Guy Ciarrocchi: Supreme Court case provides yet another reason for school choice
“With respect to these books…there was high (student) absenteeism in some schools. For example, dozens of students being opted-out (of a class of 125).”
And there you have it! School boards just cannot allow parents to decide to have their children opt out of certain classes. Why? Because “too many” parents chose to have their children opt out of sexually explicit and “gender-searching” public school classes where books were read out loud to children as young as three.
Arguing this week before the US Supreme Court, the attorney for the Montgomery County (Maryland) School Board said the district had to take away parental choice: too many students want to opt out. Imagine: parents didn’t want their children to be compelled to read or have to listen to a teacher read to them sexually explicit and gender-searching books. The books at issue include “Pride Puppy,” “Jacob’s Room to Choose” and “Born Ready.”
As is sometimes permitted in these types of matters, out of respect for parents’ values or religious faith, the school district initially allowed parents to have their children opt out of these mandatory classes that included reading of these books. But when “too many” parents opted out, the school board reversed itself and canceled all opt-outs: students were compelled to attend.
Because after all, school boards know best — and schools exist to make them happy and impose their will. They apparently can’t have parents messing things up.
This Supreme Court case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, is perhaps the most important parents’ rights case in years. At the same time, perhaps unintentionally, it’s the most important new argument of school choice since the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of school choice (tuition vouchers) in Zelma v. Simmons-Harris in 2002.
Tragically, as has been the case for over a decade, many public schools — especially in the suburbs — have been shifting the focus off of academic excellence and onto social and political causes. And, all too often, they are leading the culture wars, especially when it comes to race, sex, and now gender discussions. To the surprise of most of us, “educators” and school boards decided that what was wrong with America wasn’t falling test scores but that not enough six-year-olds had considered their gender.
And as we have learned across suburban Philadelphia, many districts have policies that willfully and purposefully withhold information from parents about issues concerning their child’s sexual behavior, gender confusion, and mental health. The arrogance, the disrespect for parents, and the contempt for common sense is almost immeasurable in too many districts.
They compound this with mandatory classes, mandatory reading, and pushing parents away — their values, their role and even pushing them away physically from school board meetings.
For years, school choice advocates had built our case on issues like taxpayer fairness, unsafe schools, and failing academics. Now, there is a new cause: parental values and faith being undermined.
However, leave it to progressive Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to offer us a path forward, if unwittingly.
Jackson advised the courtroom of her perspective during the oral argument before the Court — probably not truly understanding the import of what she was about to say:“If the school teaches something that the parent disagrees with, you have a choice. You don’t have to send your kid to that school, you can put them in a different situation.”
Amen, Madame Justice.
Except there is a major problem. You expect parents that want to choose another school to pay twice: once for the local public school — that’s chosen to impose a sexually explicit ideology — and a second time for private or parochial school. And there’s an even bigger problem for many families: there is no school choice if they can’t afford the out-of-pocket costs of paying school taxes and tuition.
Respectfully, Madame Justice, not everyone wants their three-, six- or nine-year-old to be forced to learn about choosing their gender or their pronouns as easily as they choose which shirt to wear. So why should those schools be filled with willing progressive families’ kids, plus poor kids forced to be indoctrinated because they have no way out.
School boards often think they know best and that parents ought to just be silent, comply, and allow the board to mandate the curriculum, lesson plans, and books. Because if parents have a choice then the school boards can’t handle it. And Justice Jackson seemed to agree: so just leave.
Thank you, counsel for the school board for underscoring what too many of us feared: education is about making the administrators happy, not making the parents happy, nor ensuring that children succeed at reading, writing, and arithmetic. You helped make the case for so many important causes: transparency of curriculum, lesson plans and books, and school choice.
Thank you, Justice Jackson, for making the most compelling argument — while sitting in your velvet robe high atop the walnut bench overlooking the parents: if you don’t like it; just go somewhere else!
Now, we just need legislators and governors — like Josh Shapiro — to honor parental rights, protect parents’ values, and allow children to attend a school that works and respects their values.
Opponents of school choice just made another strong case for school choice. Was Harrisburg listening?
Guy Ciarrocchi is a Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation. A former Deputy Attorney General, he writes for Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. Follow Guy at @PaSuburbsGuy.
Guy, great article. May I beg your patience? I used to agree with all of the points you raise within this article. There are two separate matters: being able to attend a “good” school, and being able to afford leaving a “good” public school because you disagree with the ideologies being pushed in that school district. There are some issues that no one talks about concerning this topic:
1. If everyone is given the same amount of money, and they all want to attend the same few schools and enter that open market at the same time, isn’t the price to attend those schools going to skyrocket? Possibly some other not-so-good new schools will be created that will happily take the leftover voucher money? I guess that is what is going to occur. The price of school will increase.
2. Do parents really want choice? Or do they want their children in a very good school? The best schools are the best because they exclude the hardest-to-educate, and that makes their population of students a subset that doesn’t include disruptive students that hold everyone back from learning, correct?
3. I agree with you about parental values and faith being undermined. Our oldest three attend public school. We sacrifice a lot to send our youngest to a local parochial school because of the nonsense taught in the very youngest elementary school grades. If vouchers go thru, it seems the local religious schools will probably see a boom in attendance, but I wonder how it will affect their tuition prices?
It would be interesting to have parents opt “IN” to these ideologically-oriented lessons and all surveys. That would eliminate them very quickly.
Hahaha. You are too nice and too naive. You don’t understand these are zealots and they are purposefully trying to brainwash an entire generation. They do not want you to even understand what they are doing. They are not going to provide a choice like you suggest.
You don’t opt “in”; most people don’t even understand what is happening to their children.
Primavera Capital Group is a Hong Kong-based investment firm founded in 2010 by Fred Zuliu Hu, a former partner and chairman of Greater China at Goldman Sachs. Its portfolio includes high-profile companies such as Alibaba, ByteDance (Tik Tok), XPeng, Yum China, and The Princeton Review. Primavera owns Spring Education Group, a California-based for-profit private school company, which operates schools like Basis Independent Schools, Sagemont Preparatory Schools, Parke House Academy, and Park Maitland School.
The American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021, allocated an unprecedented $123 billion to K-12 education through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund. These funds explicitly encouraged or mandated Social-Emotional Learning (SEL.) SEL is mostly pushing Marxist-Communist ideology: 1) Emphasis on Collectivism Over Individualism, 2) Critique of Capitalist Structures Through Equity Lens, 3) Redistribution of Emotional and Social Resources, 4) State-Driven Social Engineering (pushing Marxist goals of centralized control over cultural and social norms, particularly through shaping students’ values and behaviors), 5) Deconstruction of Traditional Hierarchies (promoting a “flattened” social structure), and 6) Focus on Transformative Social Change (SEL activities that encourage students to address issues and challenge “inequities” fostering a Marxist-like activism mindset.) The U.S. Department of Education later reinforced SEL through further guidance, such as the 2021 resource Supporting Child and Student Social, Emotional, Behavioral and Mental Health, which outlined strategies for using federal funds to implement SEL programs. States and districts were incentivized to adopt SEL frameworks, hire counselors, and train educators, often tying these efforts to broader goals of academic recovery and equity.
They switched from “treat people the way you want to be treated” to “treat people the way they demand you treat them, no matter the cost and lack of logic.” It is a religion. It is being pushed by the Communist party. Their ideas are completely opposite to pre-1990s United States “common sense.”
Guy: You should read the 4/27/25 article by By Frannie Block and Maya Sulkin in The Free Press. They claim at least 200 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on billions in undisclosed contributions from foreign regimes. And a NCRI study published last year in Frontiers of Social Psychology found a strong correlation between universities that receive foreign funding from authoritarian countries and a rise in antisemitic incidents. That study concludes “that providing massive financial support to campuses with ascendant illiberalism serves the interests of foreign actors hostile to the U.S. in particular or liberal democracy in general.”
“This isn’t just a financial issue—it’s a national security crisis. Hostile powers are buying influence on American campuses at an industrial scale.”
They are in our elementary schools, high schools, and Universities. There is an undeclared war against the United States of America and most of our politicians have been purchased by opaque PAC money. They are winning the war without firing a bullet.
Anyway, vouchers are not going to fix much and will just make all of the schools more expensive. People need to flip school boards if they want to change these ideologies being taught. And demanding higher standards to kick out disruptive students from classrooms will help. Paying children to attend trade schools will provide hope to those children without any hope to escape the ghetto, and that would benefit everyone in our society. Pay them half every Friday, and the other half goes into an escrow account they receive upon graduation.