For many young people, college is a life-changing experience that allows them to develop their own understanding of the world independent from their parents and upbringing. 

Ideally, this process should begin long before students ever set foot on a university campus. But over the past couple of years, there’s been a wave of legislation sweeping across the country threatening students’ ability to begin their personal development from an early age.

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Here in Louisiana, several bills in the 2024 regular legislative session are part of that widespread conservative effort to limit the supposed “indoctrination” of children. At the core of these efforts is the assertion that parents have a unique and important role to play in the education of their children.

This notion of “parental rights in education” argues that parents have a right to know — and to some extent, control — what their children learn and do in school.

Senate Bill 262 by Sen. Valarie Hodges, R-Denham Springs, would expand the already absurd “Parents’ Bill of Rights for Public Schools” to counter what she thinks is “critical race theory.” It would protect students from “discrimination” in the form of being taught about topics like oppression and privilege.

House Bill 121 by Rep. Raymond Crews, R-Bossier City, would require written parental permission for public school employees to use pronouns and names that deviate from a student’s “biological sex” according to their birth certificate.

House Bill 122 by Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, would restrict nearly all discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation through grade 12, upholding the notion that parents should be the ones to introduce their kids to such “controversial” content. It’d also require written parental permission for students to discuss their sexuality or gender with a licensed mental health professional.

The issue here isn’t with parents being involved in their children’s education but with them potentially controlling it. What’s the problem with that? Well, the answer lies within a fundamental misinterpretation of education’s purpose.

There’s a gross misunderstanding among many that education is a one-sided transfer of information from the wise to the soon-to-be-wise. The teacher is to instruct students on how to complete a task, hone a skill or understand a concept. 

They’re supposed to be objective, removing any sign of bias or opinion for the sake of giving neutral information to impressionable young minds.

For many conservative parents, this means transferring ideas of American exceptionalism, social conservatism and Christianity into the minds of children. They want teachers to enforce the status quo. Put simply, they’re the ones advocating for indoctrination — for the propagandistic manipulation of their own flesh and blood. Maybe they’re the “demonic” ones.

This isn’t how education actually works nor how it should work.

In reality, education is the development of a child’s understanding of the world guided by a teacher. A teacher who views themself as some sort of all-knowing master imparting their wisdom on the ignorant isn’t a very good teacher. 

Their students, and broader society, would certainly suffer as a result of their negligence.

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Education isn’t supposed to raise children to become intellectual, political and cultural clones of the previous generation. Parents have the right to influence their children — to give them advice, to offer arguments and counterarguments and to persuade — but they don’t have the right to dictate what their children think and know. Parents are just a part of a child’s life, not their whole world.

This is especially true if parents hold morally noxious views. Our education system should work to fix children who have been damaged by their parents’ bigotry. It should cure them of prejudices and squash blind adherence to arbitrary authority.

If parents aren’t legally allowed to physically beat their children, then they shouldn’t be able to intellectually beat them either.

Take gender identity as an example.

In what situation might parents not already know if their child is trans, nonbinary, etc.? In many cases, the answer is one where the parents are transphobic, likely justifying their bigotry with religion. 

A school that’s forced to reveal to such a parent that their child would like to use different pronouns or go by a different name would leave that child vulnerable to emotional distress, psychological torment and potentially even physical abuse.

Society shouldn’t allow parents to subject their children to such an unjustifiable hell on earth.

Crews’ bill would require transgender children to out themselves to potentially transphobic parents in order to feel comfortable at school. Horton’s bill could lead to similar situations for all queer students.

And all bills like those discussed here would perpetuate harmful ideas that real education could root out once and for all. The myth of parental rights in education is just one such fiction that needs to be written off.

Matthew Pellittieri is a 19-year-old history and political science sophomore from Ponchatoula.