Jackson Reese: “Parents rights” more than a buzzword for local school board candidates
An article published by the SCC Democrats contends that school board candidates backed by a local Republican group employ slippery political “codewords,” including “parents rights.” Jackson Reese of the California Policy Center investigates this assertion and what progressives have to gain from espousing it. To receive daily updates of new Opp Now stories, click here.
Opportunity Now: The recent article by the SCC Democrats alleges that local conservative groups have “coached their candidates to hide their true beliefs, and instead to use codewords and dog whistles to signal their true colors to their fellow true believers,” and lists “parents rights” as one example. What would you say parents rights is “code” for?
Jackson Reese: It come down to a branding question. Are we using words that inaccurately represent our ideas? What are “parents rights,” exactly? In reality, this term means the right to make health decisions for your own kids, view and opt out of controversial school curriculum, and choose the best educational pathway for your kid (which includes selecting their district/school).
All of these rights present challenges to public unions and the Democrat party, which I mention together because they’re both in absolute lockstep. The union determines what the Democrat party believes and says on these issues.
So the progressives say “parents rights” is a buzzword for pro-MAGA stuff. But it’s not; it’s a real concern and its own topic, but they have to distract their audience by labeling it a buzzword because it’s so evidently obvious to anybody, even those who vote Democrat, that parents should have a right to these things when they entrust their kid to the government.
What they’re doing in this article is pulling people away from the idea of parents’ frustration and rights by branding “parents rights” as a dangerous proxy term, telling them to move on rather than consider important questions like, “Do I have the right to send my kid to a charter school?” The rationale behind most of this is funding hard dollars in the pockets of politicians, unions, and likely union-friendly consultants.
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This article is part of an exclusive Opp Now series. In three installments, California Policy Center’s Vice President Jackson Reese unpacks a strange SCC Democrats article about the dangers of conservative school board candidates:
examining their heated, anti-academic achievement language;
analyzing “parents rights” as more than a buzzword for candidates;
and breaking down why SCC progressives prioritize school board elections so heavily.