal with these rights. Further, churches, schools, and parents are pressed to define and better protect parental rights, because of the following situations: (1) the widespread denial of intellectual, moral, and religious liberty in public education--and concurrent establishment of the religion of secularism; (2) the growing efforts of state education bureaucracies to supervise all education; and (3) the growth of the home education movement. A continued defense of parental rights in education in the courts and legislatures and a restructuring of the school tax to allow tax relief for parents who choose private education will allow for philosophical pluralism in American education, the healthful existence of genuine parental choice for schooling, and the consequent reduction of the danger of a totalitarian society. (DCS)