New Hampshire Recognizes Parents' Rights

New Hampshire's Republican-led legislature overrode the Governor's veto and passed a law requiring public schools to give parents the opportunity to seek alternatives to any aspect of the school curriculum they find objectionable. This new law calls on all the districts in the state to establish a policy for such exceptions. The district must approve the substitute materials and the parents must pay for them. The law's sponsor, Representative J.R. Hoell, emphasized that the new law permits parents to address both moral and academic objections to the curriculum. That means parents could object to the school teaching kids to read by the discredited look-and-say, whole-word, method of instead of teaching them phonics.

The law's sponsor, Rep. Hoell, cited as an example of the need for this law, a book the students were required to read what Rep. Hoell said is an admittedly Marxist book that insults Christians, promotes illegal drug use, and is critical of American family life. The name of this book is Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.

New Hampshire's state motto is "Live Free or Die," and this law is a good slogan for the freedom-loving people in New Hampshire. Unfortunately, the attitude of many public school administrators and many supremacist judges is, as stated in an opinion by the U.S. Ninth Circuit, parents' rights in public schools stop at the threshold of the school door, and, if parents don't like what is being taught, their only option is to take their child out of public school and send him to a private school. We reject that notion, and are glad to see that New Hampshire remembers and honors parents' rights, even in public schools.

Listen to the radio commentary here: