A Plea to Parents: Don’t “Butt Out” of Your Kids’ Education

On today’s ID the Future, host Robert Crowther sits down with writer Andrew McDiarmid to discuss his recent New York Post article, “Word to the Wise: Progressives Forget that Parents are in Charge of Kids’ Education.” The two discuss recent dustups in the news in which parents were told to butt out of the public education of their children. This is profoundly wrongheaded and for a variety of reasons, McDiarmid argues. McDiarmid, a Discovery Institute senior fellow, advocates for greater parental involvement, rather than less, and he and Crowther then apply the principle to the narrower question of how evolution is taught in the public high schools. In many districts evolutionary theory is taught as unquestionable dogma, with none of the theory’s weaknesses presented, and no attempt to encourage critical inquiry into the matter. Parents, students, and education leaders should never settle for this, McDiarmid says. He and Crowther wrap up their conversation by pointing listeners to several quality educational resources, many of them online, to help parents, students, and educators.