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Friend,
Educators know that involving parents in their children’s education is essential to student success. We need parent and family engagement. Frankly, it’s good news that Republicans are thinking about strengthening parents’ involvement in schools: This is something we have wanted for generations. But we must do it right; we can’t pair this parent engagement with measures that will hurt kids, make it easier to censor education, and heap unnecessary burdens on educators’ already overflowing plates. We must listen when teachers and parents tell us what will actually help them.
That is why we need you to write your U.S. representative and tell them to support adoption of the Bonamici substitute amendment to the Parents Bill of Rights Act (H.R. 5), so we can really address what parents, kids and communities need.
The Parents Bill of Rights Act may have a catchy title, but its provisions have real problems. The bill disregards what is already widespread practice in schools—teachers collaborating with parents and families every day to meet the needs of kids and their communities. We would love to partner with Republicans to help strengthen parental engagement and welcome them to spend more time in the classroom with our members so these lawmakers can see all the ways we engage parents and where we could use help doing so.
The Bonamici substitute amendment keeps the positive aspects of the Republicans’ bill, while amending the parts that would hurt our most vulnerable students and make educators’ jobs harder. Click here to tell your member of Congress to support this amendment.
Instead of passing H.R. 5—a bill that asks schools to divert resources from teaching kids and opens avenues for bad actors to censor education, ban books and harm children who are just trying to be who they are—why not adopt the Bonamici substitute amendment? The amendment prohibits book bans; calls for parent coordinators; increases funding for family engagement centers and community schools; and prohibits federal extremists from censoring the teaching of Black history, Latino history, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander history, LGBTQIA+ history, women’s history, Native American history, and history of the Holocaust or antisemitism.
The House should also adopt amendments to H.R. 5 that focus on what parents really want (and kids need), such as:
- Providing parents with more leave so they can attend parent-teacher conferences and school events;
- Increasing students’ access to mental health professionals;
- Helping school districts recruit and train diverse teachers to alleviate the teacher shortage; and
- Increasing students’ access to healthy meals.
Our recent polling demonstrates clearly that voters overwhelmingly reject this increasing polarization and division in schools. Instead, voters favor solutions like investing in public schools and providing educators with the resources they need to create safe and welcoming environments; boosting academic skills; and paving pathways to career, college and beyond.
We are glad Republicans are thinking about parents and want to work with them to address issues that keep them up at night. But H.R. 5 misses the moment and fails to deliver on what parents want and kids need to succeed.
That’s why we need Congress to adopt the Bonamici substitute amendment. Tell Congress to move us in the right direction and adopt it as soon as possible.
In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President
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