A few years ago, when my friend Bethany Mandel began tweeting about her local public school system (Montgomery County, MD) incorporating radical, sexually-explicit books into their pre-k-12th grade language arts curriculum, I thought it would be an easy win for parents in the area seeking a standard opt-out option.
Bethany ignited a movement and covered it relentlessly online—exposing shocking corruption, cronyism, and abuse. I naively thought the sunlight shining on this nonsense and the overwhelming passion from parents would quickly put it to rest.
Not only did the Montgomery County Board of Education refuse to back down, they consistently revealed a chilling belief that they alone were entitled to choose what kids are taught—and parents should have no input whatsoever.
So when a coalition of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Hindu parents united together and came out in droves to demand the right to opt their children out, I thought the school system would fold like a lawn chair before the board meeting concluded.
Nevertheless, they persisted.
And that’s what makes this so disturbing. The lengths to which MCPS officials went—not just to permit this content, but to mandate it, even over parental objections—was a stunning revelation of the radical Left’s ideological capture of public education.
It’s actually horrifying to see how hard these MCPS administrators worked to make sure children would be shown sexually explicit content from their ideological worldview.
At a time when educators should be laser-focused on recovery from COVID-era learning loss and declining math and science scores, nothing got these people worked up like loving parents trying to shield their young children from sex toy tutorials or being taught they might be born in the wrong body.
They took it all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled this past week in favor of the parents.
In a 6-3 decision, the Court decided that parents with children in the MCPS system can opt their children out from being taught about homosexuality and transgenderism.
Even as we celebrate this win, we should remain furious. Furious at the time, energy, and tax dollars wasted to defend a policy that so brazenly trampled on parental rights. Furious that it took the highest court in the land to slap down a school board that no longer sees itself as accountable to parents.
This should be a sobering wake-up call for parents everywhere—public schools are not partnering with parents but view them as a nuisance getting in the way of their mission to indoctrinate children. And as we’ve just seen, the forces working to replace your values are deeply entrenched, well-funded, and aggressive.