Parents as First Teachers: School Choice Movement Growing Rapidly

Parents are the first teachers of their children and all education begins in the home.

We need to acknowledge in our positive law the right of parents to choose for their own children where they go to school. That choice should include the full array of options, public, private, parochial, charter and home schools, no matter what their economic status. Parental Choice in education is gaining support. 

P>WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - In an opinion piece entitled "The Year of School Choice" the Wall Street Journal recently reported on the growing movement toward school choice:"School may be out for the summer, but school choice is in, as states across the nation have moved to expand education opportunities for disadvantaged kids. This year is shaping up as the best for reformers in a very long time.

"No fewer than 13 states have enacted school choice legislation in 2011, and 28 states have legislation pending. Last month alone, Louisiana enhanced its state income tax break for private school tuition; Ohio tripled the number of students eligible for school vouchers; and North Carolina passed a law letting parents of students with special needs claim a tax credit for expenses related to private school tuition and other educational services.

"Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker made headlines this year for taking on government unions. Less well known is that last month he signed a bill that removes the cap of 22,500 on the number of kids who can participate in Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program, the nation's oldest voucher program, and creates a new school choice initiative for families in Racine County. "We now have 13 programs new or expanded this year alone" in the state, says Susan Meyers of the Wisconsin-based Foundation for Educational Choice.

"School choice proponents may have had their biggest success in Indiana, where Republican Governor Mitch Daniels signed legislation that removes the charter cap, allows all universities to be charter authorizers, and creates a voucher program that enables about half the state's students to attend public or private schools.

"Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma have created or expanded tuition tax credit programs. North Carolina and Tennessee eliminated caps on the number of charter schools. Maine passed its first charter law. Colorado created a voucher program in Douglas County that will provide scholarships for private schools. In Utah, lawmakers passed the Statewide Online Education Program, which allows high school students to access course work on the Internet from public or private schools anywhere in the state.

"Even in the nation's capital, and thanks largely to House Speaker John Boehner, Congress revived the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher program for poor families that the Obama Administration had wanted to kill at the behest of teachers unions."

The teaching of the Catholic Church on the role of parents in the educational mission can help inform a new National Educational Policy.  After all, the primacy of marriage - and the family founded upon it - as the first cell of society, the first church, first government, first school, first hospital, first economy, and the first mediating institution of the broader society is at the heart of Catholic Social Thought. Reaffirming it is the path to social and cultural recovery recovery.

A just and efficient philosophy of government should be founded upon the truth that the family is the first government and that all other government must first be at its service. This is not just a "religious" truth, it is the TRUTH. In his marvelous apostolic exhortation on the family entitled "The Role of the Christian family in the Modern World" (Familiaris Consortio) the Blessed Pope John Paul II affirmed the social and political role of the family and called for the development of a "family politics". Catholics should embrace such a "family politics". We desperately need it. 

It is time to help people understand Parental Choice in education. It is about the recognition of the family as the first school and first vital cell of human society. Parents are the first teachers of their children and all education begins in the home.  We need to acknowledge in our positive law the right of parents to choose for their own children where they go to school. That choice should include the full array of options, public, private, parochial, charter and home schools, no matter what their economic status.

Education outside of the home is an extension of the parental role and should recognize and defer to the parents primary role in the educational mission. These children are not, in the words of the US Supreme Courts' Wisconsin v Yoder decision, argued successfully by the great Catholic Religious Liberty advocate, William Ball,  "....mere creatures of the State"  The family is the first government and the first school house. We have forgotten that objective truth as a nation and we are reaping the consequences.

Here is an insight taken from the Apostolic Exhortation "Familiaris Consortio": "The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others..."

In his "Letter to Families" the late Pope wrote "Parents are the first and most important educators of their own children, and they also possess a fundamental competence in this area; they are educators because they are parents. They share their educational mission with other individuals or institutions, such as the Church and the State. But the mission of education must always be carried out in accordance with a proper application of the Principle of Subsidiarity."

"This implies the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving assistance to the parents, but finds its intrinsic and absolute limit in their prevailing right and actual capabilities. The principle of subsidiarity is thus at the service of parental love, meeting the good of the family unit. For parents by themselves are not capable of satisfying every requirement of the whole process of raising children; especially in matters concerning their schooling and the entire gamut of socialization.

"Subsidiarity thus complements paternal and maternal love and confirms its fundamental nature, inasmuch as all other participants in the process of education are only able to carry out their responsibilities in the name of the parents, with their consent and, to a certain degree, with their authorization."

School Choice is an idea whose time has come. It is a matter of true social justice, not what is masquerading as social justice in some circles these days. The opposition of some in control of the teachers unions to such a just approach to educational policy and fundamental fairness shows how far some of these mediating associations have strayed from their primary role. They fail to defer to the first mediating institution of the family.  Parental choice in education is right for our children, right for our parents and right for our Nation.

In addition, we need to reaffirm the primacy of parents in the education of their children and the vital role of homeschooling. There is no conflict between support for parochial schools and support for Catholic home schooling.

The current overly federalized approach to education in the United States is failing. Statistics and experience confirm the obvious. It is time for a change and parental (school) choice is the change that is needed. It means affirming again, as a matter of public policy and legislation, that Parents are the ones who should be able to make the choice of how to best extend their own teaching mission outside of the home.

The proper role of Federal, State or Local Government is to support, NOT USURP, the first government in the home. Rather than focus on the word "School" - which is then used to arouse a "public" school vs. "private" school debate - we should use the phrase "Parental Choice".  After all, it is Parents who are the first teachers of their children and the family is the first school. This is where the policy debate should focus. Parents are the first teachers of their children and should be able to choose where to send their children to school.

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