House OKs Walberg measure requiring parent consent for student pronoun, name changes

Washington — The U.S. House on Friday approved K-12 education legislation that included a measure from Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg requiring parental consent before any federally funded elementary or middle school may change a child’s pronouns, gender markers or preferred name on school forms.

The parental consent requirement, taken from Walberg's PROTECT Kids Act with Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, would also extend to the school allowing an elementary or middle school student to change what locker room or bathroom that they use.

"This provision is straightforward, common sense and will safeguard the critical relationship between parents and schools and children," the Tipton Republican said Thursday during debate over the legislation.

"When a child goes on a field trip or fails a test, their parents are told and often required her to sign an acknowledgement of a permission slip. Why should relatively small things require notification, but something as significant as a child's pronouns or a change in accommodations can be withheld from the people who raise and love them?"

The Republican-led House voted 213-208 on Friday morning to pass the broader legislation, the Parents Bill of Rights Act, which would allow parents to review the curriculum and budget for their child's school, inspect library books and other reading materials, and require parent-teacher meetings.

The bill would also allow parents address the school board and receive information about violent or bullying activity at their child's school. It next heads to the Democratically controlled Senate, where it's unlikely to get taken up.

Democrats roundly panned the overall bill as federal government overreach into local schools, dubbing it the "Politics Over Parents Act" and condemning efforts to "demonize" teachers, revise U.S. history lessons and ban books.

GOP lawmakers said the policy is a response to education bureaucrats and teachers unions pushing progressive politics into classrooms, while keeping parents "in the dark," as Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx of North Carolina put it.

"Our education system is spiraling out of control as parents are pushed further outside of the classroom," Foxx said. "This bill will restore the role of parents in schools and provide new mechanisms to provide parent-teacher partnerships."

Some lawmakers noted that many public school districts already do much of what the bill requires in terms of providing for public inspection of budget and curricular materials and public comment at school board meetings.

"Let's be clear. There's nothing in the bill to give parents the right to dictate what their children are taught," said Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the top Democrat on the education panel. "These efforts seek to score political points and scare parents into thinking that schools do not have their best interests at heart."

Effort called invasion of privacy

Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat and former high school teacher, took aim specifically at Walberg's parental consent measure, calling it an invasion of privacy that would potentially put students at risk whose parents may not be accepting of them.

"As a teacher, I know of instances when children were outed by staff and, as a consequence, they faced severe punishment. One student was beaten by his father and transferred out of the district after he was caught being affectionate with another boy," Takano said.

"Imagine the situation in which educators are placed when the government requires them to out their student to an unsupportive family."

He went on to cite statistics about the rates of anxiety and depression among LGBTQ youth and say 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ.

Walberg, a senior member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, defended his parental consent measure in an interview, noting that it only applies to elementary and middle school students and not high schoolers.

"To educate — that's what we ought to be doing — not indoctrinating, and that's our concern," Walberg said.

He said he introduced his bill in response to reports of teachers in places like Fairfax, Virginia, and Pendleton, Indiana, indicating in emails which students had requested to go by a certain name or pronoun but were not to be "outed" to their parents. Some school districts have a policy not to notify parents against the wishes of students when they socially transition at school.

"It's not happening in every school district, but it is happening out there," Walberg said. "Most would say that children of that younger age group should not be pushed into something or even allowed to move into this type of life-altering experience without parental or guardian notification."

Asked about concerns that parents will react negatively or shame their child, Walberg predicted that would be an "extremely small minority" of parents.

"If there is a parent that will then abuse the child, we already have resources available to us in law enforcement and child protective custody, et cetera, that could deal with that," Walberg said.

"But to throw the baby out with the bathwater because of those very few family situations that would be a sincere problem, that the rest of them have to go along with that, as opposed to having authority control and responsibility for their child's behavior, education and life, I think that's a problem."

The estimated number of youth (aged 13-17) who identify as transgender has doubled in recent years, according to a study based on Centers of Disease Control health surveys last year, but remains small at 1.4% of that population.

Walberg: Let's increase transparency

Walberg said the broader bill comes down to increasing transparency and notifying parents about what's being taught and targeting schools that are not dealing openly with parents, citing instances where disruptive parents were forcibly removed from school board meetings, for example.

He said he hears such concerns often from his constituents who are suspicious about "woke" educators introducing their kids to liberal ideas in the classroom. He noted that cable television and other media reports have contributed to what might seem like far-fetched rumors, such as the claim last year that schools were placing litter boxes in student restrooms for kids who identify as “furries,” or animal characters.

"I even have had some tell me, 'I know students who have seen that in the bathroom.' And when you go and check and, well, I've not found one yet. There may be," Walberg said of human litter boxes.

"But that's where I believe transparency is important. For rumors or truths that are concerning, parents should be addressed as openly as possible. Parents should have the right to know what's going on in their child's classroom."

The bill adopted Friday included two amendments added in committee by freshman Rep. John James, R-Farmington Hills. One had to do with ensuring a parent's right to know about instances of student bullying and hazing, when a student is getting treated for mental health or self-harm, and cases of drug use or weapon possession.

Another James measure said parental inspection of library materials should not be contingent on signing non-disclosure agreements.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, lamented that Democrat-sponsored amendments offered in committee were voted down, including measures to keep firearms out of classrooms, remove lead pipes from school buildings and prohibit the censorship of Black history.

"This legislation will do nothing but harm our students, especially trans youth, by forcing schools to out LGBTQ+ people even if it will put them in harm’s way," Tlaib said in a statement.

"It makes me angry to see how conservatives have weaponized hate and fear to try to tear our schools apart, with students who just want to learn and thrive turned into pawns in their political games."

mburke@detroitnews.com